The HyperTexts

Blue Beard
by V. Ulea


Blue Beard appears in full in V. Ulea's book Lunar Rhapsody, which can be purchased on Amazon or by clicking on this link.

 

PART I. FEVER

 

 

 

 

 

1. SISTERS

 

 

 

LISA

My sister Anna, tell me, tell me, why,

Why do I feel such sadness in my heart?

Why does my hand, against my will, embroider,

Day after day and hour after hour,

Those birds in cages,

Silent, pensive birds?

 

ANNA

Oh, Lisa, dear, trust me – there’s no reason

For your melancholy! The sun is bright,

The sailing clouds are benign and light,

The breeze is gentle and refreshing, Lisa –

It sways the clouds on its wings, it lulls

Birds on the trees, and carries their soft voices.

 

LISA

No, Anna, no! All I can hear is – voids,

Not voices, Anna, voids – crying nulls.

Their silence is so loud! Voids are screaming…

There’s no escape from nothingness.

 

 

ANNA

                                                Believe me,

It’s your imagination, Lisa. Look –

The day is quiet; clarity and bliss

Come from the skies, serene and peaceful.

I am in peace and so you should be, Lisa.

 

 

LISA

Look, Anna, look at the horizon –

A wild black shine… it darts right here,

Slashing the waves of daylight in distraction

And snatching dew from flowers. I fear,

It is for me this shine is rushing!

 

 



ANNA

You burn with fever… Oh, poor girl!

I’ll brew an herb extract.

 

LISA

                                                What for?

 

ANNA

It’ll help us stop the outbreak of flu.

 

LISA

Look, Anna, look! I see his beard! It’s blue…

 

ANNA

Whose beard?

 

LISA

                                    The horseman’s, Anna!

He gallops here. He is determined, stubborn!

He waves his hand, spurs on his horse!

 

 

ANNA

Oh, dear! She is getting worse!

 

LISA

He’s getting closer! He is coming!

I beg you – hide me, hide me Anna!

 

ANNA

Hide you from what? There’s nothing I can see!

There’s nothing here! What scares you, Lisa?

 

LISA

                                                            Nothing!

Nothing that vacuums every single thing

And every single thought. Its acid

Melts light away, eats energy, corrodes

All memories, all images, all words…

 

ANNA

You are impossible when you get sick!

 

LISA

Sick – I am not!  Oh, Anna! Don’t you see?

That leak in space through which all lives are vacuumed…

 

ANNA

Calm down, Lisa! Let’s not argue.

Drink this – and it will soothe your fever.

Tomorrow you’ll be better, dear.

 

 

2. AT NIGHT

 

 

LISA  

Look, Anna, look! Who’s gazing through the window?

 

ANNA

You’re feverish. There’s no one there.

It’s late and everybody’s sleeping.

 

LISA

Look, Anna, please, I beg you!

 

ANNA

                                     Where?

I’m tired… Darkness outside

Blocks even stars.

 

LISA

Look in the window!

 

ANNA

Sleep Lisa, sleep! There’s no one there, believe me.

 

LISA

Just don’t abandon me…

 

ANNA

                                    I’m by your side.

 

LISA

Don’t leave me!  I’m afraid of separation…

 

ANNA

You’re still delirious. I’ll chant my incantation.

 

Anna whispers her incantations and puts Lisa into sleep.

 

 

PART II. LISA’s DREAMS

 

 

 

 

1.  DREAM ONE

 

 

LISA

You see that castle, Anna, on the slope?

Who’s living there?

 

ANNA

                                    Ah, it’s our new neighbor.

 

LISA

I don’t know him. What is he like?

 

ANNA

                                                Who knows?

Some say he’s strange. I haven’t met him.

 

LISA

I wonder…

 

ANNA

                                    What?

 

LISA

                                    It’s nothing... Just a thought…

The castle looks abandoned…

 

Blue Beard silently appears.

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    It needs a hostess.

 

ANNA

You’ve scared me! Gosh! I haven’t noticed…

There was no single creature on the road…

 

BLUE BEARD

The law of journey should be blamed for that.

 

ANNA

Will you enlighten us on it?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                You bet!

The law of journey or the law of roads

Brings strangers and acquaintances together.

Once in a while, their paths are crossed.

They’re free to pass or stay forever.

