Were that face and that sea relative? Surely they could not be, since those two things in their very nature might go ungoverned. Do not universal laws, in extreme moments, give way?
“Relative!” said Annabel Lee. “Nothing is relative. I tell you nothing is relative. I am come out of Japan. In Japan, when I was very new to everything, there was an ugly frog-eyed woman who washed me and anointed me and dressed me in silk, the while she pinched my little white arms cruelly, so that my little red mouth writhed with the pain. Also the frog-eyed woman looked into my suffering young eyes with her ugly frog-eyes so that my tiny young soul was prodded as with brad-nails. The frog-eyed woman did these things to hurt me—she hated me for being one of the very lovely creatures in Japan. She was a vile, ugly wretch.
“That was not relative. I tell you that was not relative,” said Annabel Lee.
“If I had been an awkward, overgrown, bloodless animal and that frog-eyed woman had pinched my little white arms—still she would have been a vile, ugly wretch.
“If I had been a vicious spirit and that frog-eyed woman had looked into my vicious eyes with her ugly frog-eyes—still she would have been a vile, ugly wretch.
“If I had been a hateful little thing, instead of a gently-bred, gently-living, pitiful-to-the-poor maiden, and that frog-eyed woman had hated me with all her frog-heart—still she would have been a vile, ugly wretch.
“If that frog-eyed woman had stood alone in Japan with no human being to compare her to—still the frog-eyed woman would have been a vile, ugly wretch.
“She has left her horrid frog-mark on my fair soul. Not anything beneath the worshiped sun can ever blot out the horrid frog-mark from my fair soul. A thousand curses on the ugly, frog-eyed woman,” said Annabel Lee, tranquilly.
“Then that, for one thing, is not relative,” I said. “But perhaps that is because of the power and the depth of your eyes and your fair soul. Where there are no eyes and no fair souls—at least where the eyes and the fair souls can not be considered as themselves, but only as things without feeling for life—then are not things relative?”
“Nothing is relative,” said Annabel Lee. “If your dog’s splendid fur coat is full of fleas and you caress your dog with your hands, then presently you may acquire numbers of the fleas. You love the dog, but you do not love the fleas. You forgive the fleas for the love of the dog, though you hate them no less. So then that is not relative. If that were relative you would love the fleas a little for the same reason that you forgive them: for love of your dog. Forgiveness is a negative quality and can have no bearing on your attitude toward the fleas.”