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