The Black Lake’s Lovers

31 août 2020

Today I’m going to tell you a story… Forget everything and focus on my words ! The legend is called « The Black Lake’s Lovers ».

« Everything separates them.

Their culture, the places where they grew up, their place in society, their language. Yes, absolutely everything separates them.

Only, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, Valentine runs into the garden of a small house in the Bernese mountains, her bags under her arms. She is only 14 years old and has just lost her parents. She has just lost her bearings. She has to learn how to rebuild herself in this family of which she knows no one. She is an old childhood friend of her sweet mother, whom she doesn’t remember hearing about. She, it seems that she has a family, a husband and a son.

No matter what, life is like that. The young lady was welcomed with open arms. A nicely decorated room under the roof had been prepared for her. Not very large, but bright. She felt good there. She used to run every hour of the day in the fields, climbed trees, climbed rocks… She was not sure she could still beat the countryside as she had done until yesterday. But she knew that this little room would be her refuge.

« The Black Lake’s Lovers »

Soon it was time for supper. When she was called to come downstairs and arrived in the kitchen, she hobbled herself and found herself face to face with a plump young boy with pretty blue eyes. He smiled at her, she smiled at him. Their friendship was born. Valentine was reassured. The boy, David, seemed nice. Not one of those little terrorists who would steal his toys, ruin his clothes and cut his hair in the night. She met Daddy too. More austere. Discipline was all she cared about.

That’s how Valentine found her equilibrium in this small bourgeois and influential family of the Bernese Oberland. The years went by and she became a young woman. Always wild. Running, living outside. More interested in reading and daydreaming than in sewing. She wanted to be somebody. David discovered nature for her, climbed trees and let the wind carry her. Only school and her little job interrupted their bohemian rhythm.

One summer day, they decided to ride their bikes for several days and the wind took them to the Black Lake. In the Fribourg Pre-Alps. Their friendship was beginning to turn into something stronger, more attractive and magnetic. It was on the shores of Lac Noir that they got closer and confessed their feelings. Then this friendship became love. Unconscious and happy, they did not hide from their parents.

The father, on the other hand, did not see this idyll in the same way. He had plans for his son, for his career. And Valentine was not one of them. It was time for her to get on with her life. Since studies were not her forte, she would go to work. In the days that followed, they found her a house where she would learn how to run a home, to take care of the children. She would meet and marry someone, whether well placed or not. He didn’t care. He had made his quota. He had fed her for years.

« The Black Lake’s Lovers »

She had no choice but to leave and left her shelter, without the right to return. Leaving her love forever, never to be able to kiss her again. Her David.

His father had introduced him within a week to a young woman from a noble family to whom he would marry when the time induced by convention had passed. No matter how he felt. His father wanted to rise to the top of society, at the expense of what his own offspring might feel. The fate was sealed.

« I don’t know when, but one day I will marry you. You’re the one I’ll love where we first loved each other. Even if we have nothing, in my life, in my reality, you are my everything. Don’t stop loving me, I’ll come and get you. »

Written on a small piece of paper, Valentine felt hope take hold of her little damaged heart… She would wait for it…

The legend does not tell us exactly what became of them. Versions vary. It is only said that sometimes in the autumn wind, the one that comes down from the mountain and announces winter, we can hear the laughter of these two beings reunited. Alive and hidden from everyone at the edge of this mysterious lake. In the cold of winter, in the warmth of their embraces…