(This is a story of past lives which surfaced during one session of our LIGHT BRIDGE study.)

There he sat with a goblet of wine, wine produced from the grapes of his own vineyard.  He was filled with rage, anger and love.  He stared into the flames in the fireplace and his eyes rested on the oil painting, a family heirloom, hung on the mantle. It was a landscape depicting the vineyard and the land which seemed to extend beyond the horizon. It had stood there for years as if to remind him of the horrors of his childhood.  Those grape vines...

He heard the cries yet again.  With a piteous scream she was crying out: “Why are you doing this to me? He truly loved her, but that was how it was to be.  She had to stay in the dark as were his memories.  Nobody was to know. Nothing was to be told...He had kept them all these years.

All these years he had lived in fear.  He had managed to maintain is strength only by feeding these fears.  He heard her scream yet again.  “Don’t do this to me!”  The voice was now feeble.  Only her sobs could be heard.

He had another sip of the wine.  He leaned further back in his armchair and stretched his feet towards the fireplace.  He stared into the memories coming to life in front of his eyes.  He stared at them as if for the first time.  A very young boy was wandering among the grape vines.  It looked quite obvious he was the lord of the household.  He raised his head.  The sun was shining bright. Autumn was near.  The gapes had matured.  The workers had started to work diligently.  Little time was left for the festivities.  The aged wine would be out of the cellars and the new harvest would be celebrated.  He was unaware how far from the chateau he had wandered off.  He used to take pleasure in wandering off far from the chateau once in a while; that used to scare the staff in charge of his well being.  A hand gripped his shoulder.  He was caught yet again!  He turned with a mischievous grin.  But his capture wasn’t who it should be!  And what right did he have to grab him like that?  He felt a thud and was thrown off balance just as he was to open his mouth.  He was small, so small...  He clenched his fists. His captor had a strange expression on his face.  An expression which gave him shock and fear.  He hadn’t understood what happened.  When he did, it was too late.

The woman cried yet again.  Her voice was feeble.  She had no more strength to bang the door.  He loved her so much.

He stared back at the painting.  Her long hard was tied at the back.  Hair should be let loose and free.  He had never liked wearing a wig.  The grape vines... The most decisive moments of his life.  The first place he had ever tasted death... And the pain... The moment when he had clenched his fists and struggled in vain. That was all he was able to do.  And that voice...  The voice he would never come to forget.  The voice that would ring in his ears forever. “If you tell, I will kill you”...

After many a year, even when he had turned into a handsome dashing youth, the voice was still there.  He had grown up now.  He could protect himself.  Yet they would never be able to protect himself from the fear that was rooted in him from his childhood. A feeling he could never confess.   And nobody was ever to know...The lord of this land and his dark secret.  His pride when he walked among the ladies and the admiring looks of the young ones and yet the rage growing within him when left alone by himself at night!   His impulses and the feelings beyond his control.  The sensations he knew he would never be able to let a woman experience.

Time was flowing and the land had had strict rule he had to abide by.  He had to star a family and had to provide an heir.  Or else he would have to explain to his aging father why he was unable to fulfill his obligations.  And it was too late for this.

Nobody knew why he was so quiet. The image he gave to the outer world was an authoritative, yet just and noble a landlord, proud of his principles.  He talked little.  He could not stand being come up against.  His penetrating looks would not allow anyone to do so anyway. He hid his destructive feelings by the distance he provided. He respected others but stayed away.  The times he felt any pleasure and can be said happy were the times he was left alone with his books.  He read, he questioned; he wrote...  Hence the real world faded into the distance.  He did not realize that with the rage he kept boiling inside, he was condemning himself to a life where love could never flourish.  People he gathered around him from time to time listened respectfully to him.  He was so knowledgeable.  He was the guest of honor at every reception. It was in one of those receptions that he saw her.  With her black elegant outfit, graceful manners and attentive eyes, sat she.  One could distinguish her from the rest at a mere glance.  The fact that he had never seen her before seemed to prove him right.  She was a distant relative having come for a visit.  Someone not from these lands.  The thought appealed to him.

God had presented him a possibility.  He had to make use of it.  During their conversations, after being introduced, he was quite impressed by the young woman.  The rest followed.  A grand wedding ceremony and a lonely woman.  A woman who would only know him and be with him but with none else.  The image of the respectful husband in the years to follow would turn into the brutal husband.  As for the girl, she had fallen for him sensing and in a way knowing it all.  The Knight in White Shining Armour whom all waited had fallen for her...  The folk talked about this for days. But she kept her silence.  She only presented then a happy image.  During the grand receptions they held she would wonder round the guest with all her grace and elegance.  She would attend to all her guest, leaving out none.  All along she knew her husband’s watchful eyes were following her.  Once in a while she would look at him and smile.  She carried her black dress with the same elegance and knew that in her next life she would only wear white.

He got up from the armchair and walked into the deeper corridors of the house.  He could no longer hear her echoing voice.

He loved her so much.

He walked along the corridor he used to run along while a happy child.  The corridor was laden with oil paintings.  All family heirlooms.  The house used to be full of light once.  Now gloom had descended.  He entered his wife’s bedroom.  He glanced at the bed she slept in, and her neat belongings.  He opened her wardrobe and touched the red dress that used to suit her so; yet she no longer wore it.  He tried to smell her.  He wanted to cry.  He had last cried at the vineyard.  But he had buried deep inside the need to cry along with her memories.  He had never understood how his wife came to know the secret he had hidden so well and with such great care.  And the look of compassion in her eyes had always pained his heart.

