it's been raining for days

[monte_countess]

WHO: Haydée de Monte Cristo and her guests
Where: Haydée's Apartments
DATE: October 17th 1935
WARNINGS: Fanciness, drinking, social awkwardness
SUMMARY: The housewarming party of New York's new countess.
STATUS: Present your invitation at the door, metaphorically speaking.

[[ooc; (it's tomorrow now right? probably... going to sleep for a few

Comments

my bosom is also lovely, yes, thank you

[monte_countess]

I smiled at him slyly in response to his startled gaze. As if it were some great secret that I should dare to deviate from the insipidity of my 'peeresses.' A worthless title that they alone gave meaning, for I hardly considered them as such. My father had taught me long ago that peerage was born of love and respect. This game that the rest of society played with each other led only to ruin. This was a fact my beloved had taken great advantage of in ensuring that selfsame ruin to those who left him buried alive in the depths of their jealousy. I was not his wife for my beauty, nor even for my intellect, though he should never have had me without the latter. I was his companion for love--the deepest and truest love, I believe, the likes of which only men who have caught falling stars can ever comprehend--and for respect.

I was no piece of jewelry, though I had been many times compared to a jewel, and perhaps this claim was unique to me.

I understood where his assumptions had come from, but this did not prevent Angelina's descriptions of chauvinism from entering into my mind. I could see that as well. It was a carefully cultivated mindset, not just here in America, but around the world, though I would admit that the Americans had made almost an art of it. They preformed a strange hypocritical dance around the billowing skirts of their Lady who so espoused freedoms and equality. It mattered little. They could have their unintended chauvinism, I would have my pride and my peace regardless.

I listened to him speak, did not pressure or interrupt. To hear his voice behind the words did not, precisely, change the experience, but it certainly illuminated something within him.

"Subjectively," I began, to humor is affection for semantics. "I believe it is not beautiful for exactly the passivity you describe. The futility such a philosophy paints upon life is repellent to me. Life seems more like the burning out of sun and each cry of anguish is the same as a flare of euphoria, to be witnessed in awe and not prostrated before." I had been born in Greece, the land of fickle and vengeful gods, and raised upon all the classic tales of magic and wonderment. While I knew the difference between fact and fiction, my spirituality would not be relinquished. My own phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes of my slavery could hardly allow me to appreciate anything less than an ardent love for my life of freedom.

"It is merely a difference between recognizing beauty and appreciating it." My smile widened at his final note. "And what a shame it should be if I were wrong." While they were abrading, I was impressed by a man who gave opinions so decidedly. Though perhaps too freely, in the end.

i didn't notice what stop laughing i didn't what goddammit

[mentis_reae]

"Hardly," I said, bending my head once again toward my drink, away from her gaze. Usually, even I would have the discretion to sidestep the topic of death, but - my thoughts had been bent that way all day. Her brushing against morbidity seemed to me quite meet. "Life is nothing of the sort. It's not grand. It's more akin to a candle than a sun; we may come in with a cry, but we go out with a whisper."

(Or with a sudden creak, a thump, a crack, and a low gurgle, the brief spasmodic kicking of legs and then silence. I could picture this end for every man save one. What had his last words been? Had he deigned to give any at all? I would not ever be able to ask. I was quite certain of that.)

(Or with the crack of a gunshot, but that was an external force. Because the dead man had made no noise at all.)

I swallowed, then took another drink from my glass. Only then did I turn my attention to the confection in my hand and tried to think of something to say, tried to tear myself from my dark thoughts.

"It's nothing so grand," I repeated. It seemed my dark thoughts would linger after all. "To my way of thinking, life is an aberration from the norm - simply a strange happenstance, matter made quick. A rock, thrown through the air, will return to earth; so too will we return to death, and it will be natural, a coming-back to the usual state of being, at rest. So perhaps you are right. Perhaps life is indeed something remarkable, something that is met with such - grand words as you used - " I gestured uncertainly with the glass - "but death is natural.

