A Sprig of Lilac

[108 fountains]

I've been working on some longer pieces. Here's one I'll post in two parts.


A Sprig of Lilac

“Grandma, what’s this?” My 16-year-old granddaughter Isabel held open the photo album for me to see.

“You’ve been up in the attic again, in the family treasure box.” I took up the album at the page she had opened. “This?” I repeated. “Why, this is a sprig of lilac. Look here. You can still see traces of the original purple color on these petals, and there is a still some green color left in the stem.”

“It’s beautiful,” Isabel exclaimed. “How long has it been here, here in this book?”

“Oh, a long time now,” I replied. “I had forgotten all about it. I wasn’t much older than you the last time I saw it.”

“Well, what’s it doing here?” Isabel asked.

“Oh, that is a long story, and one I bet you would enjoy hearing. Look. See here. This old photograph, you see. This is your great-great-aunt Marie and her husband Michael on their wedding day. I still remember her staying with us here in this very house. I must have only been five or six years old then.”

“I don’t remember hearing about any great-great-aunt Marie or any great-great-uncle Michael.”

“Well, they have been gone from us a long time.”

“And the sprig of lilac?”

“That was her favorite flower.” I sat down on our flax-colored sofa and motioned for Isabel to sit down next to me. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the curtains. I looked at Isabel. Her blonde hair was growing darker as she got older and, something else – I saw something else different about her – a maturity, a thoughtfulness that I had never noticed before. She looked at me with inquiring blue eyes, limpid, eager and still so childlike. Encouraged and delighted with her curiosity, I told her, “I heard this story many times from my own mother when I was younger. And now, yes,” I said, smiling at those pretty blue eyes, “Yes, now I will tell it to you.”

Isabel leaned forward and cupped her chin in the palms of her hands.

“Ah, where to begin? Well, of course it is a love story, you see. My aunt Marie loved her husband Michael so much! She liked nothing better than to wake up to the morning breeze blowing through the casement window, touch the black, masculine stubble that grew out from his chin overnight, and rush softly to the kitchen to put on the coffee before he awoke. But I’m getting ahead of myself already. Let’s go back. Let’s go back to this,” I said, pointing to the old black and white photo in the album.

“They got married in June of 1941 in the little church near the river – the same church where we go now. Of course, it’s been renovated and enlarged since then. Marie’s brother David – your great-grandfather and my father – gave the bride away. Marie wore a traditional white satin and lace gown and, while the colors don’t show up in this black and white photograph, she carried a bouquet of white lilies, white and lavender-colored peonies, and violet hydrangeas, set off, of course, with sprigs of lilac. Her maid of honor wore a dark plum-colored chiffon dress, which complemented the bride’s bouquet.

“Their honeymoon was a three-night sojourn at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis. Yes, it’s not even 25 miles from us here in High Ridge, but in those days, you see, 25 miles seemed much further, and the Chase and the Park Plaza next door was like a world away to Marie. She was stunned by the crystal chandeliers in the lobby and the white marble floors in the hallway that led to their room. And the room! What luxuries! Four feather pillows on a queen-sized bed covered with the softest, thickest, and most exquisite gold and maroon quilt that Marie had ever seen. The sunlight spilled in through the single-hung sash window onto a soft, deep red carpet so thick that Marie left footprints where she walked. Michael had arranged to have a vase with sprigs of lilac placed on the table next to the bed, and the lilacs imparted a delicate citrus fragrance to the apartment. He had spent a month’s wages to pay for the three nights, but that price weighed but little in comparison with the pride and manliness he felt at being able to provide his sweet Marie a honeymoon in style.

“And what a honeymoon it was! Michael couldn’t afford the tickets for the Duke Ellington concert that weekend, but after breakfast who should they see but his female vocalist Kay Davis lounging in a chair in the lobby! Marie was too shy, but Michael casually walked up to her to say good-morning and ask for her autograph. Ms. Davis responded graciously and waved to Marie from across the room. Michael and Marie spent the day strolling through the zoo at Forest Park. Marie watched the slow movements of the pink flamingos and the smooth underwater undulations of the Hawaiian monk seals. She smiled at the graceful walk of the giraffes and grabbed Michael’s arm when the polar bear, which had lain motionless for several minutes, stood up and yawned, displaying his immense white teeth. For lunch, they sat under an enormous Live Oak tree near the 1904 World’s Fair Pavilion and picnicked on ham and cheese sandwiches and ginger beer. After lunch, they returned to the zoo where Michael persuaded Marie to enter the reptile house. At the very first exhibit, a big old green frog flung its long pink tongue in Marie’s direction. She shrieked and fled. Michael caught up with her and made his apologies in the form of a vanilla ice cream cone. No more reptiles for Marie; instead, they walked through the aviary.

