Lately, as you probably have guessed, I’m tied up with real-life obligations. I can’t afford to update as often as I like, nor do I reply to your comments in a short time (but I’ll try my best to do so within a day or two). Anyway, I miss you guys, and here I am, writing a new post. 😀
As promised in Overwhelmed with emotions (Part 2), I will start talking about signs that Albert was in love with Candy based on an interesting article quoted in Part 2. However, I’d like to show you a poem first. It’s called “Candy’s Love”, written by Mizuki, and it was published in the Artbook Deluxe (Part 2) by Kodansha Nakayoshi in March 1978.
My attempt to translate the poem (paraphrased slightly):
In joy and in sorrow
I shut down my eyes
Appears in my mind
Is a white uphill road…
One day, I want to run along that path
Going up towards Pony’s Hill
With my eyes closed
On the hill, where flower petals are dancing
If I open my eyes suddenly
My Prince, I wish you’re standing right there for me,
That’s right
Just like that day…
For those who are familiar with the manga version would have remembered its ending while reading this poem. For other translations in Spanish or English, please click this picture in a photo album of my admin friend’s Facebook page, William Albert Andrew (el príncipe de la colina). Many thanks for her permission to use her resources. ❤ According to her, this poem was published about a year before the manga officially ended in March 1979. Back then, the manga was serialized in a monthly magazine, and remember the poster discussed in Overwhelmed with emotions (Part 2)? In November 1977, the story had reached the point in which Albert the vagabond had become amnesiac and despised by the hospital staff.
Therefore, when this particular artbook was released, Candy was still in love with Terry. That is, no readers could have predicted that Candy would eventually break up with Terry later in New York (around August 1978). 🙁 Yet, Mizuki had that planned all along. I was told that Terry was actually an “afterthought”. He was an added character because Candy Candy had been very popular, and the publisher wanted to extend the story by adding a new love interest, a rebel.
As a matter of fact, as discussed in length in my earlier posts, Invisible Threads and Love grew into romance, Mizuki said in an interview (published in a bimonthly magazine, “Jidou-bungei”,1980. The interview was also published in the book “Interviews with manga authors” by Osamu Takeuchi / Tomohiko Murakami, in 1989):
«けれど、テリイと別れることは初めから決っていたのだ。キャンディには三つの愛を考えていた。アンソニーとの淡いはかない初恋、テリイとの激しい恋、そしてアルバートさんとの運命的な穏やかな愛。»
The highlighted words signify that the break-up with Terry had been decided right from the beginning and Albert was predestined for Candy. In short, Terry was meant to fade out in Candy’s life. That explains why Candy’s feelings for Terry had undeniably changed near the end of the manga (see To truly love someone… for details). Likewise, in Candy Candy Final Story (CCFS), Candy had got over Terry (see More than words (Part 2)), and she was back to her cheerful and optimistic self. 😀
Thus, I have a strong feeling that Mizuki used the above poem to remind her readers of Prince on the Hill, Candy’s first crush. ❤ Yes, Anthony had died, and Prince on the Hill seemed to be merely a vague memory in Candy’s head, but Mizuki probably had already envisioned how the story would end: that Candy, with mixed feelings, would run up Pony’s Hill and unexpectedly found her prince standing there for her. It was a pleasant surprise to Candy indeed, but her wish had come true, at long last. 🙂
Come to think of it, to whom Candy confided her feelings whenever she was happy or sad? Yes, Albert. ❤ She said she could tell him everything, sharing her joys and grieves, and that had happened way before she discovered that he was her prince. (Please read The day her life changed (Part 6) for your interest).
Which character in Candy Candy always appears out of the blue? Albert or Prince on the Hill, of course. 😉 Even in CCFS, he had kept this habit of paying surprise visits to Candy (CCFS Vol 2, p. 291 and p. 317). 🙂 😀
Remember the first sign of a man being in love with a woman? He’d rather spend time with her alone. The fact that a busy business man like William Albert Ardlay had driven miles to Pony’s Home just to give Candy surprises speaks volumes, don’t you think? 🙄 Not to mention that he had come all the way to the orphanage to take her to his family villa in Lakewood (some long distance driving back and forth within the same day). He was willing to spend his precious holiday doing something special with her, just the two of them. 💕
Can you imagine yourself spending many hours in the same car with someone you don’t like at all? 🙄 Horrible and dreadful, isn’t it? 😓😫 Yet, Candy was happy and excited, as conveyed in her mental letter to Anthony in CCFS epilogue (see The day her life changed (Part 4)). Besides, she wrote a letter to Albert afterwards, telling him that she was overwhelmed with emotions, now being with her Little Bert. As explained in Part 2 of this series, I bet Candy had already sensed Albert’s deep feelings for her. 😍
What’s more, he was a very handsome man. The simple fact that Candy readily accepted Albert as her prince indicates that she was fully aware of his attractive appearance; he must be charming like a prince, still. 💓 I’ll talk more about that in Part 4 by going back to her letter to Vincent Brown (sorry, I keep postponing… :P). Can’t you understand by now why Mizuki had said in the aforementioned interview that Albert was Candy’s destined love? In other words, he was her destiny. ❤ ❤ ❤