"Have you ever read The Hollow Men? It's by Eliot. He's one of the modernists. Rather dense, it's not for everyone, but, ah..."

I took another bite of the sweet. It really was quite good.

"In any case. So perhaps that is the true virtue of the Russian view. Perhaps that is how they are correct. They've simply accepted that life honestly is something difficult, so they surrender themselves to rest and the more natural order. Commend their spirit - such as it is - to what it should be. And they surround themselves in beauty. Because when faced with such a truth, one must name it Mystery and drape it in gold. Otherwise, it's utterly unbearable."

I paused.

"This truly is a quite delectable drink."

[monte_countess]

It was a curious transformation, I would admit. I was confident in my conversation abilities, but not to quite such an extent. For a man who had a moment before hidden behind the dense and tiresome Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and before that behind my washroom door, to become such a font of speech was... I glanced at Ali quietly. He ducked his head in his customary silence and left his place in attending over us.

"I knew you would enjoy it," I noted archly from behind my own glass, lips leaving a faint smear of color in my wake, as would every other woman in this room. "More than I enjoy Mr. Eliot, at least. The modernists hold little in the way of charm for me. That, however, is a fault all my own. While I, of course, appreciate progress, the Romantics are forever in the language of my soul."

I had not expected him to cite poetry to me, however. I wondered at it. It had slowly begun to reveal itself to me that he was more complex than the boorish intellectual I had first painted, but he was so dismissive of my poetics I had assumed he had very little appreciation for the art. Even his description of my fair Greece had seemed very rooted, lacking in the spirit and whimsy that I had come to expect of the throne of my birthright. Was it simply that I did not understand this man? Or was it Americans? Was it the insinuations inherent to English which struggled with? A unusual and perplexing little puzzle, that.

"There is plenty enough in life that is unbearable, with death inescapable I see no reason to dwell over its influence unduly, certainly not enough lie down before it. Live life in nobility and celebration and... die as such."

I paused for a moment. Remembered my father's head on a pike in the streets of Constantinople. "Except in such cases as dignity is robbed from you, but even then you can be left with the hope your loved ones will set your memory to right."

God, this is almost embarrassing. Let's say it was a big glass of punch.

[mentis_reae]

"I fail to understand how you could find Eliot any less than remarkable," I said, looking down to find my glass empty. "Indeed, life-changing. I recall the first time I read The Waste Land. I was sixteen, sitting in a cafe just a bit away from the Sorbonne, when I found a copy of it discarded...It was a strange experience. For all that the poem itself is phenomenally personal to the author himself, I felt as though it was universal, in a way, as well - as though Eliot had somehow looked inside of me and taken my thoughts, as well, to incorporate into his poem. Which is an odd thought, since I was only eleven when it was written, but that's neither here nor there. In any case. It's just - certain lines, you must understand. I don't know if it's the effect of the words, or the sentiments, but, ah -

"'After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.'

"It's a beautiful set of lines."

I paused, realizing I had digressed terribly. Honestly, what had gotten into me? I despised idle chatter, despised the garrulous, and yet here I was, garrulous, chattering idly. I held strongly to the principle of parsimony of words. They were to be sent out decisively, thrown with perfect aim, not scattered in great handfuls in the hope that one among them would strike the target. I set aside my glass, trying through a strange sort of disorientation to make my babbling relevant in some way.

"Though I think that's rather the point. In the end, we are all dying with a bit of patience. What is the point of celebrating life? What is the point of even living it? What is the point of nobility, celebration? And what is the point of dignity? Dignity will not matter to us when we pass from this earth; we all die scrabbling besides, in blood and in stench, utterly devoid of any sort of dignity at all. The mere fact of life robs us of dignity. And we will not remember anything. Death is oblivion and forgetfulness. It's, ah...We won't care about our memories," I said, and then, struck by a sudden and inexplicable melancholy, "and for that, we're fortunate."

lol Edgeworth. Lol.

