The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2)

"Why did you call that man Alexander?" Celia asks.
"That's a silly question."
"It's not his name."
"Now, how might you know that?" Hector asks his daughter, lifting her chin to face him and weighing the look in her dark eyes with his own.
Celia stares back at him, unsure how to explain. She plays over in her mind the impression of the man in his gray suit with his pale eyes and harsh features, trying to figure out why the name does not fit on him properly.
"It's not his real name," she says. "Not one that he's carried with him always. It's one he wears like his hat. So he can take it off if he wants. Like Prospero is for you."
"You are even more cleaver than I could have hoped," Hector says, not bothering to refute or confirm her musings about his colleague's nomenclature. He takes his top hat from it's stand and puts it on her head, where it slides down and obscures her questioning eyes in a cage of black silk.

---

"I have had affairs that lasted decades and others that lasted for hours. I have loved princesses and peasants. And I suppose they loved me, each in their way."

This is a typical Tsukiko response, one that does not truly answer the question. Isobel does not pry.

"It will come a apart," Tsukiko says after a long while. Isoel does not need to ask what she means.

"The cracks are beginning to show. Sooner or later it is bound to break." She pauses to take a final drag off her cigarette. "Are you still tempering?"

"Yes," Isobel says. "But I don't think it helping."

" It's difficult to discern the effect of such things, you know. Your perspective is from the inside, after all. The smallest charms can be the most effective."

"It doesn't seem to be very effective."

"Perhaps it is controlling the chaos within more then the chaos without."

The night circus - Erin Morgenstern (1)

I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern with great pleasure. The language, the story, the time and all just fitted me and I really enjoyed reading it. Morgenstern's debut I can recommend to everyone that like magic, late 1800 - early 1900, a love story and something new. I never read a book like this and I'm so happy I did.

The pool of tears

The sign outside the tent is accompanied by a small box full 
of smooth black stones. The text instructs you to take one
with you as you enter.
Inside, the tent is dark, the ceiling covered with open
black unbrellas, the curving handles hanging down like
icicles.
In the center of the room there is a pool. A pond
enclosed within a black stone wall that is surrounded by
white gravle.
The air carries the salty tinge of the ocean.
You walk oute to the edge to look inside. The gravel
crunches beneath your feet.
It is shallow, but it is glowing. A shimmering,
shifting light cascades up though the surface of the water.
A soft radiance, enough to illuminate the pool and the
stones that sit at the bottom. Hundreds of stones,
each identical to the one you hold in your hand.
The light beneath filters though the spaces between
the stones.
Reflections rippöe around the room, making it appear as
though the entire tent is underwater.
You sit on the wall, turning your black stone over and 
over in your fingers.
The Stillnes of the tent becomes a quiet melancholy.
Memories begin to creep forward from hidden corners
of your mind. Passing disappointments. Lost chances and
lost causes. Heartbreaks and pain and desolate, horrible
loneliness.
Sorrows you though long forgotten mingle with sill-fresh
wounds.
The stone feels heavier in your hand.
When you drop it in the pool to join the rest of the stones,
you feel lighter. As though you have released something more
then a smooth polished piece of rock.