People of the Book

by David Stacton

  In the winter there is ice. As we get older we long for the north. The ache to get back to it is like a hunger.

  “And there aren’t all these people,” he said.

  “What people?”

  “People out there.”

  He made it vivid. As a child sometimes she had stood above the banks of the Lech, and wondered where the water came from and where it went, with peace and satisfaction, content to be where she was.

  “I have to go back,” he said. “I have to.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “There’s nothing left of us there. I couldn’t take her.”

  “A big boy like you should do what he wants,” said Frau Stolz. “Send for her later. I’ve no children of my own any more; they’re all grown up and moved away. I could use something to mother. And she can’t be with you all the time.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’ve managed him for three years, I can manage him for twenty,” said Frau Stolz, in no way disloyal but, as usual, frank.

  Lars would have to think it over.

  “I’ve never seen the sea,” said Frau Stolz briskly. “And I’ve never wanted to. But I suppose if you’re used to it, you need it.”

  A little happiness and he’d whirl me around the room, she was thinking. It was what her brothers had done, frequently. They had been exuberant men. She caught a glimpse of the same health here, twice over.

  52

  So had Stöss, and that was what he did not like. Stöss disappro-bated vigor.

  Coming down the corridor, munching a hazelnut cookie greasy from the oven and intending to take Hannale the two more he had snitched, Lars heard the preliminary wheeze of the organ, and since the door to the church was open, went on in, without thinking of anything in particular. Frau Stolz had made him feel better.

  The organist was rehearsing. So was Stöss, whose voice was stentorous for a thin man, but not stentorous enough to overwhelm an organ. So he was up in the loft demanding a lautenregal. The stop pattered with the sound of snapping stalks of crisp celery. But so soon as Stöss had descended, the organist, whose practice hour this was, changed his registration, and mercilessly began to preludize on chorales until the building shook. Climbing the pulpit, Stöss began to make acoustic adjustments of his own. He was inordinately vain of his oratorical skills, and would have been furious to be caught practicing what was to be heard as emotion springing spontaneous from an overwelling heart.

  Lars, not knowing Stöss was there, and wandering about, for he had not been in here before, did not realize how heavy-footed he was on the stone flags. Every time he went over the stone of a hollow vault, the sound clanged to the groin of the roof and then came reverberating down.

  “Who’s there?” demanded Stöss, who did not like footsteps behind him. But at that moment the organist reached a sustained chord in organo pleno. Footsteps and voice were overwhelmed. Next came a passage like small furry animals scurrying through tumbled leaves, as the organist drew the coupler from the Rückspositif, and that kind of silver skirling that makes your hair stand on end, a sound so pure, you could hear the silver in the pipes, rising against the click and slam and wheeze of the bellows into that kind of celestial silence which sounds always as though it had just been struck and was still quavering. The clouds rolled back. On what other instrument can one perform an assumption? The others soar at best, and then sink back.

  Two or three stops slammed into place during the rest, and then, Jubilate, it was to the text, “and a darkness covered the waters,” so ponderously joyous it was as though St. Anne’s itself were in procession moving. For once the building was full and alive and so fulfilled its purpose.

  Stöss found it most annoying. But once the organist was at this sort of thing there was no way to stop him. One had to wait. It was im-pos-si-ble.

  Standing there munching his cookies, Lars saw to his left two wide bays, curtained off to the height of fifteen feet with heavy dark green cloth hanging from brass rods. He lifted a corner of the curtain, saw there was a chapel inside, slipped in, saw something he took to be alive, looked up at the face, and was so shocked he backed right out again.

  This brought him into Stöss’s field of vision. Stöss was practicing hand gestures. He had bony white hands which glistened in the gloom. At the moment he was spreading them in a beseeching gesture, altering slightly the angle of the palms. He saw Lars and dropped his hands.

  “You are not to go in there,” he said. “Get out of there at once.”

  There was a lull from the organ loft. Lars walked toward Stöss, forgetting to go on tiptoe, which made a racket.

  Stöss had heard an unfavorable comment among his ladies. Women are constitutionally opposed to the apparition of the male, which suggests the awful imminence of change, and change has nothing to do with rearranging the furniture during spring cleaning. It is more drastic. “Your country cousin should learn he lives in town,” they said. “Those greasy clothes,” and reached for the conserve jar with roly-poly fingers, in order to grow the fatter, having offered it first to the dear Pastor. He had heard no comment from their husbands, for men jarred him.

  “Have you no other clothes? You look like a stableboy,” snapped Stöss, furious to have been caught out practicing his sincerity.

  Lars blinked and glanced toward the curtain.

  “They are not a stableboy’s clothes.”

  “Well, some country person,” said Stöss, who as a boy had worn nothing but horsehide lederhosen and a full flaxen shirt, and had been glad to have those, for buckskin his family could not afford. He liked no country thing. “You are in a town now. More than that, you have been taken in here. You must learn to behave properly.”

  “I could take myself out again,” said Lars, looked dark, and left him there.

