Music & Silence

by Rose Tremain

  “What I think,” said the King of France, “is that the likeness is fair and correct in all but one thing.”

  “What thing?” said the boy.

  “Your picture does not purr!”

  The dinner guests laughed noisily at this jest.

  That night, intent upon the King of France’s observation and having no one with him, Prince Christian opened the door of his room and asked the trumpeter if he knew how one might make a picture that could utter sounds.

  “Are you dreaming, Your Highness?” asked the young man anxiously. “Shall I play a jig?”

  At the age of six Christian began to travel about the kingdom with the King and Queen.

  He spoke Danish now, but had not forgotten his German nor his French. His memory for everything on earth seemed prodigious.

  The travelling had two essential purposes: that the King might collect the tariffs and payments in kind from the fiefs and towns that resided on Crown lands, and that he might go freely about those towns, entering the places of commerce and manufacture to make sure that skills were being properly performed and goods made to a high standard. He told his son: “There is something we must eradicate from Denmark if we want to hold our heads high and trade with the world. And that is shoddiness.”

  The boy didn’t at first understand this word, but its meaning was explained to him thus by his mother: “If you discovered,” she said, “that the buckles of your shoes were of uneven size, when they were intended to be of the same size, you would conclude that the person who made them was guilty of lazy workmanship and this is what we call ‘shoddiness.’ You would be forgiven for tearing them off your shoes, or even throwing away the shoes altogether. We must have perfection here, you see. We must rival France and the Netherlands and England in all that we make and in all that we do. And when you are King you must take any shoddy thing to be an insult to our name and punish the persons guilty of its manufacture. Do you understand?”

  Christian said that he understood, and it was not long before he came to believe that his parents had explained this matter to him because he had his own important task to perform with regard to it.

  For whenever he now went into a workshop with his father, whether that of a glove maker, cobbler, brewer, engraver, carpenter or candle maker, he saw that he stood at precisely the right height to stick his head just above the work benches and so get a close and level view of the articles laid out for inspection—a view that was unique to him. Everyone else saw these things from above, but he beheld them face to face. He regarded them and they regarded him back. And his draughtsman’s eye was as sharp as a new-minted coin. It constantly aligned, matched and measured. It sought out the smallest errors: loose threads in a bale of silk; a smudged rim on an enamel goblet; uneven stud work on a leather trunk; the lid of a box that did not fit perfectly. And then, quite unperturbed by the dismay on the face of the craftsman or merchant, he would call over the King his father, draw his attention to the imperfection no one but he had spotted and whisper solemnly: “Shoddiness, Papa!”

  One day, in the town of Odense, the royal party visited a button maker. This button maker was an old man, known to the King since his boyhood, and he greeted the young Prince with an elaborate display of emotion and affection, and put immediately into his hands the gift of a sack of buttons. There were buttons made of silver and gold, of glass and pewter and bone and tortoiseshell. There were iron buttons and buttons of brass, copper, leather, ivory and pearl. And Christian was entranced by this gift of the button bag. To plunge his hand into it and feel the great quantity of buttons slip and tumble through his fingers created in him a shivery feeling of unalloyed delight.

  When he returned that night to his lodgings in Odense, and he had eaten his dinner and was alone in his room, he placed a lamp on the floor and tipped out the whole contents of the button bag into the area of light. The buttons glimmered and shone. He crouched down and moved them slowly around with the tips of his fingers. Then he knelt very near them and put his face into them, feeling their cold, smooth surfaces against his cheek. He liked them more than any present he had ever been given.

  It was only the following morning that he remembered the King’s sacred command concerning shoddiness. In the cold white light of an October dawn in Odense, Christian spread the buttons in a wide arc over the floor, patiently turned each one of them face-side up and began to examine them.

