Senses and Sensibility

The dress was radiant. It seemed to glow in the little square of light that shone from the window, and its sleeves puffed outwards, embellished with gold beads and silver jewels and trimmed with fox fur. Auriela watched her older sister twirl left, twirl right, and then pose -- leg stuck out, hip thrusted sideways, and chest pushed up. Her younger sister, who was standing to the side, rushed to stand next to the oldest, struggling to squeeze herself into the view of the thin mirror and compare her velvet, burgundy dress to her older’s satin, royal purple. Within a second of judgement, the younger pouted and shrieked at the top of her lungs for their father to come, complaining about how she wanted the same royal purple dress.


Her older and younger sisters were the beauties of the county - fair skin that glistened in the sunlight, lavish hair that curled in the wind, eyes that sparkled in the moonlight - and they were sought after by men of all nature. As the middle daughter, she was the ugliest and most ignored. Her crooked teeth, thin wispy hair, and tan complexion with dotted freckles attracted few suitors at the manor. Ever since she was young, the villagers never hesitated to point out the discrepancies in her appearance over and over and over again. When the sun retired for the day and retracted its butterscotch rays into the clouds, and when the moon peeked out tentatively from the horizon, illuminating the sky with its fluorescent glow, that was when she cried. Eventually, however, she had been told so often that her sisters championed her in looks that she gradually accepted it as an everyday fact- in much the same way she accepted without question the power of her Queen, the status of women compared to men, and the hierarchy that placed peasants at the bottom of the social order and royalty at the top. Her nightly tears retracted into her heart and lived within her, and every day when she heard the repeated comments about her hideous smile or pasty skin, she simply smiled and laughed lightly while the daggers in the words dragged their way into her heart.


Auriela eyed her sisters and father arguing; her younger sister’s dramatic hand gestures and the look of contempt on her older sister’s face told Auriela that both were disappointed with what their father brought back from his latest voyage. In her own hands lay what her father had brought her: a lute. Looking from her sister’s luminous dresses to the rusted, wooden, instrument in her hand, Auriela felt little jealousy. She brushed the cracked wood with the palm of her hand in admiration and delicately plucked the worn-out strings; while her sisters drooled over their dresses, she felt a silent thrill grow within her at the thought of making music. Her love of music started when she had barely learned to walk; her father had played his viol to lull her to sleep or to comfort her when she cried. As she grew, she learned to rely on music to bring her to another world and comfort her in times of sorrow, especially the sorrow she faced about her looks. By focusing on music and learning how to make it, she found it easier to push away any lingering thoughts and ridiculous images of her sweeping around the room in such beautiful dresses; dresses that were only fit to be worn by girls who mirrored their beauty.


One night, months after her father’s return, when turbulent winds blew without pity and darkness cast itself over the land, her father collected his three daughters and told them that he had to travel to France to continue his business and would not return for quite some time.


Auriela wept, as she did every time her father had to leave, but her younger sister quickly asked for French jewels and her older for fans made of swan feathers. Her father promised them both to do the best he could, told Auriela he would search for another instrument or new sheet music for her, and set off under cover of night.


Two sunsets and sunrises passed before a midnight black horse galloped with the speed of lightning down the rocky road of the sisters’ manor, its hooves pounding with the drums of urgency and despair. Its rider revealed with ultimate grief that their father had been swept away at sea.


There was no will written, so the property went to the closest related male in the family. The heir was a haughty, distant, fifth cousin who immediately denounced the sisters from any inheritance. They were left with nothing. Their property was stripped from them and even their exquisite dresses were torn from their bodies. No suitor would approach the manor again. Soon after, they found themselves walking to the nearest village with their few belongings, hoping to find a small cottage in which to live until they could marry themselves off to anybody who would still take them.


On the way, the women were stopped by a young man who had a brown leather cape draped over him and a satchel at his side.


