《The Art of Melancholia》 Chapter I: Maman PART I VOLUME I: VIOLENT DELIGHTS ¡°His soul shall taste the sadness of her might and be among her cloudy trophies hung.¡± Ode on Melancholy, John Keats.
I should begin with the time I killed my father - though I feel I must first explain myself. It took me many years to realize the horror of my situation. I tried to love him, truly I did, or as much as one could love a man such as him. But he was a man of stone, distant and omnipresent, who reigned with unquestionable divine right as he looked down upon your small person. If he made a decision - he was well within his rights. If he beat you - you deserved it. Over time the cracks showed and his body eroded and you would look up at his hard visage and feel no love, not even a shred of respect, and know that was the man who owned you.
My father, his father, and all the other fathers have served the crown since the mists of time, ever since my my distant ancestor was given his land and titles in reward for his service to the crown. My father, ever the courtier, received some royal grace by giving His Majesty a horse during a hunt and since he waited on promotions, titles, and favors he felt himself entitled to but never came. His position of giving His Majesty his sword in the morning, and his mediocre apartments was all he had to show for his service. He pointed his finger to his sick wife, the bourgeois, and anyone but himself who, I can imagine, inspired dislike in anyone who could benefit him. Surviving merely on the purity of his blood, immense wealth, and the honors he had the rights to by the seniority of his title, he decided to retreat to our ancestral lands and rebuild the Chateau de Calais in the latest fashion. My father was neither poor or sentimental. He only enjoyed the provinces for what it gave him - the freedom to do what he pleased and to be the Lord of His Lands and Family away from prying eyes. In Calais, there was nothing left for him to do but manage his estates with the upmost scrutiny and for his service he expected everyone in his family to regard him with the respect and obedience he was entitled to per his rights.
I remember myself on the floor below the stairs. My body ached as I stared up carved ceiling. I could not move. I could not remember how I got there. I could only focus on the pain that show through my limbs and searing in my head. ¡°Maman!¡± I cried when I heard the rustle of my mother¡¯s petticoats rush down the stairs as she called my name. Her tear stained face came before my own as she places her hands on the side of my face. She pulled a hand away from my head, and blood ran down her fingers. That¡¯s when I felt the stinging slash on my face, where I cut myself on a sharp tile edge, that left a trail of bright red blood down the pure white marble of the grand staircase. ¡°Charles, what happened?¡± I heard my mother say but I could not break my focus from the warm liquid that ran down my face. I could never recall the details. I lied to my mother that I had tripped while going downstairs. But the only thing I could remember before that was the image of my father and that I did something, said something, that compelled him to push me. I was forced to spend many days resting, to the annoyance of my father, as the cut on my head was worse than I had thought and I spent those days in a confused and nauseous haze. I was eight, I believe, and while these matters are quite blurred to me, I still can remember what I felt then and see the faded images that live in my mind - asleep or awake.
There were many times, after my father had hurt me, that I would sit on my bedroom floor, my legs up to my chest, and I would keep my sight straight before me. I would focus on the bedpost, the curtain, a book, or anything in my room and watch as the world blurred out around me. I would stay in that position for hours, until I could feel my thoughts and emotions separate from me like water and vinegar, or until I fell asleep in my clothes, whichever came first. When I finally saw my father stiff, I wondered if he had felt in his final moments what I did then - frozen and helpless in a situation he could not control. I don¡¯t know - but I can dream. Many times in my childhood I was overcame with an odd sensation. It was felt usually at night, when i was alone, and the household asleep and cold. I would lay awake in bed, and felt in my bones as if it was the most intense chill, the severe silence of my surroundings. In those moments I felt that the home I saw around me was only a replacement, and that I was somewhere else alien and corrupt. I felt that if I left the confines of my room, to search for my mother, I would find her bed bare. If I were to venture, panicked and distraught, I would see only empty space as I wondered the land, white flakes falling about me. I would see no one, no villages, and not even animals. Only my person in an empty and dying world where no one would come to save me. Reason told me that one day my situation would change, but I was stuck in amber and believed with my whole heart that I would feel as I did then forever.
Filial obligation did not require me to understand my father¡¯s reasoning. I only had to understand the hierarchy of our house. He resided firm at the top, then my brother, and then myself who - God forbid - would inherit if a spare was needed, and then my mother. It was she who was my true guardian and who my father resented more than any of us. I imagined she was once useful to him to give him his heirs but soon enough became annoyed with her petty concerns over her children¡¯s well being, the rustle of her silk petticoats, and the minor annoyances and anxieties ¡°prone to those of her sex¡±. My mother was one of the few people I felt comfortable around. One of the few sources of warmth in the darkness. As I grew I spent my afternoon reading in her salon while she worked on her parfilage or took her tea. I remember how her hands looked like when she sewed, how interested she was in my studies and often tested me. I suppose it¡¯s only natural that I would assume her meek and unassuming silhouette. We both knew what our roles were and convinced ourselves that our lives were easier if we stayed in our places. My father didn¡¯t care for her happiness. My brother, uncomfortable around heavy emotions, made himself sparse. The two of us were outcasts who either outlived or hadn¡¯t yet obtained usefulness to our common benefactor and were thus shoved into our respective hovels. I assumed onto myself a duty to watch after my mother, make her happy, and care for her.
One morning, I went into her apartments where she rested in her chintz daybed tucked into an alcove. She was still in her cream dressing gown, a white mule hanged off one of her feet, and her hair laid loose and un-powdered past her shoulders. Her lady¡¯s maid slipped out of the room as I walked towards her bed. On the side table laid a few brown bottles of laudanum (7) near a medicine chest. As her head was turned away from me I slipped one into my pocket. ¡°Maman?¡± I said as I knelt down at the edge of her bed and slipped my hand into hers. Her eyes were closed and breaths shallow. ¡°Are you alright?¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Her eyes fluttered open and with a low voice said, ¡°Yes - only tired.¡± That was one of the many small lies we would tell ourselves but I knew the truth. In my room, once the nursery and connected to her apartments by a door, I could hear everything. I heard the yelling, insults, and crying. During such times I would stay in bed, unable to move or sleep, until the pale sunlight replaced the dark. My father might have been a calm a stoic figure, a proper gentleman of reason, who deserved his role as head of a great house in the eyes of Society, but we knew the truth. No matter how well he behaved in public, or while in his good moods when he didn¡¯t find his other half at the bottom of an empty glass, we were all reminded. When I was five, I believe, I heard a crash and much yelling when I laid in bed. I moved quiet to the door that led to her cabinet, opened the door only enough to look in, and saw my father on top of her with his large hands around her throat and face red. I ran back to bed and covered myself in my blankets, sobbing into the bedding until I no longer heard any noises. I feared her dead, I feared myself next, and in the morning I found her still alive with cream concealing the bruises. I should have done something - anything - then but I only cried. The night before, if I wasn¡¯t such a coward, I would¡¯ve done something. I could have barged into the room, hit him, forced him out. I could have. I was no longer a child but newly sixteen - a man grown. As the years drew on I would imagine my own hands and his neck squeezing until all the hatred and pain that culminated in my body disappeared and my father had no more life left to live. Instead I rushed to my brother¡¯s room, who was already awake, and we stayed together in silence. My brother is a few years older than me, he could have done something, or the both of us together could. But, even if he wouldn¡¯t admit it, I know that under his hard exterior that he was scared of him too. ¡°Let me see,¡± I said to her. She didn¡¯t move but turned her head away from the wall. A deep bruise marred the side of her face. I swallowed and a tight knot formed in the middle of my throat. I gently touched the side of her face but I took it away when she winced. Like always - we made the silent agreement not to speak of it. ¡°Do you need anything?¡± ¡°Yes I need,¡± she started but her hazed over eyes looked right through me, ¡°I need-¡± She stared off to somewhere behind me. I let her think but nothing was said. ¡°Maman?¡± She looked down at the sheets of the bed, her brows knitted together. I saw whatever thought she had slip from her mind. ¡°Maman?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± she said with her eyes half-closed, ¡°I¡¯m tired.¡± It was difficult to keep patience in that state. My father¡¯s physician began to see to her a few years before. He said that she had become nervous, which wasn¡¯t entirely false. There were many. times when me or my brother would find her sobbing in her room or refusing to leave her bed. My father hated her for it, for the same reasons he hated all emotions - especially those of the feminine kind. Her nerves were in a restless state, said my father through his physician, due to her womb, that caused a hysteria that created too much movement, tension, inconsistency in her body that needed calming. I didn¡¯t quite believe it and though the laudanum helped her in some ways, it also made her develop a sort of convenient languid uselessness. A shell of herself, tired and miserable, confined to her bed with no energy to do anything else. As a child I would often stay in bed with her, my head on her chest as she held me, as the hours passed by slow. When I think of her I try to think of her as she was then, in a peaceful warm rest, hoping she found her way to sanctuary. ¡°Sweet boy,¡± she said, as she lazily ran her fingers in my hair when I laid my head down on the edge of the bed, ¡°what¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Nothing.¡± ¡°Are you angry with me?¡± ¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°why would I be angry with you?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± she said in an almost whisper, ¡°but it¡¯s alright if you are.¡±
They were the petty years. An agonizingly slow life where nothing change. But that was. fine. I didn¡¯t need to change. I only needed the ability to bear it. I managed, any feeling I had about my situation hit the outside of my heart and ricocheted throughout the rest of my body to rot elsewhere. There was nothing to do about it. On an uneven ground I stood. As temperament of the King determined a day at court, I myself had a volatile liege. I stayed good, still, and careful. Not just with my father but anyone I can into contact with. My father instilled in me the fear of giving a wrong look, or using the wrong tone, and with it I formed the unique ability to make myself as small as possible. As a child I had the habit of shrinking into corners, quiet but observant, and of walking careful and quiet so the sound of my shoes on the floor wouldn¡¯t set him off. My life was easier that way, but as the years passed I grew restless. The solitude comforted and then devoured me as the days stretched infinitely before me. It was all to me a perpetual dance I grew tired of performing after the hundredth hour, but continue it would, and I could not stop it. What was the point of playing music or studying history if the only thing I was good for was to live and die exactly where I stood? If five or ten years from then I would be the exact same person suffering in the same place? I would wake up, attend my lessons, call on my mother and brother, avoid my father, go riding and scream into the woods because I knew no one could hear me. That was my life in the countryside. I had no friends except my brother. There were no neighbors of our status that were received. Life continued in the same unfaltering cycles. I tired of it. I tired of his heavy footsteps, tired of the endless flatlands around me, tired of the marks on my mother¡¯s skin, and the bottles of gin I used to drink the days away. I tried. I tired desperately to be a good son. I was quiet, submissive, respectful, and paid attention to my studies. I never did anything on purpose to displease. I tried to make my mother happy only for her to be as miserable as she was before. I would plead for my not to hurt me just to get the living shit beat out of me anyway. Who cared? No one cared. What was would be. I didn¡¯t know what to do about it - until I did. At first, I never actually wanted to kill myself. I don¡¯t recall where the idea came from. It was an odd joke, a game, a what-if I suppose. Except the images kept coming and sunk their teeth into my mind. I would stare off, unfocused, and I thought about them. It was only time until I took those thoughts more seriously. When I imagined death I did not think of pain. I only thought that my days of a foggy and leaden head would be gone in an instant. Under my timid and harmless facade I was cold inside. That darkness of mine comforted me and I kept it hidden to myself because it was mine alone. It may not seem that pleasant but a cold warmth is still a warmth. I desperately wanted to disappear behind the veil and the only thing I needed to do was succumb and fall into it. The sky was clear. One of my father¡¯s horses kept stomping his legs, huffing and irritated from having been in the same place for over an hour. Wisps of white clouds passed by as I listened to the forest sounds around me. The laudanum rested in my hands but I shook far too much to open it. I focused on an image in my mind¡¯s eyes - of my body in a forest, decaying and weathering until I was nothing more than bones. It all seemed so peaceful to me then. A sore lump formed in my throat. My stomach twisted in on itself. I looked up to the sky for some sort of sign but the clouds passed me by. In my mind¡¯s eye it was easier. I would only open the bottle, drink with no second thoughts or worries, but the reality constricted my lungs and covered me in a cold sweat. I didn¡¯t know how long it would take. I didn¡¯t know if I would even be in any pain. I didn¡¯t know if it was even enough to kill me. The only thing I knew was that it made my mother tired and calm and I gathered it would give me a calm death too. I laid there long enough that I shook no longer from fear but the chill. I grew more and more uncomfortable in my position though the thoughts still gnawed on me - that it would only make me fall asleep and before I would know what was happening I would no longer wonder. The painful possibility corrupted the peaceful image my mind painted. It wasn¡¯t long before a wet drop hit the center of my forehead. Rain did not match my vision. If I did it I would have to wait until the morning - weather permitting. I told myself if I felt the same urge I would do it again. I told myself that every time I thought about it seriously. There had yet been a time where I didn¡¯t calm down enough to keep living. I went home, the back of my greatcoat wet and muddy but if anyone asked I would only say I fell in the mud. I made haste to my plain room, where I put the bottle under my mattress next to a bag of coin. I no longer thought of it. I changed my clothes and warmed myself by the fireplace. I decided I would live. For now. Just live - nothing more. Chapter II: The Fool ¡°I hope you have decided on a future by now,¡± said my father to me while he took his wine at the table. Of course I had not. I have no talents, no skills, or ambitions for anything. I was a young man who wished to see nothing beyond the limits of my vision. I am not intelligent enough for anything in government, not clever enough for court life, nor brave enough for the military. ¡°No Monseigneur I have not.¡± ¡°My kindness ends in a year,¡± he said, ¡°then you are on your own.¡± I could have called his bluff. I knew that if he didn¡¯t care about me he at least cared about the opinions of Society. He couldn¡¯t cast out a son who did nothing wrong to fend for himself like a pauper. He likely would have forced me into the army or the first position he could find for me.On the other hand, I know how easy lies are to fabricate and even then I knew what happened to disappointing spares. ¡°I have secured a place for Xavier to serve under the after his tour,¡± he said, ¡°a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.¡± My older brother, Louis Antoine Xavier d''Artois, the proud heir, shares the same dark hair and thick brows of our father and even his stoic and proud stance. A man made in his own image. The son who would succeed him - God willing. While I have the same nose and angles of the face as both of them I¡¯ve always been more my mother¡¯s miniature. ¡°That is wonderful,¡± said my mother, H¨¦l¨¨ne de Valois. Her face veiled with her calm and pleasing gaze, puffed and powdered in her evening finery. ¡°You do not seem pleased,¡± said my father. ¡°I am,¡± I said quick and looked to my brother, who showed no reaction to the news, ¡°I am happy for you.¡± ¡°Yes it will be an excellent start for him.¡± ¡°I believe that could be a good start for me as well.¡± ¡°Shouldn¡¯t bother,¡± he said and laughed into his glass, ¡°they don¡¯t need fools.¡±
My brother and I were obliged to follow my father on his hunting trips. We trudged through the cold and wet underbrush in our greatcoats while I lagged behind.The dew in the air, the chill, and my rain soaked clothes made me nauseous. My father smiled to himself while carrying the gun. Hunting, traveling, riding - it all pleased him. I believe those were the only times I saw him happy. If it pleased him then it must also please his children. He needed his audience and my brother and I were forced to listen to his endless speeches on good hunting over and over again. My father stopped in front of us. A stag hid behind a few trunks. The only one of the day. I stared ahead at the stag and waited for my father to shoot. My father turned and shoved the rifle into my hands with an odd half-smile on his face. I waited for him to laugh - he didn¡¯t. ¡°Now,¡± he said. I didn¡¯t hate hunting. I didn¡¯t care enough about it to practice shooting alone. I couldn¡¯t keep him waiting. While I shook from the cold and my father¡¯s stare I couldn¡¯t focus or keep steady. I shot without thinking and the air was filled with a piercing cry. My face met my father¡¯s backhand. ¡°What is wrong with you,¡± he gritted as we all stood by the stag¡¯s side. The side of my face stung and dark blood oozed out of the hole in the stag¡¯s throat as it grated for air. His chest heaved and deflated to show the sharp outlines of his bones. ¡°It was a clear shot,¡± he said, ¡°it should have been quick. Now this poor animal has to suffer because of you. Shoot it again.¡± I stood pale and silent as I stared into the stag¡¯s frantic eyes that said what is happening to me? My father ripped the gun out of hands and after the shot his eyes said nothing else. ¡°It¡¯s diseased,¡± said my brother who stood behind my father. ¡°Seems it,¡± said my father before he pulled out his golden watch from his coat and walked back towards home.
My father wasn¡¯t a foolish drunk who found cruelty at the bottom of his glass. He was rational even when drunk and, sober or not, he hurt you all the same. He never repented. What did he need to be sorry for? He was in his rights and he exacted equal and firm judgment. Though I can¡¯t say my father was always cruel. Sometimes there were good days and in those days all the bad lighted. Everything as cast in a brilliant light and the pain slipped from my mind. Past tense. My life wasn¡¯t as bad as I made it out to be. I exaggerate. I¡¯m emotional. Though eventually the tides changed and every good moment of my life fled my memory when I was left broken and bleeding on the floor. My mind sucked straight into a foreign void. I couldn¡¯t find the energy to move in its thick hot ink and my memories became tainted in it¡¯s filth. I considered running away. Every day I went riding I thought what it would be like to ride out into the horizon. If I went into the city, I could¡¯ve boarded a ship to England. I didn¡¯t know what I would¡¯ve done after the face. I only had a small allowance, for small necessities, to teach me to manage my expenses. After I bought my ink, pomade, powder, paper, and gun there wasn¡¯t much else. After three years of saving I had only two hundred Enough to buy me some time but nothing else. In truth, the more I thought about it the more daunting it seemed. The distances I would have to go, the risks involved, and the money I would need stacked up infinitely in my mind. I had a home, clothing, food, and company. If I left I would have given all that up for the small chance I would survive on my own. I thought what I faced at home was a better fate - being a man lone in the world is a terrible thing. So, naturally, I decided to get a gun. My father collected so many that I thought I could steal one and he wouldn¡¯t notice. I stood in the center of my room and listened up to the ceiling. When I heard his steps leave his study I went upstairs. I only had to be quiet in searching as I didn¡¯t know exactly he kept the pistols. My father spent a great deal of time in his study. In my room I could hear him pace in the early hours and I imagined that he scrutinized his accounts so he knew where every sous went. Tall shelves of old books bound in Moroccan leather filled all sides of the room. I avoided the room when I could. It was too austere for my taste. I felt that one misstep would cause all the shelves to collapse and suffocate me in their dust. I didn¡¯t get even a few steps in side. ¡°What do you want?¡± I turned and saw my father in his red damask dressing gown in the doorway.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°I cam to see you, Monseigneur,¡± I said as he moved to his desk without looking at me, ¡°I have a question.¡± He sat down and looked up at me with his bored countenance, ¡°what is it?¡± I searched my mind for a solid minute. ¡°What is-¡± ¡°Can I have a gun?¡± He squinted and I gave a disarming smile but my hands shook in the pockets of my coat. I stood still and tried to regulate my breathing. ¡°A pistol.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°I¡­need to practice shooting,¡± I said, ¡°after what happened last time.¡± I wasn¡¯t a good liar then so I was certain he could look right through. He was an omniscient god who could surely right my very thought. But how could he? How could he even guess what my true intentions were? He couldn¡¯t. I was lucky he didn¡¯t walk in on my riffling through his drawers - he would have killed me. Though, I suppose I wasn¡¯t truly lying. I did need a gun and I, in a sense, would practice shooting. ¡°Why do you need a pistol for hunting?¡± He got me there. ¡°I thought I should start small,¡± I said, ¡°then I could practice with a rifle.¡± What was the worst he could say? No? Or he could have forced me out and tell me not to bother him while he was trying to work. He hummed and walked past me to a dresser. He pulled out a wooden box from the top drawer which he handed to me. A carved ivory and steel flintlock sat on top of a red velvet lining. My father rambled on about the mechanism, the craftsmanship, and how it was given to him by my grandfather, the Comte Xavier d''Artois. His voice sounded distant in my ears and I could feel my heartbeat in my throat while I could scarcely breathe. I could have passed out. ¡°You should ask your brother to go with you,¡± he said finally after a good ten minutes, ¡°he¡¯s a good shot.¡± ¡°Yes, I will Monseigneur, thank you,¡± I mumbled and left. The box weighed twice its weight in my hands as I rushed back down to my room. I shoved the box under my shirts in a chest by my bed. How easy that was.
I laid on my bed in my clothes until the night grew darker. I had some light from the low fire and a candle. I got up when I was certain the household was asleep. The more I think about my past plan, the more I think of what would have happened if I was able to go through with it. My mother would have found me first. Then I suppose her cries would have alerted the rest of the household. That would have been a terrible thing - I wouldn¡¯t wish that on anyone. Though at the time I didn¡¯t consider the after. The after did not exist to me. The end was the only thing I sought. I was so very stupid then. I prepared the pistol. I spent the time I spent in bed wondering if I should¡¯ve left a note or not. I considered it but I didn¡¯t think of what to say. I didn¡¯t even know my own reasoning. I could have said it was because of sorrow or a call to the void. I could have said that my isolated existence created such a degree of ennui in me that I couldn¡¯t bear it. That would have been somewhat true. Though that would make it seem more sudden than reality. In truth I thought about for a number of years. A sudden impulse that grew until it could no longer be ignored. I could¡¯ve added some flourish and say that I was in too much pain and despair. Though I wasn¡¯t in much despair day to day. No, the only thing I can really say to explain myself is that¡¯s just who I was - who I am. I hesitated. In my hesitation I told myself that it would be quick. I had to stop being such a coward. I still shook and cried. I walked towards a cliff with one part of me wanting to go back home and another wanting to walk off the edge. I paced up and down my room for an hour or so. I looked over the edge and saw a reflection of my future. I convinced myself that it was the time - if not then than never. As I paced I felt my head grow hot and I couldn¡¯t get enough air. My room shrunk around me as I paced faster. I just needed to make a decision - and I did decide. I decided that death was nothing. I would have pulled the trigger. I would have - if the door didn¡¯t open. I must have been a frightful sight to see - crying with a gun to my head. I must have because before I knew what was happening I was on the ground. I struggle against the force. My brother pinned my arms down as I tried to kick him off me. ¡°What the hell - what the fuck is wrong with you?¡± He looked up at him as he stood above me with the gun he ripped out of my hand. I tried to find my bearing and stand up. ¡°I can-¡± I said but I had to stop to catch my breath. I didn¡¯t know exactly what to say. Explain? Explain what? It was clear what I was going. I didn¡¯t have to explain anything. I stared at my brother¡¯s face. His jaw clenched and a look in his eye I couldn¡¯t describe other than disgust. I don¡¯t think I ever saw my brother so angry before. I thought he would hit me. I swallowed and glanced around the room as if something would come save me. He was silent until he turned his back towards me. ¡°Please please,¡± I said in the same tone as I did with my father. My voice quavering, ¡°please-¡± ¡°What?¡± He said turning around. ¡°- don¡¯t say anything.¡± ¡°Why not?!¡± I mouthed the word please again. He looked in my eyes before coming back close to me. ¡°Never do this again,¡± he said to be close my face, ¡°do you understand me?¡± I made some semblance of a nod while I tried to breathe. ¡°I said-¡± ¡°Yes!¡± I said loud,¡°I promise.¡± He pressed his lips together as he looked around my room. ¡°Just go to bed,¡± he sighed. He left and closed the door behind him. So there I was - on the floor, my face tear stained, unable to breathe and a knot tightening ever tighter in the pit of my stomach. I stayed in that position until reality hit me with full force. I couldn¡¯t sleep. I spent the rest of the night sick in my bed until I saw the sunlight come through the middle of my curtains and onto the floor. I stayed in bed in a cold sweat as the walls closed in and the heat intensified. I had to leave. Afraid that I would run into my brother I walked carefully until I made it to the stables. I needed fresh air and solitude so I rode out into a clearing in the forest. I had a tantrum that even surprised myself. I cried, hit myself, and laughed until I was again was a shivering mess who could scarcely breathe. It was the most mortifying thing I had ever live through. I had to check my surrounding to make sure I was not in a vivid nightmare or being punished in Hell but to my misfortune, no, it was all real. In that moment I truly wanted to die from the dishonor and shame. I believed there was no way I could go on with such utter embarrassment. I didn¡¯t know what would happen to me. I was sure that my brother would tell my father - how could he react? He wanted to rid himself of me. My mother? I didn¡¯t know how she would react. I imagined a small room infested with rats and bugs that would crawl all over me - maybe that¡¯s what I deserved. I calmed enough eventually. I still had my lessons. I went through them in a listless fog. My stomach rose and dropped. Nothing around me felt real or lasting. Every minute felt like I was one step closer to the gallows. At dinner I couldn¡¯t look at my brother at all or either of my parents. I sat downcast and afraid to use the silverware in case it made my shaking obvious. I had not seen my brother to rest of the day. ¡°Are you alright? You look sickly,¡± said my mother as she put her hand to my head. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I mumbled. ¡°Did you go shooting?¡± ¡°What?¡± I forgot about that. ¡°I said did you go shooting? I saw you go to the stables this morning.¡± ¡°That made you ill,¡± said my mother, ¡°it is too cold to go out.¡± ¡°That is stupid,¡± said my father, ¡°the cold hardens a man up. It tightens the nerves.¡± I looked at my brother who focused on eating. He didn¡¯t look at me back. ¡°Yes,¡± I muttered and returned to my dinner, ¡°I went shooting.¡± Chapter III: l鈥櫭﹖ranger My brother didn¡¯t speak to me for weeks. I saw him at supper and other small moments but there was no mention of the incident. He did eventually break his silence with me, but nothing of importance. It wasn¡¯t the last time he used silence to deal with me, as if I was a problem that didn¡¯t deserve the attention of solving, or, maybe, he thought his attention so grand that its deprivation hurt me. If that¡¯s his intention then he may be pleased to know that he is succeeding. I avoided him in turn. I thought of trying again but when I saw my brother¡¯s face the mortification re-ignited inside of me. I also had lost my method of doing so, though I had tried to get the gun back. I went to his room when I knew wasn¡¯t there only to find the door locked. I pondered over other ways to escape my life. I considered leaving, perhaps to England or the Lowlands, but I didn¡¯t take the idea too seriously. The mere idea of it exhausted me the more I thought of it.
In May of 1755 my brother was set to leave on his Grand Tour, where he would travel to Geneva, Florence, Rome, and other cities with his tutor Monsieur Nerrison and some servants. My mother was anxious to see him gone for so long, and I don¡¯t even know how he managed to convince our father but he was always better at dealing with him than me. We traveled down with him to Paris, I assume to give my father time in the light of le monde. The journey was a night-mare. The rain caused the carriages to sink the mud which delayed our arrival considerably. When we finally arrived, my mother retired to her rooms claiming she was ill. I was too and spend the rest of the day lounging. I hate Paris ¡ª the City of Mud. Where others might see Society I see too many people crammed into a space much too small. Where others might see excitement I¡¯m become overwhelmed by the constant noise and smell of the streets. Everywhere are the browns and greys of insistent grim and dirt. The only places tolerable of the enclosed gardens and courtyards of our h?tel, at 12th Rue des Fosses Monsieur-le-Prince, in the Faubourg While I have never found the Faubourg or the Marais any better than the rest of the city, our h?tel was a grand white building of gilded rooms and furnished in blue silk, a nice pretty little place in the middle of such muck.
Late in the evening, we all took supper in the oval salon with large windows that looked over the English garden. My father sat at his usual place, at the head of the table, not paying much attention of any one of us in particular. ¡°Tomorrow we will call on the Comte de Rohan to discuss your marriage,¡± he said in his unaffected tone, like what he had said was just a trivial commonplace. I looked up to see that he was addressing my brother. He nodded back in agreement but said nothing in return. I wondered if I had missed something. Was this mentioned to me and I had forgotten? It was difficult for me to imagine that I could forget something like that, but my family¡¯s silent acknowledgment made me think otherwise. ¡°Excuse me, Monseigneur,¡± I said after I waited for someone to elaborate but no one did, ¡°what marriage?¡± My father glanced up at me through his brows while he chewed and took his time answering me, ¡°your brother is promised to the Comte¡¯s daughter. They will marry after the Tour.¡± ¡°I did not know of it.¡± ¡°That is because it is not your concern,¡± he said before he returned back to his supper. I bit the inside of my cheek as I glared at my brother, who didn¡¯t seem to want to meet my eye. If I was then as I am now I would¡¯ve scoffed and left the table, but I ignored it. I thought of confronting my brother afterwards, to ask why he had kept it from me, but I decided against it ¡ª it seemed we were no longer the kind of brothers who told each other anything.
The H?tel de Rohan in the Marais stood firm and grand like one of those stately residences built in the last century made to accommodate a whole ministry rather than a family. My father wanted us to make a fine impression, as Parisian and grand as the Rohans were, so we rode there in a fine carriage. My mother was properly put together in her cream silks and lace; my father and brother in a brilliant red and gold; and I in a suit of light pink. When we arrived, the Comte de Rohan stood a the top of the entrance steps in his heavily embroidered dark green velvet suit and wig, which I thought made him seem older than he was even though he looked the same age as my father. Despite the austerity of his dress, he had an amiable smile and eyes, that showed lines of age at the corners when he moved his face. The Comte de Rohan introduced us to his heir and only son Louis de Rohan, called the Comte de Rochefort, who had the image of his father but a more serious and stiff-lipped appearance to him. I was introduced to Catherine de Rohan last, who stood next to her brother, in a simple light blue silk dress. She was very pretty then ¡ª still is. Her blonde hair was put in curls around her head, her complexion naturally fair, with large blue eyes and a round face ¡ª the essence of a well made society woman of good breeding. ¡°and my son, Charles, the Vicomte d''Artois,¡± said my father as I payed my respects but I didn¡¯t say much else. It wasn¡¯t my day
I was placed across from my brother and next to my mother at the dining table; which was covered in crystal, porcelain, and a large silver platters with various dishes. My father was friendly, in his own way, with a smile I had rarely seen within the confines of our home. My mother seemed happy, smiling as well at the Comte¡¯s lively conversation, but she stayed largely silent. The Comte was an easy man to talk to, which helped ease he tension and wariness of the situation, and he expressed many wishes of goodwill between our families. It seemed like a good match, I thought. My brother and Catherine were only a few years apart, our families both ancient and of the sword, my brother had a planned career at court and he would one day inherit. They seemed content enough when they spoke with one another, my brother asking her questions and sometimes Catherine laughing at something he had said. I was courteous but I copied my mother¡¯s comfortable silence and occasional pleasantries as I didn¡¯t want to become the center of attention. I glanced over at Catherine, the silver embroidery of her dress glittered in the warm light from the table. In some ways, she reminded me of my mother. Not because she was blonde, but because she seemed to me so effortlessly grounded and anchored in the world around her. Her face fair and clear without any cream or rouge, her hair pale without the use of much powder. She seemed to me like one of those porcelain women, perfectly pretty in every way, shining and brilliant, that one can touch and feel smoothness but no warmth, with no cracks or blemishes, only a woman made to glimmer in the center of a room ¡ª cold, expensive, and pure. ¡°Do you have a position at Court?¡± she asked me after my brother told her about his upcoming r?le as Gentleman of the Bedchamber. I hoped that she wouldn¡¯t address me, as I wanted to blend in to the furniture. I couldn¡¯t think of a thing to say. I couldn¡¯t comprehend how someone like her was the same rank as me. She rested so calm on a pedestal so far above myself that it was uncomfortable to even look her in the eyes ¡ª as if I was starting directly into the sun. ¡°No,¡± I said at first but then I felt I had to say something else perhaps I be seen as cold. I couldn¡¯t tell the truth. No, I don¡¯t have a position, or do I want one, or think I¡¯d ever have one, because I foolishly thought I would have been dead by now so I decided not to think ahead that far? ¡°I wish to work in the Ministry of Finance.¡± I don¡¯t know why I said that. Catherine gave a polite smile and my brother raised a brow at me but didn¡¯t question it. I was lucky that my father was too absorbed in his own conversation with the Comte that he couldn¡¯t comment. ¡°You must be more intelligent than me,¡± she said as she had her pistachio cream, ¡°I can¡¯t say I know anything about finance.¡± Neither do I. Though, to be fair, neither does the Minister.
