Soujin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2004-03-18 10:11 pm
psalm_onethirtyone) wrote2004-03-18 10:11 pm
"Murder, Murder, Doin' Folks In!"
So I'm happy now. I've spoken with my Mum and watched "The Wrong War", and misery was dispensed. How peculiar. Point and laugh at the Soujin and her mood swings! Swing, Soujin, swing!
Also, have written the thirteenth chapter of Christophe-Marie. Do not think I did very well. So once again, I plead for con crit. I doubt that I will get it, since the last couple times I didn't, but if anyone has some spare time and feels generous, the looking-over of this ficlet would be entirely too appreciated.
Title inspired by Thai food much?
"'Spicy duck laced with basil and flame...'"
His tunic is black. His tunic is always black velvet; long and smooth and down to his knees. It rumples, and he flattens it down with his thin white fingers. He does it oftener than the tunic rumples, just because velvet feels so nice under his hands. His hair is fluffed, a little, but mostly it's still lying flat the way it ought.
He wonders why he thought still. It's not as though his hair is suddenly going to start standing straight up.
About him, courtiers are talking, talking, talking, to each other about everything, anything that comes into their empty heads and makes them want to make a conversation with someone else. He despises them quite, as he despises most people.
The King is holding a discussion with someone, which he isn't listening to. He never does listen to the King. The King has a name, and it would be more proper to call him by that than by King, since he isn't, but only King is impersonal enough.
He looks around the big room, tiled all in blue. He used to like the colour blue, a very long time ago... Now he's all in blacks and purples. He scans the crowd of courtiers, and of a sudden meets a pair of eyes he knows. How odd. Whose are those eyes? They're rather large; brown; and the lashes are quite dark. The rest of the face is part of a large melt of colour that smears all the King's court together. He has nothing to recognise but the eyes.
He starts as the King addresses him, and tries to catch up on what was said. "My son," he catches, and he turns his eyes heavenward. He looks back into the crowd for the eyes, and informs them sadly:
"A little more than kin, and a little less than kind."
"How is it the clouds still hang on you?" the King asks.
"Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun," he turns back. It's odd how his best wit comes out of misery, and how no one ever notices. He sighs, and his mother speaks. Her voice was sweet... Once.
All that lives must die?
"Ay, madam, it is common," he tells her, bitterly. And then, a moment later, "Seems, madam!" He throws his hands up. "Nay, it is; I know not 'seems'! 'T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected haviour of the visage, together with all forms, mood, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly!" For some reason, he thinks something reproves him for so long a sentence. And how dare it? "These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play; but I have that within which passeth show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe." He frowns. It's much to easier to frown than smile.
And then the King begins talking at him. Damn the man. Talk, talk, talk. He looks to the eyes for sympathy, and they show concentration. They're fixed on his movement, but not on him. He feels a light annoyance. They're too busy trying to understand what he's doing to be able to understand him.
His mother, the once-sweet Queen, speaks, and he recites, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam," to her. How sad Denmark is! Everyone is a little paper figure speaking paper words. He is the only thing real. He glances over his shoulder surreptitiously. He and the eyes.
The King leaves; the Queen leaves; the meaningless courtiers scatter away. He doesn't know why, as he missed it. Is it to be forever this way? Everyone leaves, and he doesn't know why because he wasn't listening. Will he die, and will no one know why because no one was listening to him?
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolves itself into a dew!" Would it be nice to melt into the blue room and become part of the blue draperies, soft and velvet like his clothes, but unconscious of life and the trouble it brings with it? "Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!"
Somewhere the eyes are watching him, though they should have gone out with the entire mass of fawning colour.
"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on 't! ah fie! 'T is an unweeded garden, that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come thus! But two months dead:" and here his voice grows hoarse just a little in indignation and disbelief, "Nay, not so much, not two... So excellent a King, that was, to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly--heaven and earth! Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him, as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on; and yet, within a month--let me not think on 't!--Frailty! thy name is woman!" He feels helpless. Everything he says feels helpless. Half-memories... the misery of it. Misery. Yes. He is miserable.
And the eyes, somewhere, are reproaching him for what he said of woman! To think...
"A little month, or o're those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body, like Niobe, all tears--why she, even she--O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules!" He despises everyone, and he despises himself. Does it matter? "Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good: But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."
