To the Hermitage

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘A court thrives on every single small indiscretion, didn’t you know?’

  ‘That’s why I’m a philosopher, not a courtier. I talk reason, not politics or flattery. Don’t they understand?’

  ‘They understand you’re in a position of influence. Shall we consider your situation? Who’s for you, who’s against you?’

  ‘Very well, go ahead.’

  Grimm takes out his notebook. ‘First, those against you. Number one, Grigor Orlov.’

  ‘The discarded lover. He’s jealous, and what do you expect? The hours I see her used to be his.’

  ‘Remember, no one can be more influential than a rejected lover. She can’t afford to offend him, he knows far too much. And now he’s saying you employ those special hours for the most corrupt of purposes.’

  ‘Not true,’ says our man. ‘I no longer risk it at my age. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m no longer that old buzzing, sniffing, supping high-flying insect, Grimmie. These days I’m content to rest quiet on the surface of the earth.’

  ‘My poor fellow, I’d no idea.’

  ‘Now now, before you start with your gossip,’ our man says hastily, ‘though the will may be weaker these days, I can still raise the wizard’s wand quite as often as I wish.’

  Grimm looks at him sceptically. ‘Can you? Anyway, that’s not what Orlov means. He’s still sleeping with the éprouveuses, so he knows exactly how near you’re getting to the noble bed of her highness. The corruption he’s talking about is thought.’

  ‘Ah, he’s against it?’

  ‘Orlov’s a clever man, but he’s still a brute Russian. He thinks like a beast, by instinct. And he hates all western ideas.’

  ‘Does anyone listen to him?’

  ‘Yes. The Archduke Paul, for one.’

  ‘He doesn’t hate western ideas. He wants to be a Prussian goose-stepper like his father.’

  ‘It’s not ideas he hates, it’s you,’ says Grimm. ‘I see him every day.’

  ‘Naturally, you found him the wife he lies with. Maybe he’ll never forgive you.’

  ‘He forgives me. I have his closest confidence. He trusts me because I’m German. He hates you because you’re French. Also you’re his mother’s friend, and he hates his mother more than anyone else in the world. He says you’re here as a mask to place over her despotism.’

  ‘Evidently a bitter youth.’

  ‘Indeed. Unfortunately Chancellor Panin agrees with him. The most powerful figure at court. He always agrees with Paul, he became his tutor when d’Alembert turned down the post. He declares you’re a shameless sponger. One of that kind always knows another.’

  ‘So that’s three then? Orlov, Paul, Panin? It’s not many.’

  ‘No, look at it. Three of the most influential people in the court.’ Grimm shows him the list, then gets up and cautiously drops it into the stove.

  Our man thinks. ‘But surely some of the courtiers are for me?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Grimm, ‘Prince Narishkin says you’re the wisest man he ever met. Unfortunately he’s also telling everyone you’ve converted him to atheism. Now he’s going round the court saying the cathedrals should be deconsecrated and the monasteries closed.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘You’re lucky everyone regards him as nothing better than a court fool. Everyone laughs at him. But that means they also laugh at you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with laughter? They say it’s life’s best medicine.’

  ‘Unfortunately, as with many of the best medicines, a lot of those who take them fail to survive.’

  ‘I presume Chancellor Betskoi is for me? He brought me here.’

  ‘He’s your warm supporter. A pity so many people think they know why. They claim for his own profit he sells off half the pictures you send from Paris.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. And Princess Dashkova likes me.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Grimm, ‘a shame no one in Sankt Peterburg can stand her French silks, her Irish fancies and her London airs. She’ll be sent to Siberia or exile in Moscow before much longer.’

  Our man looks at Grimm in dismay. ‘I begin to see court life really is very confusing.’

  ‘Precisely,’ says Grimm smoothly, ‘that’s why my job is never easy, however you choose to despise it. You always have to watch out behind you, or you lose your income, if not your head.’

  ‘Thank you, Grimm. You’ve really cheered me up. But it’s always best to know who one’s friends and enemies are.’

  ‘Quite. But do remember your greatest and most dangerous problems aren’t here in Petersburg at all. They’re in Potsdam.’

  ‘King Frederick. Don’t expect me to admire him. He’s the firebrand of Europe. All the philosophers hate him. He calls himself Philosopher King, when the truth is he’s a despot and a thug.’