 

 

Some call it fate, some call it chance,

But it’s a Law provoking change

In a stable, firm, and stagnant order,

A mechanism born on the edge

Of darkness – on that twilight border…

It changes course of rivers, stars.

It loosens formulas, and dogmas.

What you augment – it soon extracts.

What you cannot control – it owns.

There’s only one small thing it cannot change.

As soon as you are born – you’re in the cage.

Death sets you free…

 

LISA

                                    But what if I’m unborn?

 

ANNA

Then you are free!

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Then you are voids owned.

Life is a chain. The shapeless wins the shaped

And brings it back to the kingdom of no meanings -

A constant of the dark. To shed it

The mind should add some light to its pavilions.

As the only stable entity on earth,

The dark’s above all changes.

 

ANNA

                                    Why?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                Because

It’s never been created. Blanks and voids

Structure its ugly, image-lacking landscape,

Producing nothingness. One who avoids it –

Is born. The others can’t be rescued.

 

LISA

It’s thought-provoking ... Still, I wonder

If darkness is the absolute, the truth.

 

BLUE BEARD

For some, it is. But we can always choose

Between one and another.

 

 

LISA

You mean, between the truths?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                That’s what I mean.

Some things we cannot lose, some – we can’t win,

Some we can’t mix, some – we cannot dilute.

Darkness is sediment that settles as solitude.

One can’t destroy two things – nil and the end.

The basic principle that manages the lifespan

Of every living creature comes from darkness.

It threatens life and makes it priceless.

 

LISA

(whispers to Anna)

 

Oh, Anna! Did you hear what he’s just said?

 

ANNA                        

I did. It’s interesting. Why are you so upset?

 

LISA

He talks of death!

 

ANNA

                        He talks of life!

 

 

BLUE BEARD

I talk of darkness versus light.

Darkness is no one’s. Light to God belongs.

And nature simply keeps them both.

 

 

ANNA

Speaking of nature, what a lovely land!

This field looks like embroidery! The colors

Are silky, clear – I wish I had such threads!

The opal of the dew, the emerald of grasses…

 

BLUE BEARD

This land is rich in beauty. If you follow

This path you’ll see a truly striking view.

 

LISA

Wait, Anna!

 

ANNA

                                    I’ll come back for you!

 

Anna leaves.

 

BLUE BEARD

I am the owner of the castle. Would you like

To take a walk and see how it looks inside?

 

 

2. DREAM TWO

 

 

BLUE BEARD

Here is my castle.

 

LISA

                                    Do you live alone?

 

BLUE BEARD

Well, I have visitors ... They come at random...

The castle is old. At night it groans like a phantom,

Becoming quiet at the crack of dawn.

 

LISA

And what’s the meaning of its nightly cry?

 

BLUE BEARD

A feeling of remorse... With the castle it will die.

My castle mourns for lives that it’s consumed.

 

LISA

It’s getting dark ... I have to leave you soon.

 

BLUE BEARD

The voices torment it, tear it apart.

 

LISA

Whose voices are they?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    I’m talking about art –

The paintings on the walls. Their nightmares

Disturb the castle, cracking stony walls,

As if an army of slowly waking souls

Broke through eternity and turned into gloomy fighters.

 

 

Oh, everlasting, endless ancient feud

Between the stony walls and paintings

Whose agonizing cosmic solitude

Pulls up beginnings through resisting endings!

It’s the creators’ lonely long howl

That tears the canvas, breaking through the voids.

They burn themselves, being both flame and fuel.

Museums would shatter from such ghastly voices.

They find no consolation in themselves.

Their lonely solos multiplied by the echo

Of emptiness will never intersect

With what their looking for – their alter egos.

They suffered life as now they suffer death.

A work of art is a child of loneliness.

 

LISA

Why keep them here?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    I keep what here belongs.

 

LISA

You own the paintings?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    I own the painters’ souls.

 

LISA

What are they like?

 

BLUE BEARD

                        They are like mirror rooms

With the artist endlessly reflected

Who searches for his missing roots

Once and forever on the canvas planted.

 

 

LISA

Does he succeed?

 

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                 Art is against the end.

It keeps up those who fly and crushes those who land.

 

LISA

And faith?

 

BLUE BEARD

                         Faith seals a dreamy form

And casts creator’s images in stone.

