through the looking glass (prepositional phrase, metaphor): a situation in which normal circumstances have been reversed or one's own perceptions are called into question

There was a sharp tap on the window next to her. Maria looked up, wide-eyed, from the program she had clutched in her hands and had been peering at, reliving the thrill of such a wonderful evening at the theatre in the heart of Paris.

Her face relaxed into a smile when she realized it was her husband, who had gone back to fetch the gloves she had forgotten. Sliding over, she pushed the door open as she did so, calling, "Come on, Georg, or you'll get drenched!"

Just as they were exiting the theatre, the skies had opened up and rain began to pour down. They had dashed, laughing, for the nearest cab, and Maria realized only as she grasped his hand tighter that she had left the gloves in her seat, which she had removed midway through the show, annoyed at not being able to properly enjoy the intimacy of entwining her fingers with Georg's as they sat together in the dark hall.

She had tried to convince him not to go back for them—it was only a small matter, after all—but he had insisted.

"Here," Georg said, reaching through the door, "I saw the display and just had to ask if I could have one for my love."

Maria took the single, blood-red rose from him as he got in beside her, slamming the door behind him and giving the driver the address of their hotel. She twirled it in her hands a few times, and couldn't resist burying her nose in it to breathe in its deep, heady scent. She looked up to find her husband gazing at her with a tender expression on his face that all but turned her to jelly.

They lurched as the taxicab pulled away from the curb, and Maria slowly lowered her hands. Georg leaned forward and kissed her chastely, cupping her face as he did so.

"Georg," Maria breathed moments later, moments which lasted forever and not at all.

"I had to," he said simply.

Threading her fingers through his, Maria gave a squeeze of his hand and set it down in her lap.

"You know, you never did ask me why I had thought of Paris… the night you came after me. Why didn't you? Then, or later?"

Georg thought for a moment, realizing only now that she was right. "Well," he ventured, "I came after my governess with the intent of bringing her back, and was trying very hard not to scare her off. I know I failed, what with the fact that we came to blows... but, well, digging into your reasons for Paris seemed like a good way to poke you with a hot rod."

"Yes, I wouldn't have responded well," Maria mused.

"As for later… I don't know, really. I suppose I was simply too caught up in the awe that you had actually agreed to be my wife, in getting to know you, in making plans, and I booked Paris because I believed what I told you, that night."

"Indeed," Maria said faintly, cheeks flushing crimson as she thought back on the things her husband had promised to do to her in the scenarios she had given him on that night when she questioned him so fiercely, filled with raw and bitter emotion.

"And besides," he continued, looking out his window and quite unaware of his wife's reaction to his words, "you had said something about a glance through the looking glass. It appealed to me that we could simply… step through it, instead."

"You left something out," Maria said suddenly. "That night, when you told me how it would be to make me your wife."

Georg glanced over at Maria expectantly, watching her face go in turns from light to shadow as they rolled through the city and the rain pounded down above them.

"You didn't tell me that marrying you would mean… realizing all three. At once. In one place. Again, and again. The things you have done to help me, to teach me, to support me, to make me happy. The grand gestures and little moments. Like this rose." She lifted it, and took a moment to smell it again, clearly lost in thought. "You've gone so far beyond what anyone would require, what I deserve. You saw through my fear and my stupidity, and you saw me."

"Oh, love," Georg rasped, aware at once that Maria was both allowing herself to be honest and yet also deeply censoring herself, even though there was no way their driver could know what she spoke.

"You were so willing to let me go," she marveled, "even though you did not want that, and had said you wouldn't allow it without a fight. You were willing to let me go, even though you knew that what I was telling you was not the truth. And never once have you brought it up since that night. That takes such strength of character, Georg! I am constantly taken aback that I have married a man that is not only noble and principled, but loves me so much as you do."

Georg swallowed, nodding. He wasn't sure if he could trust himself to speak.

"Paris appealed, I suppose," Maria mused, "because it was something so completely different. Another life. I had never been outside of Austria, and Germany did not seem wise. I asked the taxi driver to take me to the square because it was a stone's throw from the abbey, and had every intention of making my way back there, but… I am not that kind of woman."

"There it is again," Georg said quietly. "I would be so intrigued if you'd explain."

"I'm not the kind of woman that will live a lie for her own sake. I didn't belong in Nonnberg. Everyone knew it, except for me, and at last it finally dawned on me, that night alone in the square. I'm not the kind of woman that would make intentional advances and go to bed with her employer. I'm not the kind of woman that would live in sin for only love's sake, no matter how I wanted it. I'm not the kind of woman that would play silly games to make another jealous. I'm not the kind of woman that holds herself to high esteem. I'm not the kind of woman that tries to outwit the hand she has been dealt. I'm not the kind of woman to ask for more than she is worth."

"No," Georg agreed. "You are not that kind of woman. Not in the slightest. And that is why I love you, why I love you beyond reason and logic and why I will continue to love you for all of my days."

Maria was looking at him with a strange expression, as though she was seeing him for the first time. It did not seem to matter that they were man and wife, that they were lovers, that they loved openly and they scaled the heights of passion in the secret of night and by the light of day, that they were friends that laughed openly and individuals that fought passionately and believed what they believed with every fiber of their being.

"You have been nothing I've expected and everything I've needed," Maria finally rasped, her voice cracking. "I am so unfathomably grateful."

"Oh, my darling," Georg breathed, and he took her in his arms and kissed her again, heatedly, passionately, with the feeling he had implored her to conjure that night several months ago, and neither were aware of the fact that the taxi had at last come to a stop, and that the driver was clearing his throat and trying unsuccessfully to get their attention. They were bound together, his fingers gently wiping away her tears, her kisses finding his lips, her hands holding fast to him as though she would never let him go.

He had come into her life and chased the darkness away. Just as surely as she had turned his world upside down, he had righted hers, and that was something she would cherish and never once take for granted because when all else fell away, crumbled away to dust and nothingness, with only the essence left behind… that was the kind of woman she was, and would always be.