Sophie and the Sibyl

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘Was killing the traitor not enough?’

  And here Max was graced with the Sibyl’s disconcerting yellow smile with the red gaps, gleaming at uneven intervals.

  ‘It seems not. Revenge, you see, binds the avenger irrevocably to the person who has wronged him. They are doomed to seek one another for ever through the shades of Hades. Baldassare never freed himself from Tito. His hatred grew, commensurate with his former love.’

  Max suspected that the Sibyl, who spoke of Hell and Hades with such eloquence, did not actually believe in the existence of either place. A fresh puzzle presented itself to him for the first time. Why, if she walked the earth without faith in Providence or the Beyond, did she praise religious fervour with such discriminating conviction? Was it possible to live openly with a married man and still preach morality and righteousness from the pulpit of her fiction? Wolfgang assured him that all her first readers, when her identity was so well concealed that not even her publisher knew who the mysterious friend of Lewes was, remained convinced that the author of Adam Bede must be a clergyman, in charge of a rural parish in the Midlands. The Sibyl raised her extraordinary eyes to Max, paused, and then pronounced her absolution.

  ‘Reflect for a moment, Max, upon your interpretation of Tito. You have recognised his nature as a dangerous one. You have seen where that kind of moral laziness may lead. You are not Tito and you need never duplicate his ways. You have a choice.’

  And now, in her priest-like presence, Max felt himself illuminated, reassured. He was being given a second chance, but he did not know how, or even why. The arched cathedral of the forest and the Sibyl’s grave authority, that uncanny sensation of having been not only heard, but chosen, conspired to meddle with the fragile roots of his complacency. Something intangible in her company lifted him from the swamps of his own selfishness. He vowed never to visit a prostitute or gamble at the tables again.

  But Max was led into temptation before that day was out.

  They returned home to a pile of visiting cards and Mr. Lewes, peacefully prostrate upon the sofa. Lady Castletown had besieged him with Irish bronchial remedies, and sent meat broth and soft, steamed vegetables from her own kitchens. Furthermore, she insisted that my dear Mrs. Lewes and her charming German publisher, that handsome young man who has such a sweet German accent, should join them for dinner, with a view to visiting the Kursaal later on to watch the gambling. The mercurial little showman was laid low and the great lady novelist must not only be amused, she must nurse him in as remote a fashion as possible, for that cough is certainly contagious, and she was sending her very own private physician, with his efficacious assistant, to ensure the dear man’s speedy recovery. At first the Sibyl refused. She would not leave her husband’s side. But Lewes added his persuasive croak to the general clamour.

  ‘We’ll dine here together, Polly. But you must go out a bit or you’ll succumb to morbid thoughts. I’m feeling better already, and a long peaceful night will set me straight.’

  He closed his eyes. Max pressed the Sibyl’s hand gently and nodded his farewell, then crept out of the room. On the stairway he remembered Wolfgang’s revised publication deals. Renewed negotiations were out of the question at present, he had bought himself a little time. But suddenly another memory intervened: a torrent of opals, rubies and diamonds poured across the Jew’s counter. Both of these peremptory thoughts framed themselves into commands to act, and disconcerted his new-found composure. He burst into the autumn sunshine, clutching his hat.

  Back at the Grand Continental Hotel a row of messages fluttered towards him from the reception clerk. Count August von Hahn and his daughter longed to see him, after a session in the baths for arthritis (the Count), and a gallop in the meadows (the Countess), come and visit us in our suite, my dear Max, when you have sufficiently buttered up the famous lady and closed the deal. My little Sophie is quite rabid with desire to meet her, and thinks that she’ll get round her doting father while her mother’s still at home. I’m counting on you not to bend a whisker, Max, or to engineer an introduction. It would all come out at the dinner table, and I’d be in for a hell-fire lecture.

  The Count and his daughter occupied five adjoining rooms on the second floor, with views overlooking the royal castle and the park. The maid flashed past him, bearing two jugs of hot water for the Countess to refresh her toilette, after her fiery ride out to the hunting lodge, surrounded by an escort of admirers. But here she was, the young lady herself, still in her riding habit, with her veil thrown back, her bright cheeks flushed and her eyes dancing.

