Chapitre 13: Time Passes So Fast
Austria, March 3rd 1789
4:30 PM
Lukas laid in his crib as he drew on his two sheets of paper. Since he only could use two sheets of paper per day, he couldn't waste them, so he would split the sheet of paper into six equal squares with the quill and then draw in each one.
At first it was something very bothersome to do, but now, Lukas was very thankful about this because it increased his drawing skills by leaps and bounds.
He felt like he could draw anything in an entire sheet of paper now. He still wanted to try to draw in a full sheet of paper to see how his drawing would turn out.
Another thing that he had started to do was drawing on both sides of the sheet of paper. Although he had to wait a bit for the paint to dry, it doubled his drawing sessions he had per day, so he couldn't complain whatsoever.
'I actually felt like an idiot for not having thought about this before.' When Lukas was about to rip the sheets of paper, he heard footsteps. 'Sh*t!' Lukas hurriedly hid the sheets of paper under the mattress.
Soon, he saw Olivia walking into his room, when she saw the blonde baby laying in his crib, she smiled. "Good Morning, young master. I can see you are already awake."
'I'm glad you're not blind.'
Olivia's kept smiling as she picked Lukas. "I shall give you a bath, okay?"
'I don't mind.' Lukas thought. He actually was dying to start speaking. Unfortunately, he still needed to wait at least two more months. That may not seem like a very long time, but that's about one third of Lukas's life.
Despite that, he didn't want to screw up like he did with walking. He had shown he knew how to walk about one month ago, so he kept walking more and more as time passed by, which made his walking skills increase a lot.
'I didn't know I'd improve so fast. Okay, one month is quite a lot of time, but I thought it would take a bit longer for me to reach this level.'
What made Lukas improve a lot was that he knew the right moves to walk because he watched everyone doing it all the time. All he needed to do was increasing his physical strength. Something that him training his walking every day obviously helped a lot.
Although his walking still didn't compare to that of an adult, he could walk through the long alleys of the mansion. Although Lukas couldn't reach their end, he was working for that.
Olivia gave Lukas a bath and dressed him up. After that, she brought him to Frida, who was resting on an armchair in one of the living rooms of the mansion.
"Here he is, Mrs. Von Neumann." Olivia said as she handed Lukas to Frida.
Frida smiled. "Thank you, Olivia. I'll breastfeed him, so you may go if you wish."
Olivia nodded her head. "Very well, Mrs. Von Neumann. Excuse me then." Olivia walked out of the living room leaving both Frida and Lukas alone.
After Frida breastfed Lukas, she looked at her son. He had grown up a lot ever since his birth.
Frida showed a slight smile. "Time passes so fast..."
'Speak for yourself.' Lukas thought after listening to Frida's sentence. Although he had been born just less than seven months ago, he felt like a few years had passed since then.
'Stopping to think about it, I haven't even lived one year yet. A while ago, I heard a conversation where I found out mom was twenty-four years old and she still seems very young, so I still have a long way to go.' Lukas thought that with joy, he still wanted to do lots of things.
After enjoying a bit of his mother's company, Lukas kept thinking. 'I wonder why so many people say that time passes very fast? I don't think that's true at all! I feel like I've lived forever! I wonder if that's because adults have more tasks to do? Maybe, although I have some tasks I can do, I usually lay on a sofa without doing anything, so...'
As Frida lulled Lukas, she had an idea. She immediately opened her eyes with a smile. "I have an idea, Lukas. I will show you some of my family."
Lukas immediately opened his eyes when he heard Frida's sentence. It could have looked suspicious, but apparently Frida didn't notice.
'WHAT?!' Lukas yelled internally.
Frida stood up as she held Lukas and took him to the library of the mansion. After seeking for a while, Frida found what she wanted. She placed Lukas on one of the tables of the library and took a heavy, large book from the shelf.
After struggling a bit with the weight of the book, she managed to place it on the table with a loud boom.
'How impolite, mom.'
Frida smiled and sat on a chair behind Lukas. "Here, this is our family's portraiture book. There are a lot of interesting things here. I'm going to show it to you again when you are old enough to understand."
'Okay, now I'm interested.' Lukas thought. He was so curious that he didn't even make a sarcastic remark about his mother's sentence.
Frida opened the book, its cover said "Von Neumann house, 1743-1776", however, since Lukas couldn't read it, he just ignored those letters. When Frida opened the book, the first page had the portraiture of a young boy, who seemed to be around fourteen years-old. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. He was standing between a man and a woman who seemed to be his parents.
"This is my father, Lukas. Your grandfather." Frida said smiling.
'Yeah, I know how it works.' Despite Lukas having made a sarcastic remark, he was truly curious about this book. He never knew that there were picture books. He could improve his drawings even more now by using these as a source. Without mentioning that he was about to find out more about the Von Neumann house.
'I wonder if I'll get to know more about that polemics?'