Later that night, I stood by my brother¡¯s door. I had silently forgiven him for neglecting to tell me of his engagement, and I forgave him for his silence, and I decided to leave it in the past. I was happy for him. It seemed that everything was going to work out in his favor. He was going on a long and expensive trip, see many great cities, learn a great deal of things, and when he got back he would have a position at court and a wife waiting for him; afterwards a life of promotions, pensions, awards, and children. Good for him. ¡°She¡¯s very beautiful,¡± I said with a smile when he passed me by to the door, though he frowned and looked right past me, ¡°and nice as well. I¡¯m happy for you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk,¡± he said and closed the door in my face
I decided to ignore my brother and focus on myself ¡ª except there wasn¡¯t much to do. The only good thing was that my father left during the day to call on his acquaintances, and I was largely left to my own devices, but I was trapped in the confines of the h?tel. As I was unable to go riding, I became increasingly restless. Often I paced in the garden just to warm my bones. The more things change the more things stay the same.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. One evening I kept myself occupied by writing at the desk in my room. My father and mother had left to call on her family, the Valois¡¯s, and though bored and somewhat annoyed I accepted my fate of another night of lukewarm inertia. ¡°Do you want to go to the masquerade?¡± I jumped at the voice and saw my brother leaning against the doorway. I covered my papers with my arm. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Do you want to go to the masquerade?¡± he said blankly as if that was a normal question to ask me. I stared at him. As if I could just casually go to a masquerade or go to the opera or go anywhere because I didn¡¯t exactly have the kind of life childhood where I was allowed to do anything. ¡°What?¡± He crossed his arms, ¡°do you want to go or not?¡± ¡°No,¡± I scoffed and laughed. ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere,¡± I said and looked back down to my papers. ¡°Why not?¡± he said as he walked into the room, ¡°I think you will like it.¡± ¡°Why do you think?¡± He shrugged, ¡°he won¡¯t know.¡± ¡°What do you mean he won¡¯t know?¡± I said, ¡°he will know when he comes back.¡± He moved to sit in the chair next to me, ¡°likely he will be too drunk to care where we are.¡± I shook my head and kept my head down. ¡°What are you going to do instead?¡± he asks, ¡°I already got the tickets.¡± The idea didn¡¯t excite me. I hadn¡¯t been to a masquerade before, uncertain if I would even enjoy going, and my mind could already foresee what my father might do if he found out we had left without his permission - when he found out. But it was the first time my brother seemed interested in me after weeks of virtual silence. I wanted desperately to be back in his good graces. ¡°Fine,¡± I mumbled and I looked up to see him smile. I was pleased at that. ¡°A few friends of mine will be there.¡± ¡°You have friends?¡± ¡°Yes, Charles, I have friends.¡± ¡°Who?¡± ¡°You will meet them,¡± he said as went to leave, ¡°I have a few dominos we can wear, but you should change into a nicer suit.¡± He left the room with his self-satisfied air, ¡°we leave in a half hour.¡±
While I¡¯m not as simple of a provincial as some may think, there were times when I felt myself a fresh-faced girl from a convent, where I fell from the realm of normalcy and into the bellows of earth to find myself upside down in a new Babylon. I felt crushed as we pushed through the hot and dense mass of people. Women were dressed as ancient goddesses, milk maids, nuns, and shepherdess who passed around oranges from their wickers baskets; men dressed as devils, clowns, knights, and formless black figures in dark cloaks. I stayed close to my brother lest I got lost in the crowd. We went up into the lodge rented by the Duc de Brissac. The Duc and another friend of my brother¡¯s, the Comte de Foix, had already arrived. After my brother introduced me and some brief inconsequential talk, we drank some fine wine brought my the Comte. The Duc and the Comte were typical men of gilded youth ¡ª rich clothes, bright smiles, and careless manners ¡ª but there was nothing of note about either of them except for their wealth and titles. Music rose up and down from the orchestra while masked women sang. I peered down over the railing into the mess of people while I sipped on my glass. The Palais-Royal was lit by numerous large crystal chandeliers with hundreds of candles that reflected off mirrors taller than myself, pink silk embroidered with flowers draped down from the balconies, and couples danced in the center. Amazed, star-struck, and in beautiful confusion I smiled to myself as I watched the hundreds of marionettes controlled by gossamer threads dance in a vivid world of glitter and gold. So young, so happy, thoughtless, and free without a care in the whole world. I observed my brother¡¯s conversion with his friends while largely remaining silent. I saw a version of my brother that was different than how I had known him. He seemed relaxed, almost content, as the time went by in casual chatter. I saw that I didn¡¯t know much about his life outside of our family, though he barely even mentioned it. I knew that my father took him to Court, and his various trips, but I didn¡¯t know he was going to masquerades. I imagined that he was also going to operas, balls, concerts, and all the other dizzying places while I stayed behind in my solitude. As he smiled and laughed with them, my sight fuzzed and the invisible pane of glass that separated me from everyone seemed it was closing in. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you had a brother,¡± said the Duc as he leaned back in his chair. ¡°He doesn¡¯t get out much,¡± said my brother as he swirled his glass, ¡°it¡¯s his first masquerade.¡± ¡°Really?¡± said Brissac, ¡°and how do you like it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s quite the spectacle,¡± I said and glanced around at the gilded lodge to avoid Brissac''s eyes, ¡°it¡¯s very bright¡­and loud.¡± Brissac gave me a polite smile, ¡°Yes, the Duc just had his heir. He¡¯s spared no expense.¡± ¡°Is the Duc here?¡± asked my brother. ¡°I heard he was earlier,¡± said Foix. ¡°I heard he¡¯s with the Marquise,¡± said Brissac ¡°Of course he is,¡± said Foix, ¡°Spends the morning with the Missus and the night with the mistress.¡± ¡°Which Marquise?¡± I asked. The conversation stopped and Foix looked up at me before letting out a laugh, ¡°where have you been hiding him?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not hiding him,¡± said my brother as he drank, ¡°he prefers to keep to himself.¡± While I didn¡¯t like how my brother was painting me, I didn¡¯t have a response. Not much time passed before we all went down into the masses. I lagged behind, not apart of the group but not exactly excluded either, like a pitiful puppy that trailed behind a family and hoped they would accept him into their world, but I didn¡¯t know what to do. I got separated, united, and then separated again without notice and I went to drink good Madeira that never had access to before. I wondered around aimlessly. I passed by small gambling salons where men cheered or mourned their losses, dancers in extravagant costumes, men in suits of rich embroidery, and salons with banquet table and quiet conversation. I went further in the palace, which got quieter the further I walked, but found I had gone too far when I saw a couple in an amorous embrace behind a staircase which caused me to run back to whence I came. I returned to the lodge to rest and found my brother standing still at the railing, but his friends were gone. ¡°Where are they?¡± He shrugged and didn¡¯t turn around, ¡°probably have stumbled themselves into some actresses¡¯ dressing rooms.¡± ¡°How do you like it?¡± I smiled and found a seat. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± he said in his cool tone as he tapped his fingers on the railing. I waited for him to say something, anything, else but he continued to look down at the crowd. I almost laughed as my smile faded from my face. The silence grew louder and I could feel the thread that connected us thin. I didn¡¯t know why he was so distant from me again, or what I did to cause it when he was the one who invited me. I thought I must¡¯ve done something wrong and ruined it for the both of us. I searched my mind for the answer, retracing my steps since we entered the palace to find myself void of an answer. I hadn¡¯t done anything since we had arrived, so what was it? Then it all rushed to me. How stupid I was ¡ª we didn¡¯t want me there. He just didn¡¯t want me to be left alone with myself. I wasn¡¯t forgiven. I became nauseous and kept my head down. In a rare moment of boldness I wanted to confront him on his warm and cold manner towards me, but I didn¡¯t want to bring up the incident. It was all still too mortifying. I didn¡¯t know how to express what I felt ¡ª deceived and patronized ¡ª so I didn¡¯t express it at all. I brought up something else entirely. ¡°Why did you have to say that?¡± ¡°Say what?¡± he said turning his head. ¡°Act like I¡¯m some pathetic loner with your friends?¡± I said in a rougher tone than I intended, ¡°why didn¡¯t they even know I was coming with you?¡± ¡°Because I didn¡¯t know until today,¡± he said in his even voice. ¡°Why?¡± He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ¡°It is my last day home. If you¡¯re going to be upset with me over something I need you to do it elsewhere.¡± I obeyed and went quick down the stairs and into the crowds. I tightened my fists until crescents formed in my palms. I longed to smash the mirror on the wall, to push all the platters off the tables, to scream, to tear away my insides with my bare hands, but I couldn¡¯t do that ¡ª I was too good then ¡ª instead I caved into my craving to drink anything that I thought would numb me up again. I gambled all my saved money, almost lost it all, and then doubled it. All the sounds and colors blended into one as I danced with a few random women. I swirled down into the vast maelstrom, down and further down, until I suffocated and blacked out in the inevitable vortex. At the end of it all I found myself back at the lodge at midnight, picking at cold meat and peach ices that were served. I was horrible all over; my eyes burned, head heavy with a simmering pain, and my limbs ached. I wished for someone to come and bash my head in, break my nose, or bust my lip just to feel something worse. I thought I shouldn¡¯t had come at all. My last memory was of my brother helping my stumbling self into a carriage in the lamp lit early morn. The carriage jutted forward and I closed my burning eyes where the lights from the palace danced in the darkness. Chapter IV: Left for Dead If I was granted one wish it would be for everything to be exactly the same forever - except maybe my father could¡¯ve been nicer to my mother. I could¡¯ve wished for something better but I was the kind of person who aggressively let life happen to them. It was the only thing I knew. Honestly I could¡¯ve lived as I did then for another ten, twenty, or fifty years. I could¡¯ve survived my father. I could¡¯ve outgrew my childhood. I could have - if only my brother hadn¡¯t left me. In the little hours after the masquerade I awoke and getting sick. A few hours more my brother shook me from my nauseated drowse. ¡°Fuck off,¡± I groaned into my pillow. An intense headache seared into my temples. ¡°He wants to see us,¡± he said rough in my ear. I signed and rolled over. Of course he did. I was right - as always. I sat up in bed and rubbed my face and the sudden motion nauseated me even more. I steadied myself on the bed pole. I only glanced at myself in the mirror to see if I was somewhat presentable. The pink suit I fell asleep in was wrinkled and wax-stained but I didn¡¯t care. ¡°Are you going to change?¡± ¡°No - fuck no - just walk.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Stop yelling at me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not yelling.¡± My eyes burned from the early sunlight as we both stood before our father. I attempted to gauge his mood but he was never someone who I could decipher. Annoyed at my brother and myself for thinking he wanted my company I regretted inciting my father¡¯s anger over something so inconsequential. ¡°Where were you?¡± he said in his affected sang-froid. ¡°At the Palais-Royale,¡± said oddly sardonic, ¡°the Duc hosted a masquerade - we just had to go.¡± I focused my sight before me as I felt them stare at each other. I didn¡¯t want him to be punished and I wanted whatever was going to happen to end as soon as possible. Despite everything I was still willing to sacrifice myself for him - because he was my brother. ¡°It was my idea,¡± I said in a quiet but inarticulate mumble. My father barely looked at me and gritted, ¡°shut up.¡± ¡°You think you can leave as you wish? Attend such filth and send your mother into hysterics when she found the both of you gone? The disrespect you show me - show our house while you gallivant around-¡± ¡°I can do what I want.¡± I then actually wanted to kill myself as a deep silence fell down upon the room. I tried to fade the world out around me as my brother smirked and my father rose from the desk. ¡°Get out!¡± ¡°Yes Monseigneur,¡¯ I muttered and relieved to get out of the room. As I dragged myself back to my room I heard splices of two-sided yelling and insults though I didn¡¯t pay attention to the words - I was too sick to care. Of course I didn¡¯t escape his wrath either - that happened later. Neither did I escape my mother¡¯s disappointment. Once back home I had to spend many weeks begging for God¡¯s forgiveness with many visits of her confessor for whatever in her mind I got myself into that night. While I could bear my father¡¯s, her disappointment was too high of a price to pay for something that gave me absolutely nothing to begin with. After a day of many tirades from every angle imaginable I spent the rests of the day in bed. Deprived of any meals and not having an appetite I slept the rest of the evening away.
¡°Charles,¡± I heard a hushed whisper say, ¡°get up.¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Still drowsed, I didn¡¯t get up until I felt his hands on me. I jolted up and saw his face in his candle¡¯s light. ¡°Can you let me sleep for once?¡± I said - suddenly sick of seeing him showing up in my room unannounced. ¡°We need to talk,¡± he said as he put his candle down on the bedside table and sat at the end of my bed where he looked at the floor. ¡°I¡¯m leaving tomorrow,¡± he said but still not looking at me. ¡°I know that. " He hesitated and still not looking me said, ¡°I¡¯m not coming back.¡± ¡°What?¡± I said confused and slow at recent waking. ¡°I met a woman. A girl - last year when father took me to court. Elisabeth Elliot, she¡¯s the daughter of the Comte de Martigny. Her father died and she¡¯s his sole heir. We¡¯ve written and planned everything - I just need to get to Lorraine-¡± My vision faded around me and my breathing swallowed. I saw his mouth moving but I couldn¡¯t hear his words. I thought myself in an odd dream but saw no evidence of dreaming. Why? Why didn¡¯t he tell me any of that earlier? ¡°M. Nerrisonwill take me to Lun¨¦ville where we will get married.¡± ¡°How - how long have you been planning this?¡± ¡°Since last year.¡± ¡°A year?¡± He nodded and began to pace the room. ¡°Why are you just telling me this now? You could have told me this before!¡± ¡°I¡¯m telling you now, am I not?¡± he continued to pace. ¡°Please don¡¯t - please don¡¯t leave me here.¡± ¡°Charles you don¡¯t understand,¡± he said and walked to me and placed his hand on my shoulder, ¡°I need to leave and have my own life away from our father - away from this life.¡± In my confused state of jumbled questions I didn¡¯t have the capacity to ask how exactly he met her and why he didn¡¯t tell me about that at the time either. I didn¡¯t think to question how he planned on getting married in secret - if he even planned on it being secret. But in a quick flash a problem pushed itself to the forefront of my mind. ¡°What about Catherine?¡± ¡°What?¡± he scoffed and paced again, ¡°I don¡¯t care.¡± ¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°no, no you can¡¯t just leave and marry some random woman you¡¯re betrothed. We saw the Rohans - you can¡¯t just leave and dishonor her - dishonor our family. You can¡¯t just-¡± ¡°Betrothed isn¡¯t marriage,¡± he said, ¡°and I¡¯ve wanted to marry Elisabeth before our father even arranged all that.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just ask to marry her instead!¡± ¡°Because he wouldn¡¯t have agreed! Her family was only recently ennobled and not as rich as the Rohans." I rubbed my eyes, ¡°oh my God.¡± He sat down on my bed again, ¡°listen - look at me - I love her. I really do. I can¡¯t live here anymore. I¡¯m suffocating and this is the only way I¡¯m going to be happy.¡± It was that word I think - happy that melted all my inhibitions - or maybe it was that solid and determined stare that he shared with my father that said he had made up his mind and he couldn¡¯t be persuaded. In any case happiness was what I wanted to him - the only thing I wanted for myself. I didn¡¯t think of the consequences of his leaving, or the effect it would have on our family, or the disgrace it would bring. I only thought of what he wanted and I thought what he wanted and what would bring him happiness stood above so-called familial duty and honor. I took the velvet bag of money on my bedside table and held it out to him, ¡°take this if you think it will help you.¡± ¡°How much is it?¡± ¡°About 20 Louis''s" He took the bag from me and smiled sweetly, ¡°I knew you would understand.¡±
In the early morning I saw my brother off in the courtyard of our hotel. Servants busied themselves loading the carriages with the last of the luggage. My father was still too displeased to bid him farewell and was no where to be seen. My mother teared up as she hugged him - who was deeply worried about being separated from him for so long. I tried to make myself remember the exact scene - the chill air blowing his dark greatcoat as he stood in the center of the stone courtyard and the smile he gave our mother as he said goodbye as I didn¡¯t know the next time I would see him. ¡°Promise me you will be alright?¡± he said in a low voice after he hugged me. I nodded and he smiled at me. As I watched the carriage leave out into the city streets my stomach dropped. In a way I was glad - glad I did something to make my brother happy because he was my brother and I loved him. But as I felt the thread that connected us tighten more and more into sights unknown I was overcome with a dawning sensation that something had died. Chapter V: Redundant I awoke to my father¡¯s pacing in the study above me. He crossed the floor back and forth as I stared up at the ceiling. I groaned and turned over in my bed. Sometimes I could tell the kind of humor he was in based on the sound of them. That day I heard nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing had changed. My brother had been gone for a month and nothing had changed. I received no word from him since he left. I soon realized that I had no way of contacting him. He mentioned Lun¨¦ville and the name Elliot but neither of those facts gave me the confidence that a letter would reach him or if it would¡¯ve been wise to send one if he wished to stay incognito. It was all worrisome. My father was indifferent but the wait nerved my mother. She wanted to hear from him, to know he was safe, and how he was enjoying himself. A journey that long could be dangerous - bandits, accidents, or any of the other horrors that could befall the party. I tried to comfort her as best as I could as she cried on my shoulder. I would tell her that his letters must have gotten lost or delayed in some way - we would hear from him soon. In the end there were only so many excuses to make. I dragged myself awake and I knew what I had to do that morning - I had to find the gun. While all my past plans were tainted and I generally forgot that the gun existed, I had a jolting realization the night before that my father might ask for it at some point. I didn¡¯t have a good answer for him if he found out I had lost it. I found my brother¡¯s door unlocked. I made haste searching throughout the room. I didn¡¯t wish to be caught - I didn¡¯t have a good answer for that either. I rummaged through his secretaire, the shelves, behind the shelves, behind the books and inside of them, under and behind the bed, through the trunks and cabinets, and anywhere else I could imagine it could fit and cursing when I found nothing. I only thing I did find was in the drawer of his nightstand - a paper addressed to me. I no longer have the paper. In summary he wrote down the instructions on how to contact him. It was quite complicated, to avoid the risk of his location being found out in case the letters were interpreted by my father. It would go to a friend of his wife¡¯s, who lived far from where he was living. At the very end of the letter, at the bottom of the page, he wrote to not bother going through his room - the gun wasn¡¯t there. That was quite annoying. I mumbled a series of curses. Since I was already there I searched through his room more, perhaps out of spite or perhaps in case he was trying to fool me. In my light search I found various bottles of liquors between his bed and the wall which made me very much delighted. It reminded me of all the times we spent together. We had little money of our own to spend freely but at times we pooled what we had to convince one of the servants to go into town and buy whatever was cheap. There wasn¡¯t a way for us to steal our father¡¯s stash and live. The staff was discreet - but we weren¡¯t. We both spent too many nights laughing on the littered floor and wake overcome with sudden illnesses to explain ourselves. The first time, I recall, was when I was much younger. He gave me a bottle and told me that ¡°it helps¡±. He was right of course - it helped immensely. When I drink I achieve that numb sensation I consistently crave as the whole world becomes something separate from myself. If I passed out, then nothing that happened before truly happened - it was all only another nightmare. The last time we drank by his fireplace and he told me that he would take care of me when he was the Comte - which I find funny now. I took a few bottles and carried them to my room. I placed them in a trunk under my shirts before I went to make another trip. As I entered the hall I saw my father and some servants enter his room. I had forgotten - my mother told me that all the mattresses were to be re-stuffed with straw. My father preferred to loom over the servants as they worked to make sure they were working properly - as if he would know. It caused much annoyance in the staff and was, among other reasons, why most didn¡¯t stay for too long - especially the women after a month or so. Seized with some terror, I fled to my room where I closed the trunk and pulled the bottle of laudanum from under my bed. I was unsure of where to place it, other than throwing it out the window, I placed it on my bedside table. I was afraid that my father would use the opportunity to search through my room. I thought hiding it, even somewhere as common as a desk drawer, would be suspicious. If I had it on my bedside table, then I had nothing to hide. The bottles would¡¯ve been easier to explain. ¡°Why do you have this?