Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) (16 page)

From that day, my fortunes and way of life underwent a change for the better. It would be difficult to describe the lengths to which Bendel had to go to conceal my infirmity from the world. Wherever I walked, he went before me and with me, anticipating any and all eventualities, and where danger threatened unexpectedly, he was quick to cover me with his own shadow, for he was bigger and stronger than I. And so I dared to circulate again among people, and I adopted a role in society. Naturally I was obliged to feign certain peculiarities and moods; but eccentricity is after all the privilege of the rich, and so long as the truth remained hidden, I enjoyed all the honour and respect that money can buy. With a new-found claim to life, I looked forward to the much-anticipated visit of the mysterious stranger a year and a day hence.

I sensed that I had best not stay too long in a place where I had already been spotted without a shadow and could easily be betrayed; it may also well be that the awful memory of my
appearance at Mr John’s haunted and troubled me. Thus, I intended to test the waters here, as it were, so as later, in some other place, to appear more self-assured and secure, but vain illusions won out for a while over my better judgement: it’s no use casting loose once vanity has dropped anchor.

It was none other than lovely Fanny, the belle of Mr John’s garden party, whom I met again at the third town in which I stopped, and who, without remembering ever having seen me before, now paid me some attention – for suddenly I was charming and witty. When I opened my mouth people listened, and I myself had no idea how I had acquired the art of directing and dominating a conversation. The impression I seemed to have made on that stunning creature turned me into precisely what she wanted me to be, an infatuated fool; and I pursued her thereafter with a thousand little attentions, seeking the refuge of shadows and sunset wherever possible. I was vain enough to want to make her vain about me, and could not with the best of intentions drive the rapture from my head to my heart.

But why repeat the entire sordid tale for you? You yourself have recounted it often enough of other honoured personages. To the age-old comedy, in which I willingly accepted a hackneyed role, I added a homespun hint of tragedy, thereby hastening the catastrophe that was so unexpectedly to befall me.

One lovely evening, as was my wont, having assembled a merry gathering in my garden, I wandered off some distance from the others arm in arm with the fair Fanny, and took great pains to churn out witticisms. In a ladylike fashion, she gazed at the ground and quietly replied in kind to each squeeze of her tiny hand; then, without warning, the moon emerged from behind a cloud – and she saw that only
her
shadow was cast on the lawn. Aghast, she looked up at me in horror, then down at the ground again, searching for my absent shadow; and her train of thought was so legible in her troubled look that I would have burst out in loud laughter had a cold chill not then and there run down my spine.

I let her fall from my arms in a faint, sped like an arrow through the party of horrified guests, reached the gate, threw myself into the first carriage I could flag down and drove back
to the city, where this once (to my great misfortune) I had left the vigilant Bendel behind. He looked aghast when he saw me; one word from me said it all. We ordered a team of horses on the spot. I took only one of my servants with me, a clever conniver named Rascal who succeeded through his guile in making himself indispensable to me, and who could not possibly have had any knowledge of the incident that prompted my departure. I put thirty miles behind me that very night. Bendel stayed behind to liquidate my holdings, distribute the necessary funds and pack up the essentials. When he caught up with me the following day, I threw myself into his arms and swore to him never to commit such a folly again, but to be more careful in the future. We hastened on our way without stopping till we got to the border and crossed a mountain, and only on the far side of the ridge, with nature’s bulwark between me and that unlucky place, did I permit myself to rest from the burdensome memory; and so we stopped at a nearby and little-frequented spa.

