The Shadowlit Realms
| Labyrinth of the Mind |
The Legend of Rossetti's MistressThe Legend of Rossetti's Mistress
Act I
Dante stood, a tortured soul before the window pane, staring into the gloom of the dark night outside. Each beat of the rain thundered in his tender heart, and the wind seemed to scream the torments of hell upon him. Such a youthful handsome face contorted by grief and despair illuminated in the soft yielding glow of the candle light. The shadows cast upon the walls danced as eager devils waiting to snatch away so perfect an innocent soul. Not innocent in the eyes of cadaverous society, hovering like vultures to pick away whatever may be left of youth, beauty, and passion, but the purest thing he had ever known. Now guilt weighed upon him, blame pounded into his head. He had never been worthy of her devotion, he was the one who laughed so cruelly and treated her little more than a favored pet. And now....she was lost forever, only now he felt the fullness of despair and the fullness of his love.
"You will not have her!"
He spoke to nothing, shadows and air, the lurking darkness, a reflection of himself, caught just within the glass for a moment as he turned to face the bed. There she lay, an angel if ever one breathed. Now immortalized in her unblemished beauty, in the days when the spark of life she burned most brightly. Her golden waves of hair fell, like Rapunzel around her. Her face paled in death's glow, such sweet peace, such agony. The red of her lips fading like the last blossom remaining on a winter's day. His slow heavy steps took him to her bedside.
"My sweet angel"
His words came as a gentle whisper, his fingers threaded through her silken golden tresses before leaning over her as his lips, warm, moist, alive, came to press one last time against hers. No longer yielding, but cold, indifferent, unresponsive to his touch. He jerked away, it was no more or less then he justly deserved. Turning from her he made his way for his writing desk as his fingers caressed the pages, lifting them up he took a moment to inhale the scent of parchment and ink. The work of his heart and soul....all for her. His muse that he was blind to see, until.....it was too late. Slowly he made his way back to her once more and laid there upon her breast those poems he had slaved over, that contained the essence of him within their verses the words that felt like lies, but now reveled in truth. Hesitantly feeling his unwroth his fingers brushed along her cold soft flesh as her arms were maneuvered to hold near and dear the last gift he had to give her. Leaning over his lips once more touched her cold vacant skin, now just above her brow. And as he rose to stand, the window gave a great shudder against the wind and the candle went out casting him alone in the darkness. In a state of half-panic and superstitious fear he fled from the room.
Dante faced the solemn quiet of grim faces waiting for him down below. The priest appeared as an apperception of the reaper himself standing in black robes before the fire of the hearth, long shadows cast over his sallow face marked by gaunt sunken features....deep set brooding eyes. The doctor paced relentlessly, the sound of his tread muffled by the rug made a lazy sound of a plosh....plosh......plosh....back and forth...back and forth. He was a less serious fellow then the preacher, but now his plump features were worried in lines of disquiet. The last plosh stopped abruptly at Dante's return into the room. The priest looked up from the hearth, but neither could meet his eyes, or come to speak.
There was yet another figure, previously lethargically slumped in the high backed arm chair. Edward, Dante's dearest friend. Edward's face was the picture of devoted concern, and at his friends arrival he quickly sprang up to meet him.
"My God man"
Were the only words he could speak at once upon seeing the state that his friend appeared to be in. He was near as white as a ghost, and looked like death itself. Edward reeled back, though his heart was full of warm compassion for his most beloved companion and confidant. Dante stood resolutely before the hellish audience before him which could almost be comic were not the circumstances of such a somber nature.
"She is to be buried with House of Life"
He spoke in a voice like grating sandpaper barely able to force the words out, a grotesque grin flickered a moment upon his grief stricken features, even he could not help but be affected by the irony of his words. The priest and the doctor remained indifferent in their stoic silence, but Edward was much affected by this. He gaped and struggled with himself.
"Are you certain.....you do not know what you say....surely....give it some time"
He stumbled over his words, to taken...the poet.....the great poet.....how could he even in this moment of deepest grief and regret burry away, sealed from sight the body of work of his heart and soul.