He stops, and his chest hurts. Whether this is from sorrow, or from speaking too fast--ah, but it's sorrow. His ache? It cannot be anything less.
~~~
"How does my good lord Hamlet?" the old man inquires, a figure in robes of purple and grey wound into each other, to dilute the purple. After all, Polonius is no king.
"Well, God-a-mercy!" He smoothes down his own black tunic, forseeing his madness required. Ah yes, he's mad by now, and it's not very hard any longer, not very hard. It hasn't been in a while. He happily rakes his hands through fluffy golden--it's fluffy now, how odd. So it was a still, earlier--making certain of the liberal pieces of rosemary, then takes his stance, pulling a book off a nearby table and flipping it open. He feels the eyes watching him, and nearly smirks.
"Do you know me, my lord?"
He feels quite gleeful to answer. He consults his book, running a slender forefinger over the printed lines, and finally looks up. "Excellent, excellent well. You are a fishmonger." Sometimes, when it proves that insolent things he's longed his life to say are sayable when mad, he doesn't mind at all the ease of madness.
"Not I, my lord."
The subtle glare of the old fool does not escape him. And yet another person calling him, "my lord". Don't they ever stop? Ophelia was unfortunate enough.
"Then I would you were so honest a man."
The expressions the fellow manages are worth all of Denmark. In all likelihood, he has no idea his face looks so. It's dreadfully amusing, in a sordid sort of way.
"Honest, my lord?"
Any man is more honest than you are, he thinks. Honesty? Honesty is something no one in this entire court possesses. Not him. Not even the eyes. Nothing. Everyone lies. "Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten-thousand."
He pauses. Is the old man agreeing with him? How peculiar. "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion--have you a daughter?" And that's a good piece of insanity. Would that maggots were eating old Polonius.
"I have, my lord."
He's no one's lord. Has he ever been so? Why do they say that? Why do they say...? "Let her not walk i' th' sun:" he says distractedly, "conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive--Friend, look to 't."
He strokes his book unhappily, touching the cover, the spine, the wonderful spin of pages--all so thin, brushing his fingertips. He looks up sharply as Polonius speaks again, asking what is it he reads. Oh, was he reading?
"Words, words, words!" He throws his arms out, splaying the book wide open; and then waving it in old man's face.
"What is the matter, my lord?" the man asks, eyes a bit wide.
He adopts surprise. "Between who?"
"I mean, the matter that you read, my lord."
He pulls the book close, stroking the flat pages, tapping them with his fingers. "Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could go backwards." He smiles into the book. Does the old man even know he's being insulted? Of course he does. That's what makes it so foolish. He knows, and there's not much he can do. One doesn't collar the King's mad son.
"Will you walk out of the air?"
"Into my grave?"
"Indeed, that is out of the air."
Does he think himself clever?
"My lord, I will take my leave of you."
Escaping! Oh, the poor old man, trying to get away. How frightening is a madman? "You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will not more willingly part withal--except my life, except my life, except my life!"
"Fareyouwell, my lord."
And suddenly, the old man is imperturbable. He hates Polonius. "These tedious old fools!" Would he weep, were it possible?
~~~
"Why, let the strucken deer go weep, the hart ungalled play; for some must watch, whilst some must sleep--thus runs the world away," he sings. Is it a pretty voice singing? Was his voice ever beautiful? Oh, the King is frightened, that he ran. They all ran after him. Everyone left.
It is only him, then, standing on one of those furry horseskin rugs by himself, singing verses that mean nothing to anyone else. But is he alone? Oh, no... It's Horatio. Dear, beloved Horatio, the only man in Denmark with any mind. Honesty. Was he searching for honesty some time ago? If he was, he's found it now.
"Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers--if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?" He asks this of Horatio sweetly, for Horatio is sweet, and deserves it.
"Half a share." Ah, how solemn Horatio is.
"A whole one, I." He smiles a little, and sings again. "For thou dost know, O Damon dear, this realm dismantled was of Jove himself, and now reigns here a very, very--pajock."
"You might have rhymed," says Horatio quietly.
"O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?" Suddenly, he feels terribly cold, through the velvet sleeves of his tunic.