  Stöss was so angry that at the noon meal he ate only three-fourths of his stewed greengage tart, a large one. It was in-sub-or-din-a-tion. It was im-pos-si-ble. He could neither get rid of them, nor did he want to let them go. As usual, confronted with any moral problem, he panicked, locked himself up in his study, and had indigestion.

  Frau Stolz knew the symptoms. He was in there struggling powerfully to subdue his soul. From time to time there was an announcement. When he came out again, he never seemed much to be changed. He always struggled with his soul when he was vexed. Vast clouds of disapproval poured regularly down the hall. The walls grew red. Everybody went around whispering. But it did simplify the cooking, though he was ravenous by the time he came out.

  Something was wrong with the boy again, too, or so she sensed.

  II.ii.3: Notwithstanding the statements above made, it must be admitted that some things are impossible to be reduced to a state of property, of which the Sea affords us an instance both in its general extent, and in its principal branches … the same may be said of air as common property, except that no one can use or enjoy it, without at the same time using the ground over which it passes, or rests. So that the amusement of fowling cannot be followed except by permission, without trespassing upon the lands of some owner, over which the birds fly….

  Hannale was sleeping. Lars could not sleep. Getting up in his bare feet, and taking their candle, he made his way down the hall and opened the door to the church. Its flagstones were so cold as to send darts of pain up his ankles. And large old churches have things in them that slam down like lids and go crack in the night. He did not notice. He had had to come back.

  There was always more light in the church than in the Pastor’s house, for much of the glass was clear, and tonight there was a three-quarter moon the runny blue-white color of clobber. He lifted the green curtain and slipped into the chapel.

  It was a dower chapel, massively ornamented with sinuous white marble statues from Italy. They had been too valuable to destroy, and were too sensuous to look at. Hence the green drapes. Packing cases stood about on the black and white flooring. The chapel was used as a lumber room.

  Motionless, bu
t seemingly alive, early baroque enough not to complete their gestures, the wall held an allegory larger than life, with many figures, attendant female spirits, and, since in those days the male body could still be shown without a titter and an invisible suit of long woolen underwear, at least in Italy, wrestling demigods.

  Stöss came in sometimes on the sly to admire the enormous spreading buttocks of the women. Like many men all but impotent, he was unduly attracted to the female bottom, if big enough, and to the bottom of the female only.

  Otherwise it was a deserted shrine. Probably not the sculptor himself had known what it was meant to represent. Well paid and enthusiastic, when in doubt he had merely thrown another body in, and called it composition. The central figure was a St. Sebastian, as though that statue in the crypt which had so fascinated Mysendonck had been set upright and bound in place with rope as it voluptuously fell.

  Holding up his candle to the statue above him, Lars saw that, yes, it had Mysendonck’s lips and nose and high cheekbones. In the flame the full, disappointed lips seemed to move. It was Mysendonck: it was the spiritual athlete, beaten, and grateful to be beaten down at last, and strong in death. His arms were bound behind him. There was only the one arrow. But his two attendants, massy, gracious, and members of the same army, seemed about to strike God. The blow reverberated in the candlelight, as though to say, Let it be now, and hit back if you can.

  It was not despair. It had the immortal sadness in it of an honest truth. It was a triumph. We have the right and splendor to choose the moment of our death, and the manner of its coming, given we have the strength, given we are young.

  A death like that is a challenge. Let Stöss wrestle with his God, it was meaningless, he did so only for advantage. Whereas one wrestles truly only for the affection of being brought down fairly by the sheer might of the opponent. To strike God is the ultimate piety, a religious exercise.

  The candle flame flickered up toward that sleeping face, and Lars said quietly, “Yes, but how?” and could have groaned. We never lose anyone. If they were fond of us, they are always there, waiting. They do not die until we die. They point the way.

  Why had they come down from that clean air, into a world of such dishonest self-seeking terms, as Wicked, Evil, the Devil, Temptation, and Original Sin? Stöss made them orotund on Sundays, but there was no truth in them, they had nothing to do with living, they were a made-up thing.

  Men have no such names for their misfortunes or their pleasures at the time. The words come afterwards, or in the absence of life. My-sendonck’s death was neither a great crime nor a great evil. It was an inevitable event between the two of them. The Magician was not a wicked man, only a kind but lonely one who must have his own way, to his own defeat. If we give the beast a name, he comes when he hears it. But it is not the name that comes. It is the beast. A name costs nothing, means nothing, teaches nothing, and conceals the truth of things. Even truth conceals the truth of things. Mysendonck does not.

  Lars had his own opinion of Uncle Stöss, and nothing had occurred to make him change it. And for that matter, these people who speak of the Good, the Beautiful, the Worthy, as though they had just ordered half a dozen of each, are not the people who share with you—and seeing it, smile—the sheer excitement of a stalk of perfect grapes, and seeing you smile back, are as delighted to share that green elegance as you are. For those who speak often of Humanity love not one single individual human being.

  No, thought Lars. I did not kill him. I helped him die. And I am glad I helped him die. When the time comes he will help me. Of that I am certain. And so I shall not change.

