Lara Biyuts's Blog, page 5

from stories of the traveler

J. J. Winckelmann is a secondary character in my historical fiction A Handful of Blossoms. On the way to Rome, he is on a visit to Constantine-Leopold, Prince of Askanier-Hortz, who is Consort of my main character Constance-Otilia-Alexandrine, Princess of Anhalt-Welf, whose Diary the reader has a chance to read. After the supper party, the group of table-mates began story telling. One of two stories told by Mr Winckelmann is a part of the following excerpt :
* * * Author’s name is Marcus Valerius Martial, “Epigrams.” Martial. Beautiful name. Perhaps, born in March? Reading the poem, I said to myself, “Love? Nice.” Meanwhile, the guest said, “Apropos, did you hear the news? The identification of the Antinous Admirandus has been disproved.” My Consort said, “That whose head you admired, calling one of the most beautiful heads of a young man from Antiquity?” “Yes, and whose feet, stomach and legs I criticized. The statue is now interpreted instead as a Meleager, hero of the hunt for the C… (Unfortunately, writing down his words, I can’t recall the geographical name.--C.) …Boar.”I could not to keep up the conversation but luckily it changed to talking of our read of choice. I said that of the recently read books, I love “L’ile de la lune” most, and now I’m afraid that I was the one who began the talk of love, amity, tender passion and all that. Silly, but I could not refrain from talking of it. “Too many sentimental novels?” my Consort said ironically. Mr Winckelmann said that he would like to tell a story. “About love and something else.” We asked him to do it, and now I’ll try to write down his narration as far as I could remember it, only partly, I’m afraid, which could be entitled “Tale of the Dead Planet”--
We were alone on the top of the rock. Torn from a wondrous island by an underground fire, the rock was thrown to the sea in times out of mind. The sun was sinking in the western waters, and at the same time, the white waxing half-moon was visible in the sky, ready for shining as soon as the last red sunray left the bald heights beyond the strait and the gold and purple tinted horizon grew dark. And now, the dark blue night rose from the cool water realm. The long golden pillar of the moonlight began rhythmically swinging over the calm waters, trembling and glittering, stretching from our rock like a mysterious road of the dead for walking from the earth to the dwelling place of eternal bliss. Peering at the distant pale mist, I searched for the line of white shades walking over the fiery water, blind and nervous, hand in hand, obeying a Psychopomp, and it seemed to me that I can see the Psychopomp. Pale and lovely, smiling at them and beckoning with the hand he lifted from his hip, pointing outwards and in another instant turning into the Thracian Rider that began hovering above the mist and moving towards an unknown immensity. So, we were alone, me and my companion, and as usual he was unseen and impalpable--only his cool breathing behind my shoulders--but I knew he was light like a cloud, translucent like a flame, unsteady like the mist. As always, he was pensive and quiet, mighty and great, and I as always did not know whether he was a demon, who regretted of his fall, or an angel, who made doubt about his perfection. His shapely hand was on my shoulder like a cold marble, and while the calm sea whispered, his sad measured Voice whispered in my ear, “Look at the sky. Search the place where there is the sword of Orion trembling like a green sparkle. There, at this hour, one planet used to drift by. The planet has burnt out, and time has powdered out its fragments over the world. How beautiful the planet was! Its people were like light gods whose marble statues were procreations of your creative dreams. How wise, how meek they were! It was the Eden, the legend of our Earth. The people were immortal. They did not know of death, evil, grief or shame. Neither husbands nor wives, only brothers and sisters.” (The history of the Planet is long, and I can’t remember it entirely. In short, the people of the Planet have known Love, carnal Love, like the scriptural people of the Earth in olden times, and then disasters begin…--C.)“Love as strong as death brought the death,” the Voice went on, “The Planet’s people lost the bliss of the eternal life. They began to procreate and die. Their lives got shorter and shorter. The people got smaller in stature and strength. They have known gold, luxury, wars, treachery, all the evil of our Earth.”(The history of the dying is long too, and I can remember only the final part…--C.)The voice said, “The Planet died. Like a giant brilliant, it drifted in the silent Space for ages, till a stray comet stumbled upon it and smashed it to brilliant hail. The pieces scattered around the Universe. There was not a planet that had not got a piece of the Dead World, but most of the pieces got to the Earth. Do you hear the songs? Do you smell the air, filled with love? Dear, this island, the sea, the shores, all this fell from the heaven as an enormous piece of ice that day when the love-poisoned Planet died. The ice melted, and the poisoned piece poured the poison out over the earth. Dear, we are in the homeland of love, so, run away! Save yourself, for there is not worse evil than love.” I asked, “Teacher, who are you? Why should I believe you?” He replied, “I am he who is the first to know the word Love on that Planet. I am the one who was the first to fall in love there and to become beloved. The first who was poisoned with Love and who poisoned his people.” Crying, he began moaning and invoking, “Don’t love!.. Don’t love!.. Don’t love!..” Meanwhile, the night grew lighter, and pink spots wandered around the eastern waters.
Mr Winckelmann became silent and then he said, “The End.” The scholarly man proved to be an excellent story-teller, but the ending of the story and conclusion was so unexpected… suggestive that I did not find a right thing to say. “Wonderful story!” my Consort said. Sylvian and I said, “Wonderful!” My Consort looked inspired, he obviously enjoyed his learned friend’s company, and he said he would like to tell a tale. “It’s a local legend,” he said, “Do my companions mind a long narration?” Nobody of us had anything against that. Then my Consort told Sylvian to take the lute (from the wall) and his narration was accompanied with quiet touching the strings. This tale I’ve remembered better, moreover, it seems to me that his voice and the music sounds to me now--
* * *[the end of the excerpt] Read more at :https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168036