  ‘The most powerful man in Europe,’ says Grimm. ‘You can’t afford to offend him. He expects every important figure of Europe to attend his court.’

  ‘And look at poor Bach. The Emperor soon stepped hard on his organ, didn’t he? Anyway, I’ve thoroughly offended him already.’

  ‘I advised you to stop over at Potsdam.’

  ‘You told me I’d make a complete fool of myself!’

  ‘Exactly, but better be a court fool than a court enemy. And now you see what’s happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You went to Dresden instead, after he’d only just finished shelling it. In his eyes nothing could be more insulting.’

  ‘Well, luckily his offence is a long way away.’

  ‘But getting nearer all the time,’ says Grimm. ‘You wrote Her Serene Highness a paper, did you not, “The Daydream of Denis the Philosopher”? Attacking him outrageously. It turned up in his hands within days, of course.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Half the courtiers here work for Frederick, when they aren’t working to enrich themselves.’

  Our man sighs. ‘But what on earth can he do to me?’

  ‘Oh, believe me, everything,’ says Grimm, rather unpleasantly. ‘First he’s been reviewing all your books in magazines right across Europe. Under a pseudonym, of course. He says your writings are corrupting, plagiarized, and totally unreadable.’

  ‘I see logic is not his strong point. How can they possibly be corrupting, if they’re also unreadable? And how can I be blamed for what they say, if I’ve plagiarized them?’

  ‘The point, my friend, is that because he sees himself as a philosopher this is the most vindictive monarch in all Europe. Now he’s intending to send emissaries to Her Highness to expose you.’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘A false philosophe. A charlatan. An atheist who went around Leipzig trying to draw attention to himself by walking the streets in a red nightshirt.’

  ‘Nonsense, it’s yellow, I can show you. Except I’ve lost it.’

  ‘They’ve already warned the Empress you’re here as a French spy.’

  ‘The Empress knows that story already. Durand tried to make me deliver a royal message. She put it in the stove and is sending him home.’

  ‘Where he’ll return to Versailles and tell His Christian Majesty you’re a black traitor, only deserving of the gallows. I hardly think your tactics were brilliant.’

  Nervous now, our man thinks. ‘Oh Grimm, Grimm, what on earth should I do?’

  ‘First, you agree to call in at Potsdam on your return journey. It’s right there on the way home.’

  ‘What? As far as Frederick is concerned, I’m a plagiarist, a charlatan, a nightshirt wearer and a spy.’

  ‘Yes, well, I am a good friend of his.’

  ‘I know, you’re a good friend of everyone. Everyone who just happens to sit on a throne. You have no standards, no honour, no taste . . .’

  ‘Now now, my friend, let’s not quarrel. I use my talents, I don’t abuse them. I attend and advise. I inform and I please. I’m a mixer and a fixer. I’m an intermediary, and to tell the truth I’m quite indispensable.’

  ‘A spide
r who sits grinning in the middle of a great web.’

  ‘Europe wouldn’t begin to work without me.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t work with you.’

  ‘There would be no treaties, no children in the court cradles, no heirs to thrones. It would be a place of sterile dynasties, brutal tyrants and vacant palaces.’

  ‘It is already.’

  ‘Without me it would be a good deal worse,’ says Grimm, rising to repowder his face in the mirror.

  ‘There would be no music, no court theatre. No Gluck. No Mozart. No Diderot at the Russian court, with a nice little pension for eternity, and his posthumous reputation taken care of. Think of that. Well, now I must go.’

  ‘No, no, Grimm, wait, my dear dear friend,’ says our man, hurrying after him into the lobby. ‘I can’t bear to quarrel with you. I’m just anxious, that’s all. I can see now I may be garrotted in Petersburg, shot in Potsdam, hanged at the Bastille.’

  ‘As Voltaire says, that’s what happens to the man of reason.’

  ‘And I do understand now I’m not a courtier, not even a court jester. My face is just much too near my heart . . .’

  ‘Never mind,’ says Grimm generously, ‘for a dozen afternoons you’ve kept the Empress happy, and no doubt drawn her attention away from repressing her people. What could be more useful?’

