Day 3 – Questions and Answers
Susan did not know what was more distracting, the baby crying in the room on the right, or the strange music called opera from the room on the left.
Three days at L'Auberge de Maguelone and all she had done was listen to the baby cry, her parents argue, and this strange artificially produced music.
At present she was attempting her Latin studies per her mother's instructions, but the baby could not sleep because of the music and now both were keeping her from concentrating.
She walked around the small room looking for distraction, and stopped in front of the dresser. Perhaps a drink of water would clear her head.
She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the pitcher of water and carefully took it down with both hands. She set it upon the dark wood floor and reached back up for the water glass.
After pouring the drink, she stood back up and looked in the mirror above the dresser, visible now that the pitcher wasn't obstructing her view. Her hair ribbon wasn't straight. She put the water glass down next to the pitcher so she could fix it.
Looking in the mirror while she adjusted the ribbon, she studied her appearance. People told her she looked like her mother, with her long walnut-colored hair and bright hazel eyes. But she could see that she had inherited her father's strong jaw and prominent cheekbones.
She thought she made a pretty picture, but for the perpetual frown on her face.
In the sitting room, her parents had begun arguing again. Susan opened the door a bit to listen.
"I've just had a letter from him," her father was saying to her mother, holding out the paper in question.
"I'm not interested," her mother replied, hesitating a moment before walking over and snatching the letter from his hands. She proceeded to read it and then with a look of frustration stormed into her bedroom.
The following silence was so thick, that it surprised Susan to hear the music cutting through the air again.
She stood there absently, listening to the various voices and instruments climb and fall, trying not to think of her parents fighting
Suddenly, she snapped to attention. She heard a familiar word in the voices that she had just seen in her Latin studies. Was the strange language Latin?
She closed the door and rushed to her book, eyes flying over the pages as she listened for any other familiar word.
A few small ones jumped out at her, but none of the long ones. And then there were a few that sounded similar to the words in the book, but she could tell they were not the same language.
This was confusing. The music seemed to be in Latin, and then, it wasn't.
Forgetting all about the argument of moments before, Susan picked up her book and went to the sitting room where her father was still seated, intending to ask him about it.
He was leaning back in the chair, his head resting upon one hand. It appeared to Susan that he was deep in thought. Before she could say anything though, he rose and left the room.
Curious, Susan followed him into the white hallway and down the stairs into the lobby. She paused in the doorway and listened to him give the man at the desk directions to have all their letters and telegrams sent up to their room immediately.
She thought she knew what had disturbed her parents so greatly, but she didn't want to think about it. It was too sensitive of a subject to discuss with them at any rate.
Tuning out her father's voice and trying to focus on the music from upstairs, she wandered into the currently vacant parlor. It was quite a different picture now than at yesterday's tea party.
Without all the people, the room looked very large despite being little more than 40 square meters in size.
The furniture looked larger too. The settees, the chaises, the chairs and the ottomans all made her feel quite small as she moved to the center of the room.
She set her Latin book on one of the coffee tables and looked around her. Of all the other rooms she had seen in the hotel, this was the most colorful. In fact, it didn't seem to belong to the hotel, it was that different.
The walls were neither white, nor were they papered in a white floral print. The lower half was dark wood paneling, the same as the floor throughout the hotel, and the top half was painted a deep green. There was a large picture window on the back wall, and a red and green patterned rug on the floor. It appeared oriental, by the design.
There was a coat rack by the door behind her, as well as a large buffet. There were a few end tables with lamps about the room, and on the walls were numerous paintings, all with thalassic themes.
Susan still hadn't been to the beach. The last two days had been spent unpacking and attempting to sleep off the effects of the journey, and today it was raining. The beach was out of the question.
Putting aside her boredom, she decided to explore the room.
She had set her eyes on a painting of an old man-of-war, when a hutch along one wall caught her attention. It was filled with delicate porcelain sculptures and other pieces of art.
There was a bust of Napoleon Bonaparte, and another of Joseph Vernet. A beautifully painted figurine of Marie Antoinette made her smile, and she twirled around, imagining herself in the full pink skirts the figurine wore.
She twirled around the coffee tables and ottomans, moving in time with the music that sounded louder now that there was no crying baby or arguing parents, even downstairs.
The man had increased the volume on the gramophone-thing yesterday evening and had not turned it down since, much to her parents' annoyance. Susan thought of telling them it was probably because of their arguing that he had done so, but it probably wouldn't accomplish anything.
She continued her twirling over the thick oriental rug, behind the settee, past the window…and bumped into a chair. She fell back and just barely missed hitting her head on the back of the settee.
She stood up and brushed herself off, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed her fall. There was no one within sight.
Straightening her skirts, she set her eyes on the last pieces of furniture in the room: a small bookshelf that stood against the back wall between the window and the chair she had just collided with, and a spinet piano in the corner opposite.
Looking between the two, her eyes landed back on the Latin textbook sitting on the coffee table in the center of the room.
She was reminded of the similarity between the Latin and the words in the music, and paused in her considerations about the furniture to listen again.
It was definitely close to Latin, but definitely was not. She decided to think of what it wasn't to see if that helped.
It wasn't Danish. She'd heard enough of it during their five days in Denmark to recognize it when she heard it. And it certainly wasn't German. That was an unfavorable language on the ears, and three weeks of her life she wanted back.
They had reached Switzerland just in time for the baby to be born, and the language spoken by the Swiss nurses was not the language she was hearing in the music.
A week later they had reached Montpellier, and now another week later they were in Maguelone, and Susan was certain that if the language being spoken in the music were French, she would know it.
So what was it?
She stood there, distrait, gazing at her Latin book when a thought suddenly occurred to her. Maybe the hotel had language books.
She turned to the bookcase and began scanning the titles.