My Mysterious Dark Man

[ excerpt of the historical fiction A Handful of Blossoms, by Lara Biyuts. A manuscript of a true story of the main personage's consort. ]
* * * What a felicity of phrase! Reading, I went upstairs, and now, I am about to copy the essay. But the story, first. It must be said that the manuscript of the true story, which happened to the narrator in the town of Danzig, was untitled, and I entitled it “My Mysterious Dark Man.” The manuscript sounds much more detailed than the author’s verbal telling:
The violent knock on the door of my apartment made me drop a book with a startle. What wonder? The hour was late; I was alone and contemplative… even lost in thought, over the book, which proved to be bad by any standards. My dreams were melancholic but not amorous. I was young, but no one of females was on my mind and none of them could be a mistress of my heart; never a female’s fastidious personifications disturbed my heart which always was ruled by sober mind and sober thoughts, my own as well as borrowed. True, I wrote amorous songs, but it was not traditional romance, and my feelings, thoughts and ends could not be called chaste or fatally passionate or disinterested. I neither burnt incense nor made an idol; I simply chose a living plaything and enjoyed till it pleased my eye and manhood. I looked for neither anything ideal nor an ever-faithful heart; I wanted only something pleasing and ordinary which could be easily reached and easily left.  From my tender age I learnt that Unfaithfulness could not hurt those who had the magic talisman in form of the simple rule: “Be the first to leave not to be left.” Death could not do any harm to my love affairs either, since those were but fleeting liaisons, as Death watched True Love alone, taking care of Unshared Love and disuniting Perfect Unions, and it hardly ever visited the prim and proper arrangement of society, knowing that the connections were ephemeral as they were, created by chance or vagary, easy conjugating, easy parting, and it hardly visited the small circle of my interests that provided me with the pleasures, knowing that much in the circle was quite artificial and subjected to me alone. No, Death never robbed me of anything dear, and to my ex-lovers I was obliged only by beautiful and pleasant instants, having no thought of crying or regretting of them. No, a reason of my melancholy and insomnia was that I could not finish my latest anacreontic. Several cups of coffee, which I had had that night, little helped my imagination, unless it got ready for accepting anything unacceptable, unexpected and weird, and yet I could not work on my own writings, so I was about to read somebody else’s. So, picture me, my reader, alone and studious, when there was the knock on the door. I was about to call my manservant, but the guy snored so loudly in the kitchen that this sound didn’t permit to expect his quick help. I went to the door. “Who’s that?” I asked.Silence.Believing that the knocking only seemed to me, I was about to return to my study, but the doorbell began ringing right over my head, so suddenly and violently that I startled again, unlocked and unbolted the door and opened it.   Before I had time to look round the landing, something black and glossy slipped in, along with the frosty wind, rustled over the dark drawing-room and disappeared in my study. Shutting the door with a bang, I rushed after the strange phenomenon. In the study, in one of my low chairs, a black-masked Capuchin was sitting. Although the countless folds of the close glossy satin hang on his shoulders like a cardinal’s gown on a hanger but the wonderful black colour wonderfully matched to the yellow upholstery, and the Capuchin’s pose was so graceful, and his black gloved hands looked so shapely that his mask seemed to cover a face of a friend, and his look in general was a feast for the eye. “What’s going on?” I spoke on the move to the chair where the Capuchin settled comfortable crossing his legs, “Is it a mystification? Who are you, sir?” “Mystification?” he lifted his head and looked at my face, producing a chilling impression by showing his black mask and eyes twinkling in the eye-slits, “It’s Ball-Masquerade time in the town, and I am masked.” “But sir…” I said dryly, because the visitor’s voice I heard never before, “…This is my apartment here and not the Town Hall or Gentry Assembly!” “The ball is at Gentry Assembly, today, and I am from there,” he said letting me know the information as though I asked for it, “So crowded! Splendid revelry. At the exit, it was so crowded that I could not wait till my overcoat was within my reach again, and I came here, being wearing this costume and bareheaded.  Luckily, sir, your house was nearby. Otherwise, I could catch cold. Tell me oh tell me why you are not at the ball!”“Tell me your name!” I said.“What for?” Capuchin shrugged impatiently, “I’ve come neither for borrowing nor for proposing to your cousin, nor for introducing to your wife. However, you have nothing of the kind.  You are a bachelor, alone tonight, that’s why I invite you to go to Ball-Masquerade. I guarantee the night will be full of fun. Let’s hurry, for time flies. Don’t waste it for the vain questioning.”   I said, “Even if I had a slightest wish to be at the ball tonight, which is against my habits by the way, then by the moment when I finish dressing…”     “…the ball is finished,” the visitor caught up, “That’s why you’ll be wearing simply and lightly, only a domino and mask.” “But I have not any,” I said, “And I am not about to wake up my manservant to send him for the costume, at this late hour.”Before I finished speaking, the gumptious visitor jumped up from the chair like a cat, threw off his black gown and began dressing me. “It’s an excellent fit,” he murmured when fastening the hooks and tying ribbons. But something other surprised me much more than his act: the persistent inviter had another Capuchin on, violet.“I am unshaven…” I said, “I can’t go there without a mask.” In another instant, the visitor threw off his mask and gave it to me, with he himself being wearing another mask, crimson.  I said, “Well, that’s odd! You have one more mask on!”“Everyone has more than one,” he said, “However, this idea is too old and developed by others, and we may leave it, today. Let me help you…” He put the black mask on my face, pulled a string on back of my head, and the mask got close fitting. I said, “But I don’t feel certain that I’m going…”“You’ll feel certain later on, and now, let’s go, sir!” said Capuchin cheerfully, “Take a piece of advice… Act bravely and with confidence tonight, leaving all your ideas about good or evil geniuses, for a while. Your stature and given name is rather usual and quite usual for many, which may cause a lot of happy and funny coincidences. To score an advantage, answer all questions by uttering Hum. Do you take me, sir?”“Not in the least.” “You’ll take me later on, and now, hurry up! Call your valet and tell him to lock up the door behind us!”“I’d like to hear you name though…”“All right, all right! My name is Monsieur Maupertuis.” Believing it’s his real, I was not about to call him by this strange name and I shall name him “Capuchin” in this story. “Not real?” said the stranger as though in reply to my unspoken thought, “One may think that you love the idea of being known as one of the notorieties of your home town!”Appreciating his common sense, I said nothing in reply.Shaken out of slumber, my manservant was scared seeing two strangers wearing the bizarre clothing, one with a black face and another with a crimson face. Eventually, I succeeded in making the guy understand that one of the strangers was his master and he had nothing to worry about unless taking care about my overcoat and then the door. And yet, the guy glanced at my masked companion timidly and in an inimical manner while helping me to put on my raccoon coat and hat, and then he shut the door with a bang behind us.   As we quickly walked in the snow-covered street, with me realizing that my going out was at most a folly, my companion Capuchin, who looked like a rascal or romancer, took my arm and began whistling gaily a song that sounded familiar, and then he began talking, “Your valet…” He quizzed at my face, “…your valet took me for… I don’t know what, perhaps, for one of the prankish entities, who enjoy confusing humans in every extraordinary way, infatuating, confusing, taking away a shoe thrown out gates at a Yule-tide divination, or saying a name of a hateful man to a sentimental damsel’s question ‘What’s your name?’, or making funny and monstrous grimaces from behind shoulders of a widow, who does a mirror-gazing exercise in the hope of seeing a face of her new husband, by night, in the cold bathroom. All this is misleading, I agree, and this often causes some imbroglios and funny misunderstandings, but nothing more serious. In short, this cannot cause any disaster therefore quite innocent.” Here we entered the spacious vestibule of Gentry Assembly, where I hardly succeeded in prevailing the door-keeper upon taking my raccoon coat and hat, since there was no room for more clothes. On the top of the banister of the broad, carpet-covered staircase a la Louis XIV, a bronze chimera held out her forepaws on the pedestal holding lamps in her claws. Going up the stairs I stumbled, because my feet tangled in the skirt of my loose costume, and I leaned on my violet companion’s hand. He whispered in my ear, “Tonight, you should touch hand of masks as lightly as possible. Do you know why?”