Mist And Golden Leaves

We were walking in that street again. All was full of mist and golden leaves. There was so much silence between us and the way seemed endless. It looked like a dream, and perhaps this is what everything is. Perhaps truth and freedom are way beyond all this, in the world of awakening. Yet I had no eyes for the shadow, I just walked. We had been friends all life, but life is a transitory abode, it seems, and life is short. At least ours had been, young as we were. There is no such thing as being young. You suddenly become aware of time. That evening, at any rate, I looked at my friend who had been, I am sure, my best, and I felt in myself, as clearly as a bright sky, that something divine and beautiful was coming to an end. He suddenly stopped, and I knew what he would ask. The question had been haunting me and all people in my life for a long time:

"Won't you marry Emma?"

It was a strange request in the middle of mist. We had all played together, once, in the same street, and become what we were. The problem of words is that they are far away from the things they name. To think what we were would be a wretched pursuit. I could say friends, or brothers, or lovers. We were all and none of it -- apart from the fact that he was, indeed, Emma's brother. The solution would have easy to conceive: We should have been created as a threefold light, as souls joined together in happiness beyond any form, for form is accident. We should have been, from the very beginning, the formless shape, the only place where love is true. As it was, we were but three individuals encumbered with the weight of forms and all conventions that it entails. Existence is an act of violence. We are victims of arbitrary contingency, and here is why: As if we were not yet friends, or brothers, or simply light, Emma fell in love with me. It must have been the greatest, the most beautiful love, for I knew the heart behind it. Did I not love her? There is much confusion between loving and being in love. Why, It seemed to me that love is formless. Being in love is concrete: The enthusiasm, the desire, the passion becomes visible, and all that is concrete and all that is visible is limited. It is constantly revealing the violence of forms.

As we continued walking in the mist, I could barely distinguish Michael's face between the coat and the hat. It was another person. Nobody would believe that once, on a better day, his face was the sun. But it is true that night always follows. That day in the garden, at least, would never end. He suddenly touched my hand, for the sake of some jest, and a warmth of unknown expression seized my breast. I sighed. I took my hand away. It was my first encounter with all that is concrete, and I was sure I would soon forget it. I did not.

Although I was walking close to Michael, in some ways Michael no longer existed. Was it just a phantom I was seeing, like in the dream of the garden? There was a scene that often visited me. My friend and I, we laid on a bed of daisies hugging each other. There was no word in the garden. We looked into each other's eyes as if something impossible had united us. I stroke his hair, I remember. There was no feeling of touch, and yet there was bliss and a welcome blindness. That garden was too small for a dream. This certitude I repeated to myself whenever I saw it with a sober mind. But what am I saying? Being in love is a kind of drunkenness. It would have been different if love had been loyal to what is true, if my affection for Michael had been always tranquil as friendship is. Why is it that I should have longed to be near his breath? What was there that only his body could give me? Intoxication overcame perception. A beautiful body, a temple of youth and health should be contemplated from the distance, with the eyes an of ancient sage who beholds and loves and goes his way. I had a strong desire to touch that body. I had longed for being touched again, even if only for the sake of a jest. I longed in vain. His hand should not rest over mine again. Unguarded innocence is bound to suffer.

But then, there was Emma. Oh Emma, I wish we could fly together beyond the stars. It began, I think, while you were playing. You applied yourself so deeply to music. Wherever you played, you fascinated the spirits, you recreated the world. Existence was suddenly full of purpose. Was it possible not to love your music? More than once, I found myself sitting by your side and declared my love to all that is noble and beautiful. You opened a door to me and I entered. I was gladly carried away by the nocturnes you performed. I allowed myself, alas, to bring so much confusion into your mind. Like the day when Michael took my hand and I thought I discovered bliss, you looked into my eyes while I praised you as if it were your body, your very hands that I loved. My praise was a praise of music. That was the quintessential soul with which I longed, with heavy eyes, to merge. What an unjust intimacy I was imposing on you. We charmed each other with pain. You gave me your music, which is neither yours nor mine, and I gave in return my loving looks and sighs. They were not for you, not even for Michael. And yet, the more you taught me the love of music, the more you betrayed my love and the very love you taught. Suddenly, I saw the longing of your eyes, and they were not longing for music. They were drunken of me. They were drunken of all that you believed to see in me. What am I, Emma? I am nothing.

If I had known beforehand that I would ever share a room with Michael, I would have stayed home. Suddenly, we were alone. I was talking to him and listening. It was overwhelming. I was expecting a window sill to light a candle and watch the rain in silence. I ask for your forgiveness, Michael, if in my naivety and ignorance I was not able to love your soul as it deserves. It was the first time we had a frank talk about your struggle in life, and oh, what youthful and wonderful struggles they were. That evening, I was returning to our room and I wrote this short note: "Walking in the woods. / It got dark. / I saw the trees and the huge shadows leading to a bluish darkness. / A star was shining. / And I listened to the world. / In myself. / Yes, I came all the way of darkness longing for music and things that only music can express / And I came listening to Schumann all the way long." Then I mentioned my evening melancholy to you, and you just nodded.

Later that night, I woke up and the moon was shining before me. Had I been alone, I would have stood up and gone out to be somewhat closer to bitterness. I have always been aware of the impermanence of things and their gentle sadness. I spent too many nights listening to Emma's playing and contemplating endlessness. Whenever the moon crosses my window I wake up, but that night felt like a prison. There you lay, sleeping so sweetly, and I did not know how deep your sleep was -- I stayed in bed in order not to wake you up, and yet unable to sleep, my face travelling throughout the sky with the moon and the moon on my face.

