The Eternal Reverie

         

I’d moved to Belgium from Paris to be closer to my mother, in an attempt to manumit my heart from its eternal bereavement. I lived alone, a life which I wasn’t accustomed, and but I assumed it would be for the best, to distance myself, refraining from any opportunity pertaining to anything extraneous to my isolation and solitude. I became severely vexed. I did not want anything to do with anyone. All I desired was her. In my aloofness, mother prescribed that I needed a woman. And then there was Claire – plain, ambitious Claire. We married, she gave me a child, her trust, her loyalty and her love; all of which made me somewhat happy, but merely temporarily seized my attention.The memory of her, my darling Angelina, still remains embedded in my mind.

It isn’t merely a memory that has distracted me from blessings of my picturesque family; it is a much deeper vexation. I have a yearning for her touch, her figure perfectly fitted into my bosom, the look in her eyes and to see her smile again, that heart-warming smile. If only I could see her again!

         Today, a desperate feeling has risen inside, my heart ablaze in anxieties and an urge to run. I want to find her! I could take a train to Paris without any trouble. Oh! What a foolish thought! I am a married man now, this will not do. But… I could see to it that Claire and our child are looked after – I can establish an annuity! But no, no I can’t. And besides, she is nowhere known to me. I do not know whether she is dead or still living among us. Is this angelic being walking the earth with another man perhaps, intermingled arm in arm as we once were? I have not been nearly the same. She completed me and now I have lost her. She is my reverie, and now I am ruined. I married someone I do not love, a wasteful, conceited endeavor in hopes of filling the void within me.

         I do not love my wife. I do not. It is such a shameful thought, but I can’t help saying what I feel. And I can’t continue to live in hypocrisy. This is the truth and this ugly honesty is unacceptable, detested in the sacred shire. Why must it be wrong? Why must it be? Father Hoffman ridiculed my endeavors and thoughts, “A great sin it is to lust for another woman,” he admonished, yet I remained unaffected.

         Oh, Angelina! Where are you? Why did you leave me there so many years ago? She was gone. Gone, gone! I could not believe it, I would not accept it, but then there was the letter, and I knew the truth. Whether I’d rejected it, this reality remains immovable, and I figure I will always be imprisoned to my thoughts and the memory of my past love.