“No, I don’t,” I said.“You’ll know, later on. Act bravely tonight, leaving all the dreams of good or evil geniuses, for a while. I suppose you know the legend of the wise scholar?” “What a scholar?”“He was so wise that to any answer he replied by saying, Humm.”“But why?!”“Who knows… To avoid removing a hill as the price of your life, maybe.” Here, the violet Capuchin paused to give tickets to the porter, and I entered to the hall. As though for the purpose, the orchestra greeted my coming with the deafening tutti. The sound of talking, shuffling, laughter and squeaky voices of masks blended with each other, merging with the music. At the door, the mingle-mangle of masks squeezed me on all sides, as though trying my bones’ endurance, and began moving me to the right, to the left, backwards and forwards--till it brought me to a saving space between two pillars--where I could take my breath and look round.  The sultry air was full of lights and it seemed misty overhead. Although muffled up from head to foot, the most of the masquers stood aside, at the walls, hanging around the doors, shrinking into corners, where there was less light and more crowded, with the middle of the hall remaining almost empty. Anybody’s vivid poetic imagination could see an air of mystery, suspecting some fatal secrets, dramatic scenes and passionate talks, but not mine: however much I strained my ears, I could overhear nothing but the trivial phrase “I know you, oh beautiful mask” or something of the kind, the same banal. Despite the dull monotony and insipid talk, the masquers seemed uncommonly cheerful and totally fascinated by their masked ladies and the ball in whole; many roared with laughter, indulging in their childish delight. However impressive and curious the sight was, very soon, I got bored; even the good orchestra could not improve my low spirits, because, actually, it was a time in my life when my thoughts were only a little lighter than my black costume; in other words, I felt especially gothic-minded. Besides, I hardly could understand a reason of the excited laughter heard from all sides; eventually I thought that a reason was that the poor young men, who were pushed and elbowed on sides here, almost continuously, were excessively sensitive to tickling. In their midst, my eyes tried to find my companion’s crimson face. I was about to give a telling-off for his pulling me out of my nook and slumberous state, which state could give me a dream or vision, which dream or vision could be of use and much more interesting and pleasant than the masquerade. Here, I saw a black crêpe domino gazing at me from the shade of a pillar. Disliking the manner, I began gazing at the masked stranger too. The excessive pallor of her skin seen through the lace part of her mask, the phosphorescent gleam of her eyes, her thinnest waist and strange motionless lent her image a fantastic oddity of an unearthly vision. Puzzled, I averted my eyes, but my attention was attracted by some golden glitter and I noticed another motionless masquer standing close against the wall, at a distance and to the right of me. The masked figure was motionless but the golden stick jerkily moved in the gloved hand as thought it alone got impressions of all around, all what the eye and the ear brought to it like the two messengers did to a human’s soul. The mask didn’t let read any thoughts but at least the golden stick hinted about some covert emotions of the stranger. At first, the stick was twirled like a sort of a scapegoat for its owner’s caprice, jocundity or vexation; now, it dangled along the masquer’s figure, glittering against the black velvet, as though obeying the order to give the place to the other plaything. I could not know whether  the pictures of somebody else’s festivity touched the masquer’s soul or not, whether beauty or ugliness was behind his mask, but not all secrets of the world were known to the “mage”, since  his entire figure and tense motionlessness showed a huge curiosity and intention to watch. Meanwhile, the masked woman moved, came out of the shade and went towards me. Approaching, she lifted his hand and gave me a bunch of red camellias. Reckoning myself a gentleman, I took the flowers in my hand, and before I found the right thing to say, she took my arm. With my eyes I tried to find the masquer with the golden stick, but in vain, the stranger was nowhere about--and I had no choice but to lead the woman somewhere. On the move, from time to time, the masked stranger gave a start and restrained a sigh; from time to time, she gazed round the playful and fussy crowd, and her eyes showed either fear or ill-will. Walking along with her, I felt ill at ease, because it seemed to me that my new mysterious companion could fly away or fall through the floor, at any moment. My heart could guess that the strange poetic occurrence was temporary, and the sad shadow would vanish, soon, leaving only a vague remembrance or nothing. Meanwhile, walking slowly from one room to another, we reached a remote cabinet, and there, in a wall lamp light, the stranger left my arm, stood in front of me and began talking in an emotional tone, “Constantine! Do you remember our past?” The voice rang with notes of despair, but it was not familiar to me. “Beautiful mask!” I replied politely, “The one, who ever heard a word from you, could not forget you.”  But futile was the beauty of the phrase, because, as soon as the masked woman heard my voice, she recoiled in horror, dashed out of the cabinet and disappeared in the dark stream of masquers. “Well, that’s odd!” I thought to myself, “The mysterious woman took me for somebody else.” My violet companion was right telling me to answer Hum to any question. Really, which woman was entitled to begin a talk about my past? For my past hardly had relation to a woman’s, unless it’s my late mother or some fine art procreations, at most.  Actually, I couldn’t recall an enjoyment, which I didn’t laugh at, subsequently. “If only I could reach the damned door to the staircase…” I said to myself, while maneuvering among masquers whose attacks became especially active for some reason, “…then nobody in the world will be able to make me return to the dubious feast.”         “Hello!” a masquer squeaked, “You’ve changed! So thin! Have you been flattened by your wife’s thumb?”  “What ugly flowers!” another masquer burred, pointing to the red camellias in my hand, “Did your wife drop them, and you picked up?”“Really, where did the ugly red flower come from?” a small frisky domino turned up, as if from nowhere, or to be more exact, from behind my shoulder, snatched the flowers out of my hand and tore them in pieces. Before I had time to come to myself, the domino tiptoed and whispered in my ear, “I’ll come at 2, without fail. Wait for me!” Then the masquer slipped away in the crowd from where she came. “What a fidget!” I said and paused, because I hear the familiar whistling, or to be more exact somebody whistled a song and I recognized it, remembering of it twice, if one may say so. Firstly, I had heart the whistling tonight, from my companion red-faced Capuchin. Secondly, I recognized the catchy melody. It’s so-called “A Hanged Man’s Song”, the old English song whose refrain was “Your hat is lost…” which tells a story of a man, the vagabond who was sent to the gallows and whose only guilt was that he lost his hat. The well-known melody whose gallows humour is lesser known. Here, the cheerful whistling either stopped or died away, and I never saw the familiar red mask in the crowd.  But I saw the desirable door. I began moving towards the door, but the music stopped and trumpets resounded all around which seemed not to be a great surprise for anyone but me. Looking up at the gallery, where the trumpeters showed his skill, I remembered what day it was today. The masquerade was one of the last balls before the beginning of Lent. The trumpets announced midnight and it was the death knell for any public entertainments. Oh Lent, the long train of days, colourless and insignificant in society, after the eventful and nosy hours of the crazy winter; the time when communication becomes less, parties hardly impossible, when most of your fashionable friends are out of your sight, hidden under the cover of their hearth and nolens volens getting accustomed again to the abandon shelter--however, nothing is healthier than boredom and sleep; the sleep therapy is necessary, from time to time, especially to ladies and poets: somnolence in mind and boredom in heart obliterate weariness, physical as well as mental, and make ladies ready for new triumphs and poets for new inspirations.  And so, the trumpets announced midnight and the end of public entertainments. It took me some time to thread my way through the crowd of masks, with me being about neither to listen to their false squeaky voices, nor to catch their inviting words in the air or in my ear, nor to search for any images, unveiled but catchy. Eventually, at the staircase, I saw the crowd was yet denser: black dominos and Capuchins seemed to be on every step, from top to bottom, looking like an army of onyx statues. Joining the army, I had to wait, before making the next step.