  ‘Why didn’t you come before?’ she demanded. ‘I wanted to see you and tell you lots of things.’

  ‘You were galloping around the countryside, and I am engaged upon my brother’s business,’ smiled Max, beguiled. She grabbed his arm and dragged him into a gorgeous expanse of gilt mirrors and chandeliers, with four French windows and a long balcony, from which he glimpsed the fountains and the gardens.

  ‘Come in quick! Father! He’s here!’

  What things does she have to tell me, thought Max. Certainly nothing about Jews and jewels. He decided not to probe the mystery. Or at least, not yet. Sophie flung off her jacket and swung on the bell rope so that all the tassels shivered, her enthusiasm unbounded and unfeigned.

  ‘I’ve ordered chocolate. My fingers are freezing. You must take a glass with us.’

  Could she have negotiated a price on that necklace for someone else? The soft smell of wealth perfumed the rooms. How could the Countess be in debt? At eighteen? Sophie offered him a cigarette and hauled the double windows open.

  ‘Blow it out on to the balcony. That’s what Father does. Mother makes him smoke outside at home, or in the winter garden. And we call that the Fumarium.’

  The autumn air, rushing into the warm salon, smelled of bonfires. But here is the Count himself, dressed in a blue silk waistcoat, festooned with medals and ribbons, explaining that he is due to address a small political society, nothing subversive, you understand, just a group of like-minded chaps. And here is the waiter, wearing white gloves, armed with a pot of chocolate, extra cream, orange biscuits, tall delicate glasses in the Russian style, embedded in silver frames, standing perched on the threshold. No one heard him knocking. Max subsides into luxury, gazing at the smooth, translucent countenance, tiny earlobes and glossy pearl earrings of Sophie von Hahn. She is all movement and vivacity. She cannot sit still. She flickers past him, corn blonde and blue, like a ripe field. She flings herself into a chair so that the flower-filled vase on the rosewood table shivers and wobbles. Then she raises one boot towards her father for him to unbuckle and unlace, then the other. Max observes this cheerful domestic intimacy, and steals a glance at her white-stockinged toes. He is quite unprepared for the smooth curve of her instep, the gentle rise of her ankle, the intricate twitch of her calf muscles as she stretches and flexes her foot. All her youth and beauty, suggestive, glimmering, floods into the long stretch of her body, as she leans back in her chair and yawns. Max ostentatiously presses against the cold stone of the balcony and blows smoke into the crisped chestnut leaves of the nearest tree. He manages to mask his erection.

  In the hushed deep stillness of the Kursaal, sixty or seventy people gathered around the roulette tables, many standing in outer rows, peering forwards to watch the gambling. Some of the aficionados had been there, slouched on gilded chairs, since mid-afternoon. The reverent concentration of those seated at the tables remained fervent and undisturbed, the hush broken only by a light rattle, a faint chink, and the occasional monotonous murmur in French: Faîtes vos jeux, Rien ne va plus, as if an ingenious automaton had been constructed to officiate at the ritual. For gambling does indeed resemble the Holy Office, the repetition of a sacrament charged with the particular mood of the congregation, optimism and desperation, laced with curiosity or boredom. Some are there merely as observers, while others are engaged, with all their souls, in the deadly pleasures of the game. Max had played both parts in his time, a
t these very tables, and now he stood well back as if to avoid contamination, holding the Sibyl’s shawl, while she conversed in whispers with Lady Castletown. Here before them, lounged or poised, lay the great world of men, and women too, old and young, wealthy and skint, some leaned over the tables, ignoring one another, utterly lost in the deep, hypnotic trance of risk. These were the big players, staking all on the red or the black, barely aware of the impoverished dilettantes placing small bets with an absurd flourish. Rank, age and sex vanished in the long chequered space before the wheel. Were these lovely painted women, with their little jewelled reticules, ladies of pleasure or daughters of the rich? No one cared. Faîtes vos jeux, Rien ne va plus.

  Max watched the gamblers. He felt the adrenalin precision of that tingle in the thighs, chest and neck, as you begin to win, and the quiet sighs from the watchers, never from the table, as you begin to lose. The whole point of gambling is to lose. You always lose in the end. You go on till you lose.