"It is decided....so let it be done"
Dante's words bit like ice with a shaking finality as he strode forward, and collapsed into his chair before the hearth. His head sunk into his hands and he made a frightening picture. Edward stood in shock, but it would be a cruel friend indeed who could not let such eccentricities pass at such moments as this.
"Give it not another thought....all shall be taken care of for you."
Act II
The wind rattled against the windows, and cried out into the night. The figure tossed and turned within his bed, fighting against the ghosts that nightly visited him. Haunting memories hovering always around his head. Though now many years have passed and his hair was peppered in gray, his appearance had not completely betrayed him. Dante's eyes flashed open rambling and damped in sweat. His night shirt clung close against his skin while his eyes stared wildly into the shadow infested bedroom. His heart like a drum beat against his ribcage.
"I made a terrible mistake"
He spoke to the darkness, to the emptiness of the room, to no one but his visions and memories. Tossing back the bed sheets he leapt out of the bed. It could not wait a moment longer. He began to dress in a frantic and hurried way before running down the stairs. It was only by some miracle, or perhaps the work unnatural forces stirring this eve which prevented him from breaking his neck in his reckless bounding down the stairs without having even thought to have brought a light.
Upon reaching the bottom step he threw himself out into the cold windy wet night. There was little hope of getting a carriage at this time and so like a mad man he began to run down the street, with nothing more upon his feet but his socks. He ran as if the furies chased him with their wild torments. Panting by the time he reached his friend's door, heedless of the hour he took up the brass knocker and began to rap it successively against the heavy oak of the wood.
The sound thundered throughout the house, in a deep low baritone sound until at last it could be ignored no longer. A sullen faced tired-eyed servant opened the door, less than appeased by the late night visitor. Dante however seemed hardly to notice him, storming in past the wisp of a figure as he tore through the house.
"Edward....Edward......Edward"
His voice carried through the halls as he started to take to the stairs two at a time in his wild abandoned, as if some other force empowered him on. He would be greeted by his friend groggy-eyed and confused by the near delirious interruption in his sleep.
"By God man! What the devil has got into you?"
Dante came to a sudden halt and upon arriving at his destination the adrenaline slipped out of him while he had to take several panting breaths before proceeded to gasp out an explanation for his behavior.
"It was....a mistake.....all a big......mistake.....I need them back.....please you have to help....me get them.....back"
Edward watched his friend feeling a fearful grip upon his heart that the man had gone completely mad. He had always been irreversibly altered in someway since that one terrible tragic night, and even before that, he was a visionary given to heightened excitement and vivid dreams. Now it seemed he had finally gone completely over the deep end.
"Whatever do you mean?"
Edward's words were confused as he watched his friend in baffled wonder with something of a mounting horror growing inside of him which could not be quite accounted for. But perhaps some voice, some deep dark rooted voice began to suspect what brought on this hour of seeming madness.....he could not......would not....bare to bring the thought.....the suspicion up into the light of day. It was beyond all that is sacred.
Dante was gripped in his fervor his eyes wild as a windy night.....his face appeared contorted by the agonies which haunted inside of him and twisted his soul into his guts. He did not dare speak it, but yet the words must come out......it must be done.
"The Poems! The Poems!"
He shrieked like some unholy creature...unholy as the very suggestion that his words brought up. He could say no more.....his complexion paled and her threw himself completely upon the his friends mercy in this grotesque request.
"Good God! You do not mean..."
Edward reeled back his words scarcely chocking out of his constricting throat. It was too horrible......to terrible....it cannot be. Yet he saw the fullness of the conviction upon his friends face. The intensity burning behind his eyes.....but why now? why? There could be no account for such a horror.....but what could he do? Turn Dante away? Would his refusal stop this travesty? Did he have a right to prevent him?
Dante trembled as some of his strength was regained slowly by degrees. The clock somewhere down the hall marked the doomed hour, as stillness passed between them....the tainted silence lingered in the air as a soured perfume.
"It was a mistake.....all a mistake....I should never have gave my work away. Please! I must have them back. I MUST!"
