It is well, at this point, to remind ourselves, that it is we who try to make sense of reality, as it exists; reality does not try to make sense of us. It is we who depend on it existing; it does not depend on us. So what ever we may think of reality, we are unable change it as a whole; our understanding of it has influence only on us as subjects, not on it as the object of this reflection. In this game, reality is the primary entity; we are the secondary.
Imagine a Victorian Kitchen Maid
A scullery girl.
The lowest of the lowest of all peasants, illegitimately born and picked out of a ditch, with no mother, no father, no relations; weak-minded, uneducated, unable to speak, to think, let alone to read or write; laden with the lowest and most menial of tasks, all of which involve the cleaning up of other people's mess, and left to endless hours daily of washing the dishes of those 'higher up', never been out of her dark, wet corner of the general kitchen, if not to perform chores in the backyard or to clamber up the steps to her bed under the kitchen roof; year, upon year, upon year. She does not even change her clothes from day to night, just takes off her rough and dirty outer garment.
Then, one day; a slight hiccup in the usually smoothly running of the household forces the powers that be to make an exception: the dumb scullery maid is given the task to carry a decorated white porcelaine dish, filled with sugar cubes, up three flights of stairs, to deliver it to the head in charge there. She may have seen the bowl before, during her chores; though it may have been too valuable for her to touch. She has never seen sugar. She does not know what it is. She is told to wash her hands, dry them, is inspected and then sent up the dark, dimlit back stairs up to where the gentry are, and instructed to guard the bowl with her life.
Slowly, scared and careful, she ascends the creaky, wooden, cobwebbed stairs to the first, then the second, then the third floor. The higher she gets, the cleaner it becomes. On the third floor she sees two uniformed footmen guarding the massive wooden door she was told to look for; and she approaches, only to be to told to scram! Flustered and stammering, she tells them that she was sent; and the porcelaine bowl in her slightly trembling hands is proof. So, as one of the two footmen staves her off at arms length, the other knocks three times on the inwardly muffled door with a steel-tipped handle. It opens a crack, and a grey-haired, distinguished butler, clad in immaculate cloth, inquires on the nature of the disturbance.
As the footman explains, the butler nods, and beckons the girl to come forward, slightly reaching out for the bowl she still holds to her chest. The second footman releases her from her stay, and she takes two steps forward towards the somberly uniformed man that she has never before seen in her life, to convey to him the bowl of sugar cubes, and thus be relieved of her errand. But, to accept it, he must open the door a fraction further; and she catches a glimpse of what is inside.
She sees a vast, unhindered hall furnished in the most exquisite materials, laid out in teak parquet, with two-story windows of precious glass with lush linen curtains, floodlit by gigantic golden chandeliers dangling from the vaulted mahogany ceiling. The walls are lined with tables, themselves covered in finest white linen reaching to the ground, and decked in silver, and gold, and precious porcelain, overflowing with flowers, and breaking with the most delicious, and exotic, food, drink and wine.
Behind them stands a full row of servants, demoiselles and maitres, all at attention and in perfect attire, while the spacious floor before them is inhabited by a beauteous, whirling, ecstatic crowd of folk, ladies and gentlemen of the highest tier, clad in the handsomest and most sinfully expensive evening wear, complemented by finest, hand-crafted leather shoes, some dancing in a learned, easy, and perfectly poised way to the peals of stately music emanating from an orchestra in a corner, their polished instruments gleaming in the candlelight, in contrast to their formal dress.
Happiness and untethered gayety fills the mighty hall; light, laughter, and happy, cultured conversation, combined with an intoxicating wave of smell, of finest food, expensive alcohols and beverages, and the best of cigars, of clean, warm bodies, dabbed in the fragrance of the most exclusive perfume that money can buy, spills through the half-open door into the sombre stairway.
And the door is closed, the vision is gone. Slowly, as if in a stupor, the poor maid turns from the unperturbed guards at the door, which now again block all of that on the other side from crossing over into the gloomy back stairway. And equally slowly, as in wonder, she descends once again down into her quarter, her surroundings again becoming dustier and danker with each step, as she climbs down towards her place, her hand on the rail.
She has never seen, what she just saw. It was totally alien to her; not only did she not know that such even existed - up to now she had not even been able to conceive of its possibility. She cannot unsee; she cannot unhear; she cannot unsmell.
And she cannot go back.
And so she returns to her life, to as it was before; a relentless, boring, stultifying, lonely, ceaseless drudgery, devoid of any pleasure, of conversation, of encouragement, of future; of serving the servants of the servants of the servants.
But she saw.
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