Part Tree-Tree

Back into the kitchen, where the Vampire and the Bride are still smoking and singing. My dream has become nothing but walking from the living room to the kitchen, and vice versa. The Vampire’s presence here in this kitchen feels unnatural, as if certain laws of nature had to be broken to fit his suffering bulk and bursting exstasies. The Vampire smiles at me, drunk, demoniacally, seraphically. It’s confusing. The Bride takes my arm and starts singing again.

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
Que nul ne peut apprivoiser
Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle
C'est lui qu'on vient de nous refuser

The Vampire fixes his gaze on me for a brief moment. His smile vanishes.

Rien n'y fait, menaces ou prières
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît

The Vampire just sits there in his kitchen chair between the Bride and me and stares straight ahead, paying no attention to the singing. If I would touch him, he would sway like a boulder suspended on a pebble on the precipice of a cliff. He might come crashing down or just sway, rocklike.

L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi

The Vampire smiles at me again, and for just I moment I reach the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which is the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, with my Phantom Ape dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dive off and fly into the holy void of uncreated emptiness.

L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
Battit de l'aile et s'envola
L'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre
Tu ne l'attends plus, il est là

I hear an indescribable seething roar which isn’t in my ear but everywhere and has nothing to do with sound. I realize now that I have died and have been reborn numberless times but just didn’t remember, because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, as from walking from the living room to the kitchen, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times.

Tout autour de toi, vite, vite
Il vient, s'en va puis il revient
Tu crois le tenir, il t'évite
Tu crois l'éviter, il te tient

I feel sweet, swinging bliss, like a big shot of heroin in the mainline vein, like a gulp of wine late in the afternoon and it makes me shudder. My feet tingle.

L'amour, l'amour, l'amour, l'amour
L'amour est enfant de bohème
Il n'a jamais jamais connu de lois
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Si je t'aime prend garde à toi
Si tu ne m'aimes pas
Si tu ne m'aimes pas je t'aime
Mais si je t'aime, si je t'aime
Prends garde à toi

The song is over. The Bride sighs and starts sweeping the kitchen floor. The Vampire lights a cigarette and pays no attention to me. The only thing I can do, is go.