“In the evening, they walked over to Forest Park Highlands and took a ride on the Comet roller coaster, the biggest and the fastest roller coaster in the whole world. It cost ten cents to ride, but the clackety-clack of the cars as they made their way up the steep incline of the wooden scaffolding, then the roar of the descent and the screams of the riders at the unexpected drop, the speed, the twists and the turns… Oh, my! I rode on it myself when I was a teenager. There was nothing else like it in those days.

“The following morning was spent at the park’s Jewell Box, a greenhouse nearly four stories tall with thousands of panes of glass set in wrought iron supports. Marie had never before seen such a collection of rare, exotic plants. She felt as though she had been transported to the tropics, complete with dark green palm fronds and tiny blue orchids peeping out from crevices between the limbs and trunks of the taller trees. Lunch this day was cheese ravioli at an Italian restaurant ‘on the Hill.’ After lunch, it was back to the park for a visit to the art museum. Marie was fascinated by Rembrandt’s Portrait of an Artist, which hung near the entranceway. The swirls of copper and browns, the contrasts of deep shadow and subtle lights, the flowing hair, the deep set eyes, and the faint, roguish smile of the subject captivated her. They walked through the entire museum glancing at each of the paintings on display, but Marie twice returned to stare at the Rembrandt. Something about it drew her to it and sang to her. And then it hit her – ‘Michael, he looks like you!’ she exclaimed. He laughed at her and said his nose was not that big and he would never let his hair grow that long or wear a hat like that.

“That evening, Michael wanted to go to the wrestling matches at the Kiel Auditorium – they called it the Municipal Auditorium back then. Both Lou Thesz and ‘The St. Louis Flash’ were on the ticket that night, but Marie had her heart set on seeing the Roller Derby, so they went to that instead. The Auditorium, you see, was actually two different arenas separated by a wall, so they could have the roller derby on one side and wrestling on the other. Well, Michael loved Marie just as much as she loved him, you see, so it was no great sacrifice for him to give up his wrestling in order to make her happy.

“It sounds like they had a beautiful romance, Grandma,” said Isabel.

“That they had, to be sure,” I said. “And the romance continued when they got home. Michael worked for the phone company, you see, installing new lines. All the homes in High Ridge and the neighboring communities were just putting in telephones in those days, so there was plenty of work, and Michael’s job was a good one. He had a house built for them not far from here. You’ve been by there, I know. On Lincoln Trail. The old wooden frame house on Lincoln Trail. The one at the end. The one that has the wooden porch running all along the sides. Michael did some carpentry work too, and he built that porch himself.”

“Oh, I know the place,” said Isabel. “There is a little lake behind it and some great big Overcup Oak trees around it.”

“My! How do you know the names of all the different kinds of trees?” I laughed. “Well, you’re right. They are big old oak trees now, but they were much smaller back then. Let me see now. Where was I with this story? Oh, yes. Well, you mentioned the lake. That was part of the romance. Michael built that house near the lake on a purpose. He liked fishing and he knew Marie loved picnics, so he bought that piece of ground near the lake where he could fish and they could both have picnics on Saturday afternoons. And you know what else? He planted lilac bushes all around the lake. I don’t know if she ever knew he planted them or if she just thought they always had been there, but it’s a fact that he planted them there for her. My mother told me so.”

“And that’s where this sprig of lilacs comes from!” announced Isabel triumphantly.

“Yes, that’s right. That’s where it’s from. But there is more to the story than that,” I said. “Why, I’ve only just told you the beginning part. There’s much more.”

Isabel drew her knees up to her chin and listened. I was enjoying myself immensely. I had never talked with my grand-daughter like this before. And it had been a long time since I myself had heard Aunt Marie’s story. I tried to remember every detail.

