The mourner knew what he’d lost and knew that he’d never get it back. He was caught between despair and guilt. He clasped his private night to his heart and told it he’d never let it go; never again would he be husband, lover, friend. Never again would he trust anyone.
The melancholic didn’t know what he’d lost, and thus had nothing to lose. But he was afraid of the nothingness that threatened to swallow him. He floated on the surface of life like oil on water, and asked the moon to show him a silver sea that would hide him. He had never trusted anyone.
The mourner felt like a statue commemorating a forgotten man.
The melancholic walked among people like a ghost, and saw only himself in them: distorted parts of human beings, fragments of failed pasts.
For both there was a slow accepting dawn.
For the mourner it proved to be the inescapable drift of time, which let him release his grip on the night and revealed the new life in which he suddenly found himself: new longings and losses. The statue came to life and joined the crowd.
For the melancholic it was a path only he could have found. It led through his fear to a feeling of being at home in himself. In this clearing he was shown the substance of things, shown that he shared in that substance. The dawn pierced the veil that had always covered his eyes, let him look out at the world, and take his first steps.
