어떤 사랑 이야기

러시아의 흑해 부근의 성에 넓은 땅을 가진 술탄(sultan)이 살고 있었습니다. 술탄은 가지지 않은 것이 없었습니다. 많은 하인에다 왕에게 기쁨을 주기 위한 여자들로 가득하였습니다. 그렇게 많은 여인이 있었지만 술탄이 진심으로 사랑하는 여인은 없었습니다. 술탄은 늘 진정으로 사랑하는 사람을 만날 수 있었으면 좋겠다고 생각했습니다.

술탄의 마음을 읽은 병사가 한 여인을 데리고 왔습니다. 어디에서 여인을 데리고 왔는지는 아무도 몰랐습니다. 어떤 사람은 가까운 곳에서 데려 왔다고 하였고 어떤 사람은 아주 먼 나라에서 데려 왔다고 말하기도 했습니다.

이미 나이가 들어버린 술탄은 젊은 여인의 아름다움에 반해버렸습니다. 그렇게도 찾았던 사랑을 만난 것입니다. 술탄은 여인을 너무나 사랑하여 '사랑의 기쁨'이라는 이름으로 불렀습니다. 사랑하는 여인을 만난 술탄의 마음은 기쁨으로 넘쳤습니다. 하루하루가 구름 위를 걷는 듯 황홀하였습니다.

그런데 이게 왠일입니까? 신이 질투를 한 것일까요? 안타깝게도 술탄이 사랑한 그 젊은 여인이 갑자기 죽고 말았습니다. 자신이 떠나 온 고향을 그리워하여 병이 났던 것입니다. 술탄의 마음은 갈기갈기 찢어졌습니다. 삶의 의욕을 잃고 탄식의 나날을 보내던 중 하루는 신하를 불렀습니다.  

나라에서 가장 유명한 건축가를 불러오라 명하였지요. 왕의 명령을 받은 신하는 오랜 수소문 끝에 나라에서 가장 훌륭하다는 건축사를 술탄 앞으로 데리고 왔습니다. 술탄은 그 건축가에게 사랑한 여인을 기억할 수 있도록 분수를 만들라고 지시했습니다. 술탄의 지시를 받은 건축가는 바로 작업에 착수하였습니다. 그리고는 하트모양을 본뜬 분수를 만들기 시작했습니다. 그 하트는 찢어지는 술탄의 마음을 보여주는 것 같았습니다. 두 갈래로 나누어졌다가 하나로 붙었다가 다시 두 갈래로 나누어지는 분수는 찢어지는 술탄의 마음을 잘 표현하고 있었습니다.

전설이 되어버린 술탄의 슬픈 사랑이야기를 들은 러시아의 대 문호 푸시킨은 붉은 장미 한 송이와 흰 장미 한 송이를 분수 앞에 가져다 놓았습니다. 이것이 유래가 되어 사람들은 붉은 장미와 흰 장미를 분수 앞에 가져다 놓기 시작했습니다. 오늘도 분수 앞에는 붉은 장미와 흰 장미가 놓여 있을 것입니다.

러시아의 흑해 연안의 작은 도시가 자신의 고향인 나탈리아가 들려준 슬픈 사랑 이야기입니다.   

아래와 같은 특별한 사랑 이야기도 있습니다.

<Special deliveries>

I spent fewer than 24 hours with my future husband before we became engaged.

Five long months later, on a sunny Saturday before Valentine's Day, we stood at the tall white-and-gold altar of St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Port Arthur, ontario. It was Feb. 9, 1946.

I expected to feel ecstatic. Instead, I found myself dabbing at tears. Tears of dread. Suddenly I felt too young to be marrying at 19, that "till death do us part" was too long, too uncertain a path. And then the pastor addressed me by the wrong name. I murmured the correction.

Despite my attack of bridal nerves, I kept repeating what the priest intoned, promising to "love, honour and obey" this tall, quiet man on my right. I recovered - the old snapshots taken as we stood on the church steps show me dry-eyed and gazing adoringly up at my handsome groom.

We were among the hundreds of thousands of couples who married shortly after the Second World War. We met one wartime Christmas morning on a crowded westbound Canadian Pacific Railway train filled with grumpy soldiers en route for holiday leave but late because of train breakdowns.

We spent about 100 minutes together. As I  prepared to leave the train. Alf stood, pencil and a scrap of paper in hand, and asked me for my name and address. We wrote to each other for the next three and half years.

