(A/N: Just a piece of whimsical drabble, but I do hope it is enjoyed. Happy readings.)
Elegie
A song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person: a composition that is melancholy or pensive in tone.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun...
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
"He—has...er...is—then...dead?"
The woman—though she was really little more than a girl—looked at him placidly, seemingly unperturbed by the awkwardness and insensitivity with which he worded his inquiry.
"Yes," she breathed, somewhat distantly, "He is with the angels now—" She paused, a slightly vague expression creeping momentarily into her eyes. "...as he should be..."
"You will—come home, then?"
"Home?" The woman frowned, then--"Ah...home—your home...I had so long regarded here as—home...unconsciously, I suppose—such a pity...I—I should have dearly loved—" She stopped, shook her head. "No matter. It is no longer of any importance, and—yes, I suppose we really must leave..."
Her companion looked down at her slender little figure—the slim shoulders trying so valiantly not to droop. From grief or exhaustion, he wondered, and though it best that he not know the answer. Her head was at the moment bowed, turned away from him, so that he could not read her expression—he did not wish to anyway.
"Will we stay in Paris?"
Her question startled him for a moment, but he soon recovered, replying—"If you would not wish it, we can leave—tonight, even..."
She looked around the room—the broken furniture, the ruined paintings, the wrecked pipe organ...and the music! The music...torn—ripped—burned—destroyed...
He could see that her heart was breaking all over again, and searched for something to say—but he could not. He dared not approach her—there was something so poignant to her grief—so divine to her anguish—so heartbreakingly beautiful to her sorrow—an angel weeping—and angel mourning—he dared not approach her—
"He called ours an immense and tragic love," she spoke, looking steadily at him, her eyes clear and frank. She knew what he was thinking—that was obvious, even to him. "He said he should have liked to write an opera of it—on to put even Don Juan Triumphant to shame. I told him that he ought to—but he wouldn't...He said Don Juan had been his magnus opus—he had nothing left—Don Juan had consumed everything—his creativity—his genius—his...his sanity, he said—and he looked at me—and I knew—Don Juan had been his creation—I too was his creation—and just as Don Juan had destroyed him..."
She stopped, sighed, cast one final look around the room, and, taking her companion's hand, went to the door. They left silently, and as they climbed up the stairs, neither spoke a word. The woman was quietly committing the dark, eerie beauty of the labyrinthine underworld—she smiled with grim, wry humor as she recalled Persephone and Hades—to mind. She would not return—she knew that much—she could not return—
But she would not forget—
She would never forget...
The man who walked with her, whose arm she took—he was reflecting on the number of stairs there were, and a soft surge of sympathy welled up—for a man he had hated—a man he hardly knew—a man he had tried to kill—and who had nearly killed him—a man, if others were to be trusted, hideously deformed, dangerously brilliant—a genius—a madman—a man without scruples, and had only the vaguest sense of right and wrong—a man of contradictions and questionable sanity—a man the world had misjudged, and shunned—
And yet—in the end...just a man—
A man who had sinned, and then, followed the path to redemption...
Just a man—
No better—and yet, no worse—than any of us...
Speech was unnecessary as the pair made their way out of the once magnificent Opera House, and it was not until they were seated in a brougham that the silence was finally broken.
The woman picked up where she had left off, as if the interim of silence had never existed. "...Don Juan destroyed him—took everything—it had sustained him for years—it had been his passion, been his escape from the outside world—be his...salvation, I think—and...well...it was time to pay the price, he said...it had been his fire, had kept him warm all those years—but now, the fire...burned—raged—" She drew a deep breath, and seemed at a loss for words—but that was alright, for he understood her meaning. "And, as he said all this, he looked at me—an I knew—it was not Don Juan he spoke of—Don Juan—perhaps it had taken all that he said it took—" She broke off, and was quiet for a while.
The carriage continued to rattle down the street, and presently, the woman spoke again. "It might have taken all that--but he looked at him—just the way his eyes fixed themselves on me—I knew—he was waiting for—me...to take his life..."