¡± said my father as he picked up the laudanum from the table while the servants stripped the bed. ¡°Maman gave it to me,¡± I said as I stood close by. I hoped he wouldn¡¯t ask her to about it though I doubted that he would¡¯ve cared. ¡°I¡¯ve had trouble sleeping. Night-mares and such.¡± He set the bottle down as the servants continued the work. I stood there awkwardly as we both watched the servants worked.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°Do you not have anything better to do than stand there?¡± Two months turned into three and the house became more worried. My father retreated into his expressionless irritation. My mother wept. My father send letters every which way and became more snide in his comments. My mother spoke of highwaymen, carriage accidents, etc. My father wished to keep it all under wraps, not wishing for Society to know he lost his son. He knew many people and I¡¯m sure his search for information trickled down into the populace. Missing heirs were a dangerous thing. Nothing changed in my daily life enough to be of note. I only heard of his fruitless searches in small glimpses from my mother who, I am sure, kept as much from me as I did her. While I¡¯m not privy to the details of this, my father found out about the banns read in Lun¨¦ville He flew into a rage and terrorized the house for weeks. He believed I knew about it, or my mother did, or that we both knew. It took much strength on my part to keep my discretion. It was discovered that my mother was missing some of the silverware that was once part of her trousseau. That only made my father more convinced that she knew and gave it to my brother to pawn. Eventually, albeit slowly, he gave up raging at us and turned to everyone else. He attempted to get the police involved to drag him back to France and annul the marriage. He sent letters to the Duc de Lorraine and His Majesty though I suppose there was little to be done. Still foreign at the time my father could do little about it. I heard all of this piece mail from my heartbroken mother, crying on my shoulder yet again, who didn¡¯t understand how he could¡¯ve betrayed us so. How he could¡¯ve left her - her eldest gone. I don¡¯t believe she truly recovered from the shock of it. I would watch as she took many drops with a cup of wine in her breathless panic over what she did wrong and how she wished for him to be back home. It¡¯s hard enough to see women cry, but to see one¡¯s own mother cry - over something so uncontrollable - hurt my heart. While I didn¡¯t hate my brother I cant¡¯ say I particularly liked him in those moments either. My parents acted as if he was dead. Which, in a way, he was. My father practically disowned him. Sometimes my mother would barely speak of him and neither did I. When he was brought up I had a sensation that was not unlike grief, but since I have felt real grief I can¡¯t say it was that intense. It was more akin to disappointment. I can¡¯t say I was happy for him, in some unknown land doing whatever he wanted in a vastly different life from the one we were brought into. I can¡¯t say I was upset either. It was only a fact of life that washed over me like the rest. Unfortunately, it meant my father payed more attention to me. He tried to teach me how to run his estate and wealth in case my brother didn¡¯t return. He would summon he to his study, reclining in his armchair and taking snuff, while he spoke to me. He would tell me about our family, the peasantry, the rentes land, and the accounts he kept. Most days it was fine. Other days he would be annoyed at me for slowness and misunderstandings. Once, I fell asleep at my desk, exhausted and hungover, only for my father to wake me up with his fist slammed near my head. He grabbed me by the back of my coat and forced me to look at myself in the mirror as he stormed down on me about my laziness and uselessness. At least he was right - I can¡¯t say I¡¯ve ever took my life too seriously. I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. My mother came in and cooled the cuts on my face with a wet rag as she ran her fingers through my hair. We didn¡¯t say anything about it. We understood each other and that was enough. A month or so passed. The weather warmed and cleared steadily. I went riding more often in the early mornings before my lessons for the fresh air and exercise. I weaved between the trees and through the underbrush. I didn¡¯t hunt for anything as I had neither want or need. I only wished to enjoy to woods and the flowers around me. As I rode back home, I saw a small and furry grey mass in the clearing that opened to the chateau. As I rode up closer I came upon the recognizable figure of a cat, Mademoiselle - my mother¡¯s. I stared down at her, unbelieving, before I got down from the horse. I moved the car with the end of my shoe, praying on the possibility she was asleep, but she didn¡¯t move. The sight of the corpse made me sick. She had been my mother¡¯s as long as I could remember. As I child I used to play with her with my mother¡¯s ribbons. She would purr while napping in a basket at her feet as she sewed. She was a good cat, who grew old with me, who I felt was also mine. I got back on my horse to take a shovel from the stables. I didn¡¯t know where to bury her, but I wanted to get it done as soon as possible - I didn¡¯t like the image of her rotting in the sun. Only when I picked her up with the shovel to place her in her newly dug grave did I see the slash across her throat. By the time I was done I was late for my lessons but I was more worried about telling my mother - unsure how to. I found her in her apartment polishing her collection of porcelain cat figurines when I broke the news to her. Her reaction was as expected. She wished to see the grave so I took her to the small grave with a few stacked stones as marker. She dropped to her knees while she screamed and dug into the dirt with her fingers. ¡°I found Mademoiselle in the woods,¡± I told my father at dinner, ¡°she¡¯s dead.¡± My mother dotted her eyes with her kerchief. He continued to eat. ¡°One of the dogs must have got to it,¡± he said after a pause before he looked over at my mother, ¡°what are you crying over? It¡¯s just a damn cat.¡± Nothing else was said about that. I might have been jealous of my brother. I imagined that while he was alone he dreamed of leaving. Leaving him, leaving us, leaving me. He had his own life while I was still in the exact same position as I was in before despite my attempts at change. Everything would be the same forever. Unfortunately I did not have a wealthy heiress waiting on me. I resigned myself to this fact. I suppose it¡¯s like what Newton said - that an object at rest will stay at rest just as before and into eternity. Inertia loomed above me, below me, behind and before me. Unknown to me there was a greater force coming in haste for me. One that would push me into the unknown - a force named Catherine. Chapter V: The Ties that Bind Events progressed rapidly. My mother told me in the morning. I stormed out of her apartments and to my father¡¯s study. I stood there with a closed fist over the wood. My burst of anger and confidence melted as I stared at the grain of the wood. Overcome with a sickness I attempted to turn back but the door in front of me opened before I could leave. My father stood tall before me in his dark green dressing gown. His mouth turned down when he saw me. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I,¡± It took a moment for the rest to follow, ¡°I need to speak with you, Monseigneur.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± he said as he turned back into his study. I followed but stood close to the door - just in case. ¡°What is it?¡± he asked as he sat down in his red velvet chair behind his desk. I believed he already knew why I was there. ¡°Maman told me I am to marry the Mademoiselle .¡± ¡°Yes,¡± he said as he searched through the papers on the table and not looking up at me, ¡°what of it?¡± What of it? As if it was only another commonplace. As if it was nothing at all - as if it wasn¡¯t my entire life. The immense displeasure - the betrayal - of it all. That my family would all conspire against me to force an engagement without consulting me. In honest, I should have expected it. I should have - but I did not. The future wasn¡¯t something I ever looked into then. I have to say that I wasn¡¯t always as aggressively pessimistic as I¡¯ve portrayed myself to be. There were time when I had vague hopes. I¡¯ve never had any clear-cut aspirations or shooting star destinies. In my mind¡¯s eyes there existed a perfect provincial life: vast lawns, a large chateau of white stone nestled sound in a land with a never setting sun. I wished for a place where I could do as I pleased and could be completely satisfied. In my mind is where that place has stayed. It rains far too much and the blue skies turn to gray far too easily. In my visions, I didn¡¯t picture a wife for myself. Logically, I knew I would have one - somewhere, someday- like all gentlemen . I only could not see her. I couldn¡¯t imagine what she looked like, or see her next to me, or see children - also somewhere someday - running across green lawns. I was limited to the exterior of my person and couldn¡¯t cover anyone else. If I thought about it hard enough, I only saw a calm and caring presence and nothing too specific on looks or personality. I believed I could love anyone who loved me back. For Catherine specifically, I did not know her - I didn¡¯t want her. ¡°I-I don¡¯t want to.¡± ¡°I see,¡± he said in a calm voice, ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°You do?¡± ¡°Yes I understand completely,¡± he said as he continued to rifle through his papers, ¡°you don¡¯t want to help our family. Do your duty-¡± ¡°Well no-¡± ¡°Yes that¡¯s just what you said. You would rather be a lonesome hanger-on getting fat on allowances, am I correct?¡± he stared at me then, ¡°well I will not allow it. It matters not what you want. Only beasts live on through their own will and passions. No one wishes to be married. They do because their situation requires it - and we do require it.¡± ¡°How?¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t our family will be forever be disgraced in the eyes of Society after what your brother has done. Do you wish that?? For our family to fall to ruin? You might -¡± ¡°No,¡± I said in a low voice, ¡°I don¡¯t wish that.¡± ¡°Then you will marry her - it has been decided,¡± he said, " she will have a considerable dowry and there are debts to be paid. Pretty and young as well - don¡¯t look so upset it could be worse. The can get you a position anywhere.¡± I stood there. I couldn¡¯t refute it. At the same time, If my family risked ruin or needed money I did not care - my heart wasn¡¯t in it. There was no use for me to be married. I didn¡¯t want to change. ¡°If you don¡¯t have anything else to say you can leave,¡± he said, ¡°I have work to do.¡± He stood up and at that abrupt movement I turned and walked straight into the edge of the door frame. He laughed. He didn¡¯t need to lecture, raise his voice, or hurt me to scare me. A sudden movement would startle me and I would avoid meeting his eyes like a cowering well-beaten dog. Everyone wished the marriage - except for myself. My father made the official proposal to the , though only out of formality - it had been decided that my marriage to her would be the honorable thing to do. I was obliged to write a letter to Catherine apologizing for my brother¡¯s behavior and how glad I was to offer my hand to her instead, to do my duty, among other things that made me seem like the knight I wasn¡¯t.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. I met her again only once before, after our official betrothal. I found no fault in her - she was the same as she had been when I saw her last. I learned she was the same age as me and had recently left St.. It was agreed that the dowry would consist of 800,000 - paid in two installments - land worth 40,000, and a life annuity of 12,000. As her brother and father were at court, the marriage contract was even signed by His and Her Majesty. It seemed to be a quite agreeable engagement in the eyes of Society. We were married at , on August 12th of 1755. That morning, I dressed myself in a fine white silk suit heavily embroidered in silver. I adjusted the cuffs and ruffs of my undershirt in the mirror. At that point, it was the most expensive suit I had worn. I enjoyed the heaviness of the metal threads and the crispness of the linen. ¡°Very handsome,¡± said my mother when she came into the room in her grand habit. ¡°Any advice?¡± I asked. I knew that she had married my father the same age I was. ¡°No.¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°No,¡± she said as she fixed my cravat, ¡°you don¡¯t need it - you¡¯re a sweet boy.¡± In the months proceeding my marriage I thought of my father often. His violence, his aloofness, and his apathy. Sometimes I would stare at him and his off-hand and cold manner and told myself that I would never be like him - I was better. I had to be better. I told myself that I wouldn¡¯t be a bad husband. I told myself I would never be a bad person. She kissed me on the forehead, ¡°I¡¯m proud of you.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t done anything.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to - I¡¯m always proud of you.¡± As she looked at me tears welled up in her eyes. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± ¡°Nothing it¡¯s - I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m going to do without you.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t cry, Maman. ¡° I said. ¡°I¡¯ll always be here to look after you.¡± We hugged each other for a long moment. I¡¯m grateful that I still remember that moment - knowing that someone care for me - at least a little. I¡¯m glad that I still have small memories of her - long after I have forgotten what she looks like. My father entered the room and our two families met in the morning room with the other guests. The only witnesses on my side were my parents. My grandparents had died before I was born, the same with my father¡¯s brother, and my mother¡¯s sister never responded to the invitation. There were many guests on the side: Catherine¡¯s father, her uncle the Archbishop, her brother and the many different kinds of aunts and other relations. In all there were some fifty guests. The side gave gifts to Catherine - ribbons, jewels, gloves, and laces. I gifted her a complete Sevres tea service which was picked by my mother. I took Catherine¡¯s hand and we moved to the chapel. The ceremony was a long painful haze. I only wished for it to be over as soon as possible. The crowd were dressed in many colored silks and laces. Hot sun shone through the windows and the hot air suffocated me. I only wished to go through the motions - as if I was in a play and nothing was actually real. My marriage was just one of the many other things that I just let happen to me without any resistance. The faces of all the guests all looked the same to me as all the others and I paid not attention to the splendor of the ceremony. I was terrified I would stumble or embarrass myself but nothing went wrong. I knelt there at the altar with my suit stained with my mother¡¯s tears. What an odd thing it is to be married as a child of six and ten. The Archbishop , in his bright red robes, performed the ceremony. I looked over at Catherine, who was dressed well in a pastel blue gown of silver threads holding a bouquet of orange blossoms. She was beautiful, fresh and happy, but beauty only meant so much in the face of uncertainty. I did feel sorry for her but I avoided her glance. It used to be a comfort at times that I would be exactly the same forever. It was far easier. This new ideas - being married, head of a household, eventually a father. It was all unknown to me. It was as if I was blind-folded and unsure if the next ten paces stood even field or a large abyss. We listened and responded to the Archbishop as he spoke. When it was time, we joined our right hands together. ¡°I, Charles Xavier Edmond d¡¯Artois, take thee, Marie Catherine de , to my wedded wife and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God¡¯s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.¡± In the distance I heard crying. Catherine repeated the same. The Archbishop gave me the ring. I placed it on her finger, looking more towards the ground than at her directly. ¡°With this ring I thee wed with my body I thee worship and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.¡± ¡°Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.¡± After the ceremony, Catherine received kisses from all her female relatives in order of kinship and age. The two of us handed out gifts to the guests: sword knots to the men and fans to the women. The dinner began at four back at the Chateau . The rest of the night went by in a strong haze that seemed to never end. An abundance of good wine, sauces, ices, asparagus, and fish were served. Catherine gave drinks to the staff set up in the courtyard. I danced with Catherine, who was ever graceful, as well as I could. The music agitated me as an uneasiness set in my stomach as the sky darkened. By the end of the night I was thoroughly exhausted. The bed was blessed by the Archbishop while Catherine and I stood by in our nightclothes in front of our family members - which was more uncomfortable for me than could be expressed. We went to bed and the audience departed as the curtains closed. I watched my father who, I believe, was smirking. Of course I knew that was supposed to happen, it¡¯s not as if I lacked experience, but I only laid there frozen in place as the silence grew ever louder. I felt that Catherine was about to say something to me but I quickly turned to the other side of the bed and shut my eyes tight hoping to force myself asleep as soon as possible. Nothing happened. Chapter VI: King of Wands After the wedding, my father forced me to place my hands in his when he told me that he would let me live at Varlemont- my current home. A sort of ceremony which was series to him but I found both archaic and quite embarrassing for his sake. He agreed to give me the income from its environs, much larger than my allowance before, to support me and Catherine until I found a proper proper r?le for myself. The position that was supposed to be my brother¡¯s was taken by a son of another family. My father was angry and I was pleased until I realized I was once again alone in that regard. My father would expect me to do something else with my life other than just staying alive. In the meantime, I was at peace. I can¡¯t say I was happy per se but at least content. Varlemont lays not far from Arras, surrounded by woods with bright lawns, made of white Artesian stone. I¡¯ve always thought it a great misstep on his part of let me leave Calais, as this period of my life allowed me to see the situation clearer than when I was embroiled in it. The light illuminated the dark. I suppose he only did it because it was expected, or because he didn¡¯t like me, or a likely combination of the two. The first week or so I didn¡¯t know what to do with myself. In Varlemont there was strong sensation that everything was a only a soft mirage- some waking dream I conjured up to be pulled away from me at any moment. I was so used to my life before that I didn¡¯t know how to live in my new one. Calm and quiet surrounded me. There was nothing to worry about - but worry I still did. I had to find something to pass the time. In the mornings I would ride in the woods, read in my study, and work in the gardens. Under the hot sun, with my shirt sleeves rolled up my arms, I would plant trees, flowers, and other plants in the dirt. I imagined in my mind¡¯s eye what a good thing it would be to grow everything needed on the land. I imagined an ice house, repairs to the chateau itself, and a lime avenue that lead to the courtyard. The lime trees were small then but I would smile to myself at the thought of seeing them grown. At times I would sit in the garden, twirl the little flowers between my thumb and finger, and try to see the animals in the clouds. I saw then that I would grow old and die here. A place where there¡¯s nothing to worry about. I could keep my routine forever and into eternity - what a peaceful life. It was all a pleasant distraction for me. I was afraid to spend too much, as my father required that I send him a complete account of my expenses but more staff appeared around me. I hired a gardener who I would speak to in the afternoons about my plans and more men for the stables. I bought my first horse - a white horse I named Clement. I ordered more clothes - heavily embroidered silk suits and crisp linen shirts. More furnishings for the previously bare rooms - blue silks and dark wood furniture. Books filled the empty shelves of my study. Some I had brought from my room in Calais but others were from Paris, bound in blue Moroccan leather, on the sciences and nature. I would stay there going through my expenses and reading until the afternoon sun turned into the midnight moon. As long as I worked on the estate I didn¡¯t need to think of my old life and my old self. That was all only a night-mare and I lived in the real world. No longer a child - married, living on my own estate, with my own money. Of course nothing was actually mine - it was all my father¡¯s. His estate, his money, and his marriage that he had forced me in. But I could forget that because he was far away - and how calm I felt outside of his gaze. I received a few letters from him during that time, but what about do not know because I promptly threw them into the fire. I would think back on my previous life as if through a looking glass. I could physically remember my past but it had no effect on me, as if I was looking upon a painting or remembering a far off dream. I couldn¡¯t connect to that previous life of mine. While a minor part of my mind constantly thought about the things I had seen, the larger ignored. When I did reminisce on my memories I would wonder what was wrong with me - I had no cause to think or act that way. I only had to wait. I though all my previous antics and emotions so dramatic and so nauseatingly immature that it made me sick to think about. In a way, I looked down at my small self and thought myself better, older, and mature. My memories and that old self of mine all lived apart from me. There were still some problems of course. The first was that I still had to live with Catherine. To be fair, there has never been anything wrong with her. In the eyes of everyone, I should¡¯ve liked her from the start - she¡¯s pretty, fair, graceful, and noble. The problem was that there had always been everything wrong with me. Most of the time she was another faceless wraith that floated around the exterior of my vision who I never needed to think of as a person of consequence. I would wake up much earlier in the mornings so I didn¡¯t have the chance of facing her. I decided that I was obligated to see her only at supper, which - to the surprise of no one- only became more awkward as time went on. I knew I had to support her, which was fine, but my solution to the anger I had towards the marriage forced on me was to pretend I wasn¡¯t married at all. She only lived with me. I would respect her as a separate person and I preferred that person¡¯s life stayed separate from mine. At the risk of defending myself, I didn¡¯t completely ignore her - I wasn¡¯t necessarily trying to. I only didn¡¯t know her, or what to say around her, or how to act around her, and I was otherwise occupied. I was so used to only speaking with my family and while that wasn¡¯t always pleasant at least it was what I knew. This new person, Catherine, was something else entirely. As we took our supper, in vast silence dotted with cordial conversation, I would realize that I couldn¡¯t read her. Was she pleased or unhappy? She seemed pleased. Sometimes she would smile as she spoke to me but if it was sincere I could not tell. There was something that annoyed me in her graceful satisfaction and fashionable dress - I had no idea what she was to be pleased about. Sometimes I wished she would do something to make me dislike her, so I would have something to complain about, or - better- that she would hate me.