* * *(the end of the excerpt)Read more at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168036

classic

7 poems, translated or retranslated by Lara Biyuts
The Butterfly
by Afanasy Fet (1820-1892)
You’re right. An outline of AirI am so sweet.My velvet with its living blinking--only two wings.Don’t ask me whence, what brought me,where I speed.I light the flower down, here,and now I breathe.How long, so aimless, so effortless,I want to breathe?That’s it now, flashing, raising wingsI fly away.
Godsby Henri de Regnier (1864-1936)
I dreamt gods talked with me:one god--streams- and seaweeds-clad;one more--with vines and ears of wheat;one more--winged, inaccessibleand beautiful in his nude;and one more--with covered face;and one more--he who plucks omegas and pansies, singing,and two snakes enwind his gold thyrsus;and others…And then I said: here are flutes and baskets--taste my fruits,listen to humming of bees and the humble rustle of willows and reeds. And also I said: Listen, listen--there is someone who speaks by echo’s mouth,who is lonely amidst the world’s life,who holds the double bow and torch,he who is so inconceivably we…O sacred face! I coined you as medallionsof silver, soft as autumn dawn,of gold, hot as the sun,of copper, gloomy as night,of all the metals that sound clear as joy,that sound fatal as glory, love or doom;but the best medallions I’ve made of clay.Smiling you will count them one by one,and say, They are skillfully made; and smiling you’ll pass by.So, no one of you saw my hands tremble from tenderness,and the world’s great dream lives in me to come to life in them.No one of you realizes that I’ve coined my gods of good metals,that they are a face of all sacred, what we feelin the forests, grass, sea, winds and roses,in all phenomena, and in our body,and that they are divinely we.
Mystical Evening Twilight
by Paul Verlaine
Memory and Evening Twilight redden and tremble at the glowing skylineof expectations in flames that retireand thus enlarge, of which partitionmysterious or repeated bloom--dahlia, lily, tulip, banewort--climb around the trellis, and circleamidst the morbific exhalationsof warm and disturbing perfumes, which is poison --dahlia, lily, tulip, banewort--flooding my senses, my soul and my reason,they mix, into immense languor, Memory and Evening Twilight.
Artistby Ivan Bunin
Pebbles rustling underfoot. Through the slopping garden,he walks, glances round the basinsand subsides on a bench… Behind the new white housethe Yayla mountain range so close and heavy.Heat-wearied, looking crayon-drawn,the crane is standing in the bush, tail down,a cane-like leg… He says, “What, Bird?It’s nice at Volga now! At Yaroslavl!” Smiling,he begins thinking of his own funeral,how they will carry his coffin outdoors, how graythe vests will be in the hot sunrays,how yellow light, how white the house against the blue.“From the porch, a fat old priest goes downstairs.The choir follows him… Frightened and clicking,the crane takes wing off the old fence and dances,and with its beak it knocks on the coffin.”A tickling in his breast. Dust rushes from the highway,hot and especially dry.He takes off his pince-nez and thinks while coughing,“Yes, vaudeville… and all the rest is guille.”
La Lune Blanche
by Paul Verlaine
The white moonshines in the woods;from each boughcomes a voiceunder the branch…Oh, beloved.
The pond reflects,deep mirror,the silhouetteof the black willowwhere the wind cries…Let’s dream, now is the hour.
A vast and tenderappeasing seems to descendfrom the firmament as an iridescent orb...It’s the exquisite hour.
To Myself, by Leopardi                     And so, you’ll quiet down for ever,o my poor, tired heart.The deception’s perished--final, ultimate,which I reckoned immortal within me.I feel that not only the hopeof the dear deceptions has died,but the desire for them has gone out. Calm down, for ever. You thrilled enough.There is nothing worthy of yourpulsing, and the earth is not worthy of the sighs.Our life is melancholy and bitterness, no more;the world is dirtiness. Quiet down and stop.Despair for the final time. Fate doesn’t give usother gift than dying.From now on, despise itself,the nature, the insulting strengththat covertly bosses the showof the universal vice, despise the futility of it all.
from the Epigrams by Marcus Valerius Martialis
“King of the birds, tell me whom you are carrying?”             “The Thunderer.” “Why he has not thunderbolts in his right hand?”                              “He’s in love.” “Whose fire did smite him?”                                                              “A child’s one.” “Why are you looking at god, your beak is half-open?” “I’m whispering of Ganymede.”
* * * 
some of the poems are published as a part of my collected notes and essays The Sunless Parlour (ISBN 9781446192290). Notes, stories and translations by author of the novels La Lune Blanche (ISBN 9781409299011 and 9781445237596), Forever Jocelyn (ISBN 9781445204062) and La Arme Blanche (ISBN 9781446157916). Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy, Kuzmin, Clodt, Henri de Regnier, Verlaine, Chekhov, Stéphane Mallarmé, poetry, humor. “…in a sunless parlour where an old clock ticked in the shadows and a cat slept by the empty grate.” (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited)http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

The estetic of senses!: Hôpital Notre-dame à la Rose - Lessines. 1ere part...

The estetic of senses!: Hôpital Notre-dame à la Rose - Lessines. 1ere part...: L’hôtel-Dieu lessinois est contemporain de tout le mouvement hospitalier qui se développa en Europe aux 12e et 13e siècles. A la...



May the summer’s honey breath bring you A Handful of Blossoms... Apropos... read the first review at Elisa Rolle Reviews
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26July

Born under the sign of Lion. http://revueblanche.blogspot.com/2012/06/mysterious-date-again.html

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All Colours of Dawn

Excerpt from my WIP. A fictional story from writings by my main character. Someone’s time for reminiscence.
All Colours of Dawn   
That summer of 1886 went as usual, in out part of the world, but the summertime was too short, burning away quickly like gunpowder. The boating with cousins, in the morning; cricket or tennis at noon; and after lunch, in the round hall, my cousin’s tutor performed chansonnettes “for gentlemen only”--  “Il y a des jours... et des lunes...” 
“...Play the flute, Be game for anything!..”
“…Sans maman!Sans maman!Sans maman!!!”-- And I watched his singing lips that knew oh so much, and I didn’t believe in the frivolous words, preferring believe that there was a charm in amorousness and love was sooner tender than cruel, but I was ready for admitting that my theory was erroneous. In short, I hated the very thought of leaving for the town and going to college. But the sad cold smile of autumn never lies, and soon I had to leave.    I was late both for the beginning of the academic year and on my first day in particular. Changing in the vestibule, I passed by several swots, going straight to our classroom. Eric Hartberg told me all recent news and remarked, as thought by the way, “I have four of those whom I fag.” I felt vexed: I had not any, for the present. With a small nod, he pointed out a new student, “That one seems rather amusing. Well-read, almost like me.” “Almost like you? Well let’s see.” I went to the new classmate. The blond boy looked at me, smiled friendly and closed his book--perhaps, d’Aurevilly. “You read at breaks? Good for you!” His white skin was too pale; a soft-pink glowworm seemed to shine within his jasmine cheeks. And his eyes were like two lakelets. I said, “Something divine is in you, but what it is, I can’t understand… for the present.” Scratching the book-cover with his penknife, he replied melancholically, “And your mouth is rhomb-like. It opens on four sides.” I said softly and condescendingly, “Before saying a paradox or nonsense, one should think twice, or else a misunderstanding or mistake would cause a lot of problems to the joker.”  He turned pale, and I got surprised that a human could be yet paler; then he began coughing, and on his white handkerchief, the glossy droplets of his blood looked like lady-bugs. His name was… Let’s say, his name was Ulrich. Ulrich Drottningholm. He was named after his grandpa.The autumn came early, too early, like death of your favorite poet. Shivering, the leafless saplings nodded to the gusty wind; two young dogs played tag running over the round stones of the yard; and I walked around the hall and learned a Latin poem by heart. Ulrich approached, and shaking his blond chevelure, he took my hand and pressed my fingers. It seemed to me that he wanted to make me kneel. I said softly but imperiously, “Don’t. I know, Huldericus, you are stronger than me, so, don’t.” Weak, he gripped my both hands then angrily shook off his hands, and went away.I smiled: I enjoyed my teasing. His white face glimpsed now and then the day long as he turned it or lifted it a little, having a charm and latent exaltation which kept my eye.Far in the day I lit upon an interesting idea and the next day, on Saturday, I said to Blond, “Ulrich. You are a beautiful damsel. Put your mama’s coat on and we shall go for a drive! You should have a dorothy-bag about. This is how it must be!”L’aventure, c’est l’aventure. At the Quay, we seemed to attract everyone’s attention. L’enfant du carnaval, he looked lovely like a young cocotte. Touching his plaid covered knee, I looked in the shade of his dark hat, where, behind the dark veil, the eyes showed blue especially languorously, and watching the rouged lips, I whispered, “Ulrika, a water nymph! Ulla, the goddess of the rococo universe! Falling in love with a mortal man, you would lose your immortality.”Smiling, he said, “All right.”                            “I want to fall in love with you, Ulrika, or…” I paused and added, “…I’d rather not.” I removed my hand from his knee.I carried the dorothy-bag away with me when we parted company.Far in the day, in the dortour, I greeted Eric by kissing, and to him, Ulrich, I held out my hand, and then I asked, frowning, as though seeking to remember of something, “Do we shake hands?”Shuddering, the blond boy left, with no reply. At dawn, through the mantle of sleep, I heard somebody was brought to hospital--hysterics. Animula vagula, blandula. Later, in the morning, he approached and put a banknote in my hand, “The money, which I owed to you.” I shrugged, “Could one owe anything but money?” Now, the first snow fell, white and heavy, on the brown remains of grass. Frozen, white and fluffy, thin branches interlaced with one another, making a beautiful pattern against the gray sky; on a long bough, a fledgling of a raven ruffled up sadly. That Tuesday was cloudy and frosty. The snow began falling, covering the old manege. When Eric came running in the classroom, I was late noticing his coming, because I contemplated the stray sunbeam wandering over blots of my notes. Out of breath, Eric aspirated, “He shot himself! Blond shot himself, this morning!” They said I turned pale. It’s not true. I was only surprised. “Dead?”“They say he isn’t.” Eric took breath. They said I drew a deep breath. Not at all, I only said, “Of course. One shoots at his heart not to die but to try a new role.” Here, I heard, “Graf! Oscar Graf! Phone call for you!” The porter Werner led me to the phone-box and stood aside. “…Hullo,” I said.  “Ulrich’s mother is here.” Mute tears. “Are you his friend?” “I think, yes, I am.” “Didn’t you know that… a reason why he shot himself was you?..”I was about to reply, but the receiver dropped out. Strangely. They said I turned pale. Nonsense. It was but dismals. Ulrich was in St Eugenia Community hospital, lying in a separate ward. Seeing me first visiting him, he gave a wan smile of bliss, and I began visiting the white room, every day, after class, to stay by his bedside. “A message from Eric to you,” I said, one day. “Read it for me,” he asked languorously, “For I can’t do it.” I opened the letter and read it aloud--“Come back, Blond! Every day, I come to your desk… It’s so sad to read the books which we read together… Get better, Ulrich! Eric.”The thin germinating branches whispered, close against the window, as though asking permission to come in the room. Bookended by brilliancy and murk, Ulrich smiled. The cold winter melted into the next season. Now, the breeze and birds made the green-plumed springtime rustle, slow and captivating. The springtime came early, too early, like your first love. A little bird settled on a branch, for an instant, on the way to its nest. A nurse came noiselessly in, with a cup of fresh broth in hand. Then the door closed again and the white uniform disappeared. Abed, Ulrich murmured blissfully, “Would you like me to tell a story?..” Anima persa. I frowned, “Don’t! Enough slobbering and twilight!” I turned on the switch, and almost instantly, all colours of night left the brightly lit room.
 The End
Lara Biyuts © 2012
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a gastarbeiter. re-post