"Very well, my lord."
"Upon the talk of the poisoning?" he presses.
"I did very well note him."
So calm! so quiet, Horatio is. "Ah, ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the King likes not the comedy, why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy! Come, some music!" He laughs, and it's more bitter than it was three ages ago. It's so bitter it tastes awful, and he wonders if one can spit away laughter.
~~~
He doesn't see Horatio again for a terribly long time, and when he does, he's been over the sea and back. The smell of salt won't go away from his clothes no matter how hard he tries to make it. He walks straight and steady, and pretends he can't smell it when he speaks with Horatio.
"So much for this, sir; now you shall see the other--you do remember all the circumstances?"
"Remember it, my lord!" Horatio says emphatically. This makes him smile. Of course Horatio wouldn't forget how he left.
"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep; methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly--and prais'd be the rashness for it: let us know our indiscretion sometimes serves us well when our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us there's a divinity shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will--"
"That is most certain," Horatio agrees.
"Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark grop'd I to find out them, had my desire, finger'd their packet; and in fine withdrew to mine own room again, making so bold, my fears forgetting manners, to unseal their grand commission; where I found, Horatio--ah, royal knavery!--an exact command, larded with many sorts of reasons importing Denmark's health, and England's too, with, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, that, on the supervise, no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grinding of the axe, my head should be struck off!"
And Horatio is properly horrified, and for the first time in a very long time, a loneliness abates a bit. Horatio is such a good man; and he shall always have a companion in Horatio.
~~~
"And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest..."
Those are the last words he needs to hear. They're the last cues to do anything, and now all he must do is lie still while everyone else makes final movements around him.
And five minutes later, the spell is broken.
Ernest shakes Christophe-Marie, and makes him stand up, pushing him into the center of the company. Everyone bows like clockwork, and Delphine staggers a little, shocked that it's over. They'll all shocked, really; they all escape into the wings to put away costumes and get out of theatre, and Ernest remarks cheerfully that this is only opening night, too.
Christophe gets away first, and hurries into the crowd. He is accosted quickly by a hand on his arm.
"That was quite excellent. Utterly engaging."
"Hell! Grantaire!" Christophe rather squawks.
"Hell, Grantaire? But that's mundane. That's everyday. This was the opening night of the play you've been driving me mad with the last--how long?"
"I've been rehearsing three months."
"Three months! There you are! Now, curse at me with something befitting the work of three months."
"I wasn't cursing at you, Grantaire."
"Oh, that's nice. You look exhausted." There's a faint hint of asking a question.
"I fear I am." Christophe looks straight at Grantaire for a moment, and realises that his eyes are large, brown, and oddly familiar. "You," he announces accusingly, "were meeting my eyes the entire play long. Don't you know that's wrong?"
"Gracious, I'd no idea. You could have looked away." Rodolphe laughs. "Yes, you could have. It's the sensible thing to have done. But you're not sensible. Don't worry, I don't mind in the least."
"For God's sake, be quiet and let me go home. I'm tired. I want to sleep more than anything in the world." He wonders, vaguely, why he's admitted this to Grantaire. It's quite possibly not a wise thing to have done.
"All right."
Christophe waits expectantly for Grantaire to depart, but they continue walking and the latter shows no sign of leaving. He realises, with a sigh, that it's quite likely Grantaire's invited himself along. Unfortunately, for the second time in a week, Christophe hasn't the energy to make him go away.
He doesn't live far from the theatre, and rather a bit further he finds himself at his door. He enters quietly, and Grantaire slips along behind him.
Christophe-Marie turns just before he enters his room, and glares blearily at Grantaire. "I am going to go inside this room. I am then going to shut the door behind me, and you will be outside. There is no possible way you are coming inside, and as soon as the door is shut, I shall lock it and go immediately to sleep. Do you understand me?"
"Very well, my lord."
Rodolphe touches Christophe's cheek, then kisses him, to his annoyance. He's too much used to Rodolphe doing it, however, to wake up at all from it. It's a soft kiss; one of Rodolphe's usual unsure kisses that feel as though he's afraid of them. Christophe returns it quite without knowing what he's doing, liking the affection and softness. Is it strange that a sot should have such a sweet kiss? he wonders drowsily.