“Marie loved the house. There was no air conditioning in those days, so she left the windows open. All day and all night the breeze rustled through the thick oak leaves. It was too late in the year for Marie to put out a garden, but she set out some shrubs and found places in the yard where she placed little trays of sugar-water to attract hummingbirds. She hung several little wire baskets filled with sunflower seeds and corn kernels from tree limbs in the front yard to attract cardinals and red-headed woodpeckers. But the squirrels would always come and chase the birds away and eat up all the nuts and corn in the baskets. The birds had to be content with whatever fell to the ground. Marie tried everything she could think of to keep the squirrels away, but nothing ever worked. Finally she gave up and welcomed the squirrels. She learned to recognize them on sight and even had names for them – there was Acorn, Nutkin, Chatty, Bobtail, Hemingway, Bug-eyes, Bushy-tail, and Mischief. One day Michael came home from work to find Marie in tears.

“‘What happened?’ he asked, full of trepidation.

“‘It’s Bug-eyes!’ she cried. ‘A big, old eagle came down and took him away. Snatched him right up and took him away! Oh, my poor little Bug-eyes!’

“‘An eagle!’ exclaimed Michael with some surprise. ‘Are you sure?’

“‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she replied. ‘He swooped down right in the front yard and carried little Bug-eyes away. I could see his red tail as he flew away.’

“‘Well, that wasn’t an eagle then, you silly goose’ said Michael. ‘If he had a red tail, he must have been a chicken hawk.’

“‘Chicken hawk! Eagle! What’s the difference? He took little Bug-eyes away and now he’ll never come back anymore!’

“Michael held her tight and kissed away her tears. That was the closest they ever came to a quarrel.

“Michael taught Marie how to fish at the lake. It took her a while to learn to be able to put a worm on a hook. They were ‘too slimy!’ and ‘too wiggly!’ she would say. But when Michael laughed at her, she pursed her lips in determination and went about the task methodically, piercing the creature at about a third of its length, then looping it around and piercing it near its center, and then one final loop and piercing at its distal end. With that, she would wipe the slime off her hand on the grass and hold up her fishing pole in triumph, with the worm dangling at the end of the line like a tiny, squirming bowtie.

“They caught bluegill and sometimes white crappie, and every once in a while they’d catch a catfish. Marie would almost always fry fish for Saturday night dinner. By the end of September, Marie enjoyed fishing as much as Michael, maybe even more, and she was disappointed when the cold weather came and the fish stopped biting.

“On those sunny Saturday afternoons by the lake, once they had caught enough fish for dinner, Marie and Michael would lie down in the dry grass and watch the white clouds move across the blue sky. Michael always had two or three new jokes he had picked up from the men at work during the week, and Marie loved listening to him tell a funny story, although he often had to repeat it to her and explain the punch line. Before walking up to the house, Michael would break off a sprig of lilac for Marie to carry up to the house and set in a glass vase on the kitchen table.

“There was a covey of pheasants that used to keep them company by the lake. The pheasants generally kept their distance, but when the two of them lay still in the grass and made not a sound, the pheasants approached them gingerly. Michael and Marie struggled to keep from giggling out loud when they saw the pheasants approach. Once the birds were within three or four feet of them, Michael would jump up and whoop and send the pheasants scattering and scurrying. Then Marie would scour the ground for feathers. She had quite a collection of red and green pheasant feathers from which she fashioned a beautiful Christmas wreath for their front door.

“Those were the happiest days of Marie’s young life. The romance of their new marriage continued through the winter and the snow and the sleet and the ice. In winter, the little lake attracted family and friends who liked to go ice skating. I remember going skating there myself as a young girl, but no, that must have been after Michael and Marie had already left us.

“The next spring arrived early, and the lilacs, which are among the first to blossom, were already budding by the end of March. On the first Saturday of April, with the temperature still in the fifties, Marie packed some fried chicken, German potato salad, and coleslaw into the wicker picnic basket. Michael told her it was still too cold to go out picnicking and tried to convince her to wait one more week.

‘“No!” Marie pouted. “I want to go now!’”

“Michael smiled. He knew that Marie still had the heart of a 12-year-old girl. This was one of the charms that endeared her to him. In fact, it was her sweetness, her freshness, and her innocence that he loved most about her. Living with Marie was like living in a kind of Disneyland, although Disneyland didn’t exist yet at that time. But they had gone to see Walt Disney’s movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs two years before their marriage, and Michael often thought of Marie as his own little Snow White, while he… well, while he tried his best not to be Grumpy.

To be continued...

[Steven Hunley]

This is a good start but with many elderly people, Grandma is taking her time telling the story. She suffers from the same sickness I've been stricken with, wordiness. Besides that blemish I love the writing, the details, and air of authenticity they evoke. Perhaps a hint more foreshadowing would prime our imaginations.