His voice began to mount upon itself and he reached out gripping the end of Edward's night dress in the fullness of his plea. He knew in his black heart, and his desolated soul the enormity of what he asked.....but it must be....it must. He could not live a moment longer now without this. His work. his heart, now buried away in the earth. Oh how could he be so foolish, in love and grief, tormented by guilt. To make such a fatal err.
Edward stood with the accursed deed hovering over his head. Was the possible price of his soul worth turning his back upon his suffering friend? But was Dante truly in his right mind? And if he suffered from a mental anomaly could he risk both of their souls in this dreadful deed? He shuddered with the coldness that crept up along his spine.....his voice came low in far away determination.
"The hour it late now....nothing to be done at this hour. I implore you, rest yourself....in the morning.....in the morning.....I will see what can be done."
The night brought little comfort and by the morning Dante was unwell, be it through fatigue of his cold nights journey and desperation, or the frightful condition of his mental state.....perhaps a combination of both. Edward attended to his grim business to fulfill his promise to his friend.
Act III
The four grim figures stood at the grave site. Neither spoke....neither could. Even now, in this New Age of Enlightenment, this Golden Age of Reason, this era of science and medical advancements, and progress....when such men as gathered there were not given to religious zeal, or superstition, educated men raised to be skeptics of old superstition......there was something rooted deep in the psychology that was repulsed at the very idea of unearthing the dead and disturbing them during the eternal rest. Perhaps it sprang from the fount of the collective fear of being confronted with ones own mortality.
Edward, the doctor, a lawyer, and an official of the law dreaded the task before them. Dante was in no state or condition to face this grisly scene, to be confronted with what had become of the woman he loved, for he would think of her only in terms of her immortal beauty. By silent consent metallic shoves bit into the flesh of the earth and so they began uprooting and displacing the dirt. The earthy smell of soil, warm, and moist rose up in a raw perfume as they worked. It was work that toiled on the mind, body, and soul equally. A burden to be carried. None spoke....none could....there was only digging......piles of dirt....blisters......pain...silence.
Silence soon to be disrupted by that most dreadful and long awaited sound, a heavy wooden thud......cold heartless steel of the shovel coming into contact with the wood of the coffin. The moment arisen at last. At first....they all stood stoic, unmoving....by silence consensus a group of men who haven't stepped foot in a church since the day they were swaddled were compelled to cross themselves before work proceeded.
The sun began to decline, as if even it could not bare to be witness to this. Long lingering fingertips of light streaked across the graveyard as the casket was brought up and placed upon the ground. Edward stepped forward and with the tip of his shovel pried into ancient wood and popped the lid open. Once it was peeled away all four men were stunned into wonder....awestruck....as their eyes fell upon the impossible, the unimaginable....Edward barely able to prevent himself from crying out. A collective gasp released among them.
There laying within the coffin, was the perfect picture of angelic beauty.....she was as Snow White in her glass sarcophagus......she looked as if she only awaited for her prince to lay a kiss upon her lips before her eyes sprang open and she once more became animated with life again. It was truly the sublime. She rest within her grave looking as if only she had lain down to sleep. Her beauty preserved, untouched by time and decay. Her cheeks and lips only paler......her eyes closed in the perfect image of serenity......she was a saint....but alas! The most startling of all.....yes....there was one change about her....one thing altered over time....her hair....her beautiful rose gold hair.....it had ever continued to grow......it filled the coffin to the brim....fell around her in silken folds.....made up a soft bed upon which she could rest.
And there upon her breast still clasped close to her heart were the pages of the cherished poems. Only the more adding to this mystery, the manuscript had not fared so well as the maiden. The pages have grown yellowed, and flaked away around the edges. It took but the greatest of care to remove them.....so stiff they have become that the slightest of disturbance would have caused them to crumble away into nothing but dust.
"It is as if his words of love have preserved"
Edward spoke unaware that the voice he heard was truly his own......holding the precious works within his own hands with the utmost care and reverence, the others only stood and looked on....there were no words....there was nothing but this sight of unchanged sleeping....but alas.....beyond all waking......beauty.
11:04 PM - 11/14/2009 - post comment
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 For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk
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