The moment, however, that Rodolphe ends it, he ducks into his room and, true to his word, locks the door behind him, collapsing on the bed.
Oddly enough, his dreams all have to do with Lear.
Also, have written the thirteenth chapter of Christophe-Marie. Do not think I did very well. So once again, I plead for con crit. I doubt that I will get it, since the last couple times I didn't, but if anyone has some spare time and feels generous, the looking-over of this ficlet would be entirely too appreciated.
Title inspired by Thai food much?
"'Spicy duck laced with basil and flame...'"
His tunic is black. His tunic is always black velvet; long and smooth and down to his knees. It rumples, and he flattens it down with his thin white fingers. He does it oftener than the tunic rumples, just because velvet feels so nice under his hands. His hair is fluffed, a little, but mostly it's still lying flat the way it ought.
He wonders why he thought still. It's not as though his hair is suddenly going to start standing straight up.
About him, courtiers are talking, talking, talking, to each other about everything, anything that comes into their empty heads and makes them want to make a conversation with someone else. He despises them quite, as he despises most people.
The King is holding a discussion with someone, which he isn't listening to. He never does listen to the King. The King has a name, and it would be more proper to call him by that than by King, since he isn't, but only King is impersonal enough.
He looks around the big room, tiled all in blue. He used to like the colour blue, a very long time ago... Now he's all in blacks and purples. He scans the crowd of courtiers, and of a sudden meets a pair of eyes he knows. How odd. Whose are those eyes? They're rather large; brown; and the lashes are quite dark. The rest of the face is part of a large melt of colour that smears all the King's court together. He has nothing to recognise but the eyes.
He starts as the King addresses him, and tries to catch up on what was said. "My son," he catches, and he turns his eyes heavenward. He looks back into the crowd for the eyes, and informs them sadly:
"A little more than kin, and a little less than kind."
"How is it the clouds still hang on you?" the King asks.
"Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun," he turns back. It's odd how his best wit comes out of misery, and how no one ever notices. He sighs, and his mother speaks. Her voice was sweet... Once.
All that lives must die?
"Ay, madam, it is common," he tells her, bitterly. And then, a moment later, "Seems, madam!" He throws his hands up. "Nay, it is; I know not 'seems'! 'T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected haviour of the visage, together with all forms, mood, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly!" For some reason, he thinks something reproves him for so long a sentence. And how dare it? "These indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play; but I have that within which passeth show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe." He frowns. It's much to easier to frown than smile.
And then the King begins talking at him. Damn the man. Talk, talk, talk. He looks to the eyes for sympathy, and they show concentration. They're fixed on his movement, but not on him. He feels a light annoyance. They're too busy trying to understand what he's doing to be able to understand him.
His mother, the once-sweet Queen, speaks, and he recites, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam," to her. How sad Denmark is! Everyone is a little paper figure speaking paper words. He is the only thing real. He glances over his shoulder surreptitiously. He and the eyes.
The King leaves; the Queen leaves; the meaningless courtiers scatter away. He doesn't know why, as he missed it. Is it to be forever this way? Everyone leaves, and he doesn't know why because he wasn't listening. Will he die, and will no one know why because no one was listening to him?
"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolves itself into a dew!" Would it be nice to melt into the blue room and become part of the blue draperies, soft and velvet like his clothes, but unconscious of life and the trouble it brings with it? "Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!"
Somewhere the eyes are watching him, though they should have gone out with the entire mass of fawning colour.
"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on 't! ah fie! 'T is an unweeded garden, that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come thus! But two months dead:" and here his voice grows hoarse just a little in indignation and disbelief, "Nay, not so much, not two... So excellent a King, that was, to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly--heaven and earth! Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him, as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on; and yet, within a month--let me not think on 't!--Frailty! thy name is woman!" He feels helpless. Everything he says feels helpless. Half-memories... the misery of it. Misery. Yes. He is miserable.
And the eyes, somewhere, are reproaching him for what he said of woman! To think...
"A little month, or o're those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body, like Niobe, all tears--why she, even she--O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules!" He despises everyone, and he despises himself. Does it matter? "Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to good: But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue."
He stops, and his chest hurts. Whether this is from sorrow, or from speaking too fast--ah, but it's sorrow. His ache? It cannot be anything less.
"How does my good lord Hamlet?" the old man inquires, a figure in robes of purple and grey wound into each other, to dilute the purple. After all, Polonius is no king.
"Well, God-a-mercy!" He smoothes down his own black tunic, forseeing his madness required. Ah yes, he's mad by now, and it's not very hard any longer, not very hard. It hasn't been in a while. He happily rakes his hands through fluffy golden--it's fluffy now, how odd. So it was a still, earlier--making certain of the liberal pieces of rosemary, then takes his stance, pulling a book off a nearby table and flipping it open. He feels the eyes watching him, and nearly smirks.
"Do you know me, my lord?"
He feels quite gleeful to answer. He consults his book, running a slender forefinger over the printed lines, and finally looks up. "Excellent, excellent well. You are a fishmonger." Sometimes, when it proves that insolent things he's longed his life to say are sayable when mad, he doesn't mind at all the ease of madness.
"Not I, my lord."
The subtle glare of the old fool does not escape him. And yet another person calling him, "my lord". Don't they ever stop? Ophelia was unfortunate enough.
"Then I would you were so honest a man."
The expressions the fellow manages are worth all of Denmark. In all likelihood, he has no idea his face looks so. It's dreadfully amusing, in a sordid sort of way.
"Honest, my lord?"
Any man is more honest than you are, he thinks. Honesty? Honesty is something no one in this entire court possesses. Not him. Not even the eyes. Nothing. Everyone lies. "Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten-thousand."
He pauses. Is the old man agreeing with him? How peculiar. "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion--have you a daughter?" And that's a good piece of insanity. Would that maggots were eating old Polonius.
"I have, my lord."
He's no one's lord. Has he ever been so? Why do they say that? Why do they say...? "Let her not walk i' th' sun:" he says distractedly, "conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive--Friend, look to 't."
He strokes his book unhappily, touching the cover, the spine, the wonderful spin of pages--all so thin, brushing his fingertips. He looks up sharply as Polonius speaks again, asking what is it he reads. Oh, was he reading?
"Words, words, words!" He throws his arms out, splaying the book wide open; and then waving it in old man's face.
"What is the matter, my lord?" the man asks, eyes a bit wide.
He adopts surprise. "Between who?"
"I mean, the matter that you read, my lord."
He pulls the book close, stroking the flat pages, tapping them with his fingers. "Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could go backwards." He smiles into the book. Does the old man even know he's being insulted? Of course he does. That's what makes it so foolish. He knows, and there's not much he can do. One doesn't collar the King's mad son.
"Will you walk out of the air?"
"Into my grave?"
"Indeed, that is out of the air."
Does he think himself clever?
"My lord, I will take my leave of you."
Escaping! Oh, the poor old man, trying to get away. How frightening is a madman? "You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will not more willingly part withal--except my life, except my life, except my life!"
"Fareyouwell, my lord."
And suddenly, the old man is imperturbable. He hates Polonius. "These tedious old fools!" Would he weep, were it possible?
"Why, let the strucken deer go weep, the hart ungalled play; for some must watch, whilst some must sleep--thus runs the world away," he sings. Is it a pretty voice singing? Was his voice ever beautiful? Oh, the King is frightened, that he ran. They all ran after him. Everyone left.
It is only him, then, standing on one of those furry horseskin rugs by himself, singing verses that mean nothing to anyone else. But is he alone? Oh, no... It's Horatio. Dear, beloved Horatio, the only man in Denmark with any mind. Honesty. Was he searching for honesty some time ago? If he was, he's found it now.
"Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers--if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?" He asks this of Horatio sweetly, for Horatio is sweet, and deserves it.
"Half a share." Ah, how solemn Horatio is.
"A whole one, I." He smiles a little, and sings again. "For thou dost know, O Damon dear, this realm dismantled was of Jove himself, and now reigns here a very, very--pajock."
"You might have rhymed," says Horatio quietly.
"O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?" Suddenly, he feels terribly cold, through the velvet sleeves of his tunic.
"Very well, my lord."
"Upon the talk of the poisoning?" he presses.
"I did very well note him."