[108 fountains]

Thanks Steve,
Yes, believe it or not, I trimmed it back somewhat, but I know I should probably cut out more. Here is the second half - there's a little more action in this part.


A Sprig of Lilac (continued)

“But something changed over the winter months. Michael was not particularly grumpy, but he became moody sometimes, and would sit brooding at the kitchen table, especially after reading the newspaper. Marie sensed the change. Michael no longer repeated to her the funny stories he heard at work. He sometimes talked of the war. This was the year of the war, you see. World War Two. This was the year the United States started fighting in World War Two. But Marie didn’t want to hear anything about the war. She would cover her ears when Michael talked about it and turn off the radio when the news came on. To Marie, the war was far away – while she remained in Neverland – and had no place in her life.

“But even here in little High Ridge, you couldn’t get away from the war. It was in all the newspapers. And the first few months of that year, 1942, was nothing but bad news. Japanese forces swept across Southeast Asia, and the Luftwaffe had started dropping bombs on towns in England. Even as a little girl, I remember the worried talk among the grown-ups after a Nazi U-boat sunk an American cargo ship in the mouth of the Mississippi River. And the war came even closer to home – gas and sugar was rationed, and our car factories switched from commercial to war production. A big ammunition factory opened in St. Louis. The war was just about the only thing people talked about or thought about.

“Michael, of course, was in a predicament. He had registered for the draft long before he and Marie got married, and he wanted to do his duty like so many other men he knew. In fact, he didn’t want to wait to be called. He wanted to enlist. He wanted to join the navy. He’d never been on a boat in his life, but somehow he got it into his head that he wanted to join the navy. But he couldn’t talk to Marie about it. If he even hinted at the possibility of his being called into service, Marie would burst into tears. He knew he would eventually be called, and he knew he needed to talk with Marie – to make plans, you see – but he couldn’t talk with her about it at all, and this gnawed at him, and he became quiet and low-spirited.

“One evening, later in April, Michael sat at the kitchen table and read the newspaper. ‘Look here,’ he said to Marie. ‘U.S. and Filipino forces overwhelmed at Bataan.’ Marie made no reply. She poured water into the percolator to make coffee. ‘Look at this,’ said Michael after turning to page two. ‘Three brothers from Fenton, Missouri, enlist in the army. They are calling them a family of heroes.’ Marie placed a slice of German chocolate cake on a small plate. When she slid the plate onto the table in front of Michael, he clutched her wrist and cried, ‘What am I? What am I, Marie, to be sitting here comfortably like this when I should be away, out there with the rest of them? What am I? A coward? No, not that, but what?’

“Marie looked into his eyes and saw in them such a torrent of emotions – anger, fear, confusion, desperation, but intertwined through them all was his tenderness for her. She watched in fascination for a long moment while those emotions battled each other, writhing, rising, falling, struggling, until finally they began to coalesce into a single sentiment – determination – and she herself felt chilled with dread.

“This time Marie shed no tears. She did not pout or stamp her foot. She sat down at the table next to him and lowered her eyes. Their silence was an unspoken understanding. Nothing more needed to be said.

“Michael was on a ship bound for the Solomon Islands by June. While he was in training, he had written to Marie every day, sometimes twice a day. He kept his letters lighthearted, often joking about the new men who got seasick their first time out on a boat. He never got sea-sick himself – or so he said. It’s a funny thing about sea-sickness – it always seems to be something that happens to somebody else. Anyway, after Michael set sail, the letters were much more infrequent. In one letter he sent in late July, he told Marie that he had changed ships and was now onboard the USS Quincy.

“Marie kept her spirits up as best she could. She wrote every day. She told him about all the new squirrels that had joined Acorn and Bobtail and the gang. She told him about the turtle dove that nested in a corner right up against their bedroom window and how excited she was the day that the eggs hatched – an omen she optimistically took for good luck. She took long walks on sunny afternoons and invariably ended up at the lake. And while she spent many an hour reading books under the lilac bushes, she never brought a sprig of lilac back into the house. She vowed that she would only carry lilacs back into the house after Michael’s return.

“My father and mother visited Marie often. I remember going with them to visit on weekends. In good weather, we just walked over. It’s only twenty minutes to walk there. And I remember my father would try to persuade Marie to come stay with us. ‘It’s not right you staying here alone by yourself,’ he would say. But he couldn’t convince Marie to leave. She wanted to be there when Michael came back.