  He was shocked. For every perfect button—smooth-edged, evenly polished, showing no crack or chip, with its eye-holes symmetrically positioned—there were four or five or even six buttons which exhibited evident and undeniable defects. He felt sorrowful. The buttons seemed to look beseechingly at him, to beg him to overlook their individual imperfections. But he ignored their sentimental entreaty. He had been told that the future of Denmark lay in the eradication of shoddy work and he had promised his father to help root it out wherever and whenever it was discovered. He had discovered it here, and now he would act accordingly.

  He made a pile of all the defective buttons, called for a servant and asked him to take them away. At some future time he would report to the King that the work of the old button maker was extremely poor and suggest that the man be deprived of his livelihood.

  Back at Rosenborg a few days later, Prince Christian took out the button sack (which now contained only perfect buttons) from his trunk and plunged his hand into it. Because there were so few buttons left, the feeling of pleasure he’d got from this when he had first done it was entirely absent. From being the most marvellous gift he had ever owned, it had now become a thing of no consequence whatsoever and he soon laid it aside.

  Yet he found himself very frequently thinking about it. It confused him. He couldn’t find the key to it. He knew that what he had been given was nothing but a bag of imperfect objects and yet it had dazzled and excited him. He had loved it. This meant that what he had loved was flawed, a disgrace to Denmark. He knew that all this had to have an explanation, but he just could not perceive what it might possibly be.

  One Birthday Gift I have not mentioned, because it has not yet arrived, is the one offered to me by my mother, Ellen Marsvin: she is giving me a Woman.

  They like to be known as “Gentlewomen” or “Ladies-inWaiting,” but I do not see why any such Titles should be given to people who are in every way inferior to me and no better than Servants. So I refer to them merely as my Women. They have names, of course: Johanna, Vibeke, Anna, Frederika and Hansi. But I cannot always get these names into my head when I need them and so I say: “Woman, take this away,” or “Woman, close the door,” or another of the thousand and one commands I have to give them every day, many of which would be superfluous if they spent less time dreaming up wonderful honorary Appellations for themselves and more of it concentrating on the Tasks in hand.

  Not long ago I decided to reclassify my Women’s duties into new Categories. And I do believe that my Rearrangement is inspired. Each of them must now take responsibility for different parts of me, such as my hands, legs, head, stomach and so forth. Thus, to attire myself correctly, I need them all, which fact adroitly prevents them from being absent from my service on any day whatsoever. And this Constraint upon them gives me much satisfaction and secret mirth. My life is hedged about with Curtailments and the performance of certain Rites most odious to me, and I do not see why the lives of mere Women should be free of these things when mine is not.

  When I mentioned my Reclassification of Duties to my Mother she, while finding it ingenious, did ask me whether I did not have more parts to me than there are Women. I answered that my Subdivisions had proceeded logically and that Johanna was now entitled Woman of the Head, Vibeke Woman of the Torso, Anna Woman of the Hands, Frederika Woman of the Skirt and Hansi Woman of the Feet. (These titles have the resonance of Guild Affiliations, and so I said to my Women: “There you are. You who are so attached to Nomenclature, take these designations and be happy with them.”)

  My Mother says: “But that is
not all you are, Kirsten—legs and hands and so forth.” By which of course she means that all mortals are Wondrous Creatures of curious complexity and that certain Needs and Feelings in us cannot be located precisely or entirely within the Categories I had listed, but may nevertheless need catering to by one of the Women from time to time. And so it comes into my Mother’s mind to pay for me to have this Floating Woman, who may have no Guild Name, and is not assigned to any particular Part of me, but who will nevertheless be ready to serve me in any capacity at all times, day and night.

  I think it is a Good Idea. And I heard today that such a woman has been found and will come to me from Jutland next week. Her name is Emilia.

  In the winter, which is now, everything is pestilentially desolate here and the boredom I feel on certain days puts me into such a fury against the World that I long to be a Man and a Soldier like my lover, so that I could attack somebody with a lance.