To cut a long story short, I will, alas, be obliged to pass quickly over a period in the reminiscence of which I would – only too gladly – like to linger, could I but thereby conjure up the ghost of living memory. But the true colours that once gave life to that glorious interlude, colours whose hue alone can resurrect it – those tints have been washed away by time. To seek them out again in the faded palette of my emotions, to dredge up the pain and joy and gentle madness that once made my chest heave – that would be like foolishly striking a boulder in search of a stream that has long since dried up, a parched wellspring abandoned by God. How changed is the bygone time that peers back at me now! It is like a play in which I ought to have tackled an heroic role; yet, being ill prepared, a neophyte on stage, I let myself be distracted from my performance, smitten hopelessly by a pair of blue eyes in the crowd. Her parents, taken in by my charade, pull out all the stops, offer me everything just to make the match and clinch the deal as quickly as possible. And this common farce ends in scorn for the unwitting clown.
And that is all, all there is to tell! My words sound fatuous and insipid, and how terrible that the very past that once stirred such profound feeling in my breast could be reduced to this – O Mina! Just as I wept when I lost you back then, I weep now, having lost the shimmer of your memory in me. Has age caught up with me? Oh, wretched reason! Grant me but one more flutter of that fleeting bliss, a moment of sweet madness – but no! I float alone on the bitter, barren foam of time and tide, and have long since downed the last drop of champagne from my goblet!

I had sent Bendel on ahead with several sacks of gold to rent and furnish lodgings for me according to my needs. The good man had scattered much money about, and spoken in the vaguest terms of the noble stranger he served, for I did not wish to be known by name. This heavy veil of mystery gave the good townspeople some curious ideas. As soon as my house was ready for me to move in, Bendel came to fetch me, to accompany me personally to my new home. The two of us set out together.

About an hour’s ride from our destination, on a wide, sunny plain, the road was blocked by a crowd decked out in festive finery. The carriage halted. Music, church bells, cannon fire could be heard in the distance, and a loud hurrah rang out in the crowd. A chorus of young girls of exceptional beauty, all dressed in white, advanced towards us, one of whom outshone the others, who faded in her wake like the stars in the night sky in the wake of the rising sun. She stepped forth from among her sisters, and this lofty, delicate apparition knelt down before me, her face flushed crimson. She held out to me on a silken cushion a wreath of braided laurel, olive branch and roses, and proceeded to declaim a few choice words about majesty, reverence and love, words I did not understand, but whose enchanting silvery timbre bewitched my ear and my heart – and it seemed to me as if this heavenly apparition had once before wafted past me. The virginal chorus broke out in an ode to a good king and the happiness of his subjects.

And all this big to-do, dear friend, in broad daylight! There she was, kneeling two steps in front of me, and I, for lack of a shadow, could not bridge the gap between us, could not fall to
my knees before that angel. Oh, what wouldn’t I have given at that moment for a shadow! I had to keep my shame, my fear and my desperation buried deep in the darkness of my carriage. Bendel finally took the initiative, acting on my behalf; he leapt out of his side of the carriage, but I called him back in the nick of time and, reaching into my jewel box, fished out the first object my fingers happened to touch, a diamond tiara that I had intended to give the lovely Fanny, and handed it to him. He stepped forward and spoke in the name of his master, who neither sought nor desired such reverential treatment – said Bendel: ‘There must be some mistake, but let the good townspeople nevertheless be thanked for their kindness.’ Thereupon he took up the proffered wreath from its silken pillow and laid the diamond tiara in its place; then he graciously extended a hand to the young girl to rise, and with another courtly sweep of the hand dispensed with the local curate, magistrate and other prominent officials. No one else was permitted to approach me.

Bendel motioned for the throng to part and make room for the horses, swung himself back up into the carriage, and off we went at a gallop, passing under a canopy of wreaths and flowers into the city, while the cannon kept firing in our honour. The carriage stopped in front of my new house; I leapt nimbly past the crowd of onlookers whose curiosity had brought them to my doorstep, and bounded through the door. The crowd hailed me with hurrahs outside my windows and I let gold ducats rain down on them. That evening, of course, the whole town was lit up in celebration.

