5: Euphrosyne

"I suppose it must be." Attention elsewhere.

"It's not that I don't care about him."

"Of course not."

"But you have to follow your heart. You only live once, you know?"

"Believe me, I know."

"Well there you are, then. You have to cherish beauty while you can. Life's too short. No?"

No. All things considered, Euphrosyne could not honestly say that life was too short. It seemed tactless to argue the point, though. To say, for example: "Listen, you flighty, shallow harlot, your life has already gone on longer than you can justify and every extra minute you keep breathing is an unearned gift you're too stupid to recognise. Listen, you flighty, shallow harlot, your life, like most lives, is not nearly short enough." Tactless and hateful and without the possibility of any good outcome. So she remained silent.

"And he is beautiful, isn't he? Doesn't he just set your eyes on fire?"

Euphrosyne's eyes were cold and clear, free from even the tiniest hint of flame, but yes, the harlot's beau was beautiful.

"Doesn't he just make you want to dance?"

"Yes. Yes, he does."

And that was true. She couldn't remember the last time she was so inspired by the sight of someone. She certainly couldn't remember the last time she'd danced.

"Well there you are, then."

There she was.

The evening was not really going as planned. Its butterfly lure had been impossible to avoid, the glittering trap of unabbreviated gorgeousness, but in the end that was -- as it had always been -- an unrewarding pursuit. A youth pushing past nudged a splash of red wine onto her dress. Euphrosyne was too old for this, but still she couldn't quite shake the habit.

Someone turned the music up, which at least relieved her of the obligation to converse with the harlot. She swayed her body a little -- not enough to arouse Terpsichore -- and idly gazed at the vision in the other room.

She'd seen many beauties in her time, and he was a good one. Not the best -- if memory could be trusted in these matters, which it couldn't -- but good. She watched the shapes he made and the attitudes he struck and appreciated them greatly. She watched the effects he had on others and appreciated those less.

Mean spirits seemed to crowd into the house, making the atmosphere tight and bitter -- and they were drawn there by him. Just as she had been.

In other parties, in other houses, it was not like this. Those revels were livelier and happier -- perhaps that bit more so than they would have been in this one's absence. But here, the air was musty with resentment, with jealousy and bitterness. With the urge to possess and control, the urge to destroy.

Euphrosyne had the sense things hadn't always been this way, but perhaps that was mere nostalgia. Covetousness and envy and hate had a long history, longer even than hers. It was the human condition.

She closed her eyes and drew down into the moment. Waved away the beauty, slipped off along the hall, opened the door, and out.
Posted by matt at November 6, 2004 11:46 PM