“It was in August of that year when we heard the news. The USS Quincy had gone down at Guadalcanal. I remember my father bringing out a big map and pointing out to my mother where Guadalcanal was. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, that’s all I remember. We all went over to see Marie. I remember my mother shooing me out of the room because Marie was crying so hard.

“For weeks, Marie heard nothing from the navy. She wrote to them and called them, but they had no news for her. They couldn’t tell her if Michael had been onboard the Quincy when it sank. My father repeated his appeals for Marie to come stay with us. But she refused. She needed to be at home when the phone rang or when the letter arrived, she said.

“I remember the date. October fifth. I remember because the Cardinals had just won the World Series. Whitey Kurowski hit a home run in the ninth inning to clinch the win. My father had been listening to the game on the radio with his friends. I remember them all cheering and shouting and congratulating themselves when there was a knock on the door. It was Marie. An officer from the navy had just been to see her. Michael’s name was on the roster when the Quincy went down. He was officially listed as Missing in Action.

“She stayed with us after that. She stayed in my room, and I moved to share a bed with my sister Margaret. After that day, Marie never wore the pastel colors I was accustomed to seeing her wear. She wore only black or dark gray. And another thing. I have this memory of Marie being very young and very beautiful, and always smiling and happy, but after she came to live with us, she seemed to grow old quickly and never smiled anymore. And our house became a quiet place, and we were all very sad.

“The next winter lingered on well into March. And Marie started with this strange notion that, since the navy had not yet confirmed Michael’s death, then perhaps he had survived after all. If he did, she said, he was sure to come back to their house. One day, with the temperature just above freezing, and a drizzling cold mist hovering over the land, Marie announced that she intended to walk over to her house. After months of neglect, it would need dusting and cleaning to be ready, she said, for when Michael came back. My mother and father tried to reason with her, but they also understood her delicate nature. She would eventually surrender to reason, they felt, but in the meantime they needed to be patient with her impetuousness.

“So my mother did not try to stop her. Instead, she accompanied her and made sure she dressed warmly and carried an umbrella. Back in her own home, Marie piddled about in the kitchen but did not really do any housework. At one point she looked out the window toward the lake. There was still a thin sheet of ice on its surface, and the surrounding trees were still bare. ‘That’s where he will be when he comes for me,’ said Marie, ‘there at the lake by the lilac bushes.’ After about an hour or so, my mother was able to persuade her to come back to our house.

“That excursion, Marie’s first venture outside in months, was damp and chilling, and Marie was fragile to begin with. It was no surprise then that she took sick the following day. Her cough and fever worsened over the next several days. My father wanted to take her to the hospital, but she refused. ‘What if Michael should come home?’ she asked. And so my mother and father kept Marie at home, brought her chicken soup and the latest cold remedies, but my father said she really needed a doctor. He said she had pneumonia. Three weeks she stayed like that, growing weaker and weaker every day.

“On a cold April morning just after dawn while the squirrels huddled in their dens for warmth, Marie awoke from her fever with a start. Impulsive as always, she had an idea that Michael had come home at last. Still frightfully ill, she nevertheless got out of bed. She combed her hair and pinched her cheeks – to put some redness in them, you see – she was still dreadfully pale. She put on a white dress printed with pastel lavender and plum-colored flowers. In a matter of minutes, she was out the door and walking briskly through the crisp early morning.

“She approached her house and began walking towards the front door. Then she hesitated and decided instead to go around to the back. She looked towards the lake. The new spring grass had emerged a pea green color, the sunbeams danced and glistened on the surface of the water, and there – yes – there standing under the freshly blooming lilacs stood a man. She quickened her pace. He was standing with his back toward her. She broke into a run. He heard her panting and turned around. There was a flash of recognition, a broad smile. ‘Michael!’ she cried and fell into his arms.

“It would be impossible for me to begin to describe, or even to understand, her feelings. The warmth of his touch, the sweetness of his kiss – I can only imagine. What they said to each other I don’t know. What I do know is that he broke off a sprig of lilac and gave it to her…”

“Is that this sprig of lilac?” asked Isabel, who had been sitting in rapt attention all this while as I had gotten carried away with my story.

“Yes, dear. It was this very sprig of lilac that you found here in the photo album.”

“And then what happened?” asked Isabel.

