Adam’s Atoms

Strawberry Girl

On a bright sunny day in the summer of 1836, a ten-year-old daughter of a French aristocrat walked to the garden behind their house. She was wearing a pretty white dress, long white stockings, and white shoes. Her bright red hair was beautifully braided into two long tails. In her hand she was holding a basket filled with strawberries, which she was taking out to share with her parents after a family dinner outdoors.

She was enjoying the beautiful weather and the gentle breeze, the clear blue sky and the green grass underneath. It was an idyllic day and the girl fully expected it to stay that way. She was laughing and talking, having fun.

Little did she know that the powers to be suspected her parents to be collaborating on a coup. And, indeed, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte attempted one just a few months later, unsuccessfully for the time being.

The gendarmes carrying long rifles with bayonets came to arrest the strawberry girl’s parents. But not just to arrest them. They wanted to hurt them and to hurt them strongly. To accomplish that, one the gendarmes, without any warning, lifted his rifle and stabbed the girl through the chest with his bayonet.

One moment the girl was cheerful, the next moment she was lying lifeless on the ground, her pretty white dress covered with strawberries.

I do not know why those in power sometimes hurt innocent children, but that is what happened on that summer day in 1836 France. Words fail when trying to express how I feel about it, so I composed a little music to replace the words. If you want, you can listen to it. It is in midi format, so the quality of the sound depends on the quality of the sound equipment in your computer as well as the software you use to access it (personally, I find the quality better if I do not listen to it in the browser but save it to my disk and then listen to it). If you wish, you can also follow the score in the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format (you may need to tell your viewer to rotate it counter-clockwise).

However, please respect my copyright. You may listen to it, but please do not copy or distribute it.