If you want to deprive a person of a dream, make the dream come true... (Bill Kaulitz)
The most unpleasant thing that can happen to a dream is that it can come true.
Gaston sat at the set table and thoughtfully – damn, when did he become so constantly thoughtful? – picking at a piece of fried meat.
Belle was sitting next to him, modestly lowering her eyes. She met him with a very hot dinner. Everything was as he wanted, but everything was like in a nightmare, where ordinary objects and features take on nightmarish combinations.
Yes, he got his way. Threatening Belle to put her father in an insane asylum, he got her consent. She became his wife, and now no one in the town will be able to say that Gaston can't get his way, that he can be rejected.
Belle had nothing to reproach. In the morning he went hunting, and she, as his faithful friend and assistant Lefou told him, was heading to the market for vegetables. Then she cleaned their hunting lodge, washed and cooked.
He had nothing to reproach her with.
That's what turned his soul inside out.
At first he thought that he would have to somehow fight with her, her character, her independence, but Belle somehow immediately accepted his rules and became submissive.
She became submissive, but in this submission there was some kind of challenge, some kind of resistance. Gaston still lacked something, although the house was clean and the food was always hot. Something elusive…
So strange… Gaston never restrained himself, but since Belle became his, when he began to have the right to any touch… Suddenly, it was as if he put himself a wall in front of her. She didn't resist, she wouldn't, he felt it, and that's why he couldn't touch her without her desire.
When the priest in the church listened to their wedding vows and uttered such long-awaited words for the groom: "And now you can kiss," Gaston suddenly became timid like a boy and, under the hooting of the crowd, gently hugged the bride and barely touched her lips with his.
He didn't even put his arm around her shoulders anymore.
Later, when Gaston brought his young wife to his house, and she silently went into the bedroom, she began to unbutton the fastenings of her dress with trembling fingers…
He suddenly said:
"Good night," and went to sleep on a chair in another room.
Gaston would never admit this to anyone in his life, not even to his friend Lefou, moreover, he himself did not understand why he did it.
And why he's been sleeping on this stupid chair for a month. The chair hurt his back terribly.
One day he returned from hunting earlier than usual. Gaston was walking along the path that led to their house, Belle was standing near the porch and washing his clothes. His wife was standing with her back to him, and the hunter, unwittingly, switched to a quiet step, as if trying to track down prey.
And indeed, instead of the usual duty smile and impenetrable gaze when meeting him, he heard soft sobs. Belle was crying.
Gaston was even glad somehow. Instead of this colorless submission, at least some expression of feelings, moreover, he will finally be able to pronounce his irritation and strangeness.
"Are you crying?" Gaston asked, switching to the usual, "loud step."
Belle turned around in surprise. Her eyes were really tear-stained.
Gaston theatrically threw the wildfowl to the ground and raised his hands to the sky:
"And why are you pretending to be a martyr? Anyone, anyone would be happy to be in your place! A nice warm house, fresh meat every day, you have enough of everything! The father lives in his house! I didn't lay a finger on you in any way! And you… You're shedding tears. You're probably cheating on me with someone and I'll find out!"
Belle silently stared at him with her wide-open eyes and, suddenly, threw the vat of laundry off the stool.
"My God! How tired I am! You say you're trying? And me?! I'm going out of my way trying to make the house not look like a barn! Every, every day a huge number of things in the dirt, in the ground! Is it really impossible not to put your feet in dirty boots on the dining table? I didn't say a single reproach, not a single word… I'm always smiling, your house is clean, there's always food on the table. And I... just.." the girl suddenly blinked often, trying to drive away the tears that came again, but they still rolled out of her eyes. "I... my father got worse… I even… I can't even tell you about it, because you will immediately call that terrible person and happily lock my father in the asylum!"
She turned away and walked briskly back into the house. The door slammed.
Gaston stood and watched her go. "I would never do that," he thought, "I just threatened her, put pressure on her, I didn't really think about it..."
Or was he thinking?
He could no longer understand anything about her and about himself.