Place a man at his lowest, and he knows to stare at the sun. He knows to stare at the brightest sight that burns away his own past, his own guilt to his actions. Place a man at his lowest, and he begs to be forgiven. He has offered a diamond, poured his monetary worth into it, to show that his heart is larger than when he stands.
To see of a man, his heart, then to know of a man, his mind, is the simple act of being attentive. To be ignorant, should be countered with that attentiveness. To a woman and her curiosity, mark a man among your mind as what you’ll forever desire to understand.
Love does not steady itself, though grasps the beloved with two strongest of hands, and keeps her grounded, with roots that will spread to keep an empire upright. It is only an Emperor to his negligence, who will cause that empire to crumble, because he had forgotten what was truly special within it. He should not make his Empress weep, out of failing to provide attention, for her cries will echo as thunder, and rip through the walls to turn was once gold into dust.
Love is the emotion that turns life into the lifetime, hurling even depression, the focus on a past, to its own grave, six feet below.
For love, from a man to a woman, finds sweetness in her, when there was only a hardness and a disbelief that it ever existed. “You are beautiful,” says a man of love to his beloved, and his woman agrees with his words. “You have every right in the world to weep,” says a woman of love to her beloved, and her man agrees with her words.
It is love, that challenges arrogance. It is arrogance, that is blind to love.
Like with what we see for Adrian, in this moment of blindness, to see what is fading.
Love stretches, indeed, it does; though, it also falls back to a home, to where it began, among places where people will sigh, both in grief and in pleasure.
Adrian now watches, in this moment, his Catherine, wandering away from his vision, perhaps to a shore where she may sing. His uncertainty is his error, his moments spent among doom and failure. To a man and his duty to decide, where is his leadership if not to decide for the undecided. And then, to a woman of his choice, for it is always a choice, what malady of weakness makes him still undecided for eternal marriage?
He says these words to himself:
“In the apocalypse of my mind, there is but a rose that I keep tending, so that what I see is never the entirety. Catherine is that rose, and I keep each petal upright, to see her hair falling low, as loose, though never wilting along with the rose. The rose will never die, will never wilt, because I tend it. But, the understanding of my mind being ill, is never a place of my full understanding.”
An illness to the mind; and it is a wonder he’s not much surrounded himself in the daylight of the outdoors. He’s enclosed himself, has adopted the pale complexion of a one without interest in seeing light. He played a piano with his eyes closed, and had forgotten what the weather was, out-of-doors.
It should be appropriate now to mention where our tale is set.
Among the wastes of a revolution, nearly months or perhaps nearly moments after we set paupers upon thrones, after we set pauper upon dethroning thrones, we have our world. It is where Adrian lives, in France, seemingly in an untouched building that shows no markings of gunfire, nor of cannonball blasts.
Where the remains of barricades still clog the streets with all the ruined part of buildings and carriages, here we have it.
Did Adrian hear the commotion?
He did hear it.
Did Adrian listen to it?
It was not the case, for his heart too much distracted him.
It is here noted, as it should as well be remembered, that the heart that flutters with love, will always be louder than the drums of revolution. Each thud of the heart is a heard one, though usually an ignored one. We are in fear of death, or we are excited to love. Though, we may find an ending to be exciting, or may find love terrifying.
Adrian heard his heartbeat, and he came running to it.
He once heard Catherine’s call, her body upon a bed, and went to kiss her hand and touch her cheek. He went to kiss her mouth, and soon withdraw himself when he smelled her fear, her state of exhaustion, when she said the words, “I do not want our love to fall apart, our hearts to break, because of your mind. Please, Adrian, do not feel your guilt when I say these words, if you love me.”
Another kiss, and she fell back asleep.