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. After the wedding, I stayed in Paris for a few weeks before going back north. We kept separate bedrooms and I never ventured into hers. I spent more time with her family but they were all as elusive to me as she was. All strangers - all of them. Every moment stranger than the last. How false I was in a position I didn¡¯t belong in. The Rohans existed in a Society that wasn¡¯t made for me - someplace they all existed in at ease that I had no want or need for. A Society where everyone always knew what to say, how to behave, and how to integrate to their proper place in the mass of others. The only thing I got from it was embarrassment. ¡°How are you faring?¡± I asked Catherine one day across the table - a half hour too late. ¡°I¡¯m well, Monseigneur,¡± she said back in her usual pleasing tone which I found false, ¡°and you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m just Charles - no need to use vous with me,¡± I said as I moved food around with a fork on my plate. A moment passed before I remembered I had to reply. ¡°I¡¯m well.¡± ¡°I received a letter from my brother,¡± she said, ¡°he asks we come to court soon.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°For my presentation.¡± Blank. ¡°To Her Majesty.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± I had forgotten In truth, the last thing I wanted was to spend another excruciating journey with her - I had only barely returned back from the last one. It had only been a month or so. ¡°Yes - once we¡¯re settled.¡± Whatever ¡°settled¡± meant. I had no intention of ever returning to Paris. I had no need to leave Varlemont - I had everything I needed. I hoped she would busy herself with whatever it was she did to pass the time and forget about it. ¡°I miss him sometimes,¡± as least we had that in common, ¡°and Papa.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± The second problem were the night-mares. I had always had them, far and few between, but they began anew only a few days after I arrived in Varlemont. Many times I would wake shaking in a cold sweat and not remember why. Other times I had the same dreams over and over again. There was one where I would stand in a similar, but not the exact same, bedroom as the one I have. I would walk through the large white and blue paneled halls, content and unbothered, until I felt a sudden urge to flee. I would try to find a way outside but as I tried I would only walk through more drawing rooms, bedrooms, studies, antichambres, and stairs where I never saw an exit. Panic would set in, trapped as I was, and that odd sensation would come back over me - and at that dawning sensation I would wake up. Of course other times I dreamed of my father - the things he did to me. Sometimes I dreamed of my mother. I had many dreams of me screaming at him while he sat unbothered at his desk, expression blank, as I pleaded for him to look up at me, to notice me, but he would only lay back in his chair and take snuff. Strangely, I also dreamed of my tutor, my first one, who was fired when I was eight after a disagreement with my father. I saw myself clutching onto his leg as he left me forever. Needless to say, I also had trouble sleeping. I thought about using the laudanum but holding the bottle seemed intensely wrong. In the darkest hours of the night, I had that odd sensation again, something akin to homesickness. I didn¡¯t miss my father, or my old home, or my old self. Memories of my past life would give me such a mortification that it kept me up. Yet I missed my mother, and my tutor, my studies, and how I always knew what to do and where I had to be - when I was still a child and still had my mother. I would lay there as the summer night air came in from the windows and feel such as sickness - a sickness knowing that my mother was still there and she would never be safe. A sickness knowing I was still small and wishing I wasn¡¯t. A sickness when I wished I had nothing to worry about at all. I attempted to ignore it and try to sleep but I found myself pacing in my rooms, in my study, in the halls - thinking about her there, missing her, and how much I felt I needed to flee. I only had to go back home - but I didn¡¯t want to go home. I didn¡¯t even know what my home looked like. It was difficult to make a home out of place where around every corner, every chair, and every hall I saw the dark shadow of my father. A home where I would also hear her - screaming in the middle of the night. But the mornings came. I smile at the tree lined horizon, when I see the garden bloom, as I ride through the trees, as I fall asleep to the pattering of the rains on the window, and when I look at my wife because it¡¯s mine - it¡¯s all mine. Somewhere there is a light - I can outrun my childhood - I only have to run fast enough. If only I can do that then I can be content. If I can be content then I can be happy. Every other second I think of the things that happened to me, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, but how little that matters when contrasted to my surroundings - my artificial life. My life of hot summer light, fresh flowers, and bright green grasses. No matter what happens, no matter the circumstances of my situation - I will make my peace in these weeds. Chapter VIII: Disenchanted Days passed. Weeks. Months. Summer ended. An earthquake struck Lisbon. Events passed by but I felt no different. I was as ¡°settled¡± as I could be; Varlemont was properly furnished, the land well kept, and all my distractions faded. I had nothing to do, nothing to say, and nothing to think. I had to face reality and my reality was this: I was alone. I had received no word from my brother, who I assumed was content wherever he was, which annoyed me. I wasn¡¯t worried much for his safety but his silence bothered me. It had been months since I last saw him. We all knew of of his elopement so what was he waiting for? My father had made his attempts to drag him back home. I thought of writing a letter to him myself, and I spent much time pondering what to say, but I did not trust the staff enough to do so. He could¡¯ve written to our mother and what harm could¡¯ve come from that? We knew where he was. It¡¯s possible my father keep his letters from me. At the time I believed so. I still choose to believe that. It makes my present situation less painful. Or more - I haven¡¯t yet decided. I only had Catherine for company - which was poor. As the weeks passed, she spoke more freely of Paris and Court. Her Majesty had a son; we should go to the Opera, the ballets, or walk the gardens of the Tuileries. Madame de X hosts a salons in the Marais; her brother received a promotion; her aunt told her this; and a friend that. It all annoyed me. I had no care for any of it. She could¡¯ve told me that Our Saviour himself was seen walking on the Seine and I wouldn¡¯t have cared enough to leave the island I had built for myself. I missed my mother terribly. I worried for her as for the first time in my life we were separated. The space between use widened with time. I paced around my room for hours as I thought of her. I knew she wasn¡¯t happy and certainly not safe. At times it was easy for me to forget her. At other times I became sick to my stomach from the guilt that came with my idleness. I was safe, in a sense, but she was so far away, encased in stone, suffering and silent, somewhere between dead and alive. Those thoughts of mine kept me far into the night. I thought of my brother returning, I thought my mother would weep tears of joy and forgive him, and we would live together like we once did, but much happier than before. I thought my brother and I would laugh, fence in the courtyard, and ride our horses in the woods like we used to. I could see my mother again and speak to her without any of the dark burdens that plagued us. The sun would shine, the flowers would bloom, and somewhere in there I would be happy too. That was the only thing I wanted. The only thing I truly want. There was only one person I never saw in those daydreams on mine - the one obstacle. If he were gone - though I can¡¯t say I imagined killing him much then - say of some common illness or odd accident then that would all come true. My brother would return; why wouldn¡¯t he? My mother would sage and happy; why wouldn¡¯t she? I would be happy myself; why wouldn¡¯t I? I would step from the shadows and the sun would shine on my family once again. There would be nothing left to do other than return to a childhood of domestic bliss and simplicity I longed for. One where my father would never darken the corners of my mind. One where he would be forgotten, where he never existed in the first place. I could return to the easy life I had when I always knew who I was and where to be. I could stay exactly the same forever; I could be free. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I had to do. I can¡¯t remember when I decided to kill my father. I had no sudden epiphany. No direct cause and effect. He only became far removed from me. He was only another person. As long as he did not bother me, I was content. As long as I was away, he was not a person I had to deal with. I still clung to the child¡¯s fantasy that he was someone to respect; in the depths of his soul he was a man of reason, and he only did what he thought best. That image in my mind, when I looked up at my father from my low station, crumbled to the ground after sixteen long years because I saw him clearly from the distance. I suppose I had always wanted him dead, but much like my violence to myself, it was not ignited by violent passions. In truth, I only wished him gone and that was the end of it. I received word from my mother to go back to Calais. Catherine smiled brightly in her boudoir when I told her the news. The journey was not a terribly long one but my heart raced the whole way. It had been too long - some two months - since I had last seen her. The presence of the letter itself worried me and throughout the whole journey I wracked my brain trying to figure out why she needed me there. The carriage moved far too slowly and my nerves allowed me no rest. Relief came over me when I saw the faded white facade of the chateau come to my window. The stagnant air oppressed me. We rode past the dead grass and the scare staff that wondered the grounds in their greys. I became sick to my stomach as the carriage rode closer. I stood in the courtyard gazing up at the large mediaeval tower and the dirtied windows. A cold wind rustled the trees but it was still largely silent. It was an odd feeling of being somewhere so familiar yet no longer mine. I had only been gone for mere months but it seemed I had been gone a decade. Nothing had changed there and it was no longer a home of my own. I held out a small bouquet of dried daises, her favorite which I picked from my gardens, to my mother as she stood by the window of her salon, ¡°I brought these for you.¡± ¡°Ah, lovely!¡± she said as she took the flowers in her arms and smiled. ¡°Henriette? Find a vase for these.¡± She gave the flowers to the maid. I studied her for signs that something was wrong. I thought there had to be a reason she wanted me there, but I saw nothing. Despite her usual fatigue and languidness, she seemed fine and dressed well in a lavender gown for dinner. I wasn¡¯t very convinced, and seeing her again made me ill. I knew where she was and who my father was and I could not escape the sensation that I had abandoned her. I had been solitary, too selfish, to think about her. I should¡¯ve come back sooner but I didn¡¯t. I should have. It has always been a great regret of mine. ¡°I grew them in my gardens,¡± I said. ¡°it¡¯s been coming along nicely.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± she said as she cast her eyes down into the gray courtyard stone below. ¡°There¡¯s no flowers here now. Mine¡¯s barren.¡± The gardens were well trimmed but lacked any of the organic foliage I have in Varlemont. My father was partial to the forests, the game, and the chase. He never worried about the gardens other than to the extent everyone else did. Some time ago he bought a gardener from Paris to make something up in the new fashion but he was let go and the gardens had not been well kept since. ¡°I can send my gardener,¡± I said, ¡°there¡¯s always next spring.¡± "Mayhaps¡± she said in a low voice as she turned back towards me, ¡°you should give some to Catherine.¡± ¡°I have.¡± I wasn¡¯t lying. ¡°How is she?¡± I didn¡¯t have a true answer. At no point in the months that passed did I know what she was feeling. ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Happy?¡± ¡°I suppose.¡± She tilted her head at me, ¡°and you?¡± ¡°I am,¡± I said. Not a lie, but not the truth either. She sat at her small table and held out her arms to me. ¡°Come here.¡± I stepped toward her and held her hands in mine. That was something she did when she wished to say something serious to me. There was a sad glint in her eyes. "I want you to know that your happiness is all I wish for," she said as she squeezed my hands. "I need you to be honest with me." "Alright." I wavered. "I know that-" We both turned at the sound of my father walking through the doors. I never learned what she wished to say to me. I was seated next to Catherine at supper. The salon had more candles, porcelain, crystal, and staff than on a usual day, but that orchestrated sophistication did not add a new shine to what I knew. The room was still drafty, the windows turned black with the night, and once again I found myself back at the same table with my father. He sat at the head, stoic and unbothered, drinking from his cup as servants set down the silver platters. I kept my eyes down. I only had to let the time pass, and eventually I would be back home. His mere presence annoyed me. I feared he would say something or look at me in a certain way, which would anger me. His voice grated in my ears, but I kept as cordial as I was able. His tone, which I once thought of as authoritative, became cold, sardonic, and haughty. I noticed how much he ate compared to everyone else, how much he drank, and how much he seemed to please himself. Did he not realize no one else was amused? It was the only time when we were all obliged to be together. I doubt he cared if we were comfortable doing so. At least no one could say he completely neglected his family. The night wore on, but the clock turned back in time. In a few mere hours, I had become a child again. I settled further into the tar to struggle and suffocate. I saw then, as I stared at him and as he drank in his careless apathy, that as long as he lived on, I would grow only to return to exactly where I began. I never escaped. I ran, only to find my past right in front of me. "Your wife is very pretty tonight," said my father to me. "Tell her how pretty she is." Suddenly, I had a severe migraine. "Yes, very pretty," I muttered, only half glancing at her. She gave me a girlish, blushing smile, which embarrassed me. "It''s about time we had a younger woman here." I decided not to acknowledge that. "So," he started up again after I didn''t answer, "how is married life?" "We''re well." I didn''t wish to give him any more details about my life than I was obliged to. "He''s been gardening," pipped up my mother with a conversational smile, "brought me flowers today." "Ah, I see." I hoped that was the end of that. "Too busy planting seeds in your garden, but not your wife-" What he said after that, I do not know. I had since stopped listening. I saw his mouth move, but I heard nothing as a disgusted, hot rage rose inside me. If it was a comment he made to me alone, I might have brushed it off like all the other snide, insulting comments he enjoyed seeing my reaction to. Except we weren''t alone. We were at dinner. In front of my mother, in front of Catherine. That comment alone might have filled me with more anger than anything else he had said to me in my life. Wide may have been the abuses I was willing to tolerate from him, abuses I would justify in my own mind, but she was someone new, someone good, and someone I did not wish to see sink down into the tar with the rest of us. And he just kept talking. "My God," I said in a low voice, "can you just shut up?" His eyes sharpened. A silence rested between us. A silence which grew louder as I braced myself for whatever was going to happen next. I didn''t regret it. I stared at him, expecting him to make his next move. I was ready. Only seconds later, his face softened as he laughed. "Don''t be so emotional," he chuckled and smirked. "I was only joking." Oh, how badly I wanted to bash his face in for that. Dinner ended quite abruptly after I walked away without saying a word. My mother, followed closely by Catherine, berated me to apologize in the nearby hall. I did not wish it, but I agreed only if I could wait until morning. I could not handle speaking with him anymore that night. "I apologize for his behavior," I told Catherine outside our adjoining guest rooms, "and mine." But she only gave me a shy, uncertain smile and fared me goodnight. I did not sleep. I stayed wide awake, pacing as I did, as the night progressed. If he wished to see me again, I would be ready to do so. I was too busy thinking to sleep anyway. I sat on the floor, my legs up to my chest, at the door that led to Catherine''s. I stared off into the moon-dark room, and my thoughts wandered. It was far from the first time he disgusted me, so I didn''t know why I was so angered. Was it because I no longer feared him? No matter what happened, I would go home eventually. He was no longer a person of my present, a living anachronism far removed from me. A man who kept me from the life I wished to live and the life my family could have. One where I would never have to return to Calais. I perceived before me that my mother and brother could stay with me in Varlemont, and we could have all been very happy then. I closed my eyes and imagined the past summer, when the sun was still bright, when the smell of the roses from the garden came in from the windows. I had left my true home to find myself once again listening for sounds on the other side of a door. Morning came through the curtains. I met with my father in the hall outside his apartments. Catherine, whom I asked to accompany me, stayed silent by my side. "My apologies, Monseigneur; I had been drinking." That wasn''t true. After the wedding, I promised myself I would refrain from drinking except, of course, at supper and sometimes at night. "I find you might empathize." He looked hard. I smiled. He brushed past. I often pondered why he never retaliated against me. Though I have a guess as to why, it was Catherine. Despite being my wife, she was still a Rohan, a part of a large, extensive family with connections to Court and Society. If he were to mistreat me or anyone in my family, with her witness, she could easily tell her family of it. As her father-in-law, I suppose he had some rights over her, but my father wasn''t a fool. His worst fear would be that his good name would be ruined in the eyes of his peers, the only people who mattered, who saw him as a noble man of reason. I decided that for the rest of my time in Calais, he would not find me without her. I thought it best we left later that morning. I helped Catherine into the carriage before I turned back towards the tall gray tower. I blocked the sun''s rays with my hand as I gazed into one of the windows. The cold wind blew, and under the dim glass, I saw my mother watch over me. I smiled and waved. My father came into view to her left. My smile dropped. I can never stop thinking of her. In the depths of night, in moments of silence, and in moments of distraction, I see her again. I see again the things my father had done to her, and I feel again the guilt I have knowing that he''s still connected to me despite the time and distance. The guilt of knowing she is still trapped forever in the past, silent and suffering, pleading and begging, awake and unconscious, both dead and alive. I sense a near void where she once stood. Before my very eyes, I perceive her, and as I run into my ink black horizons, she is the white luminescent wraith that haunts me. When I hold my wife''s hands, I feel hers-lithe and cold-against my own. When I look up at her portrait, I see her for who she is. My past and my present. She is everything I could''ve been and everything I am. Yet there she was, sinking still, and I, her son, had left her there. It was my duty to protect her and my responsibility to make her happy. There was nothing I could do when I was young and small, but I was then a man grown. I had options. I had plans. I may have escaped in my own way, but I could not leave her, not with him, never again. In my moments of anger, I imagined pushing him down the stairs so he would break his neck, of slipping into his room at night and suffocating him with a pillow, or of taking one of his pistols and shooting him directly in the forehead. But in reality, it wasn''t a simple thing. A son murdering his father is just as sinful as killing His Majesty or Cain murdering Abel. If I were to succeed, no amount of water would cleanse me. For the rest of my life, I will walk the world as a man damned and when I pass, my soul will burn forever into eternity. In my dreams, I saw myself walking up to the gallows and the executioner''s sword gleaming in the afternoon sun. I preferred to keep my head on my body. If my family was going to be together again I had to be alive to see it, so being sent to the gallows would''ve been quite counterproductive. My father dying of some odd accident or illness in the near future did not seem in the sights. He was still quite young and healthy, with no problems with his health as far as I knew. In the mornings, he would go on walks around the estate, ride, and hunt with no signs of slowing. If I were to follow the natural course of things as God intended, I suspect he would''ve had quite a long life. If he were to die, preferably sooner than later, there was one option I could think of: I had to poison him. At night, I stared at the bottle on my nightstand. The candlelight flickered from the glass. I had to ask myself: would it be worth it? When I thought of myself, I believed it wasn''t. When I thought of my mother, I believed it was. A life without her wasn''t a life I wished to live, and as time grew, my mind conjured up dark thoughts on how he must have been treating her. I jolted awake in the small hours, and as I stared into the darkness of my room, my blood boiled again within me, and I prayed for him gone. He was the perpetual leech that robbed me and my family of our lifeblood. I could never be happy if he was alive, never safe; he would always be there lurking. In the corners of my room, behind my shoulder, and inside the depths of my mind. But in that darkness, I also saw the figure of my mother that I had long reached for. She was my comfort; she was everything I had known; she was the anchor in the restless bashing waves and crashing thunder; and she was the one I cared for-the first woman I truly loved. I would damn myself for eternity for her, as long as I knew she was at peace. I would smile and laugh at the flames, and as I burned, that knowledge would be my solace, and her happiness would become my own.