The Beast of the Albard Mansion - Chapter 57
Rumors spread that House Albard was cursed. People whispered that the wise eldest daughter had disappeared, and the beautiful youngest daughter had been kidnapped by a beast. Count Albard withdrew from high society and never stepped outside his mansion.
One late night, the drunk Count shouted that his daughters had been stolen and roamed the mansion in a rage. He did this the next day, and the day after that. He scoured the mansion, muttering that he needed to find his daughters who had fallen into the devil’s snare. His crazed appearance terrified the servants.
He never imagined that his daughters had left of their own volition. He couldn’t believe they were living their own lives. He was convinced that a curse had befallen his daughters, who were supposed to grow up gracefully and live by the rules, dragging them into the fires of hell.
Despite the Count’s foolishness, no one from the family stepped out of their rooms. The eldest son lay in bed, mocking his father, while the second son only thought about leaving the mansion and his insane father as soon as possible. The Countess sat by the window, writing. It was her only escape.
The Countess wrote many rich and varied stories over a long time, but her favorite was the one where she reunited with her daughters.
If her daughters ever returned, she would hug them, listen to their stories. She regretted not listening to them before. She hoped and longed for the day when she could sit and talk with them again.
***
You are my sun, my savior, the master of my soul. Your compassion saved me. I continued my miserable life, eating the meat and bread you generously gave me without any pride.
Your compassion saved me, but it also strangled me.
The longer he waited and thought of her, the more dangerous it became for him. It meant he was becoming tamed. No amount of kicking, punching, or whipping had ever tamed him before. But her small hand offering him a piece of bread was taming him.
Contempt and violence couldn’t subdue him. That was the only pride he had left. Yet, he succumbed to something so trivial. To succumb to a child’s charity—it was laughable.
She was warm and innocent like the sun. When she came down the stairs with her bright blonde hair swaying, he felt as if sunlight was finally entering his dark underground. When she chatted with her cherry-red lips, it was like listening to a little songbird. Chained up, he saw the vast nature he could never run in again through her.
She shone brightly like the sun, had the clear sound of a bird, and smelled sweet like fruit. Maybe because he saw the nature he had longed for in her, he was helplessly tamed. He waited all day without knowing where the time went, just thinking of her.
Would she come down today? When? Would she bring food with that cheerful face again? Would she still not mind his filthy and dirty self? He worried and hoped, thinking only of her. She wouldn’t know this. No, he hoped she wouldn’t know. It was pitiful to be so attached to a child.
When she gave him freedom, he smelled the earth and heard the wind he had longed for. He quenched his thirst by devouring the throbbing heart of a horse. He rampaged as if he had met his world. He arrogantly felt he had regained his trampled pride, planning many acts of revenge. He vowed to kill those who had tormented him and show the savage humans their place.
But thinking he could do that was foolish. The moment he thought of her small face, he couldn’t breathe. His body froze, and his heart ached as if it had been pierced by thorns. He tried to ignore it, but the pain overwhelmed him.
He was tamed by that child. He gave up his leash. His ambitions vanished like foam, and he realized his situation. A tamed wolf is no longer a wolf. It’s just a dog.
“Seli, Seli,” he crawled along the floor, calling the child’s name. That innocent and sincere face had wormed its way into his heart, eventually grasping everything of his. It would be a lie to say he didn’t resent that child.
In the end, he went down to the dungeon of his own volition. He chained himself and stayed there by choice, thinking of the child who would be sleeping soundly above him.
He gave up his freedom for that one child, yet she did not come. All he could do was wait. Longing for her, he huddled in the pitch-black darkness, waiting.