  Yesterday, there were some visitors here. Two of them were Ambassadors from England and the third was an Elephant. The Ambassadors were sickly-looking men who did nothing interesting and could barely speak any words of Danish or German. The Elephant, on the other hand, was most entertaining. It could kneel and dance. It arrived with a troupe of Tumblers, who stood on its back and its head and climbed up its legs, and I said to the King: “I want to ride on the Elephant!” and so the Tumbling People (who looked small but were very strong) carried me aloft and set me on the Elephant and I swayed around on it for a while, liking very much the sensation of being High Up, while they led it in a little circle, and I saw all the windows of Rosenborg filled with people watching me.

  But of course after they had seen me on the Elephant, my Children one by one started a clamour to ride on it too. I forbade it absolutely and refused to be moved by their whinings and entreaties. This is the principal trouble with Children: they do not let you do one single thing but they must do it also, and this Habit of Copying does so grate on me that I declare I wish I had never had any Children whatsoever because all they do puts me into an Irritation from which I cannot find any relief except when I am far away from them and in the Count’s bed.

  And alas, I have not been in that bed for a great while, but only in my own and dreaming of the other. To be on my own is sorrowful, but I can endure it in the expectation of my next meeting with my Lover. What I cannot endure any more are the Conjugal Visits of the King and I have now determined that I shall not endure them. So that when he came last night to my room and got into my bed, and tried to put his hand on my breast and press himself against me, I began a violent shrieking and crying, and said that my nipples were chafed and all my body sore and tired and could not be touched. I thought he would protest, for all men, when they are hot, care very little for the pain they may cause, but instead the King went away at once, saying he was sorry for my ailments and hoped that a little rest would cure them.

  What he does not yet know is that no amount of rest will ever cure them. I could sleep until springtime and I would still feel as I feel towards him, and my only travail now must be to bring about his Indifference towards me.

  This is all I want. I have decided that I do not care if I am sent away from Copenhagen or even if my quantity of Women is reduced. I do not mind if I never set eyes on my Children again. My future is with the Count. Nothing on earth but him brings me any pleasure or any joy.

  THE TASK

  Peter Claire and Jens Ingemann return to the refectory to await the first summons of the day. A second bowl of hot milk is put into the icy hands of the young lutenist.

  Other musicians introduce themselves: Pasquier from France, a flautist; the Italians Rugieri and Martinelli, violinists; Krenze from Germany, a viol player. Pasquier remarks that he hopes Peter Claire will not run away.

  “Run away? I have only just arrived.”

  “English musicians are fond of running away,” says Pasquier. “Carolus Oralli the harpist and John Maynard—both ran away from this court.”

  “But why did they run away? What impelled them to do it?”

  Rugieri joins in. “You will see,” he says, “how we lead our lives, in the cellar, in the dark for most of the time. Today will be one of them. You cannot blame a man because he is homesick for the light.”

  “I do not really mind the dark,” says the German, Krenze, with a slow smile. “I have always believed that life was merely a preparation for death. In the dark and cold, I think I am preparing more efficiently, no?”

  “Krenze pretends that he does not suffer,” chimes in Rugieri, “but we don’t believe him. I look at our faces in the torchlight and I feel bound to this company of men, bound through suffering, because this is what I can see in every one of us. It’s true, isn’t it, Martinelli?”

  “Yes,” says Martinelli. “And we don’t feel ashamed of this, because we know that even very great men like Dowland found these conditions difficult and how, when he was on leave from Denmark, he delayed his return. He pretended his ship from England had been driven back by wind and frost. He remembered what time consists of here . . .”

  “He couldn’t transcend his own pitiful life, that is all,” says Krenze. “He wrote good music, but he could not make use of it, in his soul. In that respect his labours were pointless.”

  “Oh, come,” says Jens Ingemann, intervening with flustered gestures, “why dwell on what is bad? Poor Mr. Claire. Why not describe to him what a very beautiful sound we make. You know even the hens are often quiet, completely quiet, as if in a trance, when we are making our music . . .”

  “There should be no hens!” says Pasquier.

