My wife has hung a window on the wall that looks out onto nothing but our own kitchen.
I stood before it and there stood another man, worn as I am, his hose patched at the knee, his face gone gray as tallow. I raised my hand. He raised his. I know that man. I have seen him bent in the far field, breaking his back for my lord's grain, and I never once saw his whole face until now. It is an old face. Older than I reckoned. My father died younger than the man in that window.
I do not trust a thing that shows you yourself and asks nothing for it. A pool of still water will do the same, aye, but water you must kneel to, and it ripples, and it is honest about being cold. This is dry and flat and patient. It waits. It has caught the light and will not let it go, and light is the good Lord's alone to give.
The gentry keep these, I hear. They look at their own faces the whole day long. I cannot fathom the leisure of it. When would a man find the hours? Between the milking and the muck there is no minute to spare on studying your own sorry jaw.
But I looked. God forgive me, I looked a long while. And the man looked back, and neither of us had good news for the other.