A sentry was guarding his post in a vast palace when he stole his first glimpse at his king’s daughter. She was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen, and from that instant forward he would know no other desire but her. And yet his heart split in two and fell to his boots, making his every step heavy with sadness. A lowly soldier was a forever’s length away from a princess’s notice, let alone her adoration. His mind and his yearning continued their feud until one day, through sheer fortune, the soldier was able to speak to his beloved alone. He confessed his admiration, declaring with a calmed passion that he could not live without her. The princess, moved by his tender sincerity, offered him a proposal: “Wait beneath my balcony for one hundred days and one hundred nights. Do this, and I will be yours forever.” The soldier, with the boundless energy of one in love, prepared for the challenge. He placed a chair under the princess’ window and sat for one day. And then another. And ten. And Twenty. He kept his vigil without waiver or complaint through unhindered sun, mockingly sadistic rain and the merciless, uncaring snow. Birds bit and pecked at him. Insects swarmed him and stung his body. After ninety days, his skin was dry and bled of all its color, sleep had abandoned him, and he couldn’t hold back the cascading tears from his burning eyes. But he refused to move an inch. And every night, the princess would gaze down at him from her perch. Finally, on the 99th night, she watched as the soldier rose strugglingly from his seat. He picked up his chair. And he walked away.
Some of you may recognize that as Alfredo’s story from “Cinema Paradiso.” For the rest of you, that’s Alfredo’s story from “Cinema Paradiso.” I really want you to watch “Cinema Paradiso.”
I think rather often about that moonstruck guardsman. Maybe not “snickerdoodle frozen custard at Shake Shack” level often, but I’d still say it’s fairly regular. The young moppet on the receiving end of that perky fable in the aforementioned picture show eventually took it to mean that even if our besotted hero had completed his ordeal, he would have died one way or another. If the elements didn’t claim him on that final day, he would’ve had to endure every moment knowing he could never have the only thing he truly wanted. Because, you know… princess. They don’t choose bottom-rung, unremarkable uggos. I wish I could’ve just told the poor drip to join the club and saved him three months, but alas.
Interpreting the story that way doesn’t square with my frequency, though. Not so much the reason why the soldier walked away, though I’m not keen on that part either, but what would’ve happened if he’d stayed planted for that last solar rotation. The absolute lowest, most emotionally subterranean plunges I’ve ever gone through stem from the times I put every last microscopic particle of energy and willpower I could scrape from the fabric of reality itself into showing someone how beautifully I’d treat their heart, if they’d just hand it to me so I could show them. And then watch as you see how little any of it was really worth to anyone anywhere ever.
Pining for someone hurts. Telling the object of your fancy how you feel and being rejected, ignored or both hurts more, even if it’s done gently. Not having them dissuade you of the notion that even if the fates had timed things differently you still would never have crossed their minds is more or less unbearable. So let’s imagine our soldier triumphed, not just bodily but also in addition to scenarios one and three I just mentioned, and got to keep his beloved. I dare say that even if the princess had grown to love her suitor for facing her challenge, he would never be able to believe her.
If someone isn’t capable of understanding the depths of how much dedication, resilience, suffering and madness someone else goes through for them, is it possible to say that there’s love happening in equal measure on both sides of this equation? Noble as our soldier may be, I can’t imagine a pang of bitterness and resentment not lingering about when all was said and one, building a barrier between them that could never be fully climbed. How could it be, when one party can naturally command the same level of dedication from anyone they choose whenever they choose, and the other has to endure a desperate, lonely emptiness for just a measure of feeling wanted by the one they want? I still think their love could’ve been real. But, for him at least, the real and imagined scars the soldier had to carry would outweigh any joy of victory, and that love would have turned passionless.
Or what if that agony killed any ability the soldier had to accept being loved? Say our soldier finished that hundredth confront and the princess flung herself into his arms, but the fact that she allowed him to endure such depths to prove something she likely never doubted left him hollow? I can’t watch animals in cartoons get hurt, let alone anyone I care about. Especially when it’s self-inflicted. And if there was any means of protecting them from it, I at least hope I’d instinctively do whatever I could to form a protective dome around them. So how could he love someone who not only seemed passively interested in the pain he endured on her behalf, but actively insisted on and expected it? Or made him believe that his suffering was nothing to her? That there’d be so many others willing to go to the same lengths to win her, and he’s just one of the faceless crowd that she could pick from whenever she wished?
But, of course, the soldier could’ve been wrong all the entire while. What if he felt with complete and utter conviction he knew exactly what he wanted, got it, and then in that moment wrapped in the princess’ warmth realized he was mistaken? That’s an angle on this story that comes across as the cruelest but, naturally for me, the most relatable. Not so much the getting what you thought you needed for true fulfillment in life and being disappointed when it fails entirely – more in the sense that I feel trapped by never getting to experience that disappointment at all. If what or whoever it is you crack and bleed and starve for, believing with all you have that it’s not only what you truly want but can’t live without and is constantly being denied you, then how are you ever supposed to pick up the pieces from being wrong and direct the search along a new trajectory? “Soldiering” onward, if you will.
The whole “better to have loved and lost than nothing at all” canard has always been bizarre to me. Because depending on which bookend of it you’re on, you’ll just tell yourself that the other one is the status quo you’d much rather be enjoying. The idea in between them is where I think the real meat of that quandary lies – you can’t lose the love you aren’t given, so how do you start to heal when you have no pain of loss to recover from and scratch together being able to move on? It’s a special species of suck all its own. But right this moment, I think I’d rather have something to actually lose for once.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
