‘Dear friend, thank you, thank you,’ says Our Sage. But if Lui, with his friendly chatter, has proved useful in his warnings, dear old Melchior Grimm has been truly wise, as usual. These days, his successful matchmaking finished, his diplomatic reputation vastly increased, the robust satyr has changed a good deal: he’s grown rounder, fatter, more full of himself. And he’s in the most wonderful of wonderful spirits, as only a dwarfish clever German from Ratisbon who has developed all the arts of French wit and manners could possibly be. The fellow is no longer hungry, he’s content; been there, done that. He’s no longer a philosopher, he’s a universal presence; no longer out but in. What better, he says, than that the two of them have come to court together? For now the unpleasant pug-nosed boy with Saltikov’s ears and all those bitter memories of 1762 have been maritally disposed of, now there’s a good bed-match of Russia and Prussia, the Great Imperial Mother is free at last to do what she wants. And what she’s longing for is pleasure, wit, humour, thought, art, amusement, fashion, anything European; anything better than the daily round of loud boyars, boasting generals, pleading gentlefolk, prancing hussars, conspiring chamberlains, flattering ambassadors, adulterous maids-in-waiting, hirsute priests, fearsome black monks and ambitious nobles from remote provinces who’ve bent her ears these last ten years.
‘She dreams of what she always wanted,’ says Grimm. ‘A clever French philosopher who will refine her mind and enhance her reputation in the drab afternoons. Then a witty German courtier who can amuse her to distraction in the calm of the evenings.’
‘What? Oh you mean you, Melchior?’
‘Of course me,’ says Grimm. ‘You bore her with your wisdom and science after lunch. Then I’ll cheer her up over dinner.’
‘How will you do that?’
‘I sit by her side. I listen to her little rages. I encourage all her spite. Her little whipping boy, that’s what she calls me.’
‘Don’t let it go too far. Whips can hurt.’
‘She loves me,’ says Melchior. ‘You know I dine with her every single night at eight? She likes to have little suppers en cabinet. Wonderfully amusing. I wish you could be there.’
‘Why can’t I? Voltaire dined with Frederick every night.’
‘It’s far too intimate. A chosen band, never more than ten of us. Quite informal. We select our places at random, pop our names into someone’s hat. There are no servants. We have an arrangement of pulleys and ropes, we pull up the dishes from the kitchen with our own fair and noble hands.’
‘I prefer servants.’
‘Not when they report everything to the head of the Secret Office,’ says Melchior.
‘The Secret Office?’ asks our man, staring at him in dismay.
‘Of course. It’s the same in all imperial courts. Our Empress learned all her lessons from Paris, you know. The Russian spying service is modelled on Sartine’s. Everything gets reported, every spoken word, every writing, every sexual probe, down to the doings of the monarch herself. Luckily the chief of the secret policemen is getting a deaf old man. But all the rest can hear everything, of course. And do.’
‘All servants are unreliable, you mean?’
‘Naturally. Everyone is a spy in someone or other’s employ. By definition. A court’s a conspiracy, why else would you attend it? One minute you’re basking in royal favour, the next you’re drowning in an underground dungeon of the Peter and Paul.’
‘But not you, I hope, old friend.’
‘Not me, no. I’m in very good favour. I did get that unspeakable son of hers off her hands. So that’s it, you see.’
Grimm sits back: squat, powerful, self-satisfied. He’s a wonderful fellow, our man recalls. For half a lifetime they’ve done marvellous things together. But can it be court life has gone to his head, and he’s getting too big and paranoid for those shiny Prussian boots?
‘You’re quite sure she really does want a philosopher?’ he asks anxiously.
‘No one more so. She dreams of being a great despot with a huge army, a splendid mind and a glorious soul.’
‘Like Frederick of Prussia.’
‘Except she’s much sweeter, and you don’t have to sit through endless cantatas. But I can assure you she’s nothing like the barbarous monarch they talk of in Paris. That’s Parisian envy and spite.’
‘I see she’s charmed you completely, Melchior.’
