If you have nothing but your dreams, then pen them: writing is the magic itself that helps the dreams and miracles to come true.
The Foremother’s Mirror, by J. W. Cassandra
The Handy Young Man the Furniture Maker Master Craftsman
Once upon, in the obscurity of time, there lived a handy young man who learned the craft of furniture making, just as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all his ancestors had already lived from this craft. He yet in his young age became a master craftsman of furniture making.
One fine day, he opened his workshop and was flooded with so many orders that in a very short time he could indenture apprentices and journeymen: he was a glutton for work, he created file cabinets, chests, commodes, wardrobes, armoires, each one more beautiful than the other. Whatever furniture was asked of him, he created it breath-takingly beautiful: fame for the work of his hands ran far and wide. This furniture maker always kept whistling when he was working: planing, drilling-sculpting, putting joints together, painting, grinding, or polishing or lacquering beams – a sharp whistle reported to people passing by, that he was working.
The Visionary Girl’s Portrait
One fine day, he realized that he was fed up with his mother’s cooking, and he decided to take a wife unto himself. His money was so much that he couldn’t even count, so he painted a portrait: the girl she had painted, was ornate in stature, looked proudly at the world from beneath her thick crown of hair, light of her gaze was reflected by the coral swaying around her neck like the river reflects the blaze of a night star. Her red high-heel shoes appealed to many people. Her starry eyes were envied by others, because in their eyes, the most beautiful star in the sky did not sparkle, they could not cast its rays on the furniture maker young man.
„I myself would be the master craftsman!”
And one fine day, a customer arrived: four horses were pulling the light coach, ridden by a driver sitting in a box, and the gentleman himself was just looking around from the seat.
„It is said, you make any kind of ornate furniture. But, damn it, kid, you’re too young yet, send me here the master craftsman!”, he sat upon the young master furniture maker, coming up to the rumble of the carriage.
„I myself would be the master craftsman!”
„Well, I would give you such a commission if we agreed to make my daughter’s ornate canopied bed of walnut, but to make it so that it looks after a hundred years, like it has been when it was yet new!”
And he landed to take stock of the offer. Well, if he took stock of the offer, the furniture maker young man also took stock of the owner of the order, who had already enchanted the young man with her gaze, throwing sparkles of stars, with her hair crown, with her beautiful face, as she was standing behind his father. And the furniture maker came round for the father’s shouting,
The Living Portrait
„What the hell is this ?! Surely, this picture here depicts my daughter! Where did you see her? How dared you paint her?!”
„I apologise, sir, I have not seen her, only in my dream, and I decided: if she really exists, I need only her, because I will not marry anyone else…”
„It is no good wasting words on it!”
The Ornate Canopied Bed
„Behold, the ornate canopied bed you wish to order” , and the young master ushered him in the house, where a separate room was furnished with furniture made of pure walnut: commode, table, chairs, chests, chest of drawers, closets, all ornate and carved – and the ornate canopied bed: it was wide, strong, profusely carved with beautiful rose petals, inlaid of peach-tree. On its headboard there were two affected peacocks, their open, wide, painted beautiful pinion feathers covered the canopy from both sides of the bed. The feather-bed on this beautiful itself was wide, soft, the bed was perfect in every perspective.
The Armoire
And next to it the armoire stood: a tall, wide, divided into two parts walnut armoire with shelves, tiny drawers, on the other side with a space to hang women’s shirts, skirts, men’s suits. In a circle on the edge ran an applied ornament, carved, the upper cornice was inlaid, as was the headboard of the ornate canopied bed, either. From the inlayed upper cornice, as well, two peacocks looked back proudly at their admirers.
„This bed will be only my wife’s!”
Speech failed the customer, but speech failed the girl, as well, who came after her father, drawn by curiosity. The young master proudly straightened himself up:
„Did you mean this ornate canopied bed?”
„Exactly the same!”
„I’m not going to create this one again. I myself carved all the eyes of the peacock feathers, then painted and lacquered them, either. This bed will be only my wife’s!”
„Sell it for me! I offer you as much money for it as you can’t even imagine!”
„Not for sale!”, the furniture maker shook his head.
The bargaining continued until the sun went down, yet, but they could not agree.
Secret of the Family Chronicle
The next day the customer came again, they didn’t bring the matter to a head again. On the third day, the same thing happened again. Then the young man painted a portrait of the girl onto a canvas stretched on a tiny wooden frame and sent it to her father…
Then, in addition, he himself went and proposed to her. How did he convince the stubborn old man – that story the family chronicle had wrapped in a beneficial obscurity but he won her hand. After the wedding, he bought his own house and then he decorated it with furniture carved by himself. But they were so beautiful that people went to admire it!