  ‘That’s something then. But, my dear fellow, tell me, what shall I do?’

  ‘Why not let me write a little letter to Frederick, telling him you’ll stop at Potsdam on the way home.’

  ‘I refuse to stop at Potsdam on the way home. I despise Frederick and he detests me.’

  ‘Then I warn you, he’ll make your life a total misery.’

  ‘Too late. Really. Life has done it already.’

  ‘You’re not in total misery, Diderot. Your fame is assured.’

  Our Man stares at him, pained to the heart. ‘Look at me. Stuck in Petersburg. Stricken with the everlasting shits from the Neva. I’ve offended my king. I’m cut off from my wife and even worse from my mistress. I’m surrounded with enemies. I’m struck down with the Swiss disease.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Eternal homesickness, Grimm. I’m longing for the high mountain peaks of my life.’

  ‘It’s nothing. Every honest man is homesick. Everyone’s in exile. Voltaire’s in Switzerland, homesick for Paris. Rousseau’s in Paris, homesick for Switzerland. People like us don’t have homes. We’re wanderers and vagabonds. All of which reminds me, there’s something you can do for me.’

  ‘Of course, you only have to ask,’ says our man.

  ‘Good then. Speaking of vagabonds, you remember the little music prodigy who came with his papa to Paris and stayed for a time in my house?’

  ‘Amadeus, little master tra-la-la? The mannekin pisse? I shall never forget how you took him to Versailles to meet La Pompadour. And then he sat up on his hind legs and proposed marriage to her, even though he was only, what, six years old?’

  ‘Well, now Her Imperial Majesty is after him. She desperately wants to bring him here to court.’

  ‘Why not, another dwarf for the collection? That boy will come if you ask him, surely? He owes everything to you.’

  ‘Of course he’ll come. Musicians are like travelling acrobats, or philosophers, they always come. And Mozart’s a jealous little fellow. He wants to drive out all the old kapellmeisters and become composer to every court in Europe.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem then.’

  ‘The problem is the Empress. Maybe you don’t know, but the lady’s tone-deaf. She can’t tell a harp from a harpsichord. Music is just a great braying noise to her. She always claims the only notes she can ever recognize are the sound of her dogs barking. Well, I tell you – she even loves Gluck.’

  ‘No matter. You’re allowed these quirks when you play the patron.’

  ‘You don’t know our little Master Upstart. One hint that his music hasn’t been understood and worshipped, and he’ll lose his tiny temper and sweep out of Russia in a mortal fury. And that will be two enemies made at one stroke. What do I do?’

  Suddenly our man is all delight. His eyes are glowing, his worries are gone. ‘As a good and clever courtier, you mean? An expert parasite?’

  ‘That’s right. What do you think?’

  ‘My dear fellow, of course,’ says our man, slapping Grimm’s thigh. ‘What you need is a nice little mystification.’

  ‘That’s it, exactly, a mystification.’

  ‘So, first you tell Her Serene Empress it’s poor Mozart who’s tone-deaf. Say the poor little kid can’t even hold a tune in a bucket. So how could you, an honest courtier valuing her fame as one of the age’s patrons, bring an off-key juvenile all the way from Salzburg to mock her perfect pitch?’

  ‘But she knows the Emperor Joseph admires him to heaven. And the Italian courts, and the King at Versailles.’

  ‘All of them tone deaf too.’

  ‘But if I say that, I offend Mozart. And that I definitely can’t afford.’

  ‘No, of course not. When you were in Paris you had his portrait painted, didn’t you? Now you’re selling copies of it everywhere, so of course he’s got to be a genius, or your royalties go down.’

  ‘He is a genius. What do I say to him?’

  ‘Tell him the truth, as far as you can. Say the Empress is crazy to have him here at court. Nothing in the world would make her happier than to have his little trickiness wandering round the Hermitage. Just one problem. The weather here’s so cold you can’t possibly play a piano or tune a clarinet. What’s the point of becoming court musician in a country where you can never play more than half a concerto?’

  Grimm laughs, reaches out, embraces him. The cosmetic dust from his cheeks falls over the dark philosophical suit.

  ‘I tell the Empress Mozart is tone-deaf!’ he cries.

  ‘Now I know exactly why I like you, Denis. Now I know why you really are my very best friend.’