  “True,” says Jens Ingemann, “absolutely true, it is distracting to have hens with us. But this notwithstanding, I do think we are a very fine little orchestra. And to serve the King is a great honour. All our lives might have been passed in some provincial little town, playing cantatas on Sundays . . . You were in Ireland, in the house of a nobleman, before coming to us, if I remember, Mr. Claire?”

  “Yes,” says Peter Claire. “I was with Earl O’Fingal, helping him with composition.”

  At this moment one of the King’s servants enters the refectory and announces that His Majesty has returned from his hunting and will take breakfast in the Vinterstue. He does not mention the cellar, but the musicians know that this is where they must go now.

  They put down their bowls and, carrying their instruments, hurry out into the snow, which is falling fast.

  A pair of fine virginals, which Peter Claire had not noticed earlier in the cellar, are unwrapped from a protective covering of velvet and Jens Ingemann seats himself before them, facing the semicircle. Krenze, the German viol player, walks round the music stands placing sheets of musical notation upon them. The first piece is a galliard by a Spanish composer, Antonio de Ceque. Rugieri, too, goes from stand to stand, lighting the candles affixed to them which, day after day, dribble lines of wax onto the scores.

  They wait, tuning their instruments as quietly as they can, so that no discordant noise may be heard above. The torches bum brightly. In the chicken cage a brown hen is struggling to lay an egg. The snowflakes eddying through the gaps in the wall melt as they fall and create two puddles of icy water.

  A noise is heard above: the trapdoor is opening. The tuning ceases. Jens Ingemann raises his hand to silence everything, but the brown hen is still ululating as the egg lodges half in and half out of her body. Pasquier hits out at the cage with his bow. The shock of this causes the hen to deliver the egg and run round the cage squawking.

  Then, down the intricate assemblage of pipes, which debouch over the right-hand wall, is heard the King’s voice: “Nothing solemn today! Are you listening down there? No fugues. No slow ayres. Play till the trap is shut.”

  They begin. It seems to Peter Claire as if they are playing only for themselves, as if this is a rehearsal for some future performance in a grand, lighted room. He has to keep reminding himself that the music is being carried, as breath is carried through the bod
y of a wind instrument, through the twisted pipes, and emerging clear and sharp in the Vinterstue, where King Christian is eating his breakfast. He tries to imagine precisely how it must sound and whether his own part in it (this is a galliard where the flutes are dominant) can nevertheless be heard. He strives, as always, for perfection and, because he is playing and listening with such fierce concentration, doesn’t notice the cold in the cellar as he thought he would, and his fingers feel nimble and supple.

  He can hear, too, that the sound being made by this orchestra is one of great vibrancy, a generous sound, a sound, he decides, that no English ensemble would make. Ingemann leads it, nodding the beat with his head, but at the core of the sound is something new to him, a quality that he cannot quite define but which he knows arises from this particular composition of players from five different countries, each with his own and individual sensibility and mode of expression. Peter Claire has already seen that these are men of strong opinions who must surely disagree with each other for a great deal of the time, but now, huddled together in their dark domain, they seem to create a rich and faultless harmony.

  After the galliard they embark on a saraband, also by de Ceque. Peter Claire has been told that His Majesty’s meals, even breakfast, can be very long and that sometimes they play for hours on end with no break. But today is not to be one of them. When the saraband ends, just as they are turning their scores and preparing for the piece that will follow, the pipes suddenly fill with noise. It sounds like a sonorous belch.

  Then the King’s voice bellows: “That’s enough! I’m getting indigestion. Mr. Claire, the lutenist, come up to my bedroom in half an hour.” And the trap falls. It falls with a noise like thunder, sending a downward draught of warm air into the cellar, which extinguishes the candles.

  Although it is only ten o’clock in the morning, King Christian has gone to bed. The drapes across his bedroom window have been drawn and lamps lit, exactly as if the night had come.

  He instructs Peter Claire to sit near him. He says: “I wanted to have another look at you. Put your face here, in the light.”