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. So, to answer the question of why I decided to kill my father, I only have to say this: I can''t say I did it for me. I received word from her again. I was slower to respond as I had little time to recover from my last visit, and I had no wish to call again, but I did. I pondered the ways I could''ve poisoned him, but none seemed smart or possible. I thought of some poisonous plant in his food. I must have had a book somewhere with some information on it. But only the kitchen staff in the small outbuildings were near any of the meals prepared, and they would find it odd if anyone in the family, outside of my father, ventured there. Even if I found myself some pretext, there would be no way of being certain I wouldn''t also poison myself or anyone else in the process. For the same reasons, I could do nothing in the wine cellar. The only place I could possibly have access to without arousing suspicion was my father''s study. He drank the most in the depths of night, when he found his rage, and after the mornings I would see the bottles that littered his desk. If the drinking caused his rage or only intensified it, I do not know. Some of the worst things he did to us happened then. He was often calmer the day after, unsure if it was exhaustion or repentance, until he became increasingly agitated. Then the cycle repeated. I only had to poison one of the bottles in his cabinet. How I did not know. I couldn''t open a bottle there and easily close it. I had the expensive wines and liquors in my own study. There were many possible plants I could''ve used, but I feared any peculiar or violent symptoms would give me away. I had only the laudanum. I thought that if he drank the bottle during one of his drink bouts, his physician would think he died like all other drunks do. This plan left a good margin for error. I knew there was a chance he would never drink it. There was also the chance I would have to wait days, weeks, or months for my plan to be realized. The flaws did not worry me much. Once I gave him the bottle, it would be out of my hands, and I found I preferred it that way. It would be up to God at that point. I would not have to be the sole executioner. I could''ve never killed him as directly as I sometimes wished I could; he was still my father after all. If we were to die, I did not want Catherine to accompany me. Which was a task I found more difficult than my decision to kill him in the first place. She did not understand why I didn''t want her to come with me, and I didn''t have a good enough answer. She relented eventually, with some tears, but I believe seeing my father dead would''ve been worse for her. The one thing I hated about my plan was that it required I waste a good Burgundy on him. In my study, I took a bottle, poured the laudanum, and re-corked the bottle. That was it. It was quite simple. It seemed quite low-risk-a thought that may seem callous. Which it is-because I am. "I''ve brought this for you," I said with a disarming smile as I stood in his study. I was not comfortable being in the same room with him, but it was a risk I needed to take. No one needed to know I gave him anything. He took the bottle from my hands, stared down at it, and huffed. "Cheap." I supposed I had failed. He set the bottle on his desk with a thud. "Have you brought your accounts?" "Yes," I muttered, and I handed him a stack of papers detailing my expenses since I moved to Varlemont. He sat in his chair and studied the papers for some time. "five hundred livres a month to your wife?" "Yes." He shook his head. "You will spoil her." Like I cared. We sat for supper for the last time in the same salon we always did. I stared at my father from across the table for the last time. My nerves heightened. I feared he would try to anger me yet again. I didn''t eat anything for fear of shaking, so I only drank. "Where is Catherine?" asked my mother. "In Varlemont," I said, "she''s ill." "Oh! Is she alright?" "Yes, she''s fine; it''s, um," I said. "It''s nothing serious." "You should be there with her." "It''s fine, truly." "With child?" asked my father with his brow raised. I paused, "unlikely." He did not like that and did not speak to me again during the rest of our last supper. Though I had long since stopped caring. It was not my responsibility to please him. Instead, I spoke with my mother about things too small and inconsequential to remember now. It was quite peaceful, actually. The few candles on the table burned low and reflected off the crystal in the cold night. I had almost forgotten. It was only me and my mother. He was no longer someone I worried about; he was dead already. After a few hours, my father stood up from the table, saying nothing. "Father?" I said. He stared at me for the last time. "Goodnight." I had no knowledge that he would actually go to his study and drink the wine I gave him, but I liked the dramatic effect in any case. I decided there that no matter what happened, I would never see him again. I retired to bed and for the first time in a long while I fell asleep without thinking. I awoke in the early hours to the screaming of a maid. I pushed myself out of bed, tangled in the sheets, and dressed with haste. I made my way, dazed and confused, through the mass of servants that congregated in my father''s study. They shrunk away to make room, and before my eyes, I saw him. I stared down at my father. He seemed to be asleep, his head on his desk, and the bottle I gave him next to him had, thankfully, many other kinds. Frozen, I stayed, my mouth agape, not believing what was true. That''s it then, I thought, my nerves uneasy, but I said nothing. I could feel the staff look up at me for directions, but I could not find a word to say about it. The maid who screamed was still crying in the room somewhere. Was I supposed to say something? Was I supposed to cry? Or yell? I didn''t know. I didn''t think of it. I did not really expect him to die that day. I had not prepared myself for my reaction. I only stared at him, at his pallid face, and my mind could not believe that in a world of immense possibilities, our fate is determined by only one thing: the power of coincidence. I began to say something, but my voice wavered. A figure of white linen and silk came in with a cry, "My God! Don''t just stand there! Move him to the divan! Call Monsieur Charlett!" A few servants moved his body, limp and lifeless, to the divan. My mother stood near him, still in her dressing gown and her loose un-powdered hair past her shoulders. She called his name, and nothing he said. What''s the point? I thought. I was frozen. I only observed. People rushed around me in an air of thick molasses. The edges of my vision were blurred. I breathed slowly. I saw his mouth had a blue hue, which I found odd, and I realized something horrific-he was still breathing. I ran out of the room. I shook and ran my hands through my hair as I paced up and down the hall. He wasn''t dead. He would live. What then? My skin tensed. What was I to do? He couldn''t live. He couldn''t. My mother''s face came before my own, breathless, telling me something, but what I did not comprehend. She hugged me, and for a time, which could have just as well been eternity, unaware of myself, I sobbed hot tears into her shoulder. It would take at least an hour for his physician to arrive; would he be dead by then? What if he wasn''t? How long would it take? I did not know, but the questions repeated in my mind. It was this uncertainty that made me faint. I only wished for him to die quickly and with ease, but it was much, much more sickening than I saw in my mind''s eye. I would have to suffer along with him until the end. After I calmed, I trailed behind my mother back to my father''s study. My father lied there on the divan in his great purple chamber robes, the ruffles of his shirt puffed out, his skin more pallid and gray than only moments before. With the room quiet, I could hear the slow, labored breathing he made. Servants dashed around doing God knows what until the physician arrived. Do they know? I gazed around the room. No one looked at me strangely and seemed to ignore my existence. Everyone was too busy to have any suspicions, and, after all, what did it look like? It looked like my father, known for his excessive drinking, drank far more than he thought he could handle. In the worst-case scenario, if his physician discovered he took laudanum, there was no way to know it was malicious. Who would even have the will to kill him? Me? No, not sweet and harmless Charles. No one would suspect a thing. But, unknown to anyone else, spiteful and resentful Charles could do anything he wanted. My mother knelled next to the divan and held his hand. His mouth seemed to move, trying to say something, but nothing came out. I became nauseous. It was not what I intended. I did not want him suffering for hours; though he may have deserved that, I did not want to wait and linger for an uncertain future. I only wished him gone. I could not stay in that room for long, watching him grate for air, so I left down the stairs and went outside to the courtyard. I got sick on the stones, and as I looked up, I saw a carriage in the distance move down the avenue. I cursed under my breath and went back inside. I did not respect Mr.Charlett enough to be the one who greeted him. The geriatric man examined my father, still alive but unresponsive, where he still lied. The room smelled of vomit from the purgatives and the vinegar used to clear the air. I never knew why my father trusted a man like Monsieur Charlett, an insipid, decrepit man with more matter than brain, to be his physician. He said something in his common pedantic, drawn-out tone, shaking hands to my mother to say things we already knew. It always seemed to me that Monsieur Charlett always told my father what he wanted to hear and was paid well for it. I hoped he would tell me what I wished to hear as well. I went back out and paced the halls yet again to get myself out of the way. Waiting, wondering, and watching. Servants rushed to and from the large, dark doors. Was I supposed to be doing something? I didn''t know. What was I supposed to say? It seemed well handled. My mother slipped from the doors a half hour later. "What is it?" "Oh, it''s horrible," she said, shaking her head as she clutched a handkerchief. "He won''t be able to take confession." "What did he say?" "He says he did everything he could, but he is scarcely breathing now." She said, "Come, the priest will be here soon." "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion; but rid me, and deliver me in thy righteousness; incline thine ear unto me, and save me-" The air became hot and stagnate from all the people. My mother and I knelt in the room as the priest rehearsed his prayers. I muttered the words, but I did not think of prayers but only myself. I prayed for the suffering to end. I prayed that my fate did not end in the gallows. In an odd way, I felt myself in a sort of odd peace for the first time that day. Time stood still, and there came over me a solemn knowledge that everything happened for a reason. I had nothing to worry about. This was always meant to be. God himself had willed it. "Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the ungodly, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man-" I opened my eyes and stared at him yet again. It''s not meant to be this way. In my mind''s eye, I always had more time. I wished to have time with him alone, but his blue-gray face made it seem he would pass before I got the chance. "For thou, O Lord God, art the thing that I long for; thou are my hope, even from my youth-" I had to speak with him. I had to. I had to say something. I had only one chance to do so freely, but there were so many people in the room. In my mind, there were far fewer people, far less fuss, and it was all much simpler. "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: a world without end. Amen." "Amen," said my mother and I as we crossed ourselves. I rose to be at my father''s side. I knelled next to him and felt his hand in mine, ice-cold and limp, and his eyes stared off, unseeing somewhere before him. His lips no longer quivered, but his breathing remained shallow. There were many times I thought about what I would say to him on his deathbed. There were many times in my youth that I imagined him awake; he would hear me as I screamed at him and ranted on all the reasons I hated and despised him. I would scream at him that it was me, his own son, his blood, who killed him, and he would look at me with horror, and for once in my life, I would be in control. But he wasn''t looking at me. He was looking nowhere. Even if I said anything, he would not hear me. He never did. He would never know how much he hurt me. He never cared. He only laid there, a ton of flesh slowly withering into the corpse he would become. It was so intensely sickening and so horrifically unsatisfying that I almost wished he would recover just so I could kill him again and make it worth it. I rubbed his hand with my thumb as a tear rolled down my cheek. I opened my mouth to say something-what I do not know now-and from his mouth came a faint croaking groan. "Father?" His chest stopped moving. The room no longer hung to the sounds of his breaths. He was gone, and left was the silence. "Father?" My heart twisted and deflated. When he died, I thought I would be able to feel the ground sigh under my feet. A great peace would come over me. The clouds would blow away and expose the warm sun. But there he was, dead and dying, and I felt nothing at all. There was no change. The ground remained just as fragile as before. "And teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own creation is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom." "Monseigneur?" I did not realize the servant was speaking to me. "Monseignuer?" "Yes?" I said, and the servant continued on. Something about the constable had arrived. I wiped my tears with the back of my hand. My mother cried in the distance. "Yes, of course." The servants hurried around the estate. My mother and I met with the constable in the drawing room, an outdated room of the last century barely used as my family wasn''t the kind who often received people. My father disliked the local nobility and despised anyone lower so there were rarely guests. The constable sat in the chair before us. My mother sat near me, drying her tears with her handkerchief. Can''t this wait? I thought. He was a man older than myself, similar in age to my father, with an authoritative air to him. He listened to my mother, who spoke the most between us, and he silently wrote something down in his papers. What was he writing? I so wanted to know. He obviously drank himself to death-why the need for such fuss? I told myself it was only a formality. It needed to be done, but I felt he could see right through me. My mother recounted everything we already knew. She was awakened by the screaming maid and by the rest of the household rushing to my father''s apartments. I agreed and recounted the same. The last time she saw him well was when he took his leave from supper. I also agreed. "Did Monsieur le Comte drink before supper?" "Yes," said my mother, "I noticed he had much before he retired for the night." I did not notice that. "Is it often? Or only last night?" "Some nights," she began, but she stopped herself and said in a low voice, "every night." "How much? What kind?" "Forgive me, Monsieur; I do not know," she began. "I am a lady. It would be improper to concern myself with such things." "I see," he said. He nodded and wrote something. "Do you know, Monseigneur?" "He''s partial to wine at supper," I began, "gin at night." He nodded and continued to write. I do not recall the rest of the questions, but it was over before long. The constable only stood up and took his leave. I could not read if he was satisfied or not. My mother looked over at me and departed from the room. The rest of the night, people moved to and fro, and I recall little of it. I only stayed near my mother, trying to comfort her, and she cried in bed. I stayed in Calais for three days before my mother convinced me to go back to Varlemont to tell Catherine. And that was the extent of it. That is how I killed my father. I''ve never regretted it. I never cry myself to sleep at night thinking about him. My father was a cruel man, a fact about himself I believed he enjoyed, though it took me this long to realize it. Even after I killed him, I thought there was still a good version of him that I killed, but I know that all his terrible selves were the extent of him. They all blended together into one great muck. He was never a man I loved, though I often wish I did. In truth, I never knew him. I don''t believe anyone has. I never heard of him speak of his childhood even once, of his father, or anything else about himself. The only thing I know is that his father died a few years after he married my mother; his mother died when he was ten; and his little brother died at eight. He never spoke of it. I know little of my family''s line because of him. He had no memories. I suppose he wanted that. He wanted to be an empty vessel. A force only defined by how it exerts itself. I don''t even see him as a real person with real emotions, memories, and dreams. He is, and always has been, just my father. How cold, serious, and silent was he. I believe it might be our family curse-our extreme penchant for apathy. It might have started with my father, or his, or all the other fathers down into the mists of time. I suppose nothing matters when one is wealthy. Everything else has been predestined. You enter a noble profession, take a wife selected for you, have an heir and spare, and live your life fitting your station with the respect you deserve. That is all. There is nothing else to care about. It is this coldness, this carelessness, and this numbness at the end of our skin that have destroyed our family the most. Other houses may rise and fall, but we shall continue yet, not through intrigue or wealth but because, through the centuries, we are the men who idle. We wander and search desperately for the satisfaction we crave, hoping that one day we will be better, wiser, stronger, and honorable men, only to become another name to add to a long line of faces that all look exactly alike. We may think ourselves different, we may think that our generation is better than the last, but there are some wheels that are left unbroken because we are the people who never learn. We wander only to return to exactly where we started. I am reminded of a dream I once had months after my father''s death. I walked behind my father, wrapping a wool greatcoat around me as I braced against the cold, hard wind as we journeyed across the white cliffs of the Cape. I was a child, perhaps ten or so, and would barely keep up with my father''s fast, wide strides across the grass. We reached the high point, and my father looked out into the horizon towards Dover. But it was not a clear day; there was too much fog and rain. I saw nothing but a horizon of gray and a murky sea. "Do you see anything?" I said. He smiled as another burst of wind blew through us. I shivered under my clothes. I longed for the warmth of the fire, but there was nothing but the dark clouds and the gray skies. He ignored me and grinned for a long time. "I can''t see anything," I said as I squinted my eyes in the rain. I did not know where I was. I wanted to be warm. I wanted my mother. I wanted my brother. I wanted to leave and go back home. I had begun to cry. "Father, it''s too cold. I want to go home!" He finally looked down at me as he kept smiling. He was younger, perhaps not much older than I am now, and his face still had a boyish quality to it before drinking aged him beyond his years. "Why are you upset?" He said as he knelled down to meet my height. He placed his hand on my shoulder. "This is our home. Isn''t it so beautiful here?" Hot tears warmed my face as the gray-hued skies darkened to black and the fog thickened into a white wall around us. Fear shot through me as thunder boomed somewhere in the distance. "Where''s maman? I want maman!" He frowned. "She''s not here." He stood back up and pulled out the golden watch from the pocket of his coat. He studied it for a moment before sighing. He turned his back on me and walked back down the slope, leaving me at the top of the cape. "Don''t leave me!" I shouted after him, "Papa! Papa!" But he did not turn back to me. The last thing I saw was the black silhouette of my father, his greatcoat blowing in the wind, walking further and further away from me, down the slope, distorting and disintegrating into the great white fog. Into nothing. Chapter IX: The End Last night, I dreamt of my mother. Under the vast starless night, I carried her coffin. The blizzard winds stung my face, and the snow blurred my sight, as I followed behind the small wavering lanterns of the pallbearers. Their monotone song, barely audible over the howling wind, waxed and waned as we traversed through the thick snow underfoot. The weight of her coffin tried to overtake me, my hands frozen, while I shook from the chill despite being numb under the skin. We marched up a high hill, lanterns swinging, unsure of how long we had left to cover. It seemed to me a land of no end. No beginning. There was only the journey into the night, until we came to a jagged gash torn into the snow laden ground that stretched into the horizons. ¡°This is no proper grave,¡± I said. ¡°No,¡± said a pallbearer, ¡°but it is God¡¯s will.¡± Without a pause, the coffin lifted away from me and fell into the ravine. I stood at the precipice, breathless, as it went down, spinning, into the dark depths. Enraged, I turned to scream, but the pallbearers were nowhere to be found. I turned back to the ravine, and there she was, on the other side, far from me, covered in blood from her hair to her shoulders. At the sight of her fair form, I lost all words, all air in my lungs, as she stared at me. I looked down into the ravine, the wind howling loud against me, and stepped off the edge. The air whistled past my ears as the mouth of the ravine shrunk away, the wind-swept snow drifting off its edges like powder, before I succumbed into the depths.
