divertissements | writing in style.

I love you because you are like autumn, like a fading sunset. I love you because you are ill. I love you because you are going to die. I love you also because you have coppery hair and sea-green eyes and because you are frail and sad. You have the flexibility of a fading flower. Your voice is melancholy as the winds of October that bring down the dead leaves. I love you because you are going to die. Your lassitude enchants me and your fragility ravishes me. Someone should surely be awaiting you in the tomb. For you know, as I do, that the Dead, lying in the depths of their sepulchers, are waiting for those whom they loved. They await them tirelessly, without anguish or impatience, in appalling immobility. Oh, someone assuredly waits for you in the tomb. The Dead twine their fingers among the roots, hoping for the arrival of their loved ones and their companions. And sometimes, through their closed lids, they count the years. I love you because you are going to die. When you are dead, O my Lady of Autumn, you too will wait resting on those slabs of stained marble. You will smile at the spots of moisture which take unexpected shapes, strange outlines, and which sometimes, like clouds, assume the face of earthly creatures. When you are dead, you will wait for me, like her who already awaits me. And behind your closed lids you will count the years. Whenever I sing songs to my shadow, I shall feel your thoughts drifting about me like a cold breath. When sleet rattles against the window, I shall hear the tapping of your fingers. The winter winds will bring me the rustle of your passing shroud. I shall know you wait for me, counting the months and the years. Your index finger will cast its shadow on the sundial. You will insinuate yourself into the fog and the mists, like her who already awaits me. I love you because you are going to die. It is the brief joy of ephemeral beauty that I drink from your lips. I believe I take from you a bit of your fleeting life when I embrace you. I can see within your flesh the delicate design of your skeleton. I adore your transparent temples where the blue veins are visible and which glisten with the dew of icy sweat. I love you for being so pale. Oh, how beautiful you are, so wasted and pale! Someone must surely be awaiting you in the tomb...

- From "A Woman Appeared to Me", Renee Vivien.