Dune dissection chapter three

Dune chap. 3: Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness."
~from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan

As Paul waits in a nearby meditation center, the Lady Jessica and the Reverend Mother talk. Jessica remembers her own testing with the gom jabbar, and she is goaded into anger by the Rev. Mother.

The two exchange words because Jessica had given birth to a boy rather than the ordered girls. She did it because having a son had meant so much to Leto. The old woman scolds her; an Atreides daughter could have been married to a Harkonnen son and ended the old feud.

It becomes clear in the old woman's words that the Bene Gesserit have a very long-term view. She states that all of mankind's most important parts are mere flotsam in the tides and times of history, and what matters is breeding humans according to their plan.

The current civilization is balanced on a tripod with the legs being the Imperial Household, the Great Houses, and the Spacing Guild and its monopoly on interstellar travel. With the political storm brewing on Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit only hope at this point to salvage key bloodlines.

The Reverend Mother tells Jessica that Arrkais is bad, but perhaps not that bad, as it has been visited by something she calls the Missionaria Protectiva.

Paul is then called in, and the Reverand Mother asks him about his prophetic dreams. He tells her of one he had the night before, set in a cavern where he talked with a girl with completely blue eyes.

Quote:
'You think I could be this Kwisatz Haderach," he began. "You talk about me, but you haven't said one thing about what we can do to help my father. I've heard you talking to my mother. You talk as though my father were dead. Well, he isn't!"

"If there were a thing we could do for him, we'd have done it," the old woman growled. "We may be able to salvage you. Doubtful, but possible. But for your father, nothing. When you've learned to accept that fact, you've learned a real Bene Gesserit lesson."

Jessica is shaken by those blunt words. Paul is even angrier when he sees his mother's reaction.

The Reverand Mother tells Jessica that she sees signs that Jessica has trained her son in the Way, and she approves of that, even though it is against the rules. She says Jessica must train him to use something called the Voice. She tells Paul that she hopes he will survive, but that the Bene Gesserit will succeed even if he does not, then she leaves, with tears running down her face.