The second time we met - in early August, 1945, after he had volunteered for the Canadian Active Pacific Force - he asked permission to kiss me and I nodded my consent.

After the second kiss he held my face between his hands and said, "You know - I want you to know - I want to marry you." My response was a lecture on the seriousness of marriage, emphasizing that we hardly knew each other.

After he reported to his Manitoba base his letters arrived almost daily. Each one was a little bolder, a little more persuasive. Alf could have written the textbook on the power of a positive approach. When he came back to see me the next month on a 48-hour leave and asked me to his wife, I said yes.

We started our married life on a spartan budget. We lived with my family because he was temporarily working for my father. We had a private bed room - a tourist cabin about 50 meters from my family home. No bathroom. No electricity. A box heater took up much of the space in the center of the room; it had two lids for cooking and a front opening for wood. Our weekly highlight was cooking Sunday breakfasts on it. I would fry bacon and eggs while Alf made the coffee. Dessert was usually enjoyed in bed.

My husband opened a rural service station and garage. I helped him by pumping gas, doing the bookkeeping and whatever. Alf assisted me with chores and rocked teething babies. Electricity arrived. We moved into a new, unfinished home the winter before our fourth baby's birth. It was a blessing to have warm floors. And a bathroom!

In 1960, he was hospitalized for two months with back problems. We discussed nursing and me. (I had been a nurse-in-training when I was diagnosed with pleurisy from tuberculosis and had to withdraw before our marriage.)

Married women going back to continue their education was you yet commonplace in our area, plus we lived 50 kilometres from the hospital. He was the one who made it work. When I was a second year student nurse, a tourist asked our youngest what grade she was in, and she replied, I am in Grade 2 and so is my mummy!"

My graduation from St. Joseph's Hospital in Port Arthur was a family triumph. My husband, my children and my parents all helped me succeed.

Later, I took courses part-time at Lakehead University and earned my bachelor of science in nursing degree the year after our youngest graduated from high school. My husband was by then a member of the local school board and finding joy in his active participation. Our lives were fulfilling. Our love remained strong despite life's challenges.

Whenever we were separated we wrote love letters. In the 1990s, I spent some time nursing in the North. In one of Alf's letters, he wrote, I'll stop writing now before I climb into this envelop and go along."

Occasionally, I noticed hints that he had changed, but a diagnosis did not come until 1999: Lewy body dementia, which has symptoms characteristic of both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Short periods of alertness were present even in advanced phases. We made the most of them.

Morning were usually his best time. We lingered over breakfast, read the newspaper and chatted. We walked most days until the last months of his life, when his legs lost their stability. Our goodnight kisses remained long.

After his death on Nov.15, 2004, at our home, in which he adamantly wished to stay, I started rereading his ribbon tied letters. Some were more than 60 years old. Those letters had won my heart in youth and now, decades later, they comforted me in my grief.

They elicited memories of almost forgotten tender times, of impulsive lovemaking on fishing excursions, of that full-moon night so long ago when he announced, "We're going to make a beautiful baby tonight." And of how his hand would reach out to caress mine as he lay in a hospital bed, still in our own bedroom, those last weeks of his life.

No month is easy now, but in February, our anniversary month, I think I miss him most of all.

(Source: The Globe and Mail, Friday, Feb 13, 2009 Life Section page 16, The Essay by DOLORES KIVI. Dolores lives in Thunder bay, ontario Canada.)

     

*dab: n: bit, hint, smidgen, tough, smear, smudge, spot

      v: blot, daub, pat

*dread: v: distrust, fear, suspect

        n: fright, horror, terror, anxiety, apprehension, uneasiness

        a: alarming, awful, terrible

        ant: trust, assurance

*murmur: v: complain, grouse, grumble, mutter, breathe, mumble,

            whisper

         n: bubble, gurgle, undertone

         ant: shout

*bridal: a: marriage, wedding

*intone: v: chant, drone, murmur, recite, sing

*grumpy: a: crabby, grouch, sullen, choleric, crotchety, gruff,

            peevish

         ant: agreeable, cheerful

*consent: v: approve of, assent, concur, permit, sanction

          n: acquiescence, agreement, concurrence, permission,

             approval, authorization, permission

          a: refuse, refusal, rejection

*spartan: a: 스파르타의,

          n: 스파르타 사람(굳세고 용맹스런 검소하고 엄격한 사람)

*lid: n: cap, cork, cover, plug, stopper, ceiling, limit, maximum,

         restraint

      ant: bottom, minimum