So calm! so quiet, Horatio is. "Ah, ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the King likes not the comedy, why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy! Come, some music!" He laughs, and it's more bitter than it was three ages ago. It's so bitter it tastes awful, and he wonders if one can spit away laughter.
He doesn't see Horatio again for a terribly long time, and when he does, he's been over the sea and back. The smell of salt won't go away from his clothes no matter how hard he tries to make it. He walks straight and steady, and pretends he can't smell it when he speaks with Horatio.
"So much for this, sir; now you shall see the other--you do remember all the circumstances?"
"Remember it, my lord!" Horatio says emphatically. This makes him smile. Of course Horatio wouldn't forget how he left.
"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep; methought I lay worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly--and prais'd be the rashness for it: let us know our indiscretion sometimes serves us well when our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us there's a divinity shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will--"
"That is most certain," Horatio agrees.
"Up from my cabin, my sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark grop'd I to find out them, had my desire, finger'd their packet; and in fine withdrew to mine own room again, making so bold, my fears forgetting manners, to unseal their grand commission; where I found, Horatio--ah, royal knavery!--an exact command, larded with many sorts of reasons importing Denmark's health, and England's too, with, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, that, on the supervise, no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grinding of the axe, my head should be struck off!"
And Horatio is properly horrified, and for the first time in a very long time, a loneliness abates a bit. Horatio is such a good man; and he shall always have a companion in Horatio.
"And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest..."
Those are the last words he needs to hear. They're the last cues to do anything, and now all he must do is lie still while everyone else makes final movements around him.
And five minutes later, the spell is broken.
Ernest shakes Christophe-Marie, and makes him stand up, pushing him into the center of the company. Everyone bows like clockwork, and Delphine staggers a little, shocked that it's over. They'll all shocked, really; they all escape into the wings to put away costumes and get out of theatre, and Ernest remarks cheerfully that this is only opening night, too.
Christophe gets away first, and hurries into the crowd. He is accosted quickly by a hand on his arm.
"That was quite excellent. Utterly engaging."
"Hell! Grantaire!" Christophe rather squawks.
"Hell, Grantaire? But that's mundane. That's everyday. This was the opening night of the play you've been driving me mad with the last--how long?"
"I've been rehearsing three months."
"Three months! There you are! Now, curse at me with something befitting the work of three months."
"I wasn't cursing at you, Grantaire."
"Oh, that's nice. You look exhausted." There's a faint hint of asking a question.
"I fear I am." Christophe looks straight at Grantaire for a moment, and realises that his eyes are large, brown, and oddly familiar. "You," he announces accusingly, "were meeting my eyes the entire play long. Don't you know that's wrong?"
"Gracious, I'd no idea. You could have looked away." Rodolphe laughs. "Yes, you could have. It's the sensible thing to have done. But you're not sensible. Don't worry, I don't mind in the least."
"For God's sake, be quiet and let me go home. I'm tired. I want to sleep more than anything in the world." He wonders, vaguely, why he's admitted this to Grantaire. It's quite possibly not a wise thing to have done.
"All right."
Christophe waits expectantly for Grantaire to depart, but they continue walking and the latter shows no sign of leaving. He realises, with a sigh, that it's quite likely Grantaire's invited himself along. Unfortunately, for the second time in a week, Christophe hasn't the energy to make him go away.
He doesn't live far from the theatre, and rather a bit further he finds himself at his door. He enters quietly, and Grantaire slips along behind him.
Christophe-Marie turns just before he enters his room, and glares blearily at Grantaire. "I am going to go inside this room. I am then going to shut the door behind me, and you will be outside. There is no possible way you are coming inside, and as soon as the door is shut, I shall lock it and go immediately to sleep. Do you understand me?"
"Very well, my lord."
Rodolphe touches Christophe's cheek, then kisses him, to his annoyance. He's too much used to Rodolphe doing it, however, to wake up at all from it. It's a soft kiss; one of Rodolphe's usual unsure kisses that feel as though he's afraid of them. Christophe returns it quite without knowing what he's doing, liking the affection and softness. Is it strange that a sot should have such a sweet kiss? he wonders drowsily.
The moment, however, that Rodolphe ends it, he ducks into his room and, true to his word, locks the door behind him, collapsing on the bed.
Oddly enough, his dreams all have to do with Lear.