‘Not a bit. I flatter myself it’s the reverse. I believe she loves me. You and Voltaire were quite right when you chose to call her the Minerva of the North.’
‘Minerva is the owl of history that flies by night. You might be wise to fly by night too.’
‘It’s not my graceful body that concerns her, it’s my lively mind,’ says Grimm, tidying his splendid cuticles.
‘Your subtle German wit and so on?’
‘My wide political experience. My close relationship with everyone who matters in this world. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you—’ Grimm stops, looks round.
‘Since we met, all those years ago, haven’t we always told each other everything?’ asks Our Sage.
‘Very well then,’ says Grimm, trimming away at his tips, ‘she’s offered me a great position. Chancellor of the Court. Head of the river. Top row in the Table of Ranks.’
‘You accepted, of course?’
‘I refused, of course. Who’d elect to be a barbarous Russian when there’s the rest of European civilization to choose from?’
‘You just gave me the impression that being Russian was highly fashionable these days.’
‘I have quite enough to do already. Compiling our much-loved court newsletter. Introducing everyone here to everyone there. Looking after little Mozart. Visiting all my good crowned friends. In any case, I’m completely dependent on the wit and wisdom of Paris.’
‘It is where all the best gossip starts.’
‘The point is, I’m useful where I’m useful.’
‘True,’ says our man, ‘half the thrones of Europe would be vacant without you. Dynasties would fade. Little German princesses would die unmarried and untouched. Cradles would lie empty. Wars would start. The map of Europe would fold up, just like a broken tent.’
‘Exactly,’ says Grimm, nodding, ‘and the Imperial Mother understands all that. That’s why she’s done for me exactly what she did for you.’
‘Bought your library?’ asks our man, suddenly feeling a real twinge of fraternal jealousy, which only the quickest and most generous stab of reason manages to settle. ‘You only have three books.’
‘Given me a pension for the rest of my life,’ says Grimm. ‘Made me her permanent adviser, her lifetime correspondent and her roving ambassador.’
‘She’s making you me? She’s not asked you to buy paintings for her?’
‘My dear fellow, I can be just as useful as you are. I’m just as well informed. In fact better. I know what’s hanging in every throne room in Europe.’
‘Well, you do enter so many. But isn’t it hard to see the pictures when you’re always down on your knees?’
‘I don’t get down on my knees,’ says Grimm sharply. ‘She’s also asked me to buy her cosmetics.’
‘And who better? You do wear so many yourself.’
‘And advise her on the education of her grandchildren.’
‘I thought there were none.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, you’re going to have to attend to that too?’
‘Very probably, if Paul is like his father. If he can’t manage, there are plenty of shaftsmen waiting in the wings. Why do you think the court is full of handsome guardsmen?’
‘The place sounds like a stud farm.’
‘Just what it is. Anyway, my dear friend, there’s no need to be jealous of me. She cares for us equally. She’s proposed us both for the new Academy of Sciences. Attached us both to her Smolny School for Noble Girls.’
Our man sighs. ‘But is she ready for a course in the spirit of human reason and reform? A modernized vision of the
monarch and the state?’
‘No monarch more so,’ says Grimm sweetly. ‘Louis loves his bacchanals, Frederick loves his Bach, George of England loves his roses, her Serenity truly loves her thoughts. Nothing pleases her more than to spend half an hour in meditation. Nothing makes her happier than to hear the court reader recite twenty pages of Voltaire. Rousseau even.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘She loves everything of his except The Social Contract.’
‘I know the feeling.’
‘She shares it,’ says Grimm. ‘She’s just banned it from Russia.’
‘Ah, I see. Your wonderfully enlightened lady is a censor too.’
‘Not at all. She says she’ll admit Rousseau to Russia as soon as the time’s right.’
‘With Rousseau the time is never right.’
‘I tell you, she loves all the works of reason. She simply asks they don’t defy God, offend manners, or threaten her authority.’
‘Reason, but within reason.’
‘Quite,’ says Melchior, rising, embracing him like a brother, putting on his tricorne.