Happiness
And their lives flowed as a tranquil-happy river: the master kept drilling-sculpting, painting pictures, varnishing, painting the furniture, and kept whistling. He kept his wife in an affluence: he bought everything for her, silk shirts, silk skirts, velvet waistcoats, soft shoes; he gifted her even rings, earrings, corals.
And then they founded a family: the children were born one after the other, the boys were soon made to work by their father for furniture making: he taught them all its knacks; and the girls were taught by their mother about the knacks of the household.
The Reflection
And everybody knew, because even the sparrows chirped everywhere: the furniture maker loved his wife with romantic love so foolishly that he depicted her life-size picture after the wedding ceremony, and he magically enchanted her image into the mirror that filled the interior of the door of the magnificent walnut armoire. He could do so, for he had once learned the secret of the Venetian mirrors, either.
He layed layers of silvering, painted them, permeated them with each other, and who knows what else he did, the core was the image: from the mirror, his wife’s life-size figure looked back at the person, looking inside.
Her queen’s stature, her hair crown, the corals around her neck, her smile, the whole woman were beautiful, yet the most beautiful was her gaze, which kindled mischievously, yet it emanated a sustaining love. She looked at her husband so, with whom she fell in love strongly, and thus he depicted her to the mirror.
The Foremother’s Mirror
The family loved this mirror very much: children used to stand there in front of it, adults at least sometimes stole a glance at it. And who stood in front of the mirror, saw themselves in it, but at the same time the young woman, as well, in full blaze of her love, beauty and goodness.
During time, all the offspring began to refer to it as the mirror of the mother, later that of the grandmother, that of the great-grandmother, and then that of the foremother.
Of course, when her husband created her portrait enchanted to the mirror, none of them even thought she was the “foremother”. She was young, beautiful, lived in love and respect, and they often walked together with her husband on Sundays, or they were coaching, when only they could do so.
Family Inheritance
The miraculous mirror with the armoire was inherited by the eldest son and then by his son, and so, it passed from father to son through all ages.
And the foremother has been watching, guarding, encouraging, caring for, and loving her offspring ever from the mirror. Everybody felt as if the angel of providence would look back at them from the mirror of their foremother, and they tried to come up to her.
The more so, because they had to cherish the miraculous mirror like the apple of their eye: if even one of them ever would be proved unworthy, the foremother’s mirror would crack to fragments, and the angel guarding them by her image, would be lost forever…
The Starlight Eyes Begin to Shed Tears
Eventually, the mirror got to us as an inheritance: my brother should have inherited it, but he didn’t want to deal to furniture making, nor did my younger brothers. I can’t pursue this craft being a woman. We walked one after the other, in front of the foremother’s mirror: we opened the armoire door, looked at her, stood in front of her, looked at ourselves under her protection – and I sadly found that, unfortunately, I was not as beautiful as she once had been…
And then the starlight eyes began to shed tears: the foremother’s mirror, the foremother’s portrait mourned her degenerated offspring. Her tears gushed forth and a puddle was drawn around the brothers’ feet. My younger brother didn’t endure, he had a sight:
„I’ll repair the armoire and the mirror if it will be necessary!… but let’s allow the foremother to guard her offspring!”
„Who should inherit the foremother’s mirror?”
„And who should inherit the foremother’s mirror?”
„Well, who cares about it!”
„Whom she will look at! Let us all stand before her, and on whom the ray of her starry eyes will fall, let the mirror be the possession of that person!”
That’s what we did: my heart hurt that it can’t be mine, but it passes to the family, and that’s all that matters. Because the forefather created a treasure, and the foremother’s gaze is also a treasure: as long as even only one member of the family will live, they will be always surrounded by the true love by which the foremother looked at the forefather, painting her.
Because she had cast that starlight-gaze on the forefather, she had looked at him, and the forefather’s hands had enchanted the same love into the foremother’s mirror… There is no that Venetian mirror from which this love would look back!
So I was standing in front of my foremother’s mirror, and the starlight-gaze finally, to our great surprise, gleamed on my straight, slightly worn-out hair. The brothers all accepted that the foremother’s mirror was mine…
A Worthy Treasurer
And my dream has come true: I have such a treasure in my possession as no one else has in the world! It is my turn to become worthy of my foremother’s mirror. I must protect it, as the apple of my eye, I must care for it, and I must encourage our offspring to do so, either: for one who has a treasure must be a worthy treasurer, otherwise the treasure will be lost forever…
Written: 21/11. 2017., by J. W. Cassandra
Translated: 13/04. 2021., by J. W. Cassandra
