CHAPTER 16. TORTUROUS INSPIRATION

April 16, 2019.

“You must understand, Sebastien, that the action you so desire to commit is truly foolish and even… even despicable… it is humiliating and in any civilized and respectable society it will be perceived as some unimaginable savagery, and therefore, if you act in this way… and you have the power to act differently!.. just one word to the waiter and everything will be resolved!.. if you do this, then… I can no longer be with you… think about it, Sebastien! My patience has reached its limit… and even beyond! Lately, you’ve stopped seeing what is right under your feet—you've been constantly floating in some ethereal realms: you are unbearable in the simplest things, and as for your complex things, I don't understand them at all—it has become difficult to communicate with you, but when I don't communicate with you, you make things even worse… you become cold and indifferent to me! These foolish ideas, may they be damned!.. they are what destroyed our happiness... our happy life... You and I haven't appeared in public for a long time, and when… on rare occasions… we do, people constantly point at us, as if we aren't famous personalities, but completely insane circus performers! I'm tired of all this, I no longer want to hear such words from the lips of people I don't even know, and so... the decision is yours!” Nineteen-year-old Flora Demaret said these words, which flowed directly from the spring of her soul, with great passion, to twenty-seven-year-old Sebastien Aymon, who, in turn, sat opposite Flora at a table in one of Paris's most exquisite open-air restaurants: at the very moment her youthful figure was enveloped in a truly remarkable Versace dress, he was dressed in an expensive Louis Vuitton suit.

“You know, my dear Flora, that I have a goal, I know and understand my predestination, and you... you know this perfectly well!...”

“Why did you fall in love with me?!” Her thin, fragile, like grass stems, white marble fingers swiftly grabbed his hands and squeezed them so tightly, as if frantically wanting to demonstrate their maximum power over his nature.

“Because... I have no reason not to love you! You are the mystery of a Rubik's cube for me: not the solution to this mystery, not mathematical calculations, but that very sacred and sacrosanctness that a person should never touch—it is the pollen on a butterfly's wings... by touching it, you will make it so that the butterfly will never fly again...”

“And even now... and I just wanted a simple answer! Instead of enlightening me on the question asked by my lips, you've confused me even more!” Flora's extraordinarily sweet lips once again threw words like darts directly at Sebastien Aymon's heart-target, but not all of them reached their destination.

“But why did you choose me then?”

“Because I wished it so—my actions, like the actions of any true woman, are in no way influenced by logic...”

“When I didn't love you, I didn't pay the slightest attention to flowers—now, feeling these sweet emotions for you, I see your charm in every flower... your eyes in cornflowers... your lips in tulips... your skin in snow-white avalanche roses... your eyelashes in forsythia branches... and therefore, I frantically crave not to pluck them, and consequently deprive them of their essence, but to care for them, to make their life favorable, even if not all of them are part of my garden... Realize, Flora, that I... I am just a traveler who is perfectly aware of his predetermined path, and so... knowing the goal and the outcome, I must walk, walk no matter what! Someone may keep me company on this path, of course, if they wish, but they cannot change the goal of my path and its tasks, and consequently my predestination... I am something like the Colosseum... please, understand me! Caesars changed, but the Colosseum remained—empires collapsed, but the Colosseum still remained in the place predetermined for it by Providence itself!”

“What do you mean by that? That you are ready to cheat on me at any moment, not necessarily physically, but spiritually, for the sake of your so-called 'predestination'?... Why do you compare yourself to a lifeless, inanimate pile of stones that for some reason is located in the very heart of Rome?” Nineteen-year-old Flora said, suddenly sobbing. “You know... I was ready for anything for your sake... even to sacrifice my own life...”

“But not to despise social prejudices... are they really more precious to you than your own life? Besides, if a person is ready to do anything for the sake of their beloved, even to the point of losing their own fleshly life, then that is by no means love, but merely a harmful addiction... Forgive me, Flora, for these words, but they are sincere, and therefore pure!.. Every person in this world... even lovers separately!.. has their own path and their own distribution: we are not a thing that is manufactured in a factory according to given, precisely measured, parameters... You know what I want—you know the thorns and the sweetness of my path: he who chooses the path of metaphysical teaching and self-knowledge is forced to lay his own time on the altar of those things for fleeting, momentary pleasures, as well as the opinion of society regarding the corresponding actions, inaction, thoughts, and feelings... You know my attitude towards such actions—our consciousness is deliberately tried to be shackled by the norms of laws and generally accepted rules of behavior: and I'm not talking about actions and deeds now, but about thoughts and ideas!”

“Do you know how many people like you have existed in this world, who considered themselves exceptional and instantly claimed that title? You, my dear Sebastien,” the young Flora said venomously, intentionally emphasizing the word “dear,” “have too many competitors in this world... and that applies not only to creativity!”