The Love Story of Gilbert Beilschmidt

by Vanr

You claim to understand, you say you do understand what life is like. You talk of music, of poetry, of art and of books and tea in the afternoon and the simple things in your life and in mine. But you don't understand, that this is not living as we know it. It can't be. And this, this deeper meaning behind what we hold dear, is what I must explain to you.

A/N: A short story based on T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock". I have no legal rights to the poem. Originally posted on ao3.

While this is written intentionally vaguely, it is implied that the I in question is Prussia and this is a 'love letter', of sorts, to Austria.

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The sun is setting as we take each other's hands, and the soft cries of a bird signal the ending of the day. Yet, here you are. Here am I. The sun sets and we hold each other's hands, I leading you through darkening streets and you there. Always there. Talking. Not talking. But present, alive. Whole.

We are not sedentary creatures, you and I. We take to the world and we take to the wind, the past behind us as the future looms ahead. Creatures like us cannot afford to linger of the sordid details of our past. Not you and I. We stay on streets of our own making because the roads that coax us away are no friend to creatures such as us.

You and I are beings of the world. We are the world. We are change, we are consistency, we are voices who cry out in the dark where there is none to hear our story. We go, we went, and we conquer. We are beings of the Earth, and here we are. You and I. Wandering these old abandoned streets. In between, just like the setting sun. In between the worlds of magic and of science, skirting the line between myth and history.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

Our world does not exist in black and white. How can it? It is vibrant, it dances and jumps with the power of a thousand minds and a thousand dreams. People, people come and go, but we are forever. You and I stand strong, through centuries, and we witness the world as it is. In shades. In fog that blankets the days and nights. Smoke that bathes the heat of life, sometimes drowning out even the sun.

Things like the smoke that creep into houses, into the core of civilization without anyone so much as noticing. You and I will always notice. Sometimes we fear the smoke. Sometimes we are the smoke. We dance, but like tides our dance ebbs and flows. Sometimes strong, sometimes not so. We are there and then we are gone, we exist only seconds in the minds of people who cannot know who we really are.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

They say nothing can last forever. Maybe they are right. Smoke fades, even from the largest fires. And yet, there will be time. Things never stop, even if nothing lasts. For you and I, possibilities are endless. More so for us than anyone. We can accomplish the world, you and I.

We have time. Time to live, time to laugh and love and be as close to normal as people like us can ever be. And yet, we will never know what time we have. Mistakes, it seems, take no time. Not for you and I. And we will see the past but look to nothing but the future, calmly and elegantly forging into the unknown. Still, there will always be time, time, time.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Oh, my dear. People, they come and they go, like the flow of the tides in the sea. They change, they fluctuate. And in this respect we are not so different. Do you dare? Do I dare? Do we possess whatever humans possess, what makes them so able to change this world and yet so blind. We do not age like they do, but we create balance for the universe. The people, they come and they go. We are constant, and yet…

Do we dare affect what that could swallow us up into oblivion without a second thought? Will we risk all we hold dear?

Are our lives nothing but a delicate balancing act already?

Do we dare disturb this universe we live in?

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

We know our place. You and I, we know who we are. What we are. Our lives, centuries long but still measured, are not measured like others. We measure them in wars, in death, in the strife we bear and the pain we must always suffer. I know, and you know, and the others like us know the sounds of dying voices, of the music of the soul and of the universe.

Yet I know nothing.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

But you, my dear friend, I do know you. You are an inconstant constant, you are here but weren't always. And yet, you are enough for me.

You and I have precious little in this world. But we have one another, even as our relationship changes with the moon.

I know you, and you know me. But we know nothing.

Isn't this world strange?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

This world has changed us so. Enemies we are no longer, and yet what are we? Is it you, or the idea of you, or perhaps maybe even the reality of you? I know not. But I know that, at least.

How do I begin?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

Should I begin with the streets we walk down? The streets aglow with light from the setting sun behind us, and the yellow smoke that lingers?

Should I start with you, or I? Of a lonely man behind a closed window, or a lonely man behind a locked door?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

You wish you could have been stronger. A sword, worth thousands of soldiers. A hero, a knight. And when you think of this your eyes grow dark and distant. And yet your wish, a wish as primeval as your very being, is lost with the tides and the phases of the moon.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

We seem normal, you and I. In the gentle evening, your hand on mine as we continue on our journey. Your hand steadies mine, and yet I remember those very fingers grasped around the hilt of sword, bloodstained, and you with the anger and rage of thousands glimmering in sparkling violent eyes.

I do not forget. You don't either. Beings like you and I never really can. But we put it from our minds and fill them with the mundane, like tea and cakes. We face our problems by hiding and this is how it has always been.

Yet sometimes the road we've built twists into the glooming shadows and I wonder at our choices. As you and I grow older but no wiser, I worry about the path we set on. We lack the strength to push back, and we have only strife in store for us. And yet I allow myself to doubt. I have, in my great lifespan, been wrong. I will allow this to linger in the shadows of thought.

But I cannot forget a central lesson I have learned. There is only ever strife in store for those such as us. And still I fear for you, and I fear for myself. For you and for I.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

But the struggle is worth it. How can it not be, when after the years we have existed you and I still live? Maybe we bite off too much, maybe too little. We make problems too big or too small. It is our way, and we are no stranger for it. Maybe even after the struggles are over we can come on the other side, arisen from a tomb made of everything we ever were. Maybe when all's said and done we will still be here, like Lazarus rising from his grave.

But that isn't what you nor I want, is it?

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;

That is not it, at all."

But the struggle is worth it. It always is, arisen from death or not. Because living is much more than just avoiding death. If you were there and I was there too and we went through life like it was a dream then together we would learn what it really all means. When the sun of our life finally sets and when the books are closed. When the things we clung to sink deep into the unforgiving yet nurturing universe… there is so much more to all this business of living.

You and I are light-hearted together, and as we laugh I mention that is, this whole life, is perhaps more than you or I thought previously. You claim to understand, you say you do understand what life is like. You talk of music, of poetry, of art and of books and tea in the afternoon and the simple things in your life and in mine.

That is not it at all, I say, and you laugh as the sun gracefully lowers itself into its own ending, however brief.

That is not what I meant at all.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

I am not special. I am not wise. But you, you stare up at me and you see something I cannot see. I cannot understand how you progress, how with you I start and do not end. You are smart, you are wise. But you are a fool in your own mind's eye.

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

Humans grow old and we do not. But we age. And with age comes great change. We try new things. I do, at least. You, you sing the same old tune, and I never do sing back. You sit upon the shore, fingers playing and the music calling, but there I am. There you are.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I did not dare to think that you should sing for me.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

And yet you ride the sea for me, and as the waves draw you back you press on forward. You come to me, and I stand by the sea and watch the foamy water. The water turns white and I turn back. I turn back to the days of the past and I turn back to where you are.

You and I are creatures of the sea. Of the earth. Of the sky. Of flame. Of wind and trees and tea and books and windows half-closed and of the tides sweeping away at tiny grains of sand. We are. We are the earth beneath us and the sky above and everything in between.

We have lingered, you and I, and we have grown. Your hand in mine, mine never letting go. Here we are and here we'll stay, in the neverending twilight of the now and the then.

We stay here, you and I, till human voices wake us and in the ocean we drown.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.