A dream comes first, then it becomes one’s faith,

For dreams are fickle and often tend to fade.

Faith takes their freedom in exchange for the Height.

They live as truths, but as winged dreams – they die.

 

LISA

Who are you – light or darkness?

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Neither one.

 

LISA

How can I trust you?

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Trust is built on harm.

 

LISA

It’s built on faith.

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Then faith is built on harm.

 

LISA

Faith’s built on truth.

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Then truth should be disarmed.

 

LISA

Who are you?

 

BLUE BEARD

                        You decide.

 

LISA

                                    And why I’m here?

 

BLUE BEARD

Perhaps, to put an end to your secret fear…

 

 

 

3. DREAM THREE

 

 

LISA

(takes a handkerchief from her pocket)

 

Here is my work – a silky handkerchief.

What would you say about its design?

 

BLUE BEARD

I see incarceration, grief,

A dream of heights combined with a fear of flying.

The bird and cage will never grow apart.

They are in harmony. I render

Them as a union, as two halves of the heart.

They’ll stay this way. Fate’s bound them together

Like life and death. As soon as the bird leaves the cage

The soul will abrogate its contract with the body.

 

LISA

It’s not how I’ve intended it… I’ll change…

 

BLUE BEARD

You cannot change yourself. I studied

So many works of yours – their concept, outcome,

And fancy colors…

 

LISA

            Do you like them?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                Some.

LISA

What do you like?

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    I like the way they fit

Your state of mind, but – they are incomplete.

There must be some new color, some new thread…

 

LISA

What color, tell me!

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    I can’t tell you that.

You must decide yourself, I only

State my opinion.

 

LISA

                                    I feel so lonely!

It’s cold. The castle looks so dismal!

 

ANNA’s VOICE

It’s time to go! Where are you, Lisa?

 

LISA

Wait, Anna! I’m here! I’m coming…

Just wait for me. I love you…

 

BLUE BEARD

                                                Amen.

For now on, in sickness and in health…

 

LISA

I’ve talked to Anna…

 

BLUE BEARD

                        Love’s what I possess.

For now on, we’re bound, bound, bound.

 

4. DREAM FOUR

 

 

They enter a room with broken mirrors.

 

LISA  

The room is full of broken mirrors…

Inside each splinter, my embroidered birds

Sleep silently, and now I fear them.

 

BLUE BEARD

What do you fear?

 

LISA

                        A lack of the living force…

My silent birds… You keep them in your basement…

They never fly – I opened every cage,

But they don’t move.

 

BLUE BEARD

                        For that you must erase them.

 

LISA

Still, they won’t move!

 

BLUE BEARD

The movement’s in the change.

 

LISA

The broken mirrors are birds of bad omen.

 

BLUE BEARD

You made the birds, the cages…

 

LISA

                                    But you own them.

 

BLUE BEARD

In sickness and in health…

 

LISA

                        Your beard looks blue!

 

BLUE BEARD

It’s in this light. Both fighter and appeaser,

Light may uncover what’s been missing

Or hide what is the very clue…

It’s often pleasant, but – not honest.

 

LISA

What do you mean?

 

BLUE BEARD

                        It hides the darkness.

 

LISA

It melts the darkness.

 

BLUE BEARD

                                    It’s a myth.

The dark is like a coral reef.

It has its structure, beauty, life.

It gave us God who gave us light.

 

LISA

Your talk is scary… Stop! No more…

I’ve found what I was searching for…

 

 

PART III. THE RETURN

 

 

 

1. AWAKENING

 

LISA

(wakes up in her bed)

 

My room, my window! Dismal world, adieu! 

 

 

BLUE BEARD’s VOICE

Enjoy your freedom. I will come for you!


2. A SEARCH FOR THE THREAD

 

 

 

 

LISA

Oh, this embroidery is lacking depth…

Look how flat the gold’s turned out!

I need a thread… dark-blue.

 

ANNA

                                                We have

Both dark and blue, but not in a single color.

We have dark-green, dark–brown and dark–red,

Dark–violet…

 

LISA

                                    Dark–blue, I said!

 

ANNA

I’m sorry, Lisa! I just try to help.

Unfortunately, these are what we have.

 

LISA

Then take my work,

Stick in the needle,

And help me out –

I don’t feel well.

 

 

The HyperTexts