it's a repost of my note, first published on the blog.co.uk (about my activity on the site, please, read the intro-post on this blog).


A Gastarbeiter-Sausage kingor The Re-posting
Two or three years ago, I was a fan of one TV show, the culinary show Supper Party (now left by me). One of the show competitors was a man from Britain--surprise!--and what was more surprising, the man could speak Russian like a Russian. Stunned, I listened to him, and I could hardly believe my own ears, since Russian language is known as one of most difficult. But it was so: a true English man speaking Russian like a true Russian. Coming in the first apartment, where the first Supper Party was to take place, he greeted the host with one very special greeting, used only in Russian army (why?), though no army-men were before his eyes, only the host, who was neither an army-man nor ex-army-man. The greeting also can be used ironically--but what irony, if he saw the host for the first time in his life, known nothing of the man? Irony to the show viewers? I still can’t understand why he greeted in this way. Before having the first supper, the participants talk sitting at table and introducing themselves, and from the first talk we could learn that the English man studied Russian since he was aged 12 (why? do you know of many young English boys who study Russian language?), that he had his own business in Moscow, that he used to be married in Russia (his wife was an Ukrainian or from south of Russia, but he said she was of Cossack origin because a “Ukrainian woman” sounds too discreditable for Moscow people), he fathered a son and then divorced. Many other participants of the Supper Party Show improved the opportunity advertising their own business on TV, and the Englishman was not an exception (how it could be otherwise, for he seemed so ordinary, so simple; only his Russian sounded outstanding). He had a sausage factory. The recipe of the sausages he brought from Britain--either his family recipe or national, I can’t remember. Tasting the first dish, he announced (for some reason) that British people had no a thought of adding pickled vegetables to salads. Why did he say this? Nobody asked him, and it was slightly off topic. As I think, his intention was hitting hearts of us all, anglophiles, who watched him and who always added pickled vegetables to salads as it is our custom in Russia. If so, then he succeeded, and his intention is either quite unintelligible or quite comprehensible showing how bilious the man was in his inner. A fair-haired 39-year-old man, sincere only when he bit, he told about his successful business and about himself a little. Being able to speak Russian language, he came to Moscow several years ago, got a job of a top manager at a Swiss firm, and then he began his own business in Moscow (why did he leave the good job?). His life story sounded so simple and so suspicious for me that after the show, I visited the website of the TV channel--the English man was on the forum--and I wrote a letter to him, saying that I felt certain that he was a spy. The very mode of his life--seemingly open to such an extent that it made doubt in his sincerity--sounded so usual for a spy, being what a spy was recommended to do in a foreign country (as far as I knew reading novels), that is, mingling as much as possible, improving every opportunity, and his excellent Russian was amazing and somewhat betraying his true profession, and I said that all this seemed so evident for me that I could not help writing to him. He did not reply, but I saw him very soon on a TV talk-show, where his speech he ended by saying something about “silly girls” or “she-fools”. Why? I don’t know why he expressed himself in this way. In virtue of the fact that he spoke in Russian, his words were intended for Russian girls. Taking it personally, I did not take offence, for really, that man never knew me. The ending of the TV story is this blog posting. Only at present, two or three years later, I have found some free time to write down this true story set on the Net as well as in real life. I still feel certain that the man is a spy or something of the kind (a striking image of a spy for me, if you ask me), and his words about his studying Russian language when he was aged 12 sounds untruth; he simply had a gift for mastering foreign languages to perfection, and he was noticed by someone when he was a student and was invited to join a secret service (which is my supposition.) I find my supposition verisimilar and him I find very nice, though I shudder to think of trusting a man like he or entrusting something dear to him, and I dislike spies in general (who does love them?) Now, here is a link of the TV forum page where you can find his profile, clicking on the nickname Джонниwith no photo (if you can’t see the profile, then you have to do registering on the forum): http://www.ren-tv.com/forum/index.php... name is John Warren (the name is so simple, so ordinary, isn’t it?) My British online friends can write to him to ask about a name of his sausages in order to buy the sausages when they are on visit at Moscow. I sincerely hope that my reader finds this story quite suggestive.The End of the Re-postingAt present, on the Net, one “John Warren” enjoys a role of DJ, writing on Russian blogs, defaming his homeland Britain, as though by the way, boasting about his Russian, in Russian, making stylistic errors which make suspect his alcohol intoxication, in short, showing himself as a socialite (which seeming half-openness corresponds a secret role of a spy, I’d say again), but I don’t know whether that DJ is the “hero” of my old blog post or not. Commenting the note, one blogger from the UK suggested that the “hero” was a Soviet spy sooner than British. Well it sounds yet more disgusting then.
The End of the Posting
 
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the mysterious date again

in the post…http://revueblanche.blogspot.com/2011/07/mysterious-date.html…I complained about all the authors, whose diaries or memoires I happened to read, and who as if on purpose, avoided mentioning 26 July, and some of them omitted the very month July. I named the date “mysterious” but not in earnest, of course not. Now, about the author, who has no thought of avoiding the date.
The writer's name has much to do with the name of William “Kitty” Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon (c.1768-1835)http://rictornorton.co.uk/beckfor1.htm 
“He was as much a martyr as Wilde, and almost certainly a more interesting and civilised man.”-(Alistair Sutherland)   William Thomas Beckford (1760–1844), English novelist, art collector, travel writer, politician, author of Vathek (1786). 
But the excerpt, which is my latest discovery and which continues my previous post “Mysterious Date”, is not from the famous “Vathek” --






“Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents; in a Series of Letters from Various Parts of Europe” LETTER VIII excerpt 
July 22nd. - Joy to the Electors of Bavaria! for planting such extensive woods of fir in their dominions as shade over the chief part of the road from Augsburg to Munich.  Near the last-mentioned city, I cannot boast of the scenery changing to advantage.  Instead of flourishing woods and verdure, we beheld a parched dreary flat, diversified by fields of withering barley, and stunted avenues drawn formally across them; now and then a stagnant pool, and sometimes a dunghill, by way of regale.  However, the wild rocks of the Tyrol terminate the view, and to them imagination may fly, and walk amidst springs and lilies of her own creation.  I speak from authority, having had the pleasure of anticipating an evening in this romantic style.Tuesday next is the grand fair, with horse-races and junketings: a piece of news I was but too soon acquainted with; for the moment we entered the town, good-natured creatures from all quarters advised us to get out of it; since traders and harlequins had filled every corner of the place, and there was not a lodging to be procured.  The inns, to be sure, were like hives of industrious animals sorting their merchandise, and preparing their goods for sale.  Yet, in spite of difficulties, we got possession of a quiet apartment.July 23rd. - We were driven in the evening to Nymphenburg, the Elector’s country palace, whose bosquets, jets-d’eaux, and parterres are the pride of the Bavarians.  The principal platform is all of a glitter with gilded Cupids and shining serpents spouting at every pore.  Beds of poppies, hollyhocks, scarlet lychnis, and the most flaming flowers, border the edge of the walks, which extend till the perspective meets, and swarm with ladies and gentlemen in parti-coloured raiment.  The Queen of Golconda’s gardens in a French opera are scarcely more gaudy and artificial.  Unluckily, too, the evening was fine, and the sun so powerful that we were half roasted before we could cross the great avenue and enter the thickets, which barely conceal a very splendid hermitage, where we joined Mr. and Mrs. T., and a party of fashionable Bavarians.Amongst the ladies was Madame la Contesse, I forget who, a production of the venerable Haslang, with her daughter, Madame de ---, who has the honour of leading the Elector in her chains.  These goddesses stepping into a car, vulgarly called a cariole, the mortals followed, and explored alley after alley and pavilion after pavilion.  Then, having viewed Pagodenburg, which is, as they told me, all Chinese; and Marienburg, which is most assuredly all tinsel; we paraded by a variety of fountains in full squirt, and though they certainly did their best (for many were set a-going on purpose), I cannot say I greatly admired them.The ladies were very gaily attired, and the gentlemen, as smart as swords, bags, and pretty clothes could make them, looked exactly like the fine people one sees represented in a coloured print.  Thus we kept walking genteelly about the orangery, till the carriage drew up and conveyed us to Mr T’s.Immediately after supper, we drove once more out of town, to a garden and tea-room, where all degrees and ages dance jovially together till morning.  Whilst one party wheel briskly away in the valz, another amuse themselves in a corner with cold meat and rhenish.  That despatched, out they whisk amongst the dancers, with an impetuosity and liveliness I little expected to have found in Bavaria.  After turning round and round, with a rapidity that is quite inconceivable to an English dancer, the music changes to a slower movement, and then follows a succession of zig-zag minuets, performed by old and young, straight and crooked, noble and plebeian, all at once, from one end of the room to the other.  Tallow candles snuffing and stinking, dishes changing, heads scratching, and all sorts of performances going forward at the same moment; the flutes, oboes, and bassoons snorting and grunting with peculiar emphasis; now fast, now slow, just as Variety commands, who seems to rule the ceremonial of this motley assembly, where every distinction of rank and privilege is totally forgotten.  Once a week, on Sundays that is to say, the rooms are open, and Monday is generally somewhat advanced before they are deserted.  If good humour and coarse merriment are all that people desire, here they are to be found in perfection, though at the expense of toes and noses.  Both these extremities of my person suffered most cruelly; and I was not sorry to retire about one in the morning to a purer atmosphere.July 24th. - Custom condemned us to visit the palace, which glares with looking-glass, gilding, and cut velvet, most sumptuously fringed and spangled.  The chapel, though small, is richer than anything Crœsus ever possessed, let them say what they will.  Not a corner but shines with gold, diamonds, and scraps of martyrdom studded with jewels.  I had the delight of treading amethysts and the richest gems under foot, which, if you recollect, Apuleius thinks such supreme felicity.  Alas! I was quite unworthy of the honour, and had much rather have trodden the turf of the mountains.  Mammon would never have taken his eyes off the pavement; mine soon left the contemplation of it, and fixed on St. Peter’s thumb, enshrined with a degree of elegance, and adorned by some malapert enthusiast with several of the most delicate antique cameos I ever beheld; the subjects, Ledas and sleeping Venuses, are a little too pagan, one should think, for an apostle’s finger.From this precious repository we were conducted through the public garden to a large hall, where part of the Sleitzom collection is piled up, till a gallery can be finished for its reception.  ’Twas a matter of great favour to view, in this state, the pieces that compose it, - a very imperfect one too, since some of the best were under operation.  But I would not upon any account have missed the sight of Rubens’s “Massacre of the Innocents.”  Such expressive horrors were never yet transferred to canvas, and Moloch himself might have gazed at them with pleasure.After dinner we were led round the churches; and if you are as much tired with reading my voluminous descriptions, as I was with the continual repetition of altars and reliquaries, the Lord have mercy upon you!  However, your delivery draws near.  The post is going out, and to-morrow we shall begin to mount the cliffs of the Tyrol; but don’t be afraid of any long-winded epistles from their summits: I shall be too well employed in ascending them.  Just now, as I have lain by a long while, I grow sleek, and scribble on in mere wantonness of spirit.  What excesses such a correspondence is capable of, you will soon be able to judge.July 25th. - The noise of the people thronging to the fair did not allow me to slumber very long in the morning.  When I got up, every street was crowded with Jews and mountebanks, holding forth and driving their bargains in all the energetic vehemence of the German tongue.  Vast quantities of rich merchandise glittered in the shops as we passed along to the gates.  Heaps of fruit and sweetmeats set half the grandams and infants in the place a-cackling with felicity.Mighty glad was I to make my escape; and in about an hour or two, we entered a wild tract of country, not unlike the skirts of a princely park.  A little farther on stands a cluster of cottages, where we stopped to give our horses some bread, and were pestered with swarms of flies, most probably journeying to Munich fair, there to feast upon sugared tarts and bottle-noses.The next post brought us over hill and dale, grove and meadow, to a narrow plain, watered by rivulets and surrounded by cliffs, under which lies scattered the village of Wollrathshausen, consisting of several cottages, built entirely of fir, with strange galleries hanging over the way.  Nothing can be neater than the carpentry of these simple edifices, nor more solid than their construction; many of them looked as if they had braved the torrents which fell from the mountains a century ago; and, if one may judge from the hoary appearance of the inhabitants, here are patriarchs who remember the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.  Orchards of cherry-trees impend from the steeps above the village, which to our certain knowledge produce no contemptible fruit.Having refreshed ourselves with their cooling juice, we struck into a grove of pines, the tallest and most flourishing perhaps we ever beheld.  There seemed no end to these forests, save where little irregular spots of herbage, fed by cattle, intervened.  Whenever we gained an eminence it was only to discover more ranges of dark wood, variegated with meadows and glittering streams.  White clover and a profusion of sweet-scented flowers clothe their banks; above, waves the mountain-ash, glowing with scarlet berries; and beyond, rise hills and rocks and mountains, piled upon one another, and fringed with fir to their topmost acclivities.  Perhaps the Norwegian forests alone equal these in grandeur and extent. Those which cover the Swiss highlands rarely convey such vast ideas. There, the woods climb only half way up their ascents, and then are circumscribed by snows: here, no boundaries are set to their progress, and the mountains, from their bases to their summits, display rich unbroken masses of vegetation.As we were surveying this prospect, a thick cloud, fraught with thunder, obscured the transparence of the horizon, whilst flashes startled our horses, whose snorts and stampings resounded through the woods.  What from the shade of the firs and the impending tempests, we travelled several miles almost in total darkness.  One moment the clouds began to fleet, and a faint gleam promised serener hours, but the next all was gloom and terror; presently a deluge of rain poured down upon the valley, and in a short time the torrents, beginning to swell, raged with such fury as to be with difficulty forded.  Twilight drew on, just as we had passed the most terrible; then ascending a steep hill under a mountain, whose pines and birches rustled with the storm, we saw a little lake below. A deep azure haze veiled its eastern shore, and lowering vapours concealed the cliffs to the south; but over its western extremities a few transparent clouds, the remains of the rays of a struggling sunset, were suspended, which streamed on the surface of the waters, and tinged with tender pink the brow of a verdant promontory.I could not help fixing myself on the banks of the lake for several minutes, till this apparition was lost, and confounded with the shades of night.  