In the door he stops suddenly, as if struck by a forgotten thought.
‘Something else?’ asks our man.
Melchior comes back, stands close. ‘As an old friend, perhaps I should warn you. Your afternoons could be interrupted by just a few distractions. Her Serenity thinks she may possibly have to go off and conquer Turkey. Maybe Poland too.’
‘I see.’
‘And she’s having trouble with the impostors.’
‘The impostors?’
‘It happens every few months or so. You know how tangled great dynasties can be. Especially when they mate outside the bedclothes and engage in constant assassination. There’s always someone coming out of nowhere and claiming to be true heir to the Romanovs. They usually disappear as quickly as they come.’
‘I think I know how.’
‘This time it’s more serious,’ Grimm warns. ‘A man with a black beard has appeared among the Don Cossacks claiming he’s Peter the Third.’
‘I thought he died from the haemorrhoids?’
‘He did, in prison. But this man, his real name’s Pugachov, says he escaped and took a remarkable medicine which changed his height, weight and appearance. It made him forget his first language, German . . .’
‘What a medicine!’
‘Now he’s turned up somewhere near Orenburg, and the Cossacks have started a bloody rebellion to restore him to the throne.’
‘Might they succeed?’
‘Not a bit of it. It’s all being put down with great brutality. We’ll soon hear he’s been mutilated and hanged, and your Enlightenment is safe. I doubt if it will interfere with you at all. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. My dear friend, enjoy your philosophical afternoons.’
Worrying, really. And there’s more. No sooner has Melchior doffed and left him than there’s another dreadful fuss in the doorway. The French ambassador’s arrived, coughing, hawking, stifling a cold with a scented handkerchief, shouting at servants. His name’s Count Durand de Distroff, a foppish, ambling, rambling sort of fellow, just posted here from the grand court at Vienna, where all his sharp-edged manners were made.
‘Russia,’ he says, presenting his gilded card, sitting down, ‘it’s cold.’
‘Indeed, Your Excellency. How observant. And how kind of you to come to call.’
‘His most Christian Majesty at Versailles asked me to attend you. He wished me to say how pleased he is to hear you’re in Petersburg.’
‘His Majesty is gracious.’
‘Not exactly,’ says the ambassador. ‘He says the longer you stay the better. However, should you intend to return to Paris, there are a few small matters to which His Brilliance would have me bring to your attention. A few things he’d liked you to keep in mind as you debate metaphysics with the Imperial Mother.’
‘Such as?’
‘Who has this, who has that? Who has Poland, who has Turkey? You must know that the Empress, being born German, entertains a vulgar prejudice against the French.’
‘I hadn’t noticed. Every single person I’ve met at her court speaks the language. Half of them have just stepped right off the rue Royale. Nearly all our generals, our milliners and our chefs are here, cooking up a fortune. No wonder in France these days you can’t win a military victory or get decent boeuf bourguignon.’
‘It’s one thing to value the treasures of our advanced civilization, another to respect our political necessities. I’m not talking millinery, sir, I’m talking the lofty realms of diplomacy. Balances of power, the future of Europe, grand alliances, and so forth and so on. We wouldn’t want the Russians to turn into Prussians, would we? It’s the eternal danger here. You know her Majesty’s late husband was deluded into believing he was really a Prussian? He goose-stepped round the palace, he bought the guard new German uniforms and armaments. Consider, what’s the point of this new marriage? – negotiated by your friend the fat German, of course. To ally this court again with King Frederick of Prussia. Probably the most dangerous man in the whole of Europe.’
‘I’m no admirer of his flute-playing majesty. But I hardly think so.’
‘I assure you. Frederick once slept with the Empress’s mother.’
‘Surely not, Your Excellency? Now her father I can believe.’
‘I advise you, those two monarchs put together could outflank us completely. They’ll divide Poland, take all of Asia, master the entire Mediterranean. Think what that would do to your French culture and your fine gastronomy.’
‘I’m sorry, Your Excellency, I’m a thinker. I can hardly comprehend such vast affairs of state.’
