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She’s locked up. From a provincial life to a castle. Well, Belle had no plan. Belle didn’t know how to get out – how could she? Papa would’ve been left behind. What, stay in that village until he was dead? He was perfectly healthy – until now, after the wolves and the snow, and he was all alone…
What she doesn’t admit – if she wanted to go, she should have gone. But loyalty and then more loyalty, until it’s now and she’s more locked up than ever. There is one thing: she doesn’t know the Beast’s plans. Strange of him to put her father somewhere so cold and small, and shift her immediately to a sweet room with a courteous wardrobe. He whipped like fire between looming darkness and calm polite nothings that didn’t fit him. She has something to do – find out, hold leverage maybe – something of uncertainty. It makes her bold, stepping up to the West Wing. She feels no guilt tricking Cogsworth and Lumiere; they are enchanted objects, and servants of her captor, even if much kinder.
Belle’s not odd. She just likes different things, it seems. The little town library isn’t much frequented. She can feel the stares from outside; those same three grinning men every day. They gape against the window while she goes about picking her books and gushing at the librarian, Monsieur Armand Olivier.
Once, a year after they came and she was thirteen, Belle asked Papa why. “They’re just friendly,” he said, hammering an iron strip onto a tablet. She noticed it was designed to look like a book, a metal book. Of course it was on four iron legs like a horse. There were copper tubes glimmering dimly on two corners of the tablet.
Papa’s works were always new, sparkling in the firelight. Each invention was a take on how the world worked: what laws could break to show a multitasking mechanical housekeeper or a light that didn’t go out. The sparks were never permanent, but each time something different happened; only a little more patience was needed, he said, but for Belle there was joy in the possibilities of each invention that led nowhere.
Her taste was not for iron and fire. Still, she caught the gleam of newness. The books broke different laws. She sought them for a glimpse of other things, flowers that bloomed from a tear of the sun; sing to them for healing, said a story, and Belle would sing to the wildflowers on the outskirts of town.
But no one else looked to the outside. Belle spoke about castles and got grunts from a turned back, at best “that’s nice” from someone with his own life to keep running. So she spoke to books and Papa and the Monsieur, and sheep; then to the wide open spaces crushing her village against the damp forest. She arrived through that forest and felt it press her hard, far away from home. It held her then – the books sometimes took her back to it, though she could not go again. There were eyes on Belle, ready to rouse their mouths and maybe more if she went too far off the path.
The red-faced triad watched her go with unconvincing discreetness; she chose to ignore them, an armistice between unwelcome attention and outright telling them off. It unsettled her more than a bit, but she had no better choice. They wouldn’t understand why she wasn’t flattered by their attention (she would call it leering in her head, not outside, not even to Papa), and she had no interest in giving the town more to say about her wrongness.
Belle didn’t mean to have her head up too high. She knew what was said around town, ever since she began rejecting men – politely, as Monsieur Olivier reminded her from his books so she wouldn’t forget. That meant no girls for friends either, since their only escape from chores was admiring men. She knew men would want her to be absorbed in them – Gaston especially - , while they repeated their parents’ lives. Then, after all, she already had one man to care for – Papa couldn’t look after himself, and he wasn’t popular with the villagers. What she sang every day was the last why: she couldn’t help being like her father who learned new things with each machine. (At least that was the father she’d always understood. They hadn’t always lived here and she still didn’t know why they’d needed to come. She learned what she could from the gossip and Monsieur Olivier, and offhand comments from Papa which he was always too busy to follow up on: “This is a very peaceful place to work. A man needs to concentrate to get things done, so go off and have a good time dear.” He never spoke of the outside world other than that, except for the fair of course. He said little that didn’t relate to his inventions.)
She just wished she could find someone curious, like her, about all the things they didn’t know, any friend who loved to learn or teach her things, like Papa if he wasn’t so dedicated, or Monsieur Olivier. Belle knew no one who didn’t limit curiosity to gossip. (She kept an ear out for anything from outside, but Belle was otherwise unsatisfied with the practice. It wasn’t as if people ever did things any differently around here that she could tell.) Papa wanted her married – it was lucky he hadn’t the time or the interest in enforcing that. He didn’t know what he was saying. Even he thought he was the different one, in his own niche, not his lovely daughter who took care of him like any loyal daughter would. So in that way Belle didn’t have him either, as she wrapped herself up in enchanted flowers and castles, making as little a dent in town life as she could. She would wait until, something. Maybe Papa would win something for his inventions. Maybe he’d want to travel, or leave forever and she’d escape absorption into the village. Or the village would open up and have room for her in it.
It was something to do. The objects could move and talk – Belle giddily ate grey stuff – it was a book come true. Inanimate people, animated. How and why they worked: Belle knew to want knowledge. All those years with Papa and Monsieur Olivier, and now she could make her own discoveries, be her in her own fairy tale. Secret rooms must be explored, and puzzles were for solving. It was just like getting on Philippe to help Papa, only she was helping herself.
` The rooms were so dark and tattered, the most abandoned-looking part of the place yet, which together with being forbidden made it the most used one in any story. The first explanation: a wild beast, wildly unhappy like she’d seen him this night? The soft-looking golden boy in the ripped portrait – “life is so unnerving for a servant who’s not serving” - it couldn’t be put together just yet.