  But someone at the far table was on a winning streak, and causing a small stir in the phalanx of onlookers. He could see only the back and shoulders of her blue jacket, and her hair pinned up into a jaunty matching cap with a darker velvet band around the rim. She wore walking clothes indoors, as if she had sauntered in from the Schlosspark, to pass the time between dinner and the dancing among the clique at the tables, her dark blue gloves luring the napoleons out from other fingers. Here they come, swooping towards her across the red and the black as if magnetised. She won, again and again.

  Was she beautiful, or not beautiful? Max could not see her face. He craned forwards. He glimpsed the blue cap, emerging and vanishing as the crowds closed round again to watch ‘la belle qui gagne’. The blue gloves, tapering to points, pushed the chips away across the board as if they were too filthy to touch. Back came her stake carrying the contents of the board in its wake. Max rose on tiptoe, his view of her magical fingers suddenly frustrated by two fat silken backs. The Sibyl, sensitive as a butterfly to every gust and shift in the air, immediately sensed his defection.

  ‘Who is it?’ She raised her giant head to look, but the far table, now surrounded like a fort under siege, hid all its secrets.

  ‘A young lady, playing recklessly, I believe. And winning.’

  The Sibyl followed his curious glance and they proceeded to the far side of the Kursaal to watch. Lady Castletown, waylaid by one of her many English acquaintances, paused in the gangway. They took up their positions by a sofa on the angle of the stairway, commanding an excellent view of both tables. Max settled the Sibyl first, bending to make her comfortable, then swung round to scrutinise the face beneath the blue hat. He recognised her at once, swallowed hard in disbelief, and glared across the little distance between them. For there, bent forward to deposit her stake, the blue glove firm on her little tower of chance, sat the Countess Sophie von Hahn.

  His first idea was to abandon the Sibyl, who was now also gazing, fascinated, at the gambling belle, and drag the feckless wench out of the Kursaal and back to her hotel by the hair. What did she think she was doing, flinging down her money like a drunken professional? And where was Fräulein Garstein, the chaperone, who was supposed to accompany Sophie on a march round the park and a session with the dancing master, while the Count talked politics? But even as they watched, Sophie won again, her pointed avaricious fingers raking the pile of chips across the green baize towards her. Faîtes vos jeux. She divided the jetons, canny as a Frankfurt banker, hesitated, then shovelled the lion’s share on to the black. A soft gasp ruffled the hush. She had doubled her stake. Her eyes devoured the spinning glint of the wheel.

  Roulette is a game of pure chance, if the house has not bugged the machinery. Win or lose appears as random as the accidents of birth: one child has shining eyes and long lashes, the other a hare lip. Ah, Sophie, you see nothing else, with your hot glance, bent head and that defiant set of your shoulders, braced for whatever comes. The girl’s whole body rocked, clamped to the board and the wheel. The other hands that placed their stakes did not exist for her. She saw nothing, only the wheel’s turret and the spinning rim. She won again. A small whispered tinkle of pleasure and astonishment accompanied the rustle of shifting ivory stakes nuzzling the actual cash on the green baize. Max tensed; the crowd solidified around her. He eyed his prey, a cheetah preparing for the leap.

  The Sibyl laid her hand gently upon his sleeve. He saw the ivory lace mitten clamped on to his dark coat and recoiled, the moment lost.

  ‘I take it that this young lady is an acquaintance?’

  Max remembered where he was, bowed politely, and bent his head to hers. No one would have overheard their exchange.

  ‘I am afraid she is indeed. That, Madame, is the eldest daughter of the Count August von Hahn. But I am at a loss to explain her presence here in the Kursaal, without her father or her usual chaperone.’

  The Sibyl’s ironic smile of recognition bought him a moment to stifle his fury, now directed primarily against Fräulein Garstein, who had mysteriously allowed Sophie to slip the leash.

  ‘This is quite unaccountable. What can –’

  ‘Do sit down for a moment,’ suggested the Sibyl.

  Max obeyed.

