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which might have been the wiser course, but the human heart remains a factor, and, as we know, both of them thought she might be pregnant by him. What male of the Gilead period could resist the possibility of fatherhood, so redolent of status, so highly prized? Instead, he called in a rescue team of Eyes, who may or may not have been authentic but in any case were under his orders. In doing so he may well have brought about his own downfall. This too we shall never know.

Did our narrator reach the outside world safely and build a new life for herself? Or was she discovered in her attic hiding place, arrested, sent to the Colonies or to Jezebel's, or even executed? Our document, though in its own way eloquent, is on these subjects mute. We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her we glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from our grasp and flees. As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.

Applause.

Are there any questions?

About the Author

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She has lived in many other cities, including Boston, Vancouver, Montreal, and London, and has traveled extensively. The Handmaid's Tale was begun in West Berlin and was finished in Alabama.

Author of more than twenty books, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, Atwood is perhaps best known for her five novels, The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, and Bodily Harm, and for her two collections of short fiction, Dancing Girls and Bluebeards Egg. Her work has been published in more than twenty countries.

Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson and their daughter Jess.