FANTASTIC SYMPHONY

Young musician, with painful sensitivity and ardent
imaginative, hopelessly in love, in a fit of despair
poisoned by opium. The dose taken by him is insufficient to
cause death; he plunges into heavy sleep. In his sick
the brain has the strangest visions; his feelings
feelings, memories are transformed into musical thoughts and
images. Beloved woman herself became a tune for him, as if
an obsession that he meets and hears everywhere.
(from the programmatic description of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony)

- Let me tell the dispatcher, let them call the home number?

But before I could answer, the access door opened, and with an apologetic smile, a young beautiful woman hurriedly came out, black-haired and black-eyed, with delicate white skin of the face and hands, opened the back door of the car and sat down.

“To the bus station,” I said.

The minibus was full, we barely had time, and the two seats ordered were not side by side: she was sitting in the middle of the cabin, I was behind. They arrived without incident and without talk, only I was overwhelmed with memories.

***​

I. Dreams, passions
​
He remembers that mental illness, those inexplicable passions
and sorrows, those sudden joys he experienced before
saw the one he loves; then all-consuming love
rushing upon him suddenly, febrile anxieties, seizures
violent jealousy, the return of tenderness, consolation in religion ...
(from the programmatic description of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony)
​

As I called her the first time, we talked for almost an hour. Completely unfamiliar people.

As I began to call her almost every day, feeling both my need for communication and her friendliness and friendliness. Every half hour the automatic telephone exchange disconnected, but again I picked up the phone and dialed: 8 - beep - city code - subscriber number ...

How surprisingly it happened that after about a month of our communication I could seem to say casually: “Do you want to see me? No, I am not asking for a visit yet. But turn on such a channel at such a time, they will broadcast my speech. ”

As a month later, I still asked for a visit. And the bus on the highway broke, and it was terribly cold, and I did not freeze, I drank in the back seat with kind people, worrying that on the first date with the girl I would smell alcohol, but not wanting to fall on her head sick and stiff. The bus passengers picked up the next route, and when I arrived 4 hours late, I was struck by the fact that she stooped for that time at the local bus station, despite what I said beforehand: “Do not meet me, I know the address, I will find your house".

Probably, this was the first germ of a new love, which began to break through the dead tissue of the ugly unresponsive previous one. I squeezed her out of myself a la Chekhov.

A month later, during a walk in the snowy woods, I kissed her and said that I love. Crystal bells rang her laugh, but very kind and not offensive, and the words: "And I? I have to love too. Do not rush, ”laid a balm on my soul-hungry soul in search of mutual love. The answer to the kiss on the cheek was her finger touching my cheek.

After winter, spring came, then summer. We talked almost every day for at least half an hour, and I visited her several times in a small town. When we managed to be alone, I kissed her and said that I love. She laughed loudly and cheerfully, and said, "Well, wait, I also want to love."

Somewhere, somewhere, in the middle of summer, contracts with firms in the city where I was sent, were safely fulfilled, our implementation team bought return tickets to their hometown, and I called her to say goodbye, to say that the next day I was leaving.

“So you're leaving me?” She said and ... burst into tears. And my heart squeezed the hoop of pain and longing, and I realized that I really love her, that old love died out completely, and the new one is mutual.

***​

Minibus arrived. It makes no sense to dwell on technical issues, as they found the hostess, settled in the apartment, changed clothes, dined in the restaurant, walked on the boulevard. The main purpose of our trip was to visit the concert, and in the Philharmonic Hall, taking her hand, I gave myself to the enchanting sounds of Bermios' immortal creation and again the memories, mostly pleasant, but sometimes scary.

Ii. Ball​

He meets his beloved at the ball, in a brilliant noise
celebrations.
(from the programmatic description of Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony)

​***​

How I missed talking to her. As I wrote her three large letters in a short time. As he almost died, falling into the darkness of the night in the pit of a store in the basement, and the last flash in his mind was “it is a pity that it never happened to her.” The scar on his chin still remains, and in the only one-page response letter there was a casual “scars adorn a man”. As I argued with telephonists, ordering negotiations from home, and defending the queues at call centers. The quality of communication was disgusting, there was no sensation of conversation and intimacy, and I was worried that even the intonation of the interlocutors did not break through the interference.

But one fine day, just for a few seconds, the noise stopped, and I managed to say, being sure that she heard:

- I missed you. I love you. I can not live without you. I'll be soon.

- Come!

- I'll come for you and take with me. Come?

A second pause, with a sinking heart, waiting for an answer.

“Yes,” and after a few more seconds, stretching like an eternity, “... favorite.”

Pre-departure bustle. Purchase of gifts. The joy of my parents, the eldest son was going to marry. Walking with my aunts at jewelry stores and getting me the size of her finger to buy a wedding ring. And another ring, not a brilliant stamped replica, but an old and noble one, possibly a century ago, which my mother gave me and said: “This is a gift from your grandmother, my mother-in-law. She also received it from her mother-in-law. Let your wife give her eldest daughter-in-law too. That is the tradition of our kind. "

The same fuss at their home. Purchase of gifts. The joy of her parents is getting married and the youngest daughter. And the son serving in the army is still completely unaware that his sister is getting married, having received a letter from her parents in the spring, among the list of events worth mentioning “Came DD”, puzzledly responds “And who is DD and why are you talking about this write?

Having heard about our family tradition of transferring an old ring from my mother-in-law to my sister-in-law, my future mother-in-law one evening after dinner expresses a desire to look at him. And in the presence of my parents, I put a ring on my bride's finger, and I kiss her in front of my mother and father.

And for the first time she kisses me in return a little later, in the corridor, shy of doing it in front of her parents. But it is not important. I love, I love, I am happy!

We did not have a wedding. On the evening of that day, when we registered at the registry office, there was a small feast, with the participation of her closest relatives and friends, and the next day we already bought tickets for the plane to my hometown. And after all the guests had gone, I asked:

- We (emphasizing the plural number) today where we sleep?

And the whole previous week I was at their place and sleeping, the benefit of a four-room apartment, my sister is married, a brother in the army, there is enough living space. Her eyes are rounded:

- you what? I'm not in bed with a stranger in the parental house!

“What other man?” I'm actually already your husband, nothing?

“No, no, no, don't even think about it!”