I awoke to a quiet house. No footsteps paced above me, no warbling of birds, no movements from the staff on their rounds. A cool, hazy winter light cast itself onto the floor from a space between the curtains. The room was freezing, as the staff had forgotten to light the fire. My bones ached from the restless night, and a peace came over me before I remembered. He¡¯s dead. That didn¡¯t sit right with me. The world was too quiet. Too clam. Nothing had happened, but it did, and I knew it to be true. I ruminated over my father¡¯s last moments as I splashed cold water on my face and changed my shirt. For the first time in as long as I could remember, and the only night since, I had dreamt of nothing. One might expect me to dream of my father, guilty conscience and all, but there was nothing¡ªnot even darkness. All the events I recalled from the night before and all the emotions I had were then far removed from me. The images flashed before my eyes, but what were they to me? Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing more than a mirage. I stood by the door after I dressed myself. Did I have to leave right then? What was compelling me? I didn¡¯t want to face anyone. I didn¡¯t know what to expect when I left. If I stayed in my room, in the quiet, then nothing had to change. The staff would not bother me, due to the circumstances, if they thought I was still asleep. I could¡¯ve gone back to bed and rested. Instead, I left the room, seeing no point in hiding, to face the brand new world I had found myself in¡ªone of my own creation.
My father laid stiff in his bed. Even in death he looked dignified - almost noble. His hands were placed on his chest, eyes closed, under the bedding, but still dressed in the purple chamber robe he died in. If someone did not know the truth, one might¡¯ve thought he died in that bed, a proper death for a man of his status, unlike the disturbing and very much undignified way we had found him. I was unsure if I even cared to see him. I didn¡¯t know what I wanted to gain from it - if anything. When I looked onto his body there was nothing inside of me. My father was not someone I thought would die. He was always there, an unstoppable omnipresent force, bending the world to his whims; and seeing him there cold, still, and silent seemed an odd trick. I sat at the end of the bed, fearing to move closer lest he waited for a chance to suffocate me. I could not force myself to feel what I wanted to feel. There was nothing. I left the room and never looked upon his form again.
My mother and I took breakfast in her apartments. The maids brought out small platters of pastries to the table near the window. I did not have the appetite to eat anything, and neither did my mother, whose eyes were heavy from the long night. ¡°We need to discuss your inheritance,¡± she said as she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. ¡°It¡¯s quite complicated.¡± I hadn¡¯t thought of it. What happened to my father¡¯s heritage after his death did not concern me. All my life I had stood to inherit nothing, and when my brother returned, as I had planned, he would inherit our estate. I only needed to wait. There was no reason that I, merely a second son, should¡¯ve inherited anything. As long as I could stay in Varlemont, with the income my father once allowed me, and see my family together once again, I would be content. That was what I wanted. What I needed. ¡°I assume you¡¯ve heard from your brother?¡± she said as she fussed with the handkerchief in her hands. ¡°No,¡± I said as I stirred my tea. ¡°No?¡± ¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°not yet.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± she said as she cast her eyes down. She paused before she laughed, ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Nothing,¡± she said, ¡°but you need to write to him about his father. He should know.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how to reach him.¡± ¡°I believe you do,¡± she said as he looked me in the eyes, ¡°I heard you two conspiring that night. I¡¯ve assumed you¡¯ve kept in contact,¡± she sighed and shrugged, ¡°seems not.¡± ¡°I can try to write to him,¡± I said quietly, ¡°and he should return soon enough.¡± ¡°He isn¡¯t coming back,¡± she said, ¡°or is he inheriting anything.¡± ¡°But it is his right.¡± ¡°A right he forfeited when he decided to abandon us,¡± she said pointedly, ¡°he has proven he does not want nor deserve it. The whole Court knows it. Your father did not wish it, as you well know. You are the Comte d''Arotis now.¡± ¡°No, I am not,¡± I said. ¡°The Court will not approve of it. I am the youngest.¡± ¡°The Court must approve it,¡± she said. ¡°You of all people don¡¯t even truly know where he is! He could be in Spain, and we wouldn¡¯t even know of it! No, no, the Court will approve it. His Majesty understands, he does not look favorably on prodigal sons. That is against the State, against our Lord even, and given our¡­situation, His Majesty will approve it, he must, if not your father¡¯s estates will be claimed by the Crown and leave us destitute.¡± She furrowed her brows and cut into a pastry with a fork, but her face softened when she saw mine. Her arms reached over the table to take hold of my hands, and she assumed a kinder tone, ¡°But do not worry yourself about it. Catherine¡¯s family will not allow that to happen.¡± ¡°But this is his home.¡± ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe so,¡± she said, shaking her head, ¡°He seems quite content to make his home elsewhere.¡± She tried to eat again but tired of it. She called her maid to clear the dishes away from the table. She rested her head in her palm, pondering something, before she tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears and spoke again: ¡°Since you are still in your minority, I need to be appointed as your guardian.¡± ¡°Will he not be angry?¡± I said, ¡°I know he will come back home¡ªhe will. You have to write to him and explain all of this. If you write to him and tell him that you forgive-¡± ¡°Forgive?¡± She said, ¡°I will not do that. Not unless he gets rid of that woman of his.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°A marriage without your father¡¯s consent is in no way proper,¡± she said. ¡°He was betrothed to Catherine before he even met that woman, from a family we know nothing of, and with only a modest fortune. I refused him, he threw a fit, and refused to speak to me. If he even thought about it for a moment, he would know that Catherine was the best option for him. He almost ruined our family by disgracing her if the Rohans refused you, which they almost did, but it has not blotted out the stain of it, and now¡­this.¡± ¡°He didn¡¯t tell me that.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± I thought my mother must have misunderstood him. ¡°He told me he loves her.¡± She leaned in close as if telling me a secret in a whispered voice, ¡°But it¡¯s quite convenient for him, do you not think? That this love of his just so happens to be a sole heiress? Out of the realm? with no relatives to object?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean.¡± She laughed, ¡°I don¡¯t know either.¡± Her eyes began to well up. ¡°This is all my fault.¡± Pained, I took hold of her hands and said, ¡°No, Maman, no, it¡¯s my fault. I should¡¯ve stopped him. I should¡¯ve told you. I know I should¡¯ve, but he told me he couldn¡¯t live here anymore, and he loves her, and¡ªI should¡¯ve told you¡ªbut it will be alright. We don¡¯t need to worry about any of this. He will return, I promise. He will, because now¡­¡± I stopped myself. ¡°When?¡± I didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°When?¡± she said again, ¡°when did he say he would return?¡± ¡°He didn¡¯t say anything specific¡ª¡± ¡°And, in all these months, have you received anything from him? A single word?¡± ¡°No but-¡± ¡°And did he ever tell you anything about these plans of his? Anything of this great love match he has created for himself?¡± I suppose my face answered for me. ¡°And why wouldn¡¯t he?¡± She said as she looked hard at me, ¡°Unless he knows he¡¯s in the wrong.¡±
Events progressed to be more upsetting than I could¡¯ve imagined. My mother wouldn¡¯t stop crying, causing the whole household to lose their routine, and for some reason they decided to turn to me for instruction, which annoyed me. My mother tried to discuss the funeral arrangements with me, which I cared not for, as if it were up to me, I would¡¯ve just buried him shallow somewhere in the basse-cour but I suppose that isn¡¯t the Christian thing to do. The physician still thought my father died of surfeit of drink, but since that is not a noble way to die, we agreed to imply nothing more than a vague illness to the public. There was no autopsy, despite the insistence of the physician, because my mother, in her own words, wouldn¡¯t live to see her husband¡¯s body butchered. I didn¡¯t know why she cared, but of course I had to agree myself. My mother bade me to return to Varlemont to tell Catherine, and she would see to the arrangements herself. I refused at first, given that my mother did not seem to be in a proper state to arrange anything despite my own ignorance on such matters, but I obliged. Someone had to tell Catherine, and better it was me than a random courier. Catherine was of course, surprised, sympathetic, and gave me her condolences, along with all the usual pleasantries, but I did not expect much from her. She did not know my father well enough to have a strong reaction or understand the lack of mine. The days at Varlemont went by in a daze, having to constantly remind myself of what had happened with my mind not catching up to my heart. Everything was too sudden, too anticlimactic, and too surreal. At the end of the week, I almost expected another letter from him, and an uneasy sensation came over me when I realized that was no longer something I had to worry about. Only mere days before I thought that if my father were gone, I would be a happier, somehow altogether different person, as if he were an oppressive boulder that only needed to be cast off for me to be the person I wanted to be. But nothing changed, as it always did, and while I held no grief in my heart, it held no happiness either. I had woken from a long nightmare and into reality, where my father was dead and always had been, and I was where I always had been, and everything was as it should be. I still had to write to my brother. I clung onto the firm belief that he would return home once I written him, but when faced with the parchment, no words came to me. I stared blank, rummaging in my mind, but it was not a simple thing. I imagined the questions he would have. How could a man of rude health be dead only six months after he left? I would stand up every few minutes and pace my apartments, before I got the nerve to try again. I knew I had to find the right words, be as convincing as possible, because I needed him back. He¡¯s my older brother. I did not want to inherit what duty obliged him to take. It was not my birthright. It was not my life. He had to return home. Over and over I told myself, he had to return home because I needed him¡ªit was all part of the plan.
We rode slow in a black clad carriage at the head of a large procession towards Saint-Vaast . The streets of Arras passed by my window, the swarms of people from all estates came out to watch among the red-roofed Flemish houses and governmental buildings. I myself had not been to Arras in years, despite my preference for it, as my father¡¯s trips there did not often include me. One might expect that being the capital, my father would spend most of his time there, but as I looked at the faces of the city, I knew why he didn¡¯t. My father despised masses of people, the hoards of nameless faces, the commoners, the petty governmental officials, servants, clergy, and anyone he deemed beneath him or begrudgingly above. He must¡¯ve despised the expectation of forthcoming petitions, invitations to social events by the local nobility, and all the governmental and social burdens that came with the privileges of his position. As if he were still an absentee seigneur, my father delegated most of the administration of his lands to officials, and only visited Arras once a year. I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised if the public even remembered our existence. ¡°Mother,¡± I began, wishing to distract my mind from the silence, ¡°you should come live with us at Varlemont. Once everything¡¯s in order.¡± ¡°Oh, no,¡± she fused with the handkerchief in her hands, dressed in black wool like Catherine¡¯s, with a white lace fichu, her face and hair plain and unpowdered. ¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about me.¡± That wasn¡¯t the answer I expected or what I wanted to hear. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t live alone.¡± She turned her head to the window. Her gaze fixed on something in the distance, ¡°I¡¯ve considered entering a convent.¡± ¡°A convent? Why?¡± ¡°Well, when I was a girl, I wanted to become a nun,¡± she said before she gave a low laugh, ¡°but Papa would not allow me.¡± ¡°Which convent?¡± asked Catherine, who was at her side. ¡°I don¡¯t yet know, " she said, ¡°but I¡¯ve pledged a donation of a large portion of my dower to the Feulliants. I hope to live in Paris again, in any case. " Strangely, when I was very young, I had thought myself of entering a monastery, though I did not consider myself any more pious than anyone else. Instead, what attracted me was the solitude, the security, and the safety of it contrasted with the King¡¯s service. An easy life. Repetitive. Simple. While the vows posed little problem for me, the thought of being removed from my family did, and it did not take long for me to grow out of that idea. The thought of my mother alone with strangers made me uneasy. I didn¡¯t want that. If she joined a convent, what did that mean for me? What was to happen to us then? What if my brother did not return? Was I to be alone in Varlemont? In life? The image I held in my mind¡¯s eye, of my family living an idyllic provincial life, began to twist into something corrupted and overcast. I could not see what was before me. What was the point of anything? I only calmed myself with the knowledge that my mother¡¯s decision was not set in stone, and I had time to convince her otherwise. If only.
The immense gray stone walls of Saint-Vaaste towered over us all as incense light and fragrant filled the cold air. I watched the ceremony without any emotion. Placed with my family at the first pews, Father Renaud spoke in his low, authoritative voice underneath a draped canopy of velvet embroidered with crosses of silver thread and lined with ermine. The ceremony took much time and expense to prepare. The interior of the cathedral was illuminated by tall white candles that reflected off the stained glass windows of the patron saint and my family¡¯s arms. A sea of local nobility and bourgeoisie was behind us. The majority, if not all of them, were people I had never seen before in my life. After the ceremony, they came up to my family and I to express their sorrows and prayers. They did not even know me. I doubt they were all oblivious to my father¡¯s hatred of the so-called petty gentry. I believed they must have thought the same about me. Their feigned solemnity, only out of seigneural obligation, or, perhaps, in the hope I would show them some sort of favor, unnerved me. What did they have to be sorry for? What did they know? Nothing. Nothing at all. ¡°Can we refuse ourselves a just pain when death surrounds us on all sides? When bitter grief strikes us through our clothes and into our hearts, casting us into a most profound night?¡± I was blank faced during the insufferable speech. I had drank some gin before we departed, which left me in a warm, numb state that I preferred. My eyes weighed heavy and burned. While Father Renaud''s dry tone dragged on, I had to remind myself that the time would pass anyway, though my nerves became restless. ¡°Alas! Merciless death respects neither birth nor fortune! Artois has thus become its Victim! This man, distinguished by his birth and talents, alas! We won¡¯t behold him anymore! Our Most Powerful Lord¡­Peer of France, Lord of Arras, the Provinces of Artois, Eu, and Saint-Valery!¡± Thank the Lord.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°¡­His illustrious birth prevented him from falling prey to base and coarse passions. He knew that birth, however bright it may be, is only a flimsy ornament if it cannot create merit. He flowered in noble pursuits, a love of fine literature, the art of keeping silent, discernment, and sagacity. Artois did not allow himself to fall victim to false pleasures. He dreamed to conserve the splendor of his blood with a distinguished alliance with the famous house of Valois, where he received a Spouse so respectable by her personal qualities as those of her ancestors¡­.¡± My mother¡¯s family did not show, but the Rohans did. They were placed at pews equal to ours at the front. I did not expect to see them, considering how entwined they were in the routines of Court and Society to make the journey north, but Catherine¡¯s father and brother did, though I must¡¯ve been more for Catherine¡¯s sake than mine. After the ceremony, the Comte de Rohan came up to me privately to tell me he was there for me, and how he himself had lost his father at a young age. The conversation made me uncomfortable. Many people wanted to be there for me, it seemed. As if any of them were before. ¡°¡­His Majesty, who took pleasure in rewarding his favors to Artois, always a faithful and selfless subject, forgot nothing to elevate him, to make him respected in his kingdom, rex exaltavit eum¡­ But with what zeal did he abandon the sweetness of Court, from our great King, to serve his most dear province! Not as a master, not as a Lord, but as a father, a brother, a friend¡­¡± Jesus Christ, who wrote this? My mother showed no expression as she clutched her rosary. ¡°How Christian his heart! He made religion the first duty of his life. Who could dispose of a fortune with more authority? A protector of widows, beggars, and orphans. He gave himself, like Job, to those sorry families that unforeseen circumstances reduced into humiliating darkness?¡± My father did not care for piety or his faith outside of social expectations. He did not care for the plight of the poor or anyone else under his care. My mother, on the other hand, was the one who occupied herself with charity. She cared for the suffering of those women and children; it was she who convinced my father to donate large sums for her causes, attracted only to have his own image in Society improved as a result. A hot irritation rose inside of me. The year before, it was my mother who washed the feet of all our staff while my father sulked in his apartments. My mother donated the pin money she received from selling her parfilage to a society for widows who could not survive after their husband¡¯s demise. My father did not care for any of it. I imagine if he were alive to see it, he would have grimaced at such a sentiment, or, would have been pleased to know he had fooled them so. ¡°¡­untouched by the horrors of death, he expressed himself again with his natural noble firmness, so that the sobs of his family could not soften. He spoke of those sentiments that distinguished him from other men. The knowledge of our Lord, the zeal of religion, his service to the King, the good of the state, the love of his Fatherland, union, domestic peace-¡± I would¡¯ve laughed out loud if I had not swiped my hand across my face. Catherine must have thought I had a surge of emotion come over me, as she had placed her hand over mine. I thought it improper to refuse her. ¡°- let us be reassured, as God is favorable to our wishes. It is those sentiments he placed in the hearts and minds of his illustrious children. The worthy son of Artois, heir to his spirit and virtues, succeeds his father to perpetuate our felicity. In him, we find a tender husband, a generous brother, and a defender of our rights. Grace to divine mercy, the illustrious name of Artois will live ever in our minds, and their descendants will forever receive the tributes their virtues deserve.¡± Of which son was he referring? Couldn¡¯t have been me. ¡°How are you faring?¡± Catherine whispered to me after the ceremony concluded. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I said flat. ¡°And you, Maman?¡± My mother reached over to squeeze her hand and said, ¡°I¡¯m very well. Thank you, Catherine.¡±
Saint-Vaaste and the surrounding crowd moved further out of sight as we rode to my family¡¯s h?tel in town. Its two-story bright yellow fa?ade came into my window as we pulled into the courtyard. It¡¯s smaller than our h?tel in Paris, as it served merely as temporary lodging for my father and brother when they visited town, but sizable enough to house us and the Rohans for the night. Despite the solemnity of the times, Catherine hugged her father and brother once their carriage arrived. It was the first time she could do so, as the formality of the ceremony made it improper. Despite the unease that came with the awkwardnessof my position, as I stayed near the carriage door that I had helped her down from, there was some satisfaction from the slight smile she tried to hide under the guise of mourning. I did want her to be happy, truly, but wanting and achieving were separate battles. I hoped that seeing her family again would give her some reprieve until we went back to Varlemont. As Catherine pulled away from her brother, and turned to her father, he stared at me hard for only enough time for me to notice but no one else. If I had considered him a person of consequence, I might¡¯ve been more unnerved, but I only returned his expression.
