The Secret Chord

Batsheva sneaks up to Natan’s house in disguise. He greets her icily, mentally judging her for coming “duplicitous, disguised” (206). She is pregnant again and concerned for her baby. Natan dismissively tells her that God intends the baby no harm. He is taken aback to learn that she fears both him and David. Natan doubts her sincerity, thinking it “easy enough to cry rape, when you are the one who has invited the seduction” (207). He reveals that he blames her for bathing on the roof in view of the palace and for everything that has followed.

Batsheva finds the courage in her anger to challenge Natan’s victim blaming and to insist that David truly did rape her. She sought privacy on the roof. She was too afraid to say no to a man with the power of life and death over others—a fear that Natan suddenly remembers sharing with Yoav. She accuses Natan of still being blinded by love for David, a man who took everything from her: “My child. My husband. My own body. Everything, except my life. Because he can” (209). She is only “hanging on” for the sake of her child.