Orlando’s Short Story inspired by Ida Immendorff first costume collection
Helas, my time, how grievous is your wrong.
I flee tedious company and calloused habit, that forever strikes the same point, beating the rhythm of a quietude that lacks even the courage to be melancholic. The skill of ignorance lies in diverting one’s gaze far from the things that are; I deliberately neglect them, for I have no care for what is of little worth.
You are cold, stone, damp with tears shed for your departed guests: travellers on their way to journeys, to marriage, to crusade or to priesthood, returned cold so as to please your unhappy fate. I do not dream of distant places; from a tower the view breathes and barriers fall, yet as far as the eye can see the panorama is all the same, and even the gaze grows weary. I dream of vastness and of many destinations for a restless heart. I am a woman, only a daughter, and then, what shall become of me?
In white garments I shall clothe myself, ready for beginnings or for new endings. A virginal bride, white yet at times sullied, should I walk the aisle without bearing love, as love I left upon the steps at the noon of a farewell, my hand resting in the armour of someone who, perhaps, is already dead.
Upon my shoulders, a veil of modesty – will it be candid or grown pale? I shall don a conical hat, its tip slender and drawn. It shall be an animic conduit, a secret passage for anguished sighs escaping heavenward. At last free, I already see them unfurl: my painful mysteries, clouds at vespers without a storm.
Or shall I consecrate myself to the Lord? For Him, white shall be the hope of light; without modesty yet with humility I shall set upon my head the veil of the nuns whom now I see only from above. I shall intone that chant which ever hovers in my prayers, devout and never again enslaved, a daughter still, yet the most beloved. There I shall know existence without ego, the choir without a soloist, many truths in concord within the promise of mercy; many faces beneath the veils, one single white sea, the peace of those who have found the keys to the gates of Paradise.
Shall I go mad? Shall I one day flee, howling like the jester who seems so merry to the tipsy diner, yet so vexing to my mind, not inclined to mediocre laughter? I shall tear my white gown and rend it into shreds; like leaves of stone upon the branches I shall run among startled wolves, I shall cut my hair. To the sound of trumpets they will seek me with hounds and torches, yet they shall never find me again. For I shall be mad; when they seize me, they will set me upon the spires to frighten the demon by night, the enemy beyond the walls, I shall be the actress of my own comedy. All will weep for my misery, but I – oh, how I delight!
In the end, I believe in metamorphosis. Skin of milk shall turn to pelt; the harshness of steeds shall be softened by silver-coloured blood flowing through my unicorn veins. The velvet slippers my father once brought me resound like hooves at every Saltarello, the Volta plays, the minstrel strikes up, and the tread is light, like a gallop upon grass and dew. I shall not miss my hair: my mane is thick and wholly white, never greyed by time, of eternal youth, for in myth there is no senescence.
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