„Die Grenzen meiner Sprachen bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.“ -- Ludwig Wittgenstein (page 38)
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
While the sweet sound of the Bunzlau ceramic bell still lingered in the air, the Pheasant Mansion’s golden doors opened, and the witch of the place appeared before them in the garb of a bride. In a different story, her name would be Amelia Havisham. In this story, her name is Frau Jadis.
Behind her stretched a hall papered with beautiful pheasant feathers, and the loveliest examples of wallpaper, woodwork and ceramic work in chinoiserie. Beyond the hall they could see a most comfortable sitting room, with deep armchairs possessing high upholstered backs and armrests of the heaviest, jolliest rolls. There were all manner of clever toys about the room, like spinning tops resting on their sides made by the cunningest handwork, and butterflies flew in and out of the open windows.
Outside those windows which colourful butterflies flew in and out, were tame animals of the most pettable variety. Placid wooly sheep, ready to be brushed and hugged, soft domesticated alpacas, willing to be led on walks through the rhododendron park, to even begin at describing the delightfully friendly menagerie.
Frau Jadis invited the fellowship in, and seemingly entranced by the magie of the place, Wilhelmina, Emil, and not least, Digory went inside after her. And the Rococo golden doors closed behind them.
Comfortably seated around a breakfast table laden with wedding cake, cold meats, sekt, and all sorts of delicious things to eat and drink, the fellowship listened to Frau Jadis tell a love story. The story was originally written down by a man whose first name has been lost in the annales of time, S. Morgenstern, then abridged by a man born in Chingachgook (pronounced Chicago, Mark Twain thinks). Anyway, that abridged version was what Frau Jadis told the fellowship:
Buttercup was raised on a small farm in the country of Florin. Her favorite pastimes were riding her horse and tormenting the farm boy that worked there. His name was Westley, but she never called him that … Nothing gave Buttercup as much pleasure as ordering Westley around … “As you wish” was all he ever said to her … That day she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, “as you wish,” what he meant was, “I love you.” Even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back.
Here the corners of Frau Jadis’s mouth lifted in a mirthless grin, and she leaned toward the fellowship of young people and loudly whispered, “Ah, but you see, that can never be. She will never realize she loves him, until she has lost him. Because the self sacrifice and worship he shows her will erode any love she may have for him. For that is the perverse nature of the children of Adam and Eve, and their curse. The more one gives, the less the other loves. Until the tables are turned, and both have lost.”
In her decaying wedding dress, Frau Jadis cackled, and the fellowship felt a chill they fought against. The coldness seemed to come inward from their stomachs, which were digesting the wedding breakfast cake and sekt, spreading through their bodies concentrically.
The fellowship could see out the window, amidst the placid wooly sheep, the tame affable alpakas, the colourful carefree butterflies, the charmingly constructed Well at the World’s End, from whose waters love potions were made, like the one drunk by the ill-fated Tristan and Isolde, and dreamed up by the music-writer Richard Wagner as he neglected his wife and dreamed of his patron’s. Because she was unobtainable.