Frida chuckled as she watched her father's picture. "You know, Lukas? My father was a lot like yours. He didn't pay much attention to me, but deep inside, I know that he likes me."
Frida kept her smile, but her eyes looked sad to Lukas, so he decided to turn the page himself. 'Yep! I know this is pretty sus, but I don't like seeing mom like this, so...'
When Lukas turned the page, he saw the portrait of a young woman, who also seemed to be from the Von Neumann house due to her blonde hair and blue eyes.
Frida's eyes then turned happy again as she chuckled. "That's my mother, Lukas. Many people say I'm very similar to her, but I don't think so, you know?"
When Lukas heard that this woman was his grandmother, he immediately raised his brow
'Both are from the Von Neumann house, and they had at least two children. My mother and her sister. Does that mean the Von Neumann house actually practice, or at least practiced inbreeding?
Why is my father from a different house then?' Lukas thought for a bit before coming up with a conclusion. 'He was paying a debt maybe? That may explain why he's always angry with everything, however... what about uncle Karl?'
Lukas sighed internally and thought for a bit more. 'Perhaps he did have a wife before who was from the Von Neumann house as well, but she died? Well, that may have happened indeed, but this is just a bold deduction for now.'
Frida watched her son with amusement. 'I wonder what he is thinking about?' Lukas knew exactly what his mother was thinking.
'Don't bother finding out, mom. Trust me.'
Frida and Lukas kept watching the book. They saw many members of the Von Neumann house. Some that even Frida didn't know, which was something impressive because Lukas had overheard that Frida was the daughter of the head of the Von Neumann house.
Also, remember Helen? She apparently wasn't exactly Lukas's cousin. She actually was Lukas's second cousin. Lukas found it out because he saw a painting of one of Frida's cousins and she said he was Helen's father.
Another thing that Lukas found out was that this portraiture book was not a very usual thing for families to do. Actually, apparently even the royal family didn't have one, they did have portraits of a lot of its members, but they weren't all stacked up in a book. That was something that only the Von Neumann House is known to do, after all, this was a very expensive and difficult thing to do.
They had to gather all the portraitures of many members of the house, and they also needed to hire a painter who was competent enough to copy perfectly each portrait to a page of the book which was much smaller than the actual canvas it was first drawn.
Lukas thought about it with admiration. 'Wow, I wonder if I'll be able to draw like this one day.'
After daydreaming for a bit, he shook his head lightly and started thinking about the Von Neumann house again.
'The Von Neumann House apparently is a pretty wealthy and powerful one, or at least it was, because this doesn't seem cheap at all.' Lukas thought. 'But if the Von Neumann House was so wealthy and influential, how is it going through financial struggles right now?' Lukas wondered. 'That polemics must have been a very complicated thing.'
After turning the pages a bit more, they came across a portraiture of a little girl, she had a very sweet smile and blonde hair split into two braids with beautiful blue eyes.
Lukas frowned. 'She is kinda familiar to me.'
Frida smiled at the portrait in front of her. "This is me, Lukas. I believe I was about ten years-old when this portrait of me was painted."
Lukas almost fell out of the table when he heard that was Frida. When he looked closer at his mother's face, there was no mistake, it was her.
Frida saw Lukas's reaction and chuckled. "I think you noticed yourself, didn't you?" Frida said. "See, it's written over here, "Frida Von Neumann."" Frida pointed at the lower right corner of the page where her name was written with golden letters and roamed her finger under them as she read her name.
'Uhm, I se...' Lukas almost let out a huge gasp when he noticed that Frida had just given him a tiny tip on how to read. He now knew that the following letters composed the name "Frida Von Neumann".
He also knew that the writing was from left to right since Frida moved her finger that way as she read her name.
'Great! Now I at least have a starting point! Okay, Lukas! Memorize it! "Frida Von Neumann"!' Lukas thought with glee.
'Okay, now calm down. You managed to memorize it... I guess, and even if you didn't, you at least know where this book is and you can check it as long as nobody is watching you.'
When Frida turned the page again, they came across another portraiture of hers. But this time, she wasn't wearing braids, her hair was loose. A strange thing that Lukas had noticed was that Frida showed a sad expression when she saw herself in this page.
'Oh, I guess I know why.' Lukas said as he looked at the lower right corner of the page. '"Freida Von Neumann", is that a quote? No wonder mom is sad, I mean, what the hell? You just had your own name wrongly written because some idiot doesn't know how to write it. Without mentioning that it will be forever registered in this book.'
Frida sighed as she turned the page and Lukas couldn't agree more. 'Indeed, it's better to just turn the page, mom.' Lukas thought as he slightly nodded his head in accordance.
Lukas and Frida spent the entire day seeing the portraiture book. Frida didn't get tired of telling Lukas stories about the people of the Von Neumann House, and Lukas didn't get tired of listening to them either, she was a great storyteller.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone