Mellinck seemed keen on hearing more about his recipe, so Laurentius had to tell him at length about the results he had achieved with the bark.
“Let’s go and try it straight away,” Mellinck suggested.
They went downstairs to the ground floor and entered a small room next to the kitchen, where a little figure was lying on a low bedstead, covered in a thin blanket.
“Since her fever is so high we have to allow her to sweat out the cold vapours; they must not be trapped under thick blankets,” Mellinck explained. “The ventilation needs to be very good, but the room should not be too cold either. At the moment it’s rather difficult to achieve the right conditions. I have had damp cloths put onto her to try to draw out the cold vapours, but without much success so far.”
The maid carried in a pot full of hot water, and Mellinck sprinkled the powders into it. “I assume that it doesn’t need to be boiled?” he enquired, concerned to administer the medicine correctly.
“I have found that simmering it on a very low heat tends to give the best results,” Laurentius replied.
The girl took the pot back to the kitchen, accompanied by Mellinck, leaving Laurentius alone with the sick girl in the tiny room. He could hear her hurried, uneven breathing, and the whistle of air as it passed between her dry lips. He slowly approached the edge of the bed and reached out to feel the child’s forehead. It was very hot. The girl opened her eyes and looked straight at him in alarm.
Laurentius wanted to turn his gaze away, but the child gripped his hand and he found himself looking into those sunken grey eyes once again. She smiled feebly at him.
“I know,” said Laurentius softly. “Kuningas.”
He tried to pronounce the Estonian word clearly, so that it would sound the same as he remembered the girl and the pastor saying it. “I am not a king.” He shook his head. “Not any more.”
The girl was staring straight at Laurentius, and he noticed that her tired eyes were ringed with dark-purple shadows. There was a weary lifelessness in her gaze, just as he had seen with the old man. By now Laurentius had started to smell death again—his eyes were itching; it felt almost as if someone were pushing their thumbs down onto his eyelids. He crouched down to the ground, afraid that his eyeballs might drop out at any moment, feeling nauseous. At that moment he remembered that Pliny had written that it was impossible to take out a man’s eye without making him vomit. On this basis Pliny had concluded that sight and digestion were linked in some way.
SATURDAY EVENING
THROUGH THE BLUE-GREY CLOUDS and the damp haze of the atmosphere, the moon looked like the reflection of a lantern, floating on the surface of a muddy pond. Nudged along by the wind, white clumps formed from compressed droplets of water rolled across the poets’ celestial body, distending into fibrous strands, creating shadowy blotches and fantastical shapes. It was as if the god of the north winds were driving his subjects relentlessly onwards, demanding ever more from them. Their celestial dance grew wilder and wilder, and the shreds of cloud turned crazy somersaults as they raced across the pale patches of light. The ecstatic dance gradually took on clearer outlines, until suddenly the moon appeared in all its cool radiance. Light gleamed through the cobwebs of darkness, and behind the ragged talons of cloud danger loomed. Thin white strands spun around the heavenly body as it slowly rotated.
Laurentius had already sensed that the light in his room had changed before becoming consciously aware of it. The candle on the table in front of him was guttering in the whispering draught coming through the chink in the window. The sloped ceiling was reflecting the low flames from the smouldering hearth, the flickering red coal light creating incomprehensible contours across the wall. Alsted’s encyclopaedia was lying open in front of him. He had been turning the thick tome’s pages backwards and forwards for some time, but his gaze was fixed on some point on the other side of the wall, behind the flames, in the emptiness beyond, and he looked completely detached from reality, deranged even. He could feel a sharp scratching pain in his eyes, as if sand or earth had got under his eyelids and he couldn’t close them. Maybe it was because he had been reading for too long, striving in vain to comprehend the text before him. The candle had been flickering, distracting him.
He stood up, and started pacing angrily around the room.
At that moment he would have liked to consult the works of Robert Boyle, which Dimberg had recommended to him, but he would have to content himself with what he had. He was sure that someone must have already written about what he was experiencing. Instead of falling ill from his gaze, people had now started to become healthy again. Previously his gaze had been like the look of remorse which Orpheus had cast in Eurydice’s direction—loving, longing, but deadly. He had stood in the light, and everyone he had looked at had fled into the shadows.
“But what now?” he asked himself.
Now he was certain that the girl at Pastor Mellinck’s would recover. As he had looked into her tired eyes he had suddenly seen the same golden glow which had appeared in the old man’s eyes. The air had started shimmering; the walls had become translucent, and he felt as if he were flying high above. Maybe the girl’s fever had fallen by now and she was already sitting up in bed, asking after her mother. The maid would bring her something to eat and explain that her mother had suffered a misfortune. The girl would listen as she ate her soup, but the meaning of the words would not fully dawn on her. It might be many years before she would be told the true circumstances of her mother’s death. Taking everything into account, this was what was meant to happen. But why?
He glanced impatiently out of the window. Clodia. Clodia was the reason. His parakeet had been with him when he arrived in this country. He had been sick, and only her chirping and her warm temperament had kept his humours balanced. But then someone had fed her something, and she died.
Laurentius opened the window and looked out at the moon.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled,” he whispered.
In the dusky light outside he could see a thin drizzle of rain, falling with a gentle murmur. It looked almost like a white mist which was making everything damp and clammy as it descended. A hazy glow came from it as it spread, flowing like a liquid, lapping up against tree branches, sloshing about in the yard and trickling from the roofs of the houses, washing things which had been long concealed out into the open, just as Roger Bacon had described.
“It is not yet time,” he said to himself.
What hour had it usually been when he met Clodia here? Had it happened at night? Laurentius looked at his watch and saw that it was just past eight o’clock.
He leapt up with a determined look on his face and rushed out through the door and downstairs to the kitchen.
“Who is Clodia?” he demanded of Madlin, who was standing there.
She looked straight at him with a thoughtful expression, but she said nothing.
“Who is Clodia?” Laurentius repeated the question.
“Easy now,” she said, trying to calm him down.
“Who?” Laurentius asked. He felt his eyes itching.
Madlin came up to Laurentius, put her arms around him, and broke into tears. Laurentius wanted to leap away, but he managed to stop himself in mid-movement and put his arms around Madlin. He patted her gently on the back, unable to think of anything sensible to say.
“Don’t cry,” was all he could eventually manage.
Madlin felt sturdy but soft and warm in his arms. He could feel her full bosom pressed against his body, and the rhythm of her breathing, in and out in time with the sound of her sobbing. There were kitchen smells coming from her clothes. But she still did not quite reach him; it was as if he were hovering somewhere overhead, watching the two of them standing together. As if he were standing atop a church tower, recklessly craning out of the open hatch of the bell chamber, the wind whistling in his ears, looking down at the tiny people below, their bare heads, their caps and their hats. Just as Descar
tes had looked out of the window and seen the overcoat and hat. Laurentius stood there, leaning forward awkwardly so that he could hold Madlin as she sobbed fitfully. Behind them was the stove with a flame burning on it, and the knives and forks laid out on the table.
Laurentius started feeling uneasy.
“Very well, I won’t ask any more questions. There, there,” he said, trying to comfort Madlin.
For some reason he could not understand he felt tears welling up inside him. He took a clumsy step away from Madlin and glanced around the kitchen with a regretful expression. He felt full of sorrow and yearning. It seemed that he had to bid farewell to Madlin and that place.
“Goodbye, Madlin,” he said, turning away from her. He all but ran to get away, clattering noisily through the kitchen and out through the door. Madlin slowly pulled the door shut after him, wiping away her tears with the other hand, and Laurentius heard her draw the bolt shut from the other side.
He came to a halt and leant against the door frame, breathing heavily and looking out into the yard. The rain was still drizzling, the cold, thin vapour seeping downwards, illuminated by the cool moonlight. Since the very first day he had arrived in Estonia he had been swathed ever tighter and tighter in that damp breath, until one day he had stopped being aware of it altogether—it had become a part of him. His sickness had been steadily getting worse and worse, and he had been growing more and more afraid, right up until the moment in the auditorium when the old man had come back to life. Then he had felt well again. Healthy, but somehow removed, as if he were no longer inhabiting the same dimension as others. As if he had forgone some part of himself.
“Are you coming?” a voice asked.
Laurentius looked around but he could see no one.
“I’m coming,” he answered reflexively, as if repeating the question to himself.
Something soft and familiar brushed momentarily, barely perceptibly against his face, and then Clodia appeared, running up the steps. Laurentius saw her dark, flowing hair and started to follow the glow which was emanating from it. The stair rail felt cold and wet from the autumn night.
“Wait,” he called out after her.
The girl laughed and ran ahead.
When he got upstairs to his room the table was laid with bread, a wooden tray full of cheese, and a glittering glass full of clear white wine. Clodia was sitting there next to the table.
“There, help yourself,” she said.
As Laurentius approached the table he realized how hungry he was. He broke off a piece of bread and poured himself a glass of wine. He dared not ask any questions or say anything at all. The whole situation seemed too fragile, too improbable, and his eyes were still hurting.
“Clodia,” he started in a faltering voice.
She came and stood before him, looking straight at him. Her eyes were like liquid gold, like dark honey, and her breathing sounded like a gentle humming.
NIGHT
I CAN HEAR BIRDS SINGING, leaves rustling, someone’s footsteps, and the barely audible sound of a musical instrument being played somewhere in the distance. I push myself upright, resting my hands on the marble which has been warmed in the sunlight, and I turn to look in the direction of the sea.
Where am I?
The clay-brown water seems to become blue on the horizon, and growing out of the dark haze I can see a shimmering shore and the contours of mountains, tinged red in the sunlight. I can smell the sweet scent of bright roses, mixed with the powerful woody aroma of thyme, and I can hear bees humming. There are countless numbers of bees, all around.
I feel as if I have just woken from a dream, and I strive to hold on to that fragile feeling, and the fleeting fragments of memories. I take in the view of the sea, the trees, the garden. There is an apiarium down there, a row of beehives standing in a straight row alongside a low wall. The wall winds round the edge of a small plateau, and appears to have been built with almost no grouting. The house where I am has been standing here for a long time—someone came to this mountainside many years ago and built the first walls on the cliff edge; then they made a garden in the fertile earth which had been washed into the plateau. That was how it had to be. I turn around, and I can still hear the distant murmur of conversation coming from the other rooms of the house. As I move towards those voices I come to an atrium containing a pool, and I see a single slanting ray of sunlight shining into it. I notice a parakeet with brightly coloured feathers sitting on top of a tree which is growing in a large ceramic pot. The bird is whistling gently to itself, nodding its head, hopping impatiently from foot to foot, demanding attention. I approach it and it jumps onto my outstretched finger. I instinctively rummage in my belt pocket, looking for some sunflower seeds. But there are none there.
“Where am I?” I ask the parakeet.
“Squawk!” the bird replies, and gives me a painful nip with its beak.
“I’m sorry, but it looks like I have nothing for you to eat,” I apologize to the bird.
“Squawk!” it says again. At that moment someone pokes their head round the door of the adjacent room.
“Did you mention food? Come through, we happen to have just started eating.”
I look in the direction of the person who addressed me, but they have already disappeared. I can hear the murmur of conversation coming through the doorway, and I assume that must be the way to a courtyard which serves as the dining area in the summer. I carefully lower my hand to let the parakeet jump back onto the branch and I walk down the colonnade which borders the courtyard. A little way off I can see people sitting at a table on long benches—not reclining on couches, Roman-style. I know these people; their faces are familiar. As they turn to look in my direction I see their dark complexions and golden eyes, and I hear the membranous wings on their backs rustle. It is a square table laden with loaves of bread, jugs of water, wine and fruit. And there are pomegranates, grapes and honeycomb.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Melancholy has come to be seen as the ailment of the seventeenth century, but the concept had existed in one form or another since at least the fourth, when Evagrius Ponticus first referred to it in his practical guidance for monks. There, he described the “noonday demon”, which caused weariness in the limbs and a troubled mood, or more simply languor and compulsive laziness. During the Antique period and the Middle Ages the condition was yet to have acquired any romanticized connotation, and was described simply as lethargy and sloth (one of the seven deadly sins). It most often affected those engaged in intellectual work, such as monks and philosophers. During the time of the Humanists (and especially in the works of Petrarch), the acedia of the Middle Ages came to be increasingly poeticized, and sloth was replaced with the term “spleen”, denoting ill humour. It was still seen in negative terms, but the emphasis shifted from lethargy and sloth to heavy-heartedness, despondence and apathy. It was in this form that the concept became widespread during the early modern period—poets and kings suffered from it, and artists depicted it (Albrecht Dürer, among others). The key work on the subject was The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (written under the pseudonym Democritus Junior). Over the course of nearly 500 pages it provided a thorough analysis of the phenomenon:
When I lie waking all alone,
Recounting what I have ill done,
My thoughts on me then tyrannize,
Fear and sorrow me surprise,
Whether I tarry still or go,
Methinks the time moves very slow.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so mad as melancholy.
The vice known by the term acedia, which had originated in the traditions of Latin-speaking monasticism, therefore acquired a medical diagnosis derived from ancient Greek—melancholy. The condition was similar to our modern-day understanding of depression, although the interpretation of it given in humoral medicine means that there are some important differences.
Humoral medicine was based on Antique conceptions of the world as being
formed from elements which were traditionally defined as fire, water, earth and air—although people tended to speak more of heat, coldness, dryness and moistness. These were the properties which gave a substance its essence, and a given material could be described in terms of the specific balance between them. According to Galen, a medical philosopher who was active in the second century and subsequently became very influential, the equivalents of these elements could be found in the human body and were known as the four humours: yellow bile, phlegm, black bile and blood. A person’s health, or the type of ailment which afflicted him, would depend on the balance of his humours. Just as it became conceivable to manipulate these four elements within a given substance in order to change it (transmutation), so the purpose of medicine was to manipulate the balance within the human body. If the purpose of alchemy was to achieve the perfect balance, and thereby to produce the perfect metal—gold—then the aim of medical science was to achieve a balance of the humours, in the form of good health. Due to this common theoretical basis, medicine and alchemy remained very closely related for centuries, and the majority of physicians were to some degree also alchemists.
The first stage of the alchemical process was known as nigredo or decomposition, which broke down the bonds within a given substance. The symbolic representations of this process were destruction, death, decay and disease. All of these were antithetical to life, but they were necessary in order to rebuild the substance in a new, improved form. The final stage of this process of reconstruction was rubedo, which was represented by gold, honey, the sun, (eternal) life and good health, among other things. Gold therefore became a symbol of perfection and good health due to what it represented in alchemy, not purely because of its material value.
Although there were many changes in scientific thinking in the early modern period, alchemy did not fade away; in fact it gained new adherents among the most progressive scientists (including, for example, Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle). Although they declared the theory of the four elements to be false, other theories came to replace it (such as Robert Boyle’s corpuscular theory), some of which offered even greater scope for conjecture of various kinds. In medicine, humoral theory survived for many years, and in the seventeenth century it gained renewed importance as a means of explaining witchery.
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