Chronicles From The Future: The amazing story of Paul Amadeus Dienach

In the evening, the whole group left the linsens behind and, walking through the pines, headed inland. There were fourteen of us in total. Around midnight and after the walk was over, the women of the group suggested that we go to one of the large terraces to watch the big dance performance from above. Silvia had told me that it would be impossible to find time for just the two of us tonight.

We joined the rest of the crowd that wasn’t taking part in the happening and sat above the enormous dance floor, watching the spectacular and slow moves of the big, communal dance.

I whispered to Stefan that all this reminded me of a very unique ballet troupe, but he shook his head no. Shortly after, he explained to me the meaning of the symbolic dance and the communal silent prayer that followed it. He said that, if we were in the possession of the appropriate clothing, we could all could take part. I believe that such a spectacle, such harmonious coordination and magnificence would be the utmost dream of even our top choreographers. Only in our time, this dream could never become reality.

The male dancers were dressed in black and the female ones had wreaths of flowers on their heads and wore the official silk, draped, monochromatic, floor-length kjole. They passed before us, each one with their choreographed moves, like a perfectly synchronised whole, offering me newfound, indescribable emotions.

They even engendered a feeling of pride and euphoria in me for being present at this unique, ceremonial environment that had, however, nothing to do with any official religion or religious coercion. The music itself spoke to you, the sounds, the dance moves too… You’d think they too were capable of feelings and nostalgia, just like the human heart. They spoke of true love, the kind of love that can make you sacrifice yourself... They also spoke about another kind of love, a love that can conquer time and make you live forever, for you wouldn’t care about death or about yourself, just about the other person. They spoke of love in a thousand different ways, in countless tender movements and turns as if they had the gift of human speech!

On the other side of the terrace, which looked like an expansive square, a large crowd, dressed in the typical costumes of the unge —who always escorted important people— had surrounded an elderly man whose name, as I was told, was Nichefelt, and who was one of the most prominent painters of the time. “He has just come back from the Valley of the Roses,” I heard people saying. Syld, the painter of our group, who used to be Nichefelt’s student, said that the Lorffe had changed dramatically since the last time he had seen him.

It was time to go. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” I told Silvia before we separated. “It’s worth seeing all of this again, just the two of us, isn’t it?”

She smiled at me and nodded in agreement. Oh God, how many years this nod took me back! It reminded me of Anna; every time she nodded, a gentle breeze rippled through her hair. I confess with remorse, but this coincidental, instantaneous similarity made me think of Anna again. This name used to mean so much to me… 8-X

Stefan made me smile today by giving too much weight to a simple observation of mine on modern morals. I was quite upset that Silvia had gone off on her own despite having told me that we would spend the whole day together. Instead, she chose to sunbathe on a different terrace with the rest of the girls. So, the only thing I said was that in older times, people used to be closer to nature and enjoy the gentle caress of the sun, the air and the water all together—men and women.

Stefan said nothing at that moment. Lying on his back, with his eyes half shut and his muscles relaxed, he was enjoying the morning breeze as if he had never heard what I said. Doctor Diseny, who was also present, waited for a while to see if Stefan would say anything and then decided to speak.

“That is so true, my friends… We seem to have forgotten nowadays that nudity is nothing but the truth of nature. I wish we could go back to those blessed years when the world was ruled by the masters of Science. Every time I read those old books I remember how special and enlightened those people were, the ones who bequeathed us with all those perfectly organised laws and customs. Back then, young people looked at life in a positive and rational way rather than in a romantic one. And I wonder: have we followed the right path? Is this torrent of sensuousness and emotion the right way to look at life? I don’t know… If you look closely at these girls who now run away from us like wild beasts, I’m certain that up close they would be as beautiful as paintings. But let’s not share these thoughts with our friend Syld’s teachers and the poets of the Valley, who managed to plant the idea of ‘the charm of hidden beauty’ in peoples’ heads.”