He looked at the desk.  The brown bound notebook stood there.  Along with a quill pen next to it.  He had never dared to open that notebook.  Maybe one day, when he felt prepared to face the truth, he might open it.  Obviously his wife had accumulated her silence there.  She had poured all into that brown bound notebook.  One day when all was over... Maybe he might read it.  He traced the cover.  He touched the quill.  He turned round and left as he came.

He turned to the mysterious room... The room no one was allowed to enter but him alone.  Here was his real world. His rage, anger, his love were all hung on the walls of this room.  He turned towards the window.  He could see the garden with little effort.  In the garden came to life a woman with her hair tied in a bun, walking gracefully.  How beautiful she was.

In the beginnings she was a woman walking around with a sad smile; and the eyes that viewed the surroundings with wonder.  She took interest at every flower.  She beheld each one as if she conversed with them.  With a book in her hand she would sit in a corner, calmly open it, and would soon be absorbed in it.  Every now and then she would raise her eyes and look around to see if anyone was coming.  Then once again she would return to her reading.  Then she would kneel on her knees and touch the earth and she would become one with it and the energy of the earth, all the while keeping her eyes closed.  Once she opened her eyes she would look up to the sky with eyes full of gratitude for having received from above what she had been deprived off on earth.  He always wondered what she thought about those moments; what she felt as she touched the earth.  He had never asked her; he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the response.  During those moments he felt he was being touched.

In this scene that always repeated, there had been only one difference.  The look in her eyes.  Now she had a sad smile.  A sadness that awaited the time her husband would speak to her.  The waiting in silence whilst her husband disappeared.  The moment when she would tell him her love.  Just a single moment.

Her cousin would sometimes join her.  He would never know what they shared.  But his jealousy infuriated him further. The silhouette of the cousin that appeared following those unsuccessful nights ad the brutal behavior he had adopted.  The room he left without uttering a word.  And upon waking seeing the lovely face of hers; sometimes caressing his face with sympathy.  The look of admiration mixed with love in her eyes.

All these pained him.  He could not stand pity.  The ever growing feeling of betrayal.  He was now certain.  The cousin and her.  The wife he loved so much... The lonely woman who had come from a far.

When he came to his senses, it was dark; the shadows had appeared, and the lady was gone.  Only the barking of the dogs could be heard.

He returned to his bedroom, lied on the bed with his clothes on; drained.  Little could be heard from downstairs.  Only a few sobs; and a meek “Don’t do this to me”.  He looked up to the ceiling.

It was dawn and he was till lying there, eyes wide pen.  How many hours, how many days had passed?  He knew not... Was it important?

He got up slowly.  His face carried no expression.  With eyes staring into emptiness he started descending the stairs.  The further he climbed down the darker it became...  The smell of rust increased.  He moved to the heavy door.  Once is wife used to paint behind this door?  But she was never able to show them to her husband whom she loved so much.  She had poured out her love on those canvasses and adorned it in paints.  Her paintings were her love for him.

With the opening of the door, the deadly cold hit him.  He had always despised the cold.  He watched the woman lying on the floor for awhile. He kneeled and touched her throat.  Her breathing was weak.  She was too meek to open her eyes but knew he was there.  Her expression was one of pain of not being able to tell.  She knew he was there and at last she had surrendered with all her love.  If only she had the strength to open her mouth, the only words she would have spoken would have been “I love you”.

He grabbed her throat with his strong hands and started wringing.  The woman had already been worn out and gave no struggle...till she stopped breathing.

When he opened his eyes he was lying on his bed.

He was still dressed.

Next to him lay his wife with a calm look on her face.  There was neither hatred nor fury.  Maybe this was the happiest night they had shared.  On this night they had witnessed love and being loved.

He turned and looked at her.  It was as if she were asleep.  Beautiful, just as in the first days.

He felt the pain in his eyes; he was unaware of the time.  “This was how it was meant to be”! He thought.  He slowly got up; there were things to be done.

It was a quiet funeral.  She was now lying at the best spot facing the grapevines.  She was buried there with him alone and with his memories.

He walked towards the magnificent structure.  With empty eyes he started climbing the stairs.  He entered his wife’s bedroom.  Walked towards the writing desk. Without hesitation he opened the bound notebook and started reading. After a few moments he almost collapsed to the chair.

When he rose his eyes from the notebook he knew not how much time had elapsed.  His eyes were fixed to the quill pen.  He could not control his tears flowing down.  He got up and ran downstairs.  He again opened the heavy door, entered and looked at the paintings for the first time...with tears in his eyes.

He came to the tomb, knelt down on his knees, with his head in his hand, he cried, cried... He was now crying...

A rumor went round the won folk for years.  A rumor about a man who never spoke nor ever went out, and the phantom of a graceful lady roaming the house.

And a love story that would never be known....

It was at ICQ, in real life that they met.  The question he directed her interested her. “Are you comfortable where you are?” She had recently got divorced and thought it was her ex husband playing her a trick.  “Who are you? How did you find me?” she asked because she was in the invisible mode.  The response was yet more interesting.  “I would find you anywhere”.

So the chat began and they met after a few months.  During their year and a half relationship they attended the light bridge work.  And the story above came about.

The Marquis and his love.

Now as two good friends they correspond. They still love each other much, and in a strange way try to avoid hurting one another.  And they still find one another everywhere.

Love and pain do not end with our work.  Yet the past lives do.

(This light bridge work has been written with the permission of the people involved on condition that their names not are revealed.)