In the morning, I went for another walk. Near the bonfire there was still wood burning, much of which you had thrown in that impressive display of strength. There was so much intimacy with nature. I saw so many robins that morning. I went all the way to the lake singing to the trees. Oh mystery! I wish I had wings just to disappear in an endless forest. I sang as people would sing in their happiest day. I lay on the ground and gazed at the pine trees, the upper leaves between my eyes and the sky. Even now I can still smell the scent of the forest.

Michael's eyes were always far from mine. There was no sharing of feelings, there was, despite all, a barrier between us. I hugged my pillows. I asked the reason that he loved me not as much as I loved him, for I thought I loved him much. I was simply drunk of him and he was sober. His was the true sweetness, mine had crossed the line between pleasure and pain, for while I was in pain I thought I lived in pleasure. But silence was the greatest anguish. If there had been truth between us and the world were not what it is, how sweet, how noble it were if once I had spoken words that are bigger than form can bear. Only in my dreams could I allow the truth to approach and look at Michael's face in the garden, crying:

"Forgive me, for I betrayed our friendship. All the intimacy, all the tenderness and kindness you gave me freely, and your very pleasing existence, all this I repaid by allowing myself to fall in love with you. I was carried away by a storm of unduly desire, unfitting for what is true and tranquil. I squandered the treasure of your trust. I degraded myself to the rank of him who, looking once at the face of Aphrodite, was infatuated with her body only, not able to behold the eternal part of her beauty. Thus let me tell you, friend, the mistake I made, for it is my duty of love to be true to you. If you be my friend, so help me! Let us find together the truest, the purest term of love in friendship. Let us find that love that never hurts, since it never touches. Be my friend forever, Michael, and when the drunkenness is over, I will be once again your brother and love you as I love my dearest Emma. Prepare the ladder for the three of us, that our souls may climb together towards the sun, that upon reaching truth we may become one soul, one shine, one bliss."

But this is not the thing to say, there is no world in which a speech like this would be conceived. From an early age, Michael had started to lust for female bodies and to eschew the soul of man and woman alike. Such is the pettiness of things and the pettiness of sex, a place where my love, or say my gentle drunkenness, would never fit. Had I been in love with Emma and had my love not been requited, she would deride my impossible words. Michael, I thought, would have punched me in the face, and I could not allow our friendship to end so badly.

Then there was the bench in the garden. And there we sat in silence. It became unbearable. As I knew not what to say and gazed at nature as if looking at nothingness, he sighed at last: "You look so strange. You look as if you were hurt in some way. I thought we trusted each other, we've always been friends. Have I hurt you? What have I done?" He kept looking at me, looking further, looking for answers. Then I met his eyes. He did not flinch. We looked at each other and read each other's truth -- time had stopped. What he saw in my eyes, what he understood of me I do not know. The only I could see was this: He was loyal. He was serene. He was a friend -- he had remained the same friend. Yet he could not see who I was behind and beyond myself. How could he? And how could I tell him? Because I loved him more than I should, I had destroyed our friendship, I knew. There was no need for him to know anything. Why should I upset him? Why should I let him hate me just for the sake of a selfish confession? Our friendship was destroyed anyway. My heart had betrayed it. I wanted to lose my friends in a tranquil manner. Tranquil? I would just walk away from their lives and they would never know why. Yet was this not the lesser evil? I looked away from Michael and stood up:

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. Nobody hurt me!" Nobody.

Near the lake, there was another bench, and there I sat with Emma. We had walked quietly around the lake after dusk. It was the beginning of a different night, and in this night within the night I looked at Emma and she wept. I turned my face away. I could not allow her to beg my love, as if she were a stranger whose place in my heart is little. For a moment, I wished to look into her eyes. I wished to take her hand and hug her, as if an innocent voice could say: I love you, Emma, you are the dearest soul to my heart. Please do not suffer, don't cry for me, don't love me like this. Oh, how I longed to be the friend I had always been! But a touch is still a touch, and there is nothing more dangerous than a touch. Everything would be misunderstood, misconstrued by her drunkenness. Beautifully misconstrued, of course, misconstrued with the hopes of a most loving heart and a heart in love. Yet misconstrued. I had to behave as if I could not feel, as if in darkness I had ceased to exist. I turned my face away and remembered her brother's words: You look so strange. You look as if you were hurt in some way. I thought we trusted each other. Have I hurt you, Emma? Emma, what have I done? -- I said nothing. She tried to speak, I knew what she would say, so I spoke before she could, shaking my head and avoiding her eyes: "I will never make you happy."

I understood her tearful look: Who are you, I could read, to deny the truth of my happiness, as if people needed to act in order to make others happy? You make me happy because you exist in my life. -- She stood up at last. It was brave of her to walk away into her night and leave me to mine. It would have been better perhaps, perhaps truer, if I had told her it was she that would never make me happy. But what is happiness? It was so beautiful to have her in my life. It was so beautiful that she existed. Yet in the end, everything comes down to touch and the pettiness of touch. A gentle breeze was bringing a scent from far away, that old scent of summer and innocence lost. That was the end. And I took a deep breath of it.

finished in May 2017