A red rose gleamed in the dark.
What she doesn’t admit – if she wanted to go, she should have gone. But loyalty and then more loyalty, until it’s now and she’s more locked up than ever. There is one thing: she doesn’t know the Beast’s plans. Strange of him to put her father somewhere so cold and small, and shift her immediately to a sweet room with a courteous wardrobe. He whipped like fire between looming darkness and calm polite nothings that didn’t fit him. She has something to do – find out, hold leverage maybe – something of uncertainty. It makes her bold, stepping up to the West Wing. She feels no guilt tricking Cogsworth and Lumiere; they are enchanted objects, and servants of her captor, even if much kinder.
Belle’s not odd. She just likes different things, it seems. The little town library isn’t much frequented. She can feel the stares from outside; those same three grinning men every day. They gape against the window while she goes about picking her books and gushing at the librarian, Monsieur Armand Olivier.
Once, a year after they came and she was thirteen, Belle asked Papa why. “They’re just friendly,” he said, hammering an iron strip onto a tablet. She noticed it was designed to look like a book, a metal book. Of course it was on four iron legs like a horse. There were copper tubes glimmering dimly on two corners of the tablet.
Papa’s works were always new, sparkling in the firelight. Each invention was a take on how the world worked: what laws could break to show a multitasking mechanical housekeeper or a light that didn’t go out. The sparks were never permanent, but each time something different happened; only a little more patience was needed, he said, but for Belle there was joy in the possibilities of each invention that led nowhere.
Her taste was not for iron and fire. Still, she caught the gleam of newness. The books broke different laws. She sought them for a glimpse of other things, flowers that bloomed from a tear of the sun; sing to them for healing, said a story, and Belle would sing to the wildflowers on the outskirts of town.
But no one else looked to the outside. Belle spoke about castles and got grunts from a turned back, at best “that’s nice” from someone with his own life to keep running. So she spoke to books and Papa and the Monsieur, and sheep; then to the wide open spaces crushing her village against the damp forest. She arrived through that forest and felt it press her hard, far away from home. It held her then – the books sometimes took her back to it, though she could not go again. There were eyes on Belle, ready to rouse their mouths and maybe more if she went too far off the path.
The red-faced triad watched her go with unconvincing discreetness; she chose to ignore them, an armistice between unwelcome attention and outright telling them off. It unsettled her more than a bit, but she had no better choice. They wouldn’t understand why she wasn’t flattered by their attention (she would call it leering in her head, not outside, not even to Papa), and she had no interest in giving the town more to say about her wrongness.
Belle didn’t mean to have her head up too high. She knew what was said around town, ever since she began rejecting men – politely, as Monsieur Olivier reminded her from his books so she wouldn’t forget. That meant no girls for friends either, since their only escape from chores was admiring men. She knew men would want her to be absorbed in them – Gaston especially - , while they repeated their parents’ lives. Then, after all, she already had one man to care for – Papa couldn’t look after himself, and he wasn’t popular with the villagers. What she sang every day was the last why: she couldn’t help being like her father who learned new things with each machine. (At least that was the father she’d always understood. They hadn’t always lived here and she still didn’t know why they’d needed to come. She learned what she could from the gossip and Monsieur Olivier, and offhand comments from Papa which he was always too busy to follow up on: “This is a very peaceful place to work. A man needs to concentrate to get things done, so go off and have a good time dear.” He never spoke of the outside world other than that, except for the fair of course. He said little that didn’t relate to his inventions.)
She just wished she could find someone curious, like her, about all the things they didn’t know, any friend who loved to learn or teach her things, like Papa if he wasn’t so dedicated, or Monsieur Olivier. Belle knew no one who didn’t limit curiosity to gossip. (She kept an ear out for anything from outside, but Belle was otherwise unsatisfied with the practice. It wasn’t as if people ever did things any differently around here that she could tell.) Papa wanted her married – it was lucky he hadn’t the time or the interest in enforcing that. He didn’t know what he was saying. Even he thought he was the different one, in his own niche, not his lovely daughter who took care of him like any loyal daughter would. So in that way Belle didn’t have him either, as she wrapped herself up in enchanted flowers and castles, making as little a dent in town life as she could. She would wait until, something. Maybe Papa would win something for his inventions. Maybe he’d want to travel, or leave forever and she’d escape absorption into the village. Or the village would open up and have room for her in it.
It was something to do. The objects could move and talk – Belle giddily ate grey stuff – it was a book come true. Inanimate people, animated. How and why they worked: Belle knew to want knowledge. All those years with Papa and Monsieur Olivier, and now she could make her own discoveries, be her in her own fairy tale. Secret rooms must be explored, and puzzles were for solving. It was just like getting on Philippe to help Papa, only she was helping herself.
` The rooms were so dark and tattered, the most abandoned-looking part of the place yet, which together with being forbidden made it the most used one in any story. The first explanation: a wild beast, wildly unhappy like she’d seen him this night? The soft-looking golden boy in the ripped portrait – “life is so unnerving for a servant who’s not serving” - it couldn’t be put together just yet.
A red rose gleamed in the dark.
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