Looking round, I shuddered at a craggy mountain, clothed in dark forests and almost perpendicular, that was absolutely to be surmounted before we could arrive at Wallersee.  No house, not even a shed appearing, we were forced to ascend the peak, and penetrate these awful groves.Great praise is due to the directors of the roads across them, which, considering their situation, are wonderfully fine.  Mounds of stone support the passage in some places; and, in others, it is hewn with incredible labour through the solid rock.  Beeches and pines of a hundred feet high, darken the way with their gigantic branches, casting a chill around, and diffusing a woody odour.  As we advanced, in the thick shade, amidst the spray of torrents, and heard their loud roar in the chasm beneath, I could scarcely help thinking myself transported to the Grande Chartreuse; and began to conceive hopes of once more beholding St. Bruno. {140}  But, though that venerable father did not vouchsafe an apparition, or call to me again from the depths of the dells, he protected his votary from nightly perils, and brought us to the banks of Wallersee Lake.  We saw lights gleam upon its shores, which directed us to a cottage where we reposed after our toils, and were soon lulled to sleep by the fall of distant waters.July 26th. - The sun rose many hours before me, and when I got up was spangling the surface of the lake, which expands between steeps of wood, crowned by lofty crags and pinnacles.  We had an opportunity of contemplating this bold assemblage as we travelled on the banks of the Meer, where it forms a bay sheltered by impending forests; the water, tinged by their reflection with a deep cerulean, calm and tranquil.  Mountains of pine and beech rising above, close every outlet; and, no village or spire peeping out of the foliage, impress an idea of more than European solitude.  I could contentedly have passed a summer’s moon in these retirements, hollowed myself a canoe, and fished for sustenance.From the shore of Wallersee, our road led us straight through arching groves, which the axe seems never to have violated, to the summit of a rock covered with spurge-laurel, and worn by the course of torrents into innumerable craggy forms.  Beneath, lay extended a chaos of shattered cliffs, with tall pines springing from their crevices, and rapid streams hurrying between their intermingled trunks and branches.  As yet, no hut appeared, no mill, no bridge, no trace of human existence.After a few hours’ journey through the wilderness, we began to discover a wreath of smoke; and presently the cottage from whence it arose, composed of planks, and reared on the very brink of a precipice.  Piles of cloven spruce-fir were dispersed before the entrance, on a little spot of verdure browsed by goats; near them sat an aged man with hoary whiskers, his white locks tucked under a fur cap.  Two or three beautiful children, their hair neatly braided, played around him; and a young woman, dressed in a short robe and Polish-looking bonnet, peeped out of a wicket window.I was so much struck with the exotic appearance of this sequestered family, that, crossing a rivulet, I clambered up to their cottage and begged some refreshment.  Immediately there was a contention amongst the children, who should be the first to oblige me.  A little black-eyed girl succeeded, and brought me an earthen jug full of milk, with crumbled bread, and a platter of strawberries fresh picked from the bank.  I reclined in the midst of my smiling hosts, and spread my repast on the turf: never could I be waited upon with more hospitable grace.  The only thing I wanted was language to express my gratitude; and it was this deficiency which made me quit them so soon.  The old man seemed visibly concerned at my departure; and his children followed me a long way down the rocks, talking in a dialect which passes all understanding, and waving their hands to bid me adieu.I had hardly lost sight of them and regained my carriage before we entered a forest of pines, to all appearance without bounds, of every age and figure; some, feathered to the ground with flourishing branches; others, decayed into shapes like Lapland idols.  I can imagine few situations more dreadful than to be lost at night amidst this confusion of trunks, hollow winds whistling among the branches, and strewing their cones below.  Even at noonday, I thought we should never have found our way out.At last, having descended a long avenue, endless perspectives opening on either side, we emerged into a valley bounded by swelling hills, divided into agreeable shady inclosures, where many herds were grazing.  A rivulet flows along the pastures beneath; and after winding through the village of Boidou, loses itself in a narrow pass amongst the cliffs and precipices which rise above the cultivated slopes, and frame in this happy pastoral region.  All the plain was in sunshine, the sky blue, and the heights illuminated, except one rugged peak with spires of rock, shaped not unlike the views I have seen of Sinai, and wrapped, like that sacred mount, in clouds and darkness.  At the base of this tremendous mass, lies a neat hamlet called Mittenvald, surrounded by thickets and banks of verdure, and watered by frequent springs, whose sight and murmurs were so reviving in the midst of a sultry day, that we could not think of leaving their vicinity, but remained at Mittenvald the whole evening.Our inn had long airy galleries, and a pleasant balcony fronting the mountain.  In one of these we dined upon trout fresh from the rills, and cherries just culled from the orchards that cover the slopes above.  The clouds were dispersing, and the topmost peak half visible, before we ended our repast.  Every moment discovering some inaccessible cliff or summit, shining through the mists, and tinted by the sun with pale golden colours.  These appearances filled me with such delight and with such a train of romantic associations, that I left the table and ran to an open field beyond the huts and gardens, to gaze in solitude and catch the vision before it dissolved away.  You, if any human being is able, may conceive true ideas of these glowing vapours sailing over the pointed rocks; and brightening them in their passage with amber light.When all were faded and lost in the blue ether, I had time to look around me and notice the mead in which I was standing.  Here, clover covered its surface; there, crops of grain; further on, beds of herbs and the sweetest flowers.  An amphitheatre of hills and rocks, broken into a variety of glens and precipices, guards the plain from intrusion, and opens a course for several clear rivulets, which, after gurgling amidst loose stones and fragments, fall down the steeps, and are concealed and quieted in the herbage of the vale.A cottage or two peep out of the woods that hang over the waterfalls; and on the brow of the hills above, appears a series of eleven little chapels, uniformly built.  I followed the narrow path that leads to them, on the edge of the eminences, and met a troop of beautiful peasants, all of the name of Anna (for it was her saintship’s day), going to pay their devotions, severally, at these neat white fanes.  There were faces that Guercino would not have disdained copying, with braids of hair the softest and most luxuriant I ever beheld.  Some had wreathed it simply with flowers, other with rolls of a thin linen (manufactured in the neighbourhood), and disposed it with a degree of elegance one should not have expected on the cliffs of the Tyrol.Being arrived, they knelt all together at the first chapel, on the steps, a minute or two, whispered a short prayer, and then dispersed each to her fane.  Every little building had now its fair worshipper, and you may well conceive how much such figures, scattered about the landscape, increased its charms.  Notwithstanding the fervour of their adorations (for at intervals they sighed and beat their white bosoms with energy), several bewitching profane glances were cast at me as I passed by.  Don’t be surprised, then, if I became a convert to idolatry in so amiable a form, and worshipped St. Anna on the score of her namesakes.When got beyond the last chapel, I began to hear the roar of a cascade in a thick wood of beech and chestnut that clothes the steeps of a wide fissure in the rock.  My ear soon guided me to its entrance, which was marked by a shed encompassed with mossy fragments, and almost concealed by bushes of the caper-plant in full red bloom.  Amongst these I struggled, till, reaching a goat-track, it conducted me, on the brink of the foaming waters, to the very depths of the cliff, whence issues a stream which dashes impetuously down, strikes against a ledge of rocks, and sprinkles the impending thicket with dew.  Big drops hung on every spray, and glittered on the leaves partially gilt by the rays of the declining sun, whose mellow hues softened the summits of the cliffs, and diffused a repose, a divine calm, over this deep retirement, which inclined me to imagine it the extremity of the earth, and the portal of some other region of existence; some happy world beyond the dark groves of pine, the caves and awful mountains, where the river takes its source!  I hung eagerly on the gulph, impressed with this idea, and fancied myself listening to a voice that bubbled up with the waters; then looked into the abyss and strained my eyes to penetrate its gloom, but all was dark and unfathomable as futurity!  Awakening from my reverie, I felt the damps of the water chill my forehead, and ran shivering out of the vale to avoid them.  A warmer atmosphere, that reigned in the meads I had wandered across before, tempted me to remain a good while longer, collecting the wild pinks with which they are strewed in profusion, and a species of thyme scented like myrrh.  Whilst I was thus employed, a confused murmur struck my ear, and, on turning towards a cliff, backed by the woods from whence the sound seemed to proceed, forth issued a herd of goats, hundreds after hundreds, skipping down the steeps: then followed two shepherd boys, gamboling together as they drove their creatures along: soon after, the dog made his appearance, hunting a stray heifer which brought up the rear.  I followed them with my eyes till lost in the windings of the valley, and heard the tinkling of their bells die gradually away.  Now the last blush of crimson left the summit of Sinai, inferior mountains being long since cast in deep blue shades.  The village was already hushed when I regained it, and in a few moments I followed its example.http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7258

A Handful of Blossoms

June, 2012. Lara Biyuts’ long-awaited new story is finally published. At Lulu.com ISBN 9781471727962 and Smashwords.com
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168036 http://www.lulu.com/shop/lara-biyuts/a-handful-of-blossoms/paperback/product-20162017.html 
Note: the previously announced working title “Summer’s Honey Breath” (from Shakespeare) is changed to "A Handful of Blossoms." 

1764. Europe. Weird night dreams and historical personalities, collection of the fairy-tales and the most unusual love story, honorable spirits and alien undead mingle seamlessly with the thought-provoking plot. Stroll through this life-born mosaic and get prepared for the most powerful fascination which can turn the intricate mosaic into A HANDFUL OF BLOSSOMS.
























About the Author http://flexwriterblogsonline.net/articles/?page_id=592  

excerpt-story

 My Restless Happiness  (excerpt from my novel Silver Thread Spinner)
“His Majesty is having a rest! I’ve an order not to let anybody in.” Heard from behind the tent cover, the young voice of the guard officer is so emotional that nearly slipping in falsetto. “I’ll be waiting here… in the chair. You may not to announce my coming. I won’t make noise, I promise.” His voice! He’s returned! Great Gods! At long last. I am so happy that ready for running out to meet him despite the poignant pain in my leg and the last sleepless night. I wonder how much I have slept. The endless columns of figures, those estimates, reports, petitions, messages… I hate all this! My eyes must be red like a white mouse’s. I get slowly up and take a seat to look at myself in the looking-glass. A scarecrow. Pale, thin, unshaven, with the disheveled hair. Looking like this, how can I come out to him?! Why he never sent a messenger? Is anything wrong there? My heart is throbbing, I am in hurry, and the comb is entangled in my long locks. Gritting teeth, I struggle with my desire to take a sharp knife. Oh dear! If it were not for you, I would cut off all the mess on my head! No, I can’t set my hair, then I’ll disentangle it, at least.  “How cheeky you are! You’ve been said that he’s having a rest! Why have you dragged yourself here? We enjoyed being without you.” The voice of Cassander is heard from behind the tent cover. “Skillfully,” the calm reply is heard, “I’m so interested in your point of view, Cassander. Next you have to say how much you love me.” “I’ll say if someone wishes…” the distinct sound of an unsheathed sword makes me draw up.  “You have a new sword? Most interesting. Can you use it?” Hephaestion’s voice rings with notes of scorn. “Be careful, don’t cut yourself. You should ask your father’s permission otherwise you’ll get it in the neck for giving his things without asking.” A tense silence falls. I know it’s but altercation which cannot result in anything serious, but every time I have to suppress my wish to rush upon and give a good shaking to “the dearest of my friends who has been brought up with me and shares all my secrets.” “You are right, Hephaestion,” Cassander’s voice sounds calmer now, “Where should a king’s mat be but not under his master’s foot.” “Envy silently.”                                       “If there is anything enviable. I’m a general and not a hetaera!”“Roughly. You hit below the belt… Cassander.”Silence again. I pull on my woollen tunic. Not got used to wearing pants, I have to wear the garment in order to hide the bondage on my leg; besides, it’s much warmer being wearing the garment, for I feel cold all alone, since recently. Checking up the knot of the pants, I mentally curse the high boots which I’ll have to lace. Wincing I pull on one boot. My ankle is swollen and the back presses on the wound. Oh Gods! Lame in one leg, how will I be walking today? Lacing the boots somehow, I stand up and nearly fall down on the coach with the poignant pain. Sending to Tartar the boots, which have become too tight, I pull away the boots and for several minutes my feet have to get accustomed to the sense of freedom. The pain pulses but passes off; my breath normalizes. I’ll have to walk over the frozen soil being barefoot--no matter--I won’t put on boots again. I stand up saying to myself that the pain is bearable and the cold of the soil is not so awful as it seems at first.  The several steps to the cover, which partitions off the other part of the tent, I make forcing myself to forget of my own legs and concentrate my thoughts on him. He’s there and awaiting my coming! I carefully move the folds of the cover apart. Cassander is nowhere about. Hephaestion is sitting in the chair sideward to me. His heavy furred cloak is folded on the next chair. Stretching out his slender long legs and bending his head thoughtfully, he contemplates his right hand nails. The familiar long deep-red tunic and light leather panoply with cupper straps. His gauntlets are on the cloak and his Greek greaves still protect his lower legs. He looks weary. A stray lock from his hairdo tickles his cheek, and the gesture, oh so familiar, lets the lock through his fingers and puts it behind his ear. I’ve been missing him so much that I feel giddy. I throw back the cover and step forward. “Hephaestion! I did not expect you today.” He casts eyes up slowly and thoughtfully as though weighting my words. He stands up, makes a bow as though there are a lot of courtiers around, then he draws himself up, and I notice a shadow of a smile on his lips. But it’s only a shadow, and his eye is serious and bleak. Obviously, he is waiting for my permission to begin speaking--and I am beginning to get angry. Why to play? Why does he begin to observe etiquette? “I suppose the matter is pressing, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here, right after arriving.” My speech is calm but his coolness passes to me and begins ringing in my voice. “Yes, my Lord,” the polity reply ensues.            “Well… what’s happened?”        “It’s all over with that.”My heart sinks. He’s been at the secret talks with the council of the highland tribes. They should decide to take our side, otherwise we have months of blood-shedding arm conflicts ahead, and we could forget of continuation of our march. Now, he’s returned. “And so… What should we expect?”“We? I don’t know. And you… You should expect the envoys, who are coming for making peace, the day after tomorrow, and today…”  Hephaestion’s eyes burn with the blue flame of desire, “…my scolding for your walking barefoot, today, when it’s freezing hard, and…” he gets close to me and the rest of the phrase he breathes out into my mouth, “… the most hot sex my Lord could ever imagine.”I can’t reply to his escapade, because his hot lips cover mine, my pulse rumbles in my ears, and my arms embrace his strong neck. He carries me in his arms without stopping the kissing. My last distinct thought is “Why did I dress with the excessive care?”
The End
Lara Biyuts © 2011
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110216
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