[monte_countess]

He was quoting poetry now? I smiled at him fully, listening to his ramblings. He seemed rather confused by the empty glass and I supposed I had been right to send Ali to get the poor man a glass of water and something to eat. I wondered if I should feel more guilty for pushing the drink on him when he so clearly had not anticipated the effects and yet... He was recounting a rather sweet but personal experience from France. He had traveled as a child, it was an interesting little piece of information. When else would I have the chance to hear from him so openly and unguarded?

"It seems more beautiful with your feelings to liven them," I observed breezily.

He was good about evading personal questions in that journal and here he was offering freely. I glanced up as Ali returned, two glasses and a small plate balanced in his hands. I traded him my lipstick stained glass for a fresh one of champagne and motioned him forward to attend to Mr. Edgeworth. The empty punch glass and my colored glass were taken off by a servant hired for this event while Ali offered forth the water and the small sampling of the meze. Grilled octopus, eggplant salad and a little bread. The salty little octopus slices would do well by his slight inebriation so long as he didn't notice them enough to balk.

"Did you spend much time in Paris?" I asked him curiously, twirling the slender stem of my glass in my fingers. Perhaps he was simply a melancholy drunk, but I would see what could be done to raise him his spirits. Death was truly no topic for such a gathering in the first place. After a moment's consideration, I leaned forward and plucked up one of the little cephalopods daintily between my nails and slipped it between my lips. Perhaps he would follow suit.

"I lived there for some time, I should be pleased to know how you liked it."

God, THAT'S JUST EMBARRASSING.

[mentis_reae]

"I grew up there." I frowned slightly when I realized I'd been given another glass of something, as I frankly didn't remember taking anything at all. It revealed itself as water when I sipped at it. Rather a pity; that punch truly was delectable. Quite remarkably so. "I was ten when I moved there and, ah, seventeen when I left. Seven years," I said, and then frowned slightly, rotating the glass between my hands.

Had I truly been gone eight years now? Perhaps. It seemed so distant. Yet at the same time - I had been gone from the city for longer than I had lived there. And in the interim, I'd become a vastly different person. When I'd left, I'd been cruel and bloody-minded, full of arrogance, set on revenge. There had been no one in the world for whom I had cared. Even then, even before I knew the full extent of his cruelty, I think I had despised von Karma, and I had mistrusted Franziska, and I had wished to forget the foolish friends who I'd known when I was so young and who understood so very little of the world. And I, bloody-minded and arrogant and weary already of the world, perhaps stood ashamed before them.

"Those were not precisely the, ah, best years of my life," I confessed, then winced at my own uncomfortable honesty. I tried to cover by following her lead and taking a piece of octopus. I found, rather to my surprise, that it was tender and delectable, well-spiced and rather smoky. I took another piece and said, "Paris, though - Paris was, ah, beautiful." I struggled a moment to remember the woman sitting across from me. "How did you find it?"

uhuhu

[monte_countess]

He grew up in Paris? Perhaps that's where he had learned that brusque nature of his, but shouldn't it have then be tempered with more grace and poetic appreciation? But there was worry in his brow, pinched by his frown. He hid it passably well, even in his nervous state. I watched him intently as he kept himself distracted with the gleam of his glass and the food. A poor insufferable thing.

"Beautiful," I agreed. "Though, strangely enough, those were not precisely the best years of my life either." I had lived with Edmond, yes, but with Mondego so near and yet just beyond my reach had been maddening. It had been many months of isolation, only venturing out for the opera, waiting for the day Edmond would tell me it was time to destroy that animal.

I began to continue, to perhaps extol the beauty of our home on the Champs-Élysées or the opera houses, but over his shoulder I saw Angelina smiling at Bertuccio, shedding her jacket as she entered. I smiled brightly, rising.

"If you'll excuse me a moment, I'll be right back," I said, brushing a hand over his shoulder as I went. I meant it too of course, I truly would feel guilty for pushing that drink on him if I left him to his own devices afterward.

[[ooc; -points doooown to doctors.- they want to love you Edgey 8<]]