“Well, what happened was this,” I said. “We had sat down to breakfast that day, and my mother knocked on Marie’s door to ask if she would like some butter toast. Hearing no reply after knocking several times, my mother opened the door. She found Marie lying on the bed with the sweetest, most beautiful smile on her face. I remember hearing my mother begin to cry. My father went in and pulled back the blanket. It was then that we saw Marie was wearing her pastel dress and that she held a sprig of lilac in her hand.

Isabel frowned. “Then the story about Michael coming home was not true after all,” she said with a pout.

“Well,” I replied. “I like to think that it is true. Why else would Marie have been wearing that dress? And how else could she have been holding that sprig of lilac?”

Isabel paused and considered. “I’ll bring this back upstairs now,” she said “and put it back in the treasure box. And one day when I have a little girl, I will tell her the same story about Michael and Marie – the same way you told it to me.”


The end

[AuntShecky]

This sentimental story contains the nostalgic elements of a period piece which some readers may find appealing. It includes copious details, perhaps a bit too many. (Incidentally, it's intersting that among Duke Ellington's female vocalists, the reference is to Kay Davis and not the better known Ivie Anderson. She left the band in 1942, though, maybe a little too soon for the time setting of this piece?) Another plus for the story is the attempt at unity by symbolism, repeating the symbol of the title flower, a powerful allusion from Whitman's famous elegy. Lilacs by the way have a unique fragrance, not at all like "citrus."

What I find somewhat disappointing is that the narration doesn't grab the reader by the hair and shake her. I wonder if a more powerful effect couldn't have achieved by zeroing in on the couple itself, rather than putting them inside a "frame." The narrator's relating the reminiscences to her grand-daughter imposes emotional distance, unnecessarily I'd say. You don't want to dilute the "punch."

Give the reader credit for figuring out the obvious:
Isabel frowned. “Then the story about Michael coming home was not true after all,” she said with a pout. The more you practice your writing, the better you'll acquire a sense of what to include and what to leave out, how to strike just the right balance between exposition and subtlety.



Certainly there's nothing wrong about writing a treatment of wartime romance, but in order to make the piece resonate with contemporary readers, you have to kick it up a notch: take the timeless theme and embody it into a form the likes of which no one has ever seen before. One way to do this is to ditch the conventions of ordinary, garden variety, generic fiction. Think less Reader's Digest and vintage Saturday Evening Post and more New Directions paperback and Paris Review. By that I mean resist the temptation to be earnest and literal. Put as much emphasis on form as upon plot and descriptions. Abandon the tired old style of straightforward narration. Do less "telling" and more "showing."

To illustrate what I mean, read two short stories about re-imagining the past. The first is Delmore Schwartz's 1937 short story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." The second --which coincidentally I just re-read this morning -- is "Lost in the Funhouse" by John Barth (1968)-- which is as much about the nature of fiction as it is a poignant story about an adolescent boy on a family trip to an amusement park. The ending packs a wallop.

A worthy goal of any fiction writer is to create an entirely new way of looking at the world and examining the human condition. What we want to avoid is writing the kind of piece which readers forget soon after they finish it. The reaction to be shunned at all cost is having a reader say "Nice story" before adding, "but so what?"

Take risks!

Keep writin' -- and reading!

Auntie

[DATo]

Greetings 108 !

I can't believe I missed this story in my daily perusals of the LitNet. I've been working on some home projects and was engaged in the heat of battle with the homeowner's direst enemy - entropy - at the time you posted this, but by HaPpY accident have now come upon it when the second part is also available.

As usual, I was totally entertained by your story. For openers, I have always loved the reflective device of a storyteller within the story. There is a sort of pathos (for want of a better word) which surfaces when hearing a poignant story about people who are long gone. In the case of your story it was sort of like being allowed the privilege of access to a dramatic event of history which is unknown to others ... a microcosmic detail of the human condition, if you will.

I thought your characters were well developed in part one which set the tone of their almost Shakespearean love and later tragedy.

Marie was well described as the perpetual "child bride" evoking memories of Dora from 'David Copperfield' and Michael's tenderness and indulgence with her is palpably felt. There can be a tremendously emotional effect induced by writers who can succinctly convey the tragedy of a dependent who has lost their protector: a dog who has lost his master, a child who has lost his parent or a man who has lost his country. You captured that effect beautifully in relating the effect of Michael's death upon Marie.

A sad, but beautifully and delicately wrought piece of writing !!! Kudos!