When the night wore down, I visited my mother in her salon. A bright fire warmed the room from the biting chill it had caught from standing empty most of the day. She stood near the fire, one hand resting on the mantle, her handkerchief in the other. The firelight reflected off the mirror before it, casting the room in an amber glow that showed the ceiling painted to look like the morning sky. ¡°I have something for you,¡± she said as she held out a round object in her hand. It was a golden pocket watch with a white enameled dial, and its case made of intricate repouss¨¦ of various animals among vines. I ran my thumb across the design, worn down and discolored through the decades. I had seen it more times than I could remember, but I had never held it before. ¡°Your father would¡¯ve wanted you to have it,¡± she said, though I knew she was only saying it for my sake. I can¡¯t imagine my father wanting me to have anything. ¡°I don¡¯t want it.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want anything of his,¡± I said, sharper than I intended. ¡°It was also your grandfather¡¯s,¡± she said, ¡°my father¡¯s.¡± I didn¡¯t want to argue about it. I hesitated before I thanked her and put it inside my coat pocket, deciding it was just another on the list of things I inherited that I had neither want nor need for. ¡°You should prepare to go back to Varlemont tomorrow,¡± she said as she moved to rest in a yellow damask chair near the fire. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to be alone,¡± I said, moving to a chair in front of hers. ¡°There are too many affairs to sort out.¡± ¡°And I can help you with them.¡± ¡°No, no,¡± she said as she leaned back, ¡°you¡¯re just a child. You need to be with your wife. You shouldn¡¯t stress about such things.¡± Unable to disobey her, we left for Varlemont the next day. The journey back was exhausting and largely silent. I focused on the landscape that passed by my window. I enjoyed seeing the farmlands and the clouds pass in the sky as my mind envisioned the future I would have. At times I looked over to Catherine, who preoccupied herself by reading some book, and I thought of what to say to her. But there was nothing to say.
I hadn¡¯t prepared for the interim. The deafening silence of Varlemont at the end of it all. The few days I spent there went by in the slow usual routine, the nights slower, as my increasing restlessness forced me to pace my moonlit apartments until I tired myself. I didn¡¯t know how long I would¡¯ve had to wait until things got better for me. I didn¡¯t know how long it would take for my brother to receive a letter, once I got the courage to write to him or how long it would take for him to return, but despite my mother¡¯s insistence to the contrary, I was still very much convinced of considering my brother a man of honor. Often I would stand at one of the high windows with a glass in hand, staring out onto the parterres, then dusted with snow, my nerves heightened and strained at the edge of my skin, and my heart aching to go home. I considered the possibility of events not going my way, but the thought made me so sick I had to shake it out of my mind, and instead I reminded myself that patience is a virtue. How many years did I patiently bear it all? A few weeks or a few months was nothing. I had the time¡ªtime to convince my mother to stay in Varlemont. time to convince my brother to come back home, and time to become a happier and more satisfied version of myself. My father was gone. I was okay. Everything was okay. Time heals all wounds¡ªor so they say. I only had to find the strength to bear it all in the meantime.
A week went by before I went to see my mother again. Icy rain pelted against the window glass, drab black hangings replaced the pastel blue silks, and the fire crackled and warmed us from the cold drafts. My mother sat before me as we drank tea, reading off a letter that had arrived from a local seigneur who could not make the funeral for some reason or another. The steam from the cup eased the heaviness of my eyes. I had found no reprieve from the nights that cast over me a dark shadow¡ªthe night-mares everlasting. Catherine was exhausted as well, due to the turmoil and heavy traveling she endured, which gave me reason to leave her at Varlemont. I was relieved, as that meant I could get some time more or less alone. Exhaustion overtook me when I stepped foot in the courtyard on my arrival, which caused me to spend most of the day hours recovering. For as long as I could remember, my mother had been a stationary figure, confined to the walls of her apartments, resting in bed, or taking slow walks in the garden. After the death of my father, my mother seemed to me more awake and active than I had seen her in a long time. I didn¡¯t think she was content, as her eyes and face shared the same drawn countenance as mine, but her active participation in the management of the estate in my absence gave me hope for a future, though I imagined it would be a slow road. When I was young, I enjoyed my mother¡¯s reading to me, but the letter went on for far too long for my liking, filled with rambling common pleasantries, saying how good of a man he was, how great a loss we must feel, and how they would keep us in their prayers. I frowned down towards the cup. It made me sick. ¡°Well, that¡¯s very nice,¡± she said and smiled before folding the letter and placing it on the small table nearby. ¡°We must write back soon.¡± I hated that game we played. How we danced around all the things my father said, all the things he did to us, to spew pleasantries or feign ignorance. I might have also adopted the same passive and submissive fa?ade to make my life bearable and, at times, believed in the lies I had to tell myself, but once I saw him dead, I did not think him a gentleman. For once, I wanted my mother to admit it. ¡°But he wasn¡¯t a good man,¡± I said, glancing up from the cup. ¡°Right, Maman?¡± She stared at me. ¡°Don¡¯t say such things.¡± ¡°But it¡¯s true,¡± I said in a soft voice. ¡°Stop it!¡± She said hushed but harsh. ¡°There¡¯s no reason to lie about it,¡± I said, ¡°not anymore.¡± ¡°Stop it!¡± she said again, ¡°your father has just died!¡± ¡°Thank God,¡± I said in a barely audible mutter. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Nothing.¡± She put her cup down hard on the table before she came towards me. Her face level with mine. ¡°Don¡¯t you ever say anything like that again!¡± She said sharply, her brows furrowed, ¡°You never know who will hear you.¡± My heart sank. I avoided her eyes. I missteped and I knew it: ¡°You¡¯re right, Maman, I¡¯m sorry.¡¯ She turned away from me and called for the staff. A few maids filled in at her command. ¡°Clear the dishes, Monseigneur le Comte is finished.¡± She smoothed her petticoats with her trembling, pale hands before she left me in the room alone.
While I buttoned up my waistcoat in the morning, a servant came to the door to inform me that my mother had requested to see me immediately. It was odd, as I already planned to call on her, as per the usual routine of things, but I thought little of it. I assumed I merely had to do some penitence for the comments the day before, and then we would forget it ever happened. I agreed and told him I would be there soon. My mother stood like a wraith silhouetted against the window in her deep mourning dress and fair features. A light rain pattered on the glass still, a grim remnant from the night before, as she stared out to some point in the distance with a hand near her mouth. She was alone, no breakfast on the table, and her ladies gone. She didn¡¯t turn to me when I walked in. ¡°Maman?¡± I said, believing that she didn¡¯t hear me walk in, ¡°Is something wrong?¡± She didn¡¯t move but kept her sight out the window until she turned her head. She let an arm drop to her side, handkerchief in hand, and her eyes red again. ¡°Where¡¯s the laudanum?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I will need it back.¡± She turned fully to me. A cold wind passed through me, the words not coming to my mind, but once I processed the question, I feigned a disarming smile: ¡°I don¡¯t know what-¡± ¡°It is sinful to lie,¡± she said, twisting the handkerchief in her hands, ¡°I noticed a bottle missing from the chest. At the time, I assumed I misplaced one¡ªthat is, until your father asked if I had given one to you. I was angry with you, but I assumed you wouldn¡¯t steal from me unless you were having some sort of problem you didn¡¯t wish to discuss.¡±I swallowed. She only knew I had taken it; I reminded myself, that was all. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have taken it without permission,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± ¡°So,¡± she said in a firm but unaffected voice, ¡°where is it now?¡± ¡°It¡¯s gone.¡± Not a lie, I thought. I searched her face. I thought there was no possibility that she knew anything. She was just angry, which was justified, and I would brave chastising about it, though I didn¡¯t know why she would only bring it up months later. Her expression twisted, gaining a red tinge, which made me think she would start crying again, but she didn¡¯t. ¡°How?¡± I shrugged. ¡°I used it all.¡± She walked quickly away from the window to the other side of the room and covered her face with her hands. ¡°Maman,¡± I said following her, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, truly, but I don¡¯t believe it warrants this reaction.¡± ¡°Do you think me a fool?¡± She said uncovering her face. ¡°What are you¡ª¡± ¡°You lie and you lie and you lie!¡± She screamed and rambled in a frantic voice, ¡°I should¡¯ve known. The physician thought that maybe¡ªand I should¡¯ve known. You and your blatant high disregard for your father¡¯s spirit¡ªyou and your nature and I didn¡¯t¡ªI couldn¡¯t¡ª I can¡¯t ¡ª¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± I yelled back, my hands shaking, unable to make out her words in her wet voice. ¡°You know what I¡¯m speaking of!¡± she seethed. ¡°Then say it!¡± ¡°I won¡¯t say anything so vile.¡± A grave air grew between us. We understood each other. I became cold and empty inside. She was never supposed to know. No one was supposed to know anything. That wasn¡¯t the plan. Her eyes held the terror and disgust I imagined she would have. I held in my mind that my father¡¯s death would mend the invisible rift between us all, but I saw the rift grow wider right in front of me, one that could never be mended. It would¡¯ve been better to be dead. I didn¡¯t know what to do. I didn¡¯t know what to say. I couldn¡¯t convince her otherwise. I couldn¡¯t lie. I couldn¡¯t run. I couldn¡¯t hide. It was over. I stepped towards her, but she moved back. ¡°And if I did?¡± I found myself saying, ¡°How terrible would that be?¡± ¡°How can you say such a thing?¡± she seethed. ¡°You have committed the gravest of sins.¡± ¡°Because I hate him!¡± I yelled, ¡°I hate him! With my whole heart, I hate him! The disgusting, brutish creature he is! I hate him!¡± ¡°He is still your father!¡± ¡°I know!¡± I said, ¡°I know! He is my father. I am reminded every. single. day of who he is! I know I should care for him, and I know I should love him, but when did he ever care for us? How many times has he hurt you? Or should you just ignore that again? Can you truly feign so?¡± ¡°You will burn for this!¡± she said before she collapsed onto the daybed. She sobbed loud down towards the floor. I calmed in the relative silence and knelt in front of her. I tried to hold her hands, but she took them away from me. ¡°Maman, I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, keeping my tone low and calm. ¡°I am. I¡¯ve never wanted to cause you pain, but I had to do this. For you. For our family. How long could we have suffered him?¡± She shook her head with tears down her face. ¡°Do not involve me in your sins.¡± ¡°Please, Maman, see reason.¡± ¡°Get out.¡± ¡°Get out!¡± She yelled again when she stood up and I hadn¡¯t moved: ¡°I do not want to see you in here again!¡± ¡°I am still your son!¡± I said standing. ¡°You are no son of mine!¡± I huffed. Her face made it clear to me that she meant it. ¡°I said leave! Or I¡¯ll call them to drag you out! And you know what will happen then? They will send you to a hospital! They will send you to the gallows! Is that what you want? Get out!¡± ¡°Fine.¡± I said, chocking back the emotions in my voice, ¡°I¡¯ll leave if that¡¯s what you want so dearly.¡± I went to leave and shook my head. When I opened the door, as the tears I held back burned my eyes, and my rage simmered under my skin, I said something I shouldn¡¯t have. ¡°I suppose I should¡¯ve just let him kill you then.¡±
I didn¡¯t leave, despite my mother¡¯s insistence. I couldn¡¯t leave my rooms, afraid I would run into her, so I paced around for hours as my nerves ate away at me. Sharp stabbing pains went through my head, as I shook violently, and my chest was in so much pain that I had to lie down in order to breathe clearly. The world fazed in and out of my vision as a large void seemed ready to open up in the ground beneath me and swallow me whole. I knew I should¡¯ve obeyed her, but I was in too much pain to move. As exhausted as I was, I could not sleep. I imagined that she would send word to have me arrested, that any moment they would come into the room and take me, subject me to the dirty, damp walls of a prison cell, before being hauled up the gallows and my head rolling on stained wood. All was lost. I had been defeated. My mother despised me, my father was dead, and my brother might as well have been a world away. He could not come back, ignorant of all of these events, not while my mother hated me so. I had to return to Varlemont, if my mother decided not to betray me, and then what? If she didn¡¯t forgive me, and refused to see me, then that would be impossible to explain. And after that? There was nothing for me. There was nothing between us anymore, even if she did forgive me, she would never look at me the same again. I remembered the times she cared for me, when she nursed me from the fall down the stairs, or all the other times I was injured, and I wanted nothing more than to go back¡ªjust for a moment more¡ªbefore the pain, before everything had changed, when the only thing I wanted in the entire world was to make my mother happy, before I became who I am. I might¡¯ve saved my mother from my father, but what saved her from me? My nerves only calmed when I thought I only needed to let her anger subside, and then we could have a civil conversation and she would forgive me. It was a different path than I planned, but it could work. I had to return to Varlemont for a time, and then I would write to her about speaking again. That was the only way forward. We could move on with our lives as we always had done. No one knew anything about it. We had time. Morning came. I waited to see if she would send a servant to summon me again, but when none arrived, I arranged for my departure. It crossed my mind to go and see her myself, despite my plan, with the thought she might¡¯ve calmed enough, but I saw her twisted and pained face, her sobs, and her screams in my mind and thought it would only make her angrier. Once I packed and dressed for traveling, I left out into the courtyard. The sun had just barely risen, the icy rain replaced with a light snow that dusted over the grey stones, and the liveried servants packed and readied the carriage. I crossed the courtyard and hoped the long journey would exhaust me enough to allow me sleep.
I was almost at the carriage when I heard the gunshot. I ran. The staircase and halls rushed by me while I screamed out to her before I could even think of what could¡¯ve happened. All through my life, I was forced to hear my mother bear the brunt of my father¡¯s assaults, and I hid, due to an innate weakness, or ran away, as a cold terror washed through me, as if distance did anything to ease the pain of it. That same terror followed me to Varlemont caused my night-mares, and kept me up far into the night as I suffered with the knowledge that she was not safe, and as long as she wasn¡¯t safe, then neither was I. That same terror washed over me then, the second I heard the shot, knowing that something was horrifically wrong and that I had to run to her, to help her, as I screamed out to her, in hopeless desperation, as if she was anything but dead. At every turn I took, I thought I might see her, rushing to find me as well, to meet somewhere in the middle, but my cries became more desperate the closer I became without her presence. I must have known then, deep in my heart of hearts, because I imagined what I wished to see when I opened that door, to see her in her morning dress, at the table in front of a sunlit window, smiling and wondering what I was so panicked for. We were safe. Everything was okay. I was okay ¡ª but I¡¯d never be okay again. ¡°Maman!¡± I called out as I opened the door. I can never forget the blood. It pooled thick under her head where she laid, spreading out into the wooden floor around her, splayed onto the white paneled walls, matted in her hair, down her shoulders, her chemise, my hands, my arms, as I held onto her flimsy body to chest, the warmth of it soaking through my waistcoat into my shirt underneath. My eyes burned from the sobs as I clutched onto her, begging, pleading, and screaming; one hand on the back of her head as blood ran hot through my fingers, as I muttered over and over again under my breath something that no longer sounded like words but a muddle of incoherent babble. How terrible it is to bear; how horrible it is to even try to find the words to describe it all. I have held and screamed out to my mother for eternity, her cold hands in mine, her death seared into my mind, haunting me, chasing me for so long, the slightest remembrance casting me back into its recesses where there is nothing but her cold body, my mind spiraling, my chest aching, no longer in control of my senses, until the warmth left her body. I once believed that death was nothing at all, but it wasn¡¯t nothing at all¡ªit was everything. It was the end of my life. No. Worse. It was the end of the world. Authors Note Hey! Thanks to anyone who reads this far! I am working as quickly as possible on part two of volume one. In the meantime, anyone can hit me up if anyone wants to talk about, or has questions about, the events that have happened so far. More content for this w.i.p can be found on my Pinterest (I do spend a worryingly amount of time on my w.i.p moodboards), my Instagram (where I post random w.i.p content), and Spotify (where my w.i.p playlists are).Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.