  Standing stalwart before the Sebastian, he took a last look, shifting the flame to summon up the face, and then he snuffed the candle out, and walked back to bed through the deepening dark.

  At the Katzburg they had still been free, free every moment, until they left, constrained of their own will, by affection for one another, no matter why, no matter what the outcome. You cannot call to go well-armed, constraint. What matters the outcome, if the affection be there?

  Whereas here, it was not.

  53

  Grotius entered Paris attended by Maréchal d’Estrée and Count Brulon, and followed by the empty carriages of the Venetian, Mantuan, and Protestant German ministers. On the 6th of March he was presented at Court, at Senlis. The King was so gracious as to allow the guard to present arms.

  Petty troubles commenced at once. Grotius was a great man, but only in Latin. Speak to him in High Dutch, and he was a prickly personage; and the polite world has few if any manners. It is etiquette there, all the way, and no consideration whatsoever.

  The etiquette was finely shaved. Protocol proving insuperable, Grotius had his first financial chat not in a building, but out of doors in a garden, so no one need enter a room first. His diplomatic dispatch about the nature of the Dauphin (the future Louis XIV) was intercepted, and thereby created no very pleasing impression. “His frightful and precocious avidity is a bad omen for neighboring peoples: for he is at present on his ninth nurse, whom he is rending and murdering as he has the others,” wrote Grotius.

  On the 28th of March Richelieu sent for him. He would not send for him much longer. Since the Ambassadors from the Protestant countries felt it beneath their dignity to wait upon a Catholic Cardinal, which seemed to imply they acknowledged Papal authority, Grotius, accompanied by Lord Scudamore, broke off relations and refused to deal directly any further with a Popish Secretary of State. Then, too, there had been that fuss when the French had refused to receive the Swedish Ambassador, because he had been appointed by Oxenstieraa, who was not of royal blood. England then claimed she outranked Sweden in matters of precedence, having been converted to Christianity before her. Grotius pointed out that Sweden had been granted precedence over Britain at the Council of Basel, in 1431–1449. Christianity, however, was ruled to have had the prior claim, and Mme. Grotius stood godmother to Lord Scudamore’s child. The Swedish Council of Regency next demanded that Queen Christina, then twelve, should be referred to as “Most Serene and Most Powerful,” rather than merely as “Most Serene.” Representatives of the local Reformed Church countered by waiting upon Grotius to ask him to attend their communion, but only as a private person, since they could not receive him as Swedish Ambassador, the form of communion practiced in Sweden seeming to them ungodly. Grotius hired an Arminian and held services in his home.

  Ethics is to morals as strategy is to tactics. Grotius’ specialty was ethics. For close work, therefore, he was worthless. “If he has nothing to offer the ages but a pettifogging objection to a point of etiquette, I think he had best be still,” said Oxenstierna, and prepared to depart for Paris himself. Grotius went on polishing his Tragedy of the Flight into Egypt, responsible (but only to his conscience), rebarbitive, tanglefooted, peremptory, the glory of the age, refusing to accept gifts or bribes, and standing upon his dignity until his feet were sore. A mob, thinking he had come to rescue a prisoner about to be hanged, when he had done nothing of the sort, shot at him. When it was known who he was and that he had not come to rescue anyone, the shooting ceased. “If I had not some hope of contributing to the Great Peace, I should have retired before now,” he wrote his brother. His salary was in arrears. He did not understand the terms of this war. Yet he himself had written:

  II.xxii.17: It is necessary to observe that a war may be just in its origin, and yet the intentions of its authors may become unjust in the course of its prosecution. For some other motive, not unlawful in ITSELF, may actuate them more powerfully than the original right, for the attainment of which the war was begun…. A war may gradually change its nature and its object from the prosecution of a right to a desire of seconding or supporting the aggrandisement of some other power.

  As for the German princelings, Oxenstierna’s homines otiosi, “they wagge as the bush doth, resolving ever to quit their best friend in adversity.” Such is the way with homines otiosi.

  54

  “Ladybu
g, ladybug,

  Fly away home.

  Your house is on fire,

  And your children all roam,”

  said Hannale, and holding her finger out, blew on the chitinous brick-red creature. It was now mid-April of an early spring. The trees were in their touching condition of pale green bud and black bole. It is their first sign of life returning. A few were already softly full. The others were laggard, not having taken root to the right exposure. But the bushes were out, there were early flowers; the first bees were out, wet and bedraggled; the grasses were green; there were butterflies. The world was stirring. The ladybug rose reluctantly, caught its balance in the air, and lurched into a shrub.

  Though Blicksberg was a walled town turning its back on the countryside, a large place of thirty thousand or more, paved from gate to gate, between the walls and the banks of the Lech there was an open swatch of greenery, with paths. Lars brought her here once or twice a week now, not because he was afraid something might happen to her—she was safe here—but because it was pleasant for both of them to get out of that town and that house. It was pleasant to be in the sun and out of doors, even if you did have to go back in before the gates were shut.