ROSA MATHIELLA
Vilma Kadlečková

Prologue

How beautiful she is!How fragile and strange!She is from another world, Rose Mathiella…I gave Alena an armful of roses on her bir hday they were red,white,yellow,pink and the Lord knows what else…Not blue. Roses can’be a rich blue.There is not delphinidin colouring in hem. They can’be but Rose Mathiella is blue like an evening sky,like the surface of a mountain lake on a hot day…Fragile,beautiful,strange.From another world.
       The plain was extended from horizon to horizon as if it was the only thing in he world,as if there was nothing else but hat.I recognized nothing but light and darkness,warmth and coldness the sea of sand and the universe.It was a long ime since I had left he Residence’s gate that had let me and no one else pass and had closed again,so that none of Shapeless could get inside.With the sun on my back,I went further and fur her.I had already gone a long way and there was more in store for me.
       The place that I was looking for was hidden somewhere far ahead,out of sight,and I only knew hat it was situated to he southeast of he Residence.Nothing more nor even whether it really existed.It was called Narron and according to myths it was the last and only town of the Old.A own or perhaps just a mere phantom of a town,its shadow.
       I was not he only one o try to find it.We had always done it it was an old tradition that may not have even started with us.Besides,we needed new books from he Old;in hose that we had there was written that it was advisable o gain more of them.So I travelled to Narron.
       So many of us had gone the same way before me and no one came back…And I had no reason to hink that I was the elect to be the first o manage…I did not hink so.Actually,I did not care.
       This is what the myths say:“Two towns of he Old rose at once out of the desert sand,wo owns resembling each other like rose seeds,and at the same time different like night and day.They were connected with a firm thread of Waves that was not to be seen and that bestrode the clouds.
      The first of the towns,Narron,remained closed within its massive fencing,he other one opened its gates to he world and welcomed foreigners who came there…It welcomed us.
       Huge treasure was hidden in the town,treasure that came to being just for us o find it.Its citizens lived just to hand over Wisdom and Beauty to us.That was the only purpose of heir existence when hat had happened,they died.And the most precious and most important treasure The Shape accrued to hat huge heritage we gained.The Shape is derived from heir body.They,perfect,were the model for he Form that we made and that we fulfil with our cells so as to gain hallowed likeness…!”
       We live in he Residence,in one of he two age-old owns.A long ime ago when the last Old of our Residence had died,he thread of Waves crashed down from he skies and dissolved o nothing.Narron,hidden even with its reasure,became a mere myth,a dateless feeble memory of those to whom he World belonged before us.And I looked for the myth and the memory.
       The Residence was so far-away that I sometimes doubted that it existed at all.It seemed to me almost impossible hat it was for only three days that I had stood at the edge of a lukewarm muddy water-hole mired up o my ankles into warm fleshy soil full of life…It was on the periphery of he Residence near the fencing.The water-hole was hollowed out by us,it did not belong o the old Core where the Old had formerly lived.I don’t know how they could live there;he Core seems to us more inhospitable than a desert.Its cold metal corridors are gloomy,its lustrous desks and pellucid partitions frightening.Unlike the sunshine,the cold shine of the ceiling is dead,pushing us to he floor like an avalanche of senseless stones.Nobody stays there long.In he Core you can find only the books of the Old and hollowed Forms nothing more.
       Its icy rule scares us.In comparison our corridors are oo beautiful moisturised with water from hundreds of fountains and full of aromas!I walked through hem before I set out on this journey.On my face I could feel he pleasant shining of he Sun that did not burn and hurt,and I was happy,as happy as we could be…
       On my way to Narron I protected myself against the Sun with a coat ,but still I was scorched by its killing heat.I walked in dead sand and longed for water.There was no shade just mine,rembling,hin, blundering.
       It was an area of he Shapeless,our enemies.I walked on and on across a glowing plain.I perceived it like a boiling sea of light… I,Mathiella.
       Desert…After the third day it seemed vast,after the fifth day desperately huge and after the eighth endless.I had only one canister of water on me,I wouldn’t have been able o carry more.From time to time I dabbled my hands into it o refresh myself.I save every drop of water and I cheered myself up hat with such a small water intake I couldn’t meet..........

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