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adventdrabblesTitle: Coda générale
Universe: The Nutcracker
Character(s): Frau Stahlbaum
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: It was not a joke, she reflected, it was not a jest. It was loss.
Length: 515 words
Author's Notes: Foradventdrabbles Day 31. also: external link.
Coda générale
A child, Frau Stahlbaum thought, the shape of it in her arms, starched dress and white porcelain; a doll. There was a tradition, she was told, a story about the New Year taking the shape of a new born babe, a helpless infant, like the Christ at Christmas. Yet unlike the Christchild, throughout the year, the babe aged considerably, meeting the last days of December withered and in pain, a trailing beard and arthritic grasp, palsied hands pushing against the door to let himself out, and let in the new babe that would replace him, that would meet his fate in the same way he had.
Gently, she ran her fingers down the smooth, cold skin of the doll. She had been a mother once. Oh, she still very much was a mother, she was told, but Louise was married now and living in Vienna, and Fritz was studying engineering in Stuttgart, and Clara—Yes, that had been what she did not wish to recall, that had been what she longer wanted to remember.
Her hair had long since faded from warm brown to brittle silver, and Clara had been gone from her side for how many years now; how many long, long years? They had not had enough time together, they could never have had enough time together; who was it that put a limit on the knowledge a mother might have of her daughter, of the days in which they might spend together?
It had been many, many Christmases since Clara had been spirited away, many years since that last lavish party, guests filling the great space of the old house in which they had once lived, old Herr Drosselmeyer arriving before the chime of the clock with gifts for the children. After that, things had become hazy in her recollection, after that she could not recall what had happened, but it was enough to know that Clara was absent, and somehow, in some way, Drosselmeyer had been complicit.
Yet of course he was not, came the protest from her husband, the murmur of the crowd as she had rounded on him, as she had screeched at him in a considerably unladylike yet characteristically womanly fashion; Drosselmeyer was a respected man, a member of the council, a sage beyond reproach, Clara was simply playing a trick upon them, a jest, a jape, a game as such children might play.
It had not been a game though, Frau Stahlbaum knew that then as surely as she knew it now, the doll in her arms, the likeness of a child, pale-skinned automaton. Clara had vanished, and Clara would remain vanished, spirited away forever, and only she remained, arthritic grasp, palsied hands pushing against the door to let herself out, to pass from such a place, to finally know peace.
In her hands, the doll did not blink, yet still it stared forever upwards, its eyes filled with the reflection of her, the extent of its world what it could see of her. Would, she thought, that all wayward daughters thought so well of their mothers.
Universe: The Nutcracker
Character(s): Frau Stahlbaum
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: It was not a joke, she reflected, it was not a jest. It was loss.
Length: 515 words
Author's Notes: For
adventdrabbles Day 31. also: external link.Coda générale
A child, Frau Stahlbaum thought, the shape of it in her arms, starched dress and white porcelain; a doll. There was a tradition, she was told, a story about the New Year taking the shape of a new born babe, a helpless infant, like the Christ at Christmas. Yet unlike the Christchild, throughout the year, the babe aged considerably, meeting the last days of December withered and in pain, a trailing beard and arthritic grasp, palsied hands pushing against the door to let himself out, and let in the new babe that would replace him, that would meet his fate in the same way he had.
Gently, she ran her fingers down the smooth, cold skin of the doll. She had been a mother once. Oh, she still very much was a mother, she was told, but Louise was married now and living in Vienna, and Fritz was studying engineering in Stuttgart, and Clara—Yes, that had been what she did not wish to recall, that had been what she longer wanted to remember.
Her hair had long since faded from warm brown to brittle silver, and Clara had been gone from her side for how many years now; how many long, long years? They had not had enough time together, they could never have had enough time together; who was it that put a limit on the knowledge a mother might have of her daughter, of the days in which they might spend together?
It had been many, many Christmases since Clara had been spirited away, many years since that last lavish party, guests filling the great space of the old house in which they had once lived, old Herr Drosselmeyer arriving before the chime of the clock with gifts for the children. After that, things had become hazy in her recollection, after that she could not recall what had happened, but it was enough to know that Clara was absent, and somehow, in some way, Drosselmeyer had been complicit.
Yet of course he was not, came the protest from her husband, the murmur of the crowd as she had rounded on him, as she had screeched at him in a considerably unladylike yet characteristically womanly fashion; Drosselmeyer was a respected man, a member of the council, a sage beyond reproach, Clara was simply playing a trick upon them, a jest, a jape, a game as such children might play.
It had not been a game though, Frau Stahlbaum knew that then as surely as she knew it now, the doll in her arms, the likeness of a child, pale-skinned automaton. Clara had vanished, and Clara would remain vanished, spirited away forever, and only she remained, arthritic grasp, palsied hands pushing against the door to let herself out, to pass from such a place, to finally know peace.
In her hands, the doll did not blink, yet still it stared forever upwards, its eyes filled with the reflection of her, the extent of its world what it could see of her. Would, she thought, that all wayward daughters thought so well of their mothers.