  ‘Do you know why she is gambling with such passionate abandon? She lives mostly in the country, I believe, and can hardly have done this before? Although Fortune, at present, clearly loves her dearly. Do you have any idea why she is here?’

  ‘I do.’

  Suddenly Max gave in to that universal impulse to confide all, seduced by the benignity of that great prophetic forehead, and the vast tenderness in the writer’s eyes. Max’s narrative, carefully absorbed by the Sibyl, revealed itself to be a masterpiece of omissions. Yes, he had played with the Countess when they were children. And of course, Wolfgang had always been a close friend to the Count. Max adopted a careful strategy, which would give the tale a sentimental spin, and would also explain his evident and possibly excessive feelings of indignation and concern. The Count himself was like a father to us when my own father died. And so I have always known the little Countess. (That makes me sound like the brother she never had.) I had no idea, until yesterday, that they were visiting Homburg. He decided not to mention the recent visit to the Jagdschloss, or the proposed engagement cooked up between Wolfgang and the Count. This morning, when I was walking in the early day (I had just spent the night with a prostitute), I saw her in an odd part of town. And here he disclosed everything he had witnessed concerning the necklace and the cautious Jew. Opals, rubies and diamonds flowed on to the Sibyl’s lap. Yes, Sophie von Hahn had laid down part of her inheritance upon the Jew’s velvet counter.

  ‘Ah, she must have visited Herr Wiener,’ nodded the Sibyl. ‘His shop is in the Judengasse. He is a friend of ours. I know him through other connections.’

  Max immediately regretted his incivility to the clearly alarmed pawnbroker, and gazed at the Sibyl, astonished. Surely she was omniscient, all-knowing and forgiving, given that her acquaintance stretched from chateaux to ghettos. What if the Jew revealed he had been rude? Max now overflowed with speculative drama concerning Sophie’s motives, to conceal his own embarrassment. Why did the Countess need to raise money in the first place? Was she in terrible trouble? The Sibyl presented only rational explanations.

  ‘Either she needs one thousand thaler to nourish her gaming streak, my dear Max, or she owes more than that sum and is busy winning it back before you at this very moment. But soon, she will begin to lose, and we must stop her before she does. We must also remove the need – or the debt – she is concealing from her father. The Graf von Hahn has championed my cause in his time. And that kindness I will now repay. Her relationship to you makes her all the more interesting to me. But one of us must save her from this evil vale of temptation. I will send to Herr Wiener for the necklace. He will accept a credit note from me.’

  Max stared, open-mouthed, at her decisiveness.

  ‘Go on. Be quick. Stop her. Her luck won’t la
st.’

  The Sibyl rose to greet Lady Castletown and retreated in the direction of the supper tables. Max thrust himself into the fray. Sophie, leaning forward, elbows on the table, had by now accumulated an Ali Baba’s cave of winnings, piled up before her. Max grasped her shoulder, none too gently, and hissed:

  ‘Countess von Hahn, I believe you should now rejoin your father.’

  Her eyes widened in shock as she recognised Max.

  ‘You! It’s not possible! Wolfgang told us he had banned you from the tables.’

  ‘I’m not playing, Sophie. You are. Just collect that pile of money and get up. Now.’

  Murmurs of disappointment surrounded them as he dragged the gambling belle away by the elbow. Belligerent with righteousness, Max stood fuming while Sophie translated her jetons into cash, then swept the girl out of the Kursaal and into the swift chill of early evening, regardless of numerous fascinated glances, and a trail of gossip, burgeoning behind them.

  ‘A striking girl – that Sophie von Hahn – unlike others.’

  ‘I hear that the Count is negotiating her price with the publishers. That was Max Duncker I saw, dragging her away from her pleasures. Is the marriage arranged between her and the younger or the elder brother?’

  ‘Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind of girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty?’

  ‘Very. A man might risk hanging for her – I mean, a fool might.’

  ‘You like a nez retroussé then, serpent-green eyes and that wonderful boyish stride? She really does not present herself like a lady.’

  ‘I saw her this afternoon in the water meadows, at full gallop, riding a bay horse. Quite fearless, she was, all her veils flying!’