Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Romance

His stare seems to extend into the next reality. He is carrying forth the numerable qualities of his passion, held within the palm of an added extremity, which reaches out to Devorah for her to clasp in her hands. He cannot mock her ignorance. He only matches himself with her world.
She is worldly only through books. In Bertrand, knowledge reigns as a monarch on a golden throne, where rubies shine their many extravagant hues. Those hues of those rubies fold into shades. In hues, we see love. In shades, we see corruption. Both facets of coloring become the unfathomable entities of these two beings during this moment. Though, in specific situations, there is only what we perceive in the specific situation. But, either entity cannot be existent in both beings at the same time. In this moment, we see corruption in one, and love in the other.
Bertrand is kind in his words. His deliverance of reprieve from her small world of sorrow amuses her senses to the highest degree. She smiles, only once, before embarking on Bertrand’s reveal of poetic value. The pen still being in his hand, within a firm grip that cannot deign itself to let go. The pen appears as about to mark a vast history into Mother Earth’s records.
Bertrand says, “Poetry is an enemy to literalism. Have you known this?”
“Poetry cannot be direct?” asks Devorah.
“When poetry is born, it is never direct. Only the unraveling of poetry is direct.”
“How may poetry be unraveled?”
“The intelligence of the one who unravels the many metaphors of poetry must be either of the same level or surpass the level of the actual poet. To see the many metaphors in poetry, is to see the world of love and hatred through neutrality. To see the meanings behind written words is to not be blinded by extremism, but to be peaceful with the differing sides, for which you know to have either positive or negative perceptions. As in, the love or the hatred.”
“I see love through positivity, and hatred through negativity.”
Bertrand leans over to make sure his words are heard. “Then I bid you to see those two words through neutrality. Neutralize your perceptions of positivity or negativity in those two words, so to also block out any temptation to express a passionate like or dislike for the words. When you reveal passion in interest or disinterest, you are also revealing your personal nature.”
“What is beautiful to the world?” This question was put forth due to Devorah’s difficulty in understanding the evident synopsis of all the world’s comprehension of worldly knowledge.
“What is beautiful to the world, is what acts as the origin of something. Any personality may adopt a newness, but to the exact origin, we will ascertain the personality to have been created from something. We see such examples in the word ‘influence’ or the word ‘reality’.”
“Cannot anything in this world be beautiful?”
“I have supported the Revolution of the nineteenth century enough to understand that if anything exists, it can be perceived as beautiful. Beauty must exist for the object to be beautiful.”
“But, of poetry?” says Devorah, returning to the main topic.
“Poetry is an example of beauty. Beauty is written through understandings of poetry. Poetry is always meant to be beautiful. If poetry is not beautiful, then it has merely acquired a usage, and has not adopted the face of God. It does not love. It hates. It does not provide an escape from misery. It provides what we know of hatred to breed progress. It destroys love, which is a product of stagnation, only to rebuild on those ashes what is that person’s perception of progress.”
“But, of poetry?” repeats Devorah, wishing even more to return to the main topic.
“Poetry is dying, Devorah. Poetry has many metaphors, but since the end of the Bible’s comprehension, the subjective world has been spilled across what we know to necessarily separate. We separate the political from the factual. In politics, deception grows plentiful, though acts as a garden of poison to which people flock and will gain their information. Politics is our knowledge of the Garden of Eden. It does not compare to the world of facts.”
“But, of poetry?” repeats Devorah, desperately wanting to return to the original topic.
“Poetry is a woman, Devorah,” says Bertrand, making the truest of eye contact with the girl that it tosses her from the current situation over to the understanding of reality.
Bertrand adds, “You are not a woman, so you cannot understand anything I am saying.”
Devorah begins to grow angry. “Then why did you offer to teach me? It seems you are only here to lecture me, not to teach me what poetry will be to me.”
“Don’t get angry, my dear,” says Bertrand.
This vague compliment hurls Devorah’s brief state of rage down to the hard, wooden floor. She cannot conjure any sensible words to fathom this expression of approval, no matter how much it seemed to have been doused in cynicism. Devorah blushes but for a second.
The color of her complexion returns to its ivory exterior as she begins a retortion against Bertrand with many lashings from that returning feminine vocalization. “Monsieur Bertrand! Do not regard me as a ‘dear’. I am not a ‘dear’, so do not call me one. I see deer in the woods, and they look wonderful, but I am in no way comparable to a deer.” Devorah finishes by crossing her arms, rather adorably. She is stunned by what happens next.
Bertrand begins to laugh. This laugh is loud. It brightens up the entirety of Bernard’s Inn with such a deafening pitch, that others who are in the process of drinking a pint of something sweet or bitter, soon also begin to chuckle. Some laugh in the same voice of Bertrand, though not quite as loud. The sight has indeed distracted these two youths from their work.
Devorah says, “Monsieur Bertrand, when is your birthday?”
The question silences him, immediately, though he needs to pass a kerchief to his eyes.
He takes two breaths before replying. “Devorah, my birthday is on August twelfth.”
“Thank you for that information.”
This response had not come from Devorah. The conversation came from behind. It came from Gustave, who had been overhearing the entire conversation and was almost amused until Devorah presented this inquiry. This has given Gustave enough of a permission to interfere.
He next says, “Devorah, are we getting anything done?”
“Gus, Monsieur Bertrand is doing quite well. Have you been watching?”
“I have been watching, and it seems to me that your conversation has turned from a lecture, into a speech, then into outright anger, until it came to a question that had put me in a place of wanting to guard my daughter. Bertrand, you are seventeen…”
This fact broadens Devorah’s visage to a state of shock. Her eyes widen, and her mouth extends to twice its normal width, showing her sudden reveal of disapproval.
Gustave continues. “And your birthday is on August twelfth. Do not deign to court my daughter, even if she gives you permission. You will become an adult in precisely two months. My duties as a father extend into the world of principle, for which I will place many rules on my own daughter. You are welcome in my inn. I am not upset at you right now. I am only warning you to any future that may seem only pleasured by temptation.”
“Father! You are overreacting!” Devorah cries.
“I am not overreacting, daughter. There is much you still need to know about our situation. That information may be revealed to you, either though coincidence, or through my own repentance and willingness to give you that information. It will not be easy to divulge. I bid you to age a bit more before any such information is given to you.”
“Why are you saying this? Especially in front of Monsieur Bertrand? Why are you keeping secrets from me and telling me that you are keeping secrets from me?” Devorah is nearly in tears.
“This is a warning to you as well. You are my precious daughter. Because of this, I do not want you to succumb to anything petty or merciless. It will only be your demise.”
Gustave says the final few words with as much strain on the effort it had required him to speak the language of deception and secrecy. He leans forward, catching himself with a loud smack of his two hands onto the table’s surface. Gustave is looking down onto the table, appearing morbid with such exhaustion that it seems he may collapse at any moment.
Instantly, Devorah reacts. “Father! What is wrong? Why can’t you tell me these things right now? Why do I have to wait? Am I not being given an exact age when I will know of these secrets?” Tears begins to stream from her little blue eyes over her cheeks.
Bertrand has been dreadfully silent throughout this scene, choosing to keep his head away from Devorah’s apparent anguish. She is lost in her grief, as the offspring of the sperm whale when noticing its mother is beached upon the shore, to then realize its own certain death.
Gustave turns his head slightly to face Devorah. The darkest of expression, like the deepest abysses of the oldest canyons within such a foreboding set of eyes, rips right through Devorah’s face, reaching her mind, compelling her to stay silent for his coming words.
He says, “When you reach the age of seventeen, you will know all there is to know.”