"I'm not surprised. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised." He listened to her rant with growing rage. A child, yes, she had just been a child. So had he. Perhaps, if they had both been older, he would have been able to protect her more. He would have had the right words to spit back into the faces of those high-and-mighty who dared to judge a little girl on the color of her stockings.
"It all goes back to conformity," Melchior said, angry with her, for her. "Anything that does not fit into the order of things is cast off, proclaimed sinful. It's like everyone's reading from a script -- they say it's their Bible, but I've read the scripture, Ilse, and it doesn't say anything about something as arbitrary as the color of your stockings. They go along, never knowing or caring that there's so much more to find outside of the staged directions they've forced themselves into. And if someone like you, or me, chooses not to speak from our pre-approved lines? Well, then, we're shunned from the stage." His tone was full of wry bitterness.
His sense of fury only grew as she spoke of Moritz. Rather than being disturbed by her yelling, he was emboldened by it. "But that's what society does, Ilse! It forces you into a very particular hole, and if you simply can't fit, they have no qualms about breaking you. I look after Moritz -- I try, Ilse, I really do -- but there's only so much I can do. I'm only one voice, no matter how loud a shout. One radical voice. Easy to ignore." He spoke out often, and was usually punished for it, but he considered that a small price to pay to give his friend even a little peace of mind.
Ilse began to calm, and he forced himself to calm with her. It wouldn't do any good to get so worked up over what couldn't be controlled, much as he would like to. He was full of burning, full of passion -- sometimes he could feel the rage, boiling just beneath the surface. He sometimes wondered if something would provoke him one day, and if he'd just snap. The idea was rather frightening, but it also held a disturbing sense of power.
"A world where everyone is equal," Melchior mused, "Is it possible? Or is it human nature to want to set up systems? Must someone fail for others to succeed?" He didn't want to believe it. But the people were so set against change here. Humans were stubborn, willful creatures -- he was among them. So how could a society ever get along without pushing down those who couldn't keep up?
"What do you think, Ilse?" He looked over to her, falling into the rhythm of their old debates. The sky was light and the venue had changed, but it was still Ilse. Even if her hair now fell freely over the growing curve of her breast, even if sky blue stockings no longer concealed the skin of her legs. Melchior noticed all of these things, but, of course, he was above such impulses. He wasn't like the rest of them, obsessed and thrown into a frenzy by even the slightest sign of flesh.
Besides, it was Ilse. She was the sister he never had.