“My fair ladies,” he said, bowing with grace. “It does not take a crystal ball to see that something devastating has happened to you all.”


“Kind sir,” Auriela replied with a curtsy, “we were the ladies of Manor West, but our father has perished, leaving us to seek our future husbands among the village farmers, at best.”


The young man, who was actually a wise, old sorcerer, was touched by the tragic story and decided to bestow a blessing on them. But because he was unaware which truly deserved his blessing, he designed a test.


“I am a sorcerer of the Great North,” he told them, “and will see that each of you marries a man befitting your status, but in return you must choose to sacrifice one of three senses: hearing, sight, or touch- this blessing is not gratis.”


The sisters looked at one another, hope shimmering in their eyes. In their society, an unmarried woman was incapable of making it far within the ranks, so any chance of marriage, no matter the sacrifice, seemed like a gift.


The youngest stepped forward, giddy with excitement. “I will give up my hearing, for the sound of my husband’s voice will not be as important as the words I will have to say.”


The oldest followed, her head raised proudly. “I will give up my touch, for I must be able revel in my beauty and hear my sweet voice.”


Auriela paused before stepping up to the sorcerer. If one were deaf it would be possible to read the words that people would write, but how could she bear not to hear music? For it was music that connected her soul to her father’s, through life and now, death.


“I will give up my sight,” she said, “for I would not want to see the disappointment of my husband, who must be more pleasant to look upon than I, and to feel the shame of being such an ugly wife.”


Her sisters snickered to the side, but the sorcerer simply nodded, and with a wave of his arms and a twirl of his cloak, vanished into thin air, leaving the girls stupefied and wondering if they had just been part of a trick. They continued on to the village as if nothing had happened, found lodging, and collapsed from their tiring journey.


The next morning, all three sisters found themselves in a different bed than the one they had slept in the previous night. The youngest found herself in the arms of a handsome man in a small manor and she squealed with delight, only to find that she could not hear herself or her husband telling her good morning. The oldest discovered she was in bed with a dapper man in a manor of similar size, but could not feel the warmth of his embrace. Auriela woke in total darkness and knew she was blind. Instantly, she sobbed bittersweet tears in the arms of her new husband, who sweetly caressed her with his warm hands and, in a deep voice, reassured her that everything was all right.


Although Auriela had previously laughed off the comments on her appearance, she now desperately wanted her husband to love her and find her beautiful. She became increasingly cognizant of her crooked teeth and tan skin and thick eyebrows, traits she often worried disappointed her husband. Because she could not see herself in the mirror, she constantly prodded her husband for his opinions on what clothes she wore and how her new hair arrangements were, her attempt at subtlety drowned in her curiosity and obsession to impress him. With the slightest inflection in his voice, she rushed to change her dress; with a shift in his posture, she immediately removed any of the fixtures in her hair; with an inquiry on why she kept asking him what he thought, she cried to herself that night. The obsession with her looks began to consume her from the inside, clawing its way where it used to live and seeping outside.


On a night when the moon was shielded by grey wispy clouds, Auriela lay in bed alone; her husband was out on village business and would not return until early in the morning. Since he was gone, she had thrown on the first dress she could feel in her trunk, which ended up being a scratchy, rough cotton dress. No matter how hard she tried to let sleep take over, she found herself tossing and turning under the covers, thinking about and missing her father. One cold tear slipped down the corner of her eye and when she closed her eyes, the rest of the tears came crashing down on her, pouring as if a lake in a dam had found its escape. Auriela slipped out of bed and reached under it, grasping for her lute case. She slid it out, felt around for the zipper, and took out her lute and sheet music. Her tears still felt wet on her cheeks, but she had stopped crying. Her fingers fumbled sloppily as she tried to place them down to begin the song her father had attempted to teach her. Had it been in E flat major or minor?