‘Exactly, like all you modern sages. You gladly profess political ignorance, yet you always presume to advise monarchs on the perfect society whenever it suits you.’
‘I think, Your Excellency. That’s what I do, all I do. I don’t conspire.’
‘Thought is a conspiracy, the worst there is,’ says Durand. ‘But in any case you have ears, do you not? And I notice you have eyes.’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to spy?’
Durand taps his cane crossly: ‘According to my own understanding of rational philosophy, everything depends on accumulating the evidence of the five senses.’
‘In my philosophy I’ve always said we need more than the material evidence of the senses. We need an honest spirit and a good conscience, for one thing.’
Distroff coughs, holds up the handkerchief to his sniffing nose. ‘I won’t dispute with a philosopher about the proper means of grasping knowledge. All I ask is that you grasp some and take it back home with you to Paris. If it would help concentrate that tender mind of yours, I’ve drawn up a paper memorandum detailing His Majesty’s concerns.’
‘Give it to me, I’ll read it and say what I think.’
‘No, you will not. It’s from one emperor to another. What you are expected to do is, once you have won Her Imperial Highness’s total attention, slip it under her pillow.’
‘Her pillow? I’ve no intention of getting anywhere near her pillow.’
‘We know how much she admires you already. My dear fellow, remember you’re a Frenchman. You come from the land of Cyrano and Casanova.’
‘I understood Casanova was a Venetian.’
‘Yes, but he behaved like a Frenchman.’
‘So did Don Juan. And he turned out to be one more trickster from Seville. You’re not asking me to behave like those people? Jump into her bed and smother her nakedness with messages of state?’
‘Others have done it before for the honour of France,’ says Durand. ‘Remember the Chevalier d’Eon, who called himself Genevieve, and got himself appointed maid-in-waiting to the previous Empress?’
‘D’Eon’s a raddled transvestite. I met him chez Beaumarchais, all dressed up in his pretty skirts.’
‘Exactly, but he did his duty. Then when the right time came, he displayed his sweet little male secret i
n the Empress’s bedroom. She thanked him in her usual frank way, and the fellow fashioned a brand new rapprochement between Petersburg and Versailles.’
‘Extraordinary. But it can’t happen twice.’
‘It did. He went to London and did much the same with Queen Sophie-Charlotte.’
‘I see. So now you’re expecting a queer little Frenchman to become George the Fourth?’
‘I’m merely explaining your patriotic duty.’
‘I fear I can’t, Your Excellency,’ our man says. ‘All I live for is to be an honest man.’
‘Really? Very well, may I put it like this?’ says Durand, rising and calling for his hat. ‘You’ve already told me you intend to return to Paris. Well, His Majesty asks me to tell you he’s already pre-booked a small suite in the Bastille, just in case you come home empty-handed. Leave it, that’s all, and under her pillow, remember. What a vile country this is! I really can’t wait to get recalled.’
‘It could happen sooner than you think,’ says our man, rapidly consulting the great Book of Destiny above. The ambling, rambling fop sneezes again, puts on his tricorne, goes out. Clearly it’s no easy or delicate thing to be a travelling philosopher, even if this is an enlightened day and age . . .
And all that’s just his prologue, the prelude to the action. But now the time’s arriving for his play . . .
ELEVEN (NOW)
ODD. HOW VERY ODD. I’m waking again; it’s another autumnal morning. But this time the room I’m in is rocking heavily. Beyond its large portholed windows I see the fast-moving white-caps of a frantic, angry Baltic sea. Noise grates from everywhere: those ceaseless bangings, creakings, groanings and grindings that form the unique soundtrack of a big ship under way. The massive silk-sheeted bed I’m in is empty: empty, that is, except for my own soft naked self. Empty too the whole grand stateroom – which is surely not the cabin I was assigned to when I boarded the vessel yesterday. In truth I can’t imagine how I happen to be lying here; though a large silk nightdress and three large empty champagne bottles in a flooded ice-bucket offer a very faint clue.
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