Friday, November 26, 2010

Beauty of Beast part 1

Once upon a time...
A trite beginning to an old tale. One you have all known. Or thought you knew. You've all seen the movie after all. The beautiful girl  who sings the village awake. The horrible monster in the enchanted castle. Singing flatware, and dancing candelabra.  You know the one I mean. Of course, you know the original couldn't have been like that. Some of you may even have read an older version. The poor, but still beautiful girl, forced to marry the horrible talking animal. She lives through years of trials and tribulations, and has to fight to keep her prince once he finally materializes. She risks gruesome death, but finally breaks the spell, only to lose him to some still young princess. At the end everyone is miserable or dies, or is just plain horrible. That story is older, and closer to the truth than most would find comfortable. But it is still not exactly what happened.

It's still not my story. Would you like to hear the truth? It's not for the faint-hearted. It's a story of transformation and redemption, for both parties.

I'm sure you have noticed that there is beauty and beast in all people. Some are more outward, and some more inward. In most people this is an even mix. They are ordinary, with small vices and kindnesses. They have visages that are neither greatly beautiful, nor horridly ugly. Sometimes the balance tips, and nature will go to great lengths to correct it.

I was born a beautiful baby to a handsome couple. Though we were poor, in an already poor village, my mother was very vain. She cared for nothing more than outward beauty. Only that which was beautiful was allowed in her house, or seen to have any worth. Whenever my father got payed for his work in the fields, rather than saving and stretching it to the next quarter day, my mother would spend it on flattering her own beauty. As I was an extension of her, this sometimes meant that she would buy new things for me. Because of this we were always poor, and had nothing to tide us over the bad times when they came.

I grew up always primped and pretty. My dark curls were always brushed at dawn and dusk until they glowed. My white skin was always protected from the sun lest it toughen from being burnt. Mother pinched my cheeks to make them redder than the rose whenever we went out. If this were a fairy tale as you are used to, somehow even through this I would build character. I would be sweet and kind to all who met me. As beautiful on the inside as on the outside. Honestly, have you ever known any child to be raised in such an environment who actually turned out well without some outside help? I was no exception. I was quiet, because speaking in more than a soft whisper might create lines on my fine face. But the things I thought. No one was free from my sarcastic and critical mind. No one was good enough for me. Because of my great beauty on the outside, I was horribly small and petty on the inside. A perfect copy of my mother.

When the offers for my hand started coming, even though we were poor and there would be no dowry there were many in the village who wanted me, My mother and I turned them all down. I accepted the gifts and the courtship as my due, but would except none who were not equally as handsome as I was beautiful. My mother and I used to talk of them and laugh when they left.

Of Hans the baker we said "Can you imagine sitting across from those ears every night?"

Of George the miller we said "Those teeth would give chipmunks nightmares."

Of John the blacksmith we said "Oh, that hair! You could thatch the house with it."

And so while the rest of the girls in the village were getting married, I remained betrothed waiting for the man who could match me. And my family remained poor. We accumulated many debts, as mother tried to keep both of us in the style to which she thought we belonged. Of course it couldn't last. One day father went out to harvest the wheat and didn't return. They say he missed his swing and the scythe caught too much blood.

My mother and I were destitute. The house and all our belongings were repossessed to pay the debts. As we had no marketable skills we had nothing else to sell but ourselves. I was born free, and now I belonged body and soul to the master of the manor up the way. Mother was sold elsewhere and I never saw her again.

I was bitter and angry at my lot. How dare I have to work for some stranger. I was the fairest woman in four counties. I should have been the toast of the town, not some slave to the whims of this man. No one had even seen him. He stayed on his land and in his house. No one who went to serve him would talk about the doings at the manor when they came down. At the time I thought he was so proud he couldn't be bothered to show his face to others. We always do suspect the worst vices in others that we possess ourselves.

The morning after my auction I was loaded into a cart, next to the vegetables of all things. Well, I would use this time to improve myself as best I may. The master of the manor would surely treat me better when he saw how much better I was than those others serving him. I certainly wouldn't be treated like a sack of flour.
I would show him.