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Dec. 31st, 2014 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tu_vas_triompherSometimes, when endurance of suffering calls for imagination, Feuilly takes his mind to a workshop and paints. This is no painting he's ever made, any more than it's a journey he has ever made: start at the Cabo da Roca, Portugal. Curve south, south and east, because the Cabo da Roca is as far west as the continent will allow. Blue water lapping against a pale green line of land. To Lisbonne, Lisboa. Curve in, another pointed cape of land, curve in again, knowing that the line smooths out a thousand thousand natural irregularities of the land, south for the point of Gibraltar, then mountains that pull you east and north. Sierra Nevada: his mind's hand tints them with a delicate brown-grey. Up and along to Catalogne, Catalunya. (A fine line in his imagined map, to show both present political Spain and proposed Catalunya. Carlist support, a vexatious question: the men and women hoping for Catalan independence would get no true freedom from the absolutism of a Carlos de Borbón.) Then more familiar territory. A pause at Marseille. In his mind he writes the city's name with care. Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie l'étendard sanglant est levé. Entendez-vous dans la campagne mugir ces féroces soldats?
The roar of those ferocious soldiers. A boot comes down hard on his hand and the carefully-held mental map vanishes. Whoever it is kicks the (near-)corpse out from underfoot and Feuilly loses his light grasp on consciousness. When he wakes again to cold, the map comes more easily. Not the coast. A river journey. Start at a mountain. Barania Góra. Fall down its slope, float past Kraków, Sandomierz, turn north--
---
Cold again when he wakes. Gdansk, he thinks confusedly. Gdansk Bay, Baltic Sea. A wall at his back, with a door. He stands on shaky legs and leans on the door for strength before trying to open it.
Feuilly warms himself in a corner of the café, if café is the word for it. It's not the Corinth or any other Paris room. (Nor, clearly, Gdansk. Take the diligence for another planet, indeed?) It must be the middle of the night here, or the wee hours of the morning. There's no one in the room but a rat that comes and goes on its hind feet, like something from an allegorical cartoon.
Finally the rat brings him a folded piece of paper with a separate note. Welcome to Milliways, the Bar at the End of the Universe. Hang up your hat, leave your outside allegiances by the door, and please: tip your waitrats. --Rm. 637 and all its furnishings and accoutrements are at your disposal during your stay. Please take a moment to read the brochure.
Feuilly reads as he walks after the rat. You may also be dead, in which case we are still sorry, says the pamphlet.
That's...thoughtful?
The roar of those ferocious soldiers. A boot comes down hard on his hand and the carefully-held mental map vanishes. Whoever it is kicks the (near-)corpse out from underfoot and Feuilly loses his light grasp on consciousness. When he wakes again to cold, the map comes more easily. Not the coast. A river journey. Start at a mountain. Barania Góra. Fall down its slope, float past Kraków, Sandomierz, turn north--
---
Cold again when he wakes. Gdansk, he thinks confusedly. Gdansk Bay, Baltic Sea. A wall at his back, with a door. He stands on shaky legs and leans on the door for strength before trying to open it.
Feuilly warms himself in a corner of the café, if café is the word for it. It's not the Corinth or any other Paris room. (Nor, clearly, Gdansk. Take the diligence for another planet, indeed?) It must be the middle of the night here, or the wee hours of the morning. There's no one in the room but a rat that comes and goes on its hind feet, like something from an allegorical cartoon.
Finally the rat brings him a folded piece of paper with a separate note. Welcome to Milliways, the Bar at the End of the Universe. Hang up your hat, leave your outside allegiances by the door, and please: tip your waitrats. --Rm. 637 and all its furnishings and accoutrements are at your disposal during your stay. Please take a moment to read the brochure.
Feuilly reads as he walks after the rat. You may also be dead, in which case we are still sorry, says the pamphlet.
That's...thoughtful?