There were several books with French titles that she could not read, and a few in English. One was a book about France, which would be of no help. There were several Bibles in numerous languages. Perhaps those could be useful.
She opened the dusty glass doors of the bookcase and started pulling out the Bibles. French, English, German, Latin…and two others she did not recognize at first glance.
She opened the first one. It was all written in strange symbols, some of which looked like letters but others that did not. She hoped that was not the language the music was in. She set it aside and moved on to the next one.
Opening the second one, she stared at the text intently. This was similar to Latin in appearance. Maybe this was the right language.
She relaxed comfortably in the chair she had been sitting so stiffly in during yesterday's afternoon tea and laid the large Bible across her lap. She opened to a page in the middle, thick with the foreign words and scanned them as she listened to the music.
She found the first familiar word quickly: o. Soon after came il and ti. There were lots of long words though that she couldn't recognize, and she leaned over the big book, squinting in concentration at the tiny words.
There were two more, mai and mia, which were so alike it took her several minutes to hear the difference.
She heard the word amore a couple of times. Far fewer times than she saw it on the page in the Bible. And then she picked up the words promesso and patria.
This must be it. Whatever this language was, it was the language the music was in.
She smiled widely with pride in the way she solved the mystery and began looking for more words as she listened. They came more quickly as she scanned the pages and she was beginning to finally recognize a pattern to the music.
The current song was so beautiful too. At this moment, it was a solo woman's voice singing a lovely, sustained melody with orchestral accompaniment.
Susan looked over at the piano.
She was not terribly good in music, but it was one of her better subjects. And this song was so pretty that she wanted to remember it forever.
She closed the heavy book and slid out of the chair, eyes on the piano with one purpose in mind.
Reaching it, she sat down and adjusted the position of the bench so she her feet could touch the pedals, listening intently all the while.
She hit a few keys and was surprised at how loud the piano was, she had been that focused on the soft music upstairs.
After a few moments of dissonance between her playing and what she heard through the ceiling, she found a correct note. She kept her finger on it as she listened to the melody, trying to hear the intervals correctly.
She cautiously hit a few keys where she thought the notes should be and was delighted to have many of them correct. She kept at it, listening and testing keys until she had the melody secure in her mind and her hands.
Then she listened for the bass line. This was harder because it was orchestral accompaniment and not a harpsichord, whose bright tones would cut through the vocals.
She rapidly gave up on that part and settled herself happily into repeating the melody over and over, even as the song ended and the music continued onto something else.
So absorbed was she, that she didn't notice when the music above her stopped playing, and instead the sound of footsteps was breaking the silence. First in the hall above, and then descending the stairs.
But she didn't hear them
Susan tried to remember the words that went along with the melody she was playing but could only recall a few of them correctly without seeing them.
She walked back to where she'd left the Bible next to the chair and then brought it to the piano, setting it open on top. It was too heavy to stay on the music stand.
She looked at the words for a moment and realized she could only remember a select few. Dejected, she sat at the piano and thought desperately, trying to hear the song again.
Only the first few words came back to her, but she thought that if she sang them it might help.
She set to playing the melody again and murmured out a few of the words as best she could, not knowing the language, but the rest didn't come back to her.
She finished the song and started again, doing the same thing—singing the first few words and continuing.
But it didn't help.
She was so frustrated! She sang the first few words and stopped. Nothing was coming back. She did it again. And again.
"O patria mia…" she sang, but the rest of the words were gone. She sat back from the keyboard and folded her arms, almost in tears. It had been so beautiful…
"Mai più ti revedrò." Susan started at the sound of the other voice and whirled around. Standing halfway in the doorway was a man. She hadn't seen him in the hotel before.
He was wearing a nightshirt, a rumpled blue dressing gown, and slippers. He had dark, almost black hair, and it appeared to have not been combed in days.
For several moments Susan just stared at the man as her heartbeat calmed down from the surprise, and he stared back.
His stare was…odd. She could see there was a certain curiosity in his manner, probably about her playing piano and singing the strange words. But there was also…emptiness in his eyes, like she had never seen in another living soul.
It suddenly occurred to her that this was the man who had looked out at her yesterday morning when she had been afraid of the music. He had actually left his room!
She looked at him more intently now. Yes…
The same thin limbs and features of the silhouette, the same hesitancy in the way he just leaned through the doorway but did not step through it. It was definitely him.
Now the question was what to do with him. They had been simply staring, unmoving for almost a minute, and Susan's shock was turning to uneasiness. Just who was this man and why did he never leave his room? Why had he done so now?
Her thought process was ended as he shattered the silence by speaking.
"Hello." Susan blinked.
"Hello," she answered back.
"I apologize. It was not my intention to startle you."
"That's alright." She stood up and faced him, suddenly conscious of those manners her mother was always drilling into her.
"Do not let me disturb you. Do go on," he offered as she moved.
"Well, I…I can't remember anymore," she answered glumly, looking at the floor. There was a brief moment of silence as Susan eyed her shoes, but she looked up as she heard the man take another step into the room.
"Would you like me to transcribe the music for you?" Susan could not believe what she was hearing. And she wasn't quite sure she understood either.
"You mean you can write the notes down for me to play? And the words?" she asked hopefully.
"Yes, if you like," he replied nonchalantly.
"Oh thank you!" she said delightedly, virtually bouncing in her joy.
"You are most welcome," he answered plainly. That said, he turned to leave, and an important fact suddenly occurred to Susan.
"Oh, wait!" she cried, prompting the man to halt and look at her again, almost surprised that she had spoken without prompting, "What language is that music in?"
"Italian," he replied. And then, with a nod of his head, he was gone.
Author's notes: So! Have you figured it out yet? Have you? One person already has…
Oh, and this chapter was written at five in the morning after being up all night, so forgive any random errors.