Her hands brushed the strings and a horrible chord rang through the air. She cringed, but shifted her index finger immediately a little higher and strummed the strings again; this time, the music that sounded whisked her away to a little meadow that was dense with lavish, forest-green grass that swayed with the wind and trees that danced to the music that was playing, their leaves swinging from side to side. Auriela saw her father leaning against an oak tree, playing his viol and laughing alongside the butterflies that fluttered around him, his eyes sparkling. Aurelia continued to strum the chords on her lute while imagining herself playing alongside her father in the field, when suddenly she hit a wrong note and the vision vanished immediately from her mind. She tried moving her index finger, her ring finger, her middle finger, in all sorts of directions, but none continued the beautiful melody that she had started and frustration began to build within her.


“Switch the position of your second and fourth fingers.”


Auriela’s head snapped up in surprise and she jumped at the voice of her husband, which sounded near the door. He was home? She heard and felt him walk over to sit next to her and take her hand delicately, moving her index finger to where her fourth finger was. She knew that he had learned how to read music when he was young, but since he had no instrument, she had thought that he had forgotten the skill completely.


“Now play.” He whispered, and as if entranced by his spell, Aurelia swept her fingers over the strings and even the birds outside stopped chirping in order to revel in the beauty of the music. Aurelia felt a smile ripple across her face- a raw joy. She heard her husband pick up the crumpled sheet music from her case and start to read out the notes and position of fingers; they played through the night and Auriela could feel her father sitting beside them.


These times late in the night when Auriela would take out her lute and learn new songs with her husband by her side guiding her fingers and reading out notes were the moments when her obsession with what she looked like to her husband seemed to vanish within the air. When the beautiful sounds of dissonance resolved, the melodies seemed to transform Auriela and her husband out of their physical bodies and into the sky, where Auriela could see her father and play alongside him.


On the other side of the county, the youngest sister complained constantly about the lack of lush wealth she had been used to, refusing to cook her own food or wash her clothes. She fought with her husband, unable to hear her unpleasant screeches or to listen to his attempts to appease her. The oldest sister, less hot-headed and rash, grew cold from her lack of ability to feel anything, neither the warmth of the hearth nor of her husband’s embrace. She isolated herself and became aloof, speaking to her husband only to request dresses or jewels that not only drained her husband’s accounts but also failed to please her.


The sorcerer continued to watch the three sisters and saw that the eldest and youngest daughters had failed to appreciate their second chance in life, while the middle had carried on with a bravery like none other. Without a moment’s thought, he cast another spell and smiled in satisfaction at himself; now he merely had to wait until the right time came.


In finding happiness through her music, Auriela began to ask her husband fewer and fewer times whether the gown she put on suited her, or if she ought to pluck her eyebrows. From time to time, she asked his opinion before a social outing, but she began to slowly discover that she was happiest when the thoughts of her looks didn’t consume her. One morning, not long after she had began to focus on finding happiness through her music and through the care of her husband, Auriela woke in bed and, upon opening her eyes, discovered that she could see again! Light poured into her eyes, seeping into her mind and ingraining themselves in her memory- the cedar brown of the wooden floor, the moss green plants growing near the window, and - Auriela took a deep breath filled with love- the face of her husband. It was not perfect like she had imagined it would be; it was not like those of the suitors who had come calling on her sisters when they were rich; it was not detailed with dark, handsome eyes, and full lips and a rough beard like the little girls dreamed their husbands would be, but of the eyes, lips, and face of the one who played music with her, and with whom she fell in love with through her knowledge of who he was. Auriela cried tears of joy, and her husband soon joined her as he realized she could see him, confessing that in a way he was glad that she had been unable until then to see his own ugliness, but they both laughed together in knowledge that they truly loved each other. Auriela’s sisters lived the rest of their lives with their sacrifices, never understanding why Auriela’s sight had been restored, while she lived the rest of her life in happiness and peace, playing music that danced in the air and filled her ears and heart with the memory of her loving father, and regarding everyone she met without judgement, without fear.