And I still had no idea what all the to-do was about and who they thought I was. I sent Rascal out to make enquiry. He heard, as he later informed me, that the King of Prussia was travelling through these parts under the assumed alias of a count; that my servant Bendel had supposedly been recognized, revealing his and my identities; and finally, that the townspeople were jubilant to have me settle in their midst. Fathoming at last that I had clearly wished to maintain a strict incognito, they regretted having so impetuously penetrated my disguise. Yet His Highness had responded with such mercy and grace, surely he would forgive the good hearts of his subjects.

My rogue of a servant found the whole thing so amusing that he did his best, by words of warning dropped for effect, to confirm the people’s suspicion. He delivered a hilarious report, and since his delivery made me laugh, he took full advantage of the situation to win me over with his practised guile. Must I admit it? It flattered me to have my lowly person mistaken for the lofty countenance of the king.

For the following evening, I ordered a great feast to be prepared in the shade of the trees in front of my house, to which I invited the entire city. Thanks to the mysterious potential of my purse, Bendel’s efforts and Rascal’s quick-witted inventiveness, we succeeded in beating the clock. It is astonishing what lavish splendour and beauty we were able to fabricate in a few hours. The extravagance and the excess conjured up! Even the ingenious lighting was so shrewdly distributed that I could move about with ease. My servants had thought of everything, and I had only to dispense well-earned praise.

Evening set in. The guests appeared, and were presented to me. The matter of my purported majesty was never mentioned again, but I was addressed with deep reverence and humility as Sir Count. What was I to do? I let the title stick, and became from that moment Count Peter. Yet amid all that festive fanfare, my soul yearned for her. She came late, she who was and who wore the crown. She followed her parents demurely, and did not seem to know that she was the reigning beauty. The forest warden and his wife and daughter were presented to me. I managed to say many fine and fitting things to the old gentleman, yet before his daughter I stood in awe like a tongue-tied schoolboy and couldn’t bring a single word to my lips. Finally, stammering, I bid her honour this occasion and asked her to carry out the duties commensurate with the crown she wore. With a stirring look and blushing with shame, she asked me to excuse her; but, still more ashamed before her than she was before me, I offered my respects as her most humble servant; and a wink from the Count served as a command to all present to commence the revelries, a command that my obedient subjects were quick and eager to carry out. Majesty, innocence and grace aligned with beauty decreed a joyous celebration. Mina’s
jubilant parents felt honoured by the honour done their child; I myself was in indescribable ecstasy. I ordered all the jewels I had left, all the pearls, all the diamonds, all the precious stones I had purchased just to get rid of some of my gold, to be set out in two covered bowls and passed around in the name of the queen of the day to all her ladies-in-waiting; and meanwhile, handfuls of gold were tossed throughout the evening, over the barriers that had been erected, to the cheering masses.

Next morning Bendel took me aside and revealed to me in confidence his long-held doubt concerning Rascal’s reliability, a doubt recently confirmed by the certainty of his guilt. Just yesterday he had discovered whole sacks of gold in Rascal’s possession. ‘Let us not begrudge the poor rogue his little stash of booty,’ I replied; ‘my generosity extends to everyone else, why not to him too? Yesterday he served me well, as did all the new servants you found for me; they joyously helped me celebrate a joyous occasion.’

We spoke no more of this matter. Rascal remained my major-domo, but Bendel was my friend and confidant. Bendel had grown accustomed to regarding my wealth as limitless, and he did not seek out its source; rather, he helped me, in accordance with my own inclinations, to think up a multitude of delightful ways to spend it. But of that mysterious figure, the man in grey, that pale-faced weasel who was the bane of my existence, he knew only this much: through him alone could I be released from the curse that weighed so heavily upon me; in him alone, whom I most feared, did my one hope lie. I should add that I was quite convinced that he, for his part, could find me anywhere, but that I could find him nowhere; and therefore, patiently awaiting the promised day, I forswore any further attempts to track him down.

My comportment and the lavish splendour of the party I had given at first confirmed the unsuspecting local citizenry in their foregone conviction as to my true