And then he was gone. Just a pen, uncapped, still rolling down the desk, to prove he had been there at all.
Next came hedgerows and furrowed fields blurring, hoof and harness, wheel and whip all singing. Escape, escape, to adventures unknown.
Skies with grey brows furrowed and air as pure as spring water came rushing, flushing out textbooks innumerable and dictations unending from his head.
Only after the grey had turned to blue, and the blue to black, when the yellows squares of flickering farmhouse windows appeared, did he realise that night had fallen.
And only after the tarantella had become a drunken waltz of lame and tired legs, the wind’s courageous roar an icy whisper that chilled his marrow, did he realise he had no way home.
And so, with daring eyes dulled by cold and hunger, he searched for a turning, a farmhouse, a village to shelter him for the night.
At first, he found nothing. Only the scuttling of field mice and the blackened maze of hedgerows.
But then, opening out of the dark on the left-hand side, a drive. Grand and wide, with silhouettes of cypress curving away into the night. He jumped down and, with wary step, picked his way along the path.
No sooner had he started than a flock of children came careening past him. Out of the pitch black and back again with eyes wide and voices high, too full of joyously forgotten bed time to see him or answer his call.
Finally, the house stood before him. Glowing with the light of sparkling chandeliers, rippling like water as the crowds passed ceaselessly across the windows.
The laughter. The crisscrossing bodies. The shadows flitting in between. All left ample room for a smock-torn, face-smudged boy to wander in unnoticed.
Even so, a hand appeared almost instantly out of the sea of revellers and then another. A mask, a drink thrust into his puzzled grasp.
Little by little his blood thawed, the wine warmed his cheeks and he breathed in the air of that strange estate.
And without realising, the mask was before his face. And he was part of a laughing group of boys, dashing pell-mell down twisting corridors, gilt-edged mirrors and delicate vases flashing where once hedges and fields had been.
Had something not slipped from his pocket, he would never have stopped. Never have turned right to look along the row of rooms that opened one onto the other.
Never have seen her.
He left the scrap of paper, torn from his exercise book, lying on the thick vermillion carpet. He made his way through the rooms between them, treading softly, slowly, as though any sudden move would send her leaping into the crowd.
Lélio he said in reply to her question. He asked for her name but got only the same question in reply. Who are you? repeated with some strange fear in her wide blue eyes.
And so he told her.
Of his journey and of the schoolroom he had left behind him. Of his racing pulse and the racing cart and the racing wind that tossed the hair across his face. Of his lame horse and the dusty desks and barrel-chested master waiting for his return.
She listened with cheeks delicate and white, with face tilted and pale lips just parted. And when he finished, finally she replied.
Isabella.
It raced through his heart and sent a melody soaring unbidden through his mind, with sounds and shapes he had never heard the like of before.
He began to speak, and yet even as the words tumbled breathlessly from him, she stopped him.
You cannot.
It took a moment to wrestle with those strange words. Only a moment, yet long enough for her to turn and melt into people behind her.
When he realised, he made to follow her. But another train of cackling children blocked his way, a wall of trampling feet and shrieking treble voices.
And when finally they had passed, there was nothing of her, just an ocean of masks. Staring and mocking, leering in the unsteady candlelight.
He searched for her till the flames coughed and died, till the sky blushed pink and the last of the weary guests trickled out to their carriages.
He searched for her the next day. And the day after that. He searched endlessly, in figures hunched in dark corners, in bodies disappearing down narrow alleys, in faces framed for a moment in a crowd.
But all that he could find, all that was left to him, was a melody. Beautiful and terrible, that melody which had sung through him one strange night. And every night thereafter.
So this is a rather wacky mashup of several things:
Symphonie Fantastique is a piece about the troubled dreams of a young man, and an obsession with, an endless search for an elusive and perhaps imaginary lover.
The first movement establishes his longing, in the second, he spots her at a ball, then on the hillsides where two lonely shepherds call to each other. Suddenly, his dreams become a nightmare. He is being carried to execution because he has killed his lover. But then, before justice can be served, he is overrun by a wild gathering of witches and demons who carry him off into the night! Wonderful stuff!
Lelio is the little-known follow-up to Symphonie Fantastique. Even more ambitious than its predecessor it weaves together soloists, chorus, spoken word and a huge symphony orchestra. Perhaps why it is so rarely performed…
Lelio is also a stock character from the Italian Commedia dell’arte. Unlike our Lelio, he is always at peace and untroubled. However, like our Lelio, the love of his life is always named Isabella.
Finally, Berlioz idea of an obsession with an ephemeral woman has always reminded of Alain-Fournier’s classic, Le Grand Meaulnes. In it, the central character discovers then loses his love at a strange party which he stumbles across after getting lost escaping from school.
Phewf! There you have it. Does it make up for missing last week? And before you go, make sure buy and read Les Grand Meaulnes if you haven’t. You’ll be finished by next week’s post, it’s very short.
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