I still loved her, and so I didn't give up with wooing her softly and
trying to make her dream come true. She was my daughter, and I had to give
everything to make her being happy.
Amazingly, her aura on stage grew with every day passing by without any success, as if she was trying to fulfil her desire herself, for with every night the sums paid for a night with Satine became bigger and bigger. The Elephant was a sign for huge honour, and those who could boast of having spent a night there were both envied and admired in Paris of the rich and the beautiful. But, no matter how hard she tried, there was never enough money, because all the time little renovations were of extreme necessity, the clients insisted on their contracts, costumes had to be sewed, and we had never even the most little Centime to save and invest in a rebuilding.
Thus we both worked for one goal, dogged was she, but without any hope, desperate was I and driven by a wish whose fulfilment was the only wish I had left after all those years. And though we struggled both, even if not together, we could not make just a little step towards the aim.
Until the day when I met the Duke. To my amazement, he was cooperative, friendly, and he listened to my concept of rebuilding the Moulin Rouge with interest. It should have made me suspicious, but I was too happy having at last found someone who obviously was willing to subsidize me to think about any ulterior motive of him.
Perhaps it was irony of fate that it was evening and raining when I knocked at Satine's door, three times, she told me to enter and I told her about my success. But on this evening, when Satine's eyes were shining as beautiful as on the evening when I found her – and they had not shone like this for a long time – when she embraced me and stammered how happy she was, on this evening I didn't think about fate or destiny. Today I damn myself for it, for I sent Satine towards death and myself towards ruin.
The Duke insisted in holding the deeds to the Moulin Rouge. Moreover, he demanded Satine. In return, he subsidized the whole rebuilding, and Satine's dream as well as our future was within reach. Who could have foreseen that Satine was already dying?
That she fell for love, too, that she was driven into the arms of some young english writer called Christian, was, seen backwards now, the only positive aspect with the whole story.
When and where Satine had been infected with consumption is something I don't know. But whoever had done that, he had destroyed a life that was much too short, that just had seen an incredible future before its eyes. She was loved, the first time in her life she was loved truly, the Moulin Rouge had become a theatre, she was the star, the principal actress, and somehow we would have been able to deceive the Duke, to save us all, to live on in glory and glamour, for somehow we always had been able to fiddle our way through.
But now I am standing at her grave, one of many, an un-spectacular mass grave out of Montmartre, maybe it isn't even hers, but that of another person, and everything is over, the dream has been dreamed through, the show will not go on.
Satine is dead, the sparkling diamond has become dull and went out.
I blame myself having given her to the cruel hands of world. Marie said that it was not my fault, because I didn't have a choice.
I'm not sure about this anymore.
Perhaps I never was.
But now I cannot change a thing, it is too late. It was too late for a long time.
The world didn't stop turning round even if we all expected it. Obviously, it's the only show going on for eternity. We must try to make the best out of it. In the end, the world gets us back, rich or old, there is no difference. We have to live now and to stand our ground. And so we won't have lived for nothing.
With this good intention in my heart that is not mine but Christian's, I leave the graveyard. The sun is rising at the moment, and the grass is shining because of the dew. The world is wonderful somehow.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?
Amazingly, her aura on stage grew with every day passing by without any success, as if she was trying to fulfil her desire herself, for with every night the sums paid for a night with Satine became bigger and bigger. The Elephant was a sign for huge honour, and those who could boast of having spent a night there were both envied and admired in Paris of the rich and the beautiful. But, no matter how hard she tried, there was never enough money, because all the time little renovations were of extreme necessity, the clients insisted on their contracts, costumes had to be sewed, and we had never even the most little Centime to save and invest in a rebuilding.
Thus we both worked for one goal, dogged was she, but without any hope, desperate was I and driven by a wish whose fulfilment was the only wish I had left after all those years. And though we struggled both, even if not together, we could not make just a little step towards the aim.
Until the day when I met the Duke. To my amazement, he was cooperative, friendly, and he listened to my concept of rebuilding the Moulin Rouge with interest. It should have made me suspicious, but I was too happy having at last found someone who obviously was willing to subsidize me to think about any ulterior motive of him.
Perhaps it was irony of fate that it was evening and raining when I knocked at Satine's door, three times, she told me to enter and I told her about my success. But on this evening, when Satine's eyes were shining as beautiful as on the evening when I found her – and they had not shone like this for a long time – when she embraced me and stammered how happy she was, on this evening I didn't think about fate or destiny. Today I damn myself for it, for I sent Satine towards death and myself towards ruin.
The Duke insisted in holding the deeds to the Moulin Rouge. Moreover, he demanded Satine. In return, he subsidized the whole rebuilding, and Satine's dream as well as our future was within reach. Who could have foreseen that Satine was already dying?
That she fell for love, too, that she was driven into the arms of some young english writer called Christian, was, seen backwards now, the only positive aspect with the whole story.
When and where Satine had been infected with consumption is something I don't know. But whoever had done that, he had destroyed a life that was much too short, that just had seen an incredible future before its eyes. She was loved, the first time in her life she was loved truly, the Moulin Rouge had become a theatre, she was the star, the principal actress, and somehow we would have been able to deceive the Duke, to save us all, to live on in glory and glamour, for somehow we always had been able to fiddle our way through.
But now I am standing at her grave, one of many, an un-spectacular mass grave out of Montmartre, maybe it isn't even hers, but that of another person, and everything is over, the dream has been dreamed through, the show will not go on.
Satine is dead, the sparkling diamond has become dull and went out.
I blame myself having given her to the cruel hands of world. Marie said that it was not my fault, because I didn't have a choice.
I'm not sure about this anymore.
Perhaps I never was.
But now I cannot change a thing, it is too late. It was too late for a long time.
The world didn't stop turning round even if we all expected it. Obviously, it's the only show going on for eternity. We must try to make the best out of it. In the end, the world gets us back, rich or old, there is no difference. We have to live now and to stand our ground. And so we won't have lived for nothing.
With this good intention in my heart that is not mine but Christian's, I leave the graveyard. The sun is rising at the moment, and the grass is shining because of the dew. The world is wonderful somehow.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?