Farewell, My Queen by Black Moishe (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

When a German expression is inadvertently dropped into the conversation, a shocked silence follows.

“One cannot laugh in German,” said the Prince de Ligne.

“And yet the Queen could laugh. And it was not something she learned to do at Versailles; she learned it here in Vienna, in German.”

That response came from me. It was uttered impulsively and at once regretted, for I do not like to vex the Prince. While I was speaking, I seemed to hear the Queen. She was very close by, and she was laughing. The Prince was reclining on a lounge chair, his eyes blinking up at the sun. “How exquisite is the scent of the linden blossoms,” he sighed. A servant girl leaned over to raise the cushion at my back. That was when I noticed the Prince’s emaciated, crooked legs in their twisted, ill-fitting white stockings. Above the red-heeled shoes that he was surely the last remaining person in the whole world to persist in wearing, there were unwanted folds of stocking. He did indeed have the qualifications. A wave of fatigue swept over me. I continued to hear the Queen’s laughter in my ear, mingled with the buzzing of the bees among the lindens. The Prince de Ligne’s voice had become inaudible to me. And behind him, the French-style grounds, the broad path leading down to the houses on the river, simply ceased to be real. Christine, the Prince de Ligne’s daughter, succeeded in piercing the fog, but only for a moment; then she, too, was incorporated into the ghostly horizon that was blurring the outlines of summer. Cherries: suddenly I had a violent craving for cherries. And I wondered: “Where can I get some? Who can I ask to get them for me?” And, as though summoned up by my question, the personages of the Grand Stairway appeared. The men were wearing Court dress of the seventeenth century. Their perukes covered them from their heads to halfway down their backs. The women had huge panniered dresses. The steps shone brightly. They were new, of white marble. As on previous occasions, what fascinated me about this dream was the motionless stance of the courtiers and the intervals rigorously maintained between one and the next. Also their faces, faces I knew without ever being able to put a definite name to any of them . . . As though they turned up in my life only to hold aloof. And then, at the topmost point on the stairway, the Queen appeared and came running down the great marble steps. No one turned, no one gave a curtsy or bow as she passed. Eyes remained vacant. In contrast, there was something irrepressible about the Queen’s vitality. She was not satisfied merely to run: she leapt. And with each leap, from step to step, the cherries she wore as earrings threatened to fly off. A man, a minuscule judge, virtually cloaked in his full-bottomed peruke, offered this observation as she sped by: “The Queen has the bitter taste of a tribade.”

Who can prompt such dreams? Have we, then, no respite from the Devil?

I must say, to the Prince’s credit, that though he rejects the past, he makes an exception for the Queen. He is the only person here who speaks her name. Also, the only person who regularly goes and meditates at the grave of Gabrielle de Polignac, who died of grief on December 5, 1793, in Vienna. When we are together, and he wants to talk about the Queen, he always starts with: “Do you remember?” I don’t have to answer. Both of us saw a great deal of the Queen, he in ways reflecting his position, I according to my station. His world and mine did not communicate. It would be vulgar of me even to pretend that I am trying to remember. There was, however, one occasion when the Prince evoked something that I, too, could recall. I did not say so, but while he was telling about it, I was picturing the scene very precisely, for I was there. It was a long time ago, at the very beginning of the Queen’s friendship with Gabrielle. They were playing the game they called “watching the fans floating.” They would go and stand on a little bridge in the Trianon Hamlet and lean over the water, which, they claimed, was covered with fans. They would describe the colors and lovely attributes of all these fans. Silk ones or paper ones, they floated, fully open. The two friends were always very sad when the fans gradually sank beneath the surface. Following their lead, the Ladies-in-Waiting, the Ladies of the Bedchamber, the crowd of Ladies of the Château, and the courtiers, pushing to get closer, would look searchingly into the water.

There is a tray of figs on my night table. They are set on leaves, unbelievably sweet-smelling. My Castle of Solitude, my Theater of Memory, has closed around me. “Do you remember? . . . ”

IN THE QUEEN’S PRIVATE APARTMENTS

(one o’clock in the afternoon).

I AM UNWILLINGLY PRESENT AT A MEETING

BETWEEN THE QUEEN AND HER FAVORITE.

“Indeed, Madam, I had envisioned a rather different welcome, attended by different circumstances.”

The Queen indicated a trunk, a chest, some half-open bags. These things made it virtually impossible to move around, for the rooms were tiny, windproofed with curtains and rugs, filled with bits of furniture. These in turn were covered with portraits, boxes, vases, knickknacks, baskets of flowers done in mother-of-pearl, ivory, ebony, porcelain, feathers, and silk. But Gabrielle de Polignac, slender and supple, had no difficulty picking her way among the pieces of luggage, luggage that would not be needed after all. In the Queen’s eyes it was doubly unwanted, because it was a cruel reminder of her failure. Gabrielle, pale-complexioned, hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, was wearing a green dress. A wide belt accentuated her waist. She was a petite young woman, all soft curves. And it was her softness, her equable temperament that