Her companion made no reply, and indeed—she did not want him too...
"There was no anger, no hatred, no regret, no resentment—just acceptance—and...infinite patience..."
He longed to say something. He longed to take her in his arms, to stroke her hair and to kiss her tears away—to sooth her and to comfort her, to tell her that she was not to blame...
But he held back. There was something yet too distant about her—too remote—too...removed...
He dared not approach her—he dared not approach her immense grief, her immense sorrow—the anguish that was, surely, too vast for mortal comprehension...
He hated himself for thinking thus, hated himself for such weakness...
"Even then—as he waited for me to declare my love for you, to invite him to a wedding—a wedding that was not to occur—to kill him—he was dying of love, you see—even then, he was still my angel—no reproach, no bitterness—nothing...He was very calm, very quiet—just acceptance...the acceptance of a fatalist, I suppose...He was very kind, even then—he had prepared himself for that final blow, I know—"
Her sentences were very disjointed, he noticed, and wondered vaguely if it were an indication of her state of mind.
"And you told him that there—was...to be—no wedding?" He asked tentatively, silently raging at what a fool he had been.
"I did."
"And he?"
"He remained very calm—thanked me—gave me his condolences..." She gazed out the window. "Still--he still died. There was no helping that. No matter what I did—he would have still died—ever since that night—Don Juan and—well, everything...He made me see—that choice—that choice not only decided your life and mine—it decided his also—and when he told us to leave, to go, to forget—he knew he would die—he told me he was dying of...love. I told him that was ridiculous—" She looked down at her hands, folded primly on her lap. "But love is a ridiculous thing, he replied, and I think he smiled—and he quoted Pascal to me—that 'the heart had its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing...' He always did have a hard time expressing his emotions, you know—and the intensity of this occasion—well—he had some difficult expressing it in his own words...so he borrowed others'..."
He, despite all that she had said, or perhaps because of how little of it pertained, knew not what had actually transpired in the bowels of the Opera House. For all that she said, she had revealed very little, and he was of the opinion that it was more a conscious act than any thoughtlessness on her part.
And, truthfully—he found that aside form a mild curiosity, he really had no wish to know what had occurred.
'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad...'
So he did not press her to elaborate—allowed her, rather, to silently reflect on the events, and to lovingly lock the memories in her heart.
Indeed, they never spoke of the Opera House or its resident ghost after their wedding—and if he ever found his wife in the library quietly reading Virgil aloud, "Nunc scio quit sit amor, " and getting lost in though after that particular line—he never made a comment, except perhaps to exclaim in delighted surprise that she knew Latin...
For he did truly love her, and knew that she loved him also. That perhaps she loved him not quite so passionately as he her, or that perhaps she loved another better—that did not matter. He was satisfied, and even content, in knowing that he had secured the affections of his wife...
And who was to say that they were not happy?
The ghosts of the past—or perhaps just one ghost—cropped up but occasionally, and he found that he did not mind these silent intrusions if his wife would still smile and laugh with him—if his wife would still raise her glorious voice in song...
No, the silent intrusions did not bother him, for they really were quite harmless—and neither he nor his wife commented on these visits, happier to pretend that the other hadn't noticed...and the silent, invisible presence he sometimes sensed around the house—that did not bother him either. The presence was unobtrusive—very tactful, actually—and he would laughingly chide himself for being silly if he ever began to mentally describe it as 'dignified, but reserved, and supremely courteous' in a moment of whimsical fancy...
His wife, of course, was completely untroubled with housing this presence, this ghost--this intangible person born of his and her memories...In fact, she seemed, rather—happier...
But why should he be surprised?
That had always been Erik's way of doing things...
(1) "...too remote...too removed" taken from Steinbeck's The Pearl: "She was as remote and removed as Heaven itself."
(2) "The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing" Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
(3) "You shall know the truth and the truth shall drive you mad" Adlous Huxley (1894-1963) Chronologically incorrect, I know :)
(4) Virgil: "Nunc scio quit sit amor": Now I know what love is.