  ‘Not counting all your other very best friends? I only wish I could sit on a splendid throne for you, and you could kiss—’

  ‘But you do, my friend, you do. The high throne of reason.’

  So they go to the door together, they embrace again, fond brothers that once more they are.

  ‘There’s just one thing, my dear Denis,’ Grimm says fondly, as he pulls his cloak around him and steps into Senate Square. ‘That drab black suit you wear. I know it’s a thinkers’ suit, but I’d drop it. Try blue or red. Get something with a little gold frogging, like this.’

  ‘Frippery, self-disguise, textile fantasy, body-promo,’ says our man. ‘It’s the philosophy of the whorehouse. It’s not how we look outside, it’s the state of our souls within that really matters.’

  ‘Not a bit. That’s the problem with mind, it’s all on the inside. Believe me, dress is all. You can tell that by the frowns. And you’re top favourite of the court now, you can easily afford it. All the best shopkeepers will be delighted to make you over for the prestige. But remember. Top people like top clothes.’

  ‘Ridiculous. Really? Not really?’

  Well, what else could you expect from dear old, loyal old, vulgar old friend Grimm?

  TWENTY-THREE (NOW)

  JUST A LITTLE MORE THAN 200 years before the day I first arrived in Saint Petersburg (for remember, for all my good intentions I never did make it to Leningrad), a rather striking sailing vessel tacked up the Neva River and anchored in the harbour, which in those days – the time in fact was the high summer of 1777 – lay directly opposite the Hermitage. It was a splendid yacht, whose owner and crew proved to be British. Indeed the figure on the poop turned out to be a famous, if not scandalous, English traveller. Her name was Elizabeth Chudleigh, though she generally called herself either the Countess of Bristol or the Duchess of Kingston. And why not? She had married both of these gentlemen, though it seems without properly advising the one about the other. Her too rapid journey from Bristol to Kingston had brought her into tr
ouble with the British courts and the British press, and she’d won a remarkable reputation back home for bigamy, imposture and false inheritance. Like many of her sort – and at that time there was somehow quite a lot of her sort – she now preferred to live on the continent, first of all in Paris, where she settled for a while, and then across the breadth of Europe.

  Fatally attractive, she would never be short of reputation or company. And, since the possessions, trophies, even the platoon of servants that served her were not quite legally hers, she found it wise to carry most of her boodle with her. This is why she had commissioned a fine yacht to carry her wherever she went; now it had docked in Petersburg. The more distinguished locals soon discovered that the boat was a mobile Aladdin’s cave: a floating museum of excellent possessions, a seagoing cabinet of curiosities, of whom La Chudleigh herself was hardly the least. Here, on the Neva, in full sight of the Hermitage, she entertained: quite sumptuously, according to some; quite disgustingly, according to others. Soon she was one of the spectacles of Petersburg, and had attracted the attention of the great Empress herself. This was an age of English tastes, in everything from dress to gardens. La Chudleigh sent home for more possessions, more servants, more docile English gardeners to fill the city with roses and herbs.

  Before long she was a striking figure at court, the theatre, the opera: an aristocrat, a grand courtesan, a maker of fashion. The Tzarina much enjoyed her bravado, until it became just a little bit too interesting to her own Grigor Potemkin, after which she grew a little bored. But not, though, before – when a Baltic storm blew up and damaged the yacht out in the river – she granted the Duchess of Kingston, or Countess of Bristol, permission to build herself a glorious house in the English taste on the shore overlooking the Neva. It rose up, a little bit of Britain, with English gardeners and English servants. But it was a little bit of Russia too, for a large vodka distillery was set up in the grounds, doing much for her general popularity.

  But of all the tastes, the fashions, the trophies that Elizabeth Chudleigh brought over with her to Petersburg, quite the most splendid item was a quite amazing silver clock. She had some time back commissioned it, in London, from James Cox, the finest of the British jeweller-watchmakers. In an age of intricate and wonderful clocks, when time-pieces were toys and fables of the meaning of the universe, this one was thought by many the finest in the world. For ease of transportation it had been dismantled, and it arrived in Petersburg flat-packed and without instructions. So when the moment came for the clock to be properly put together again, it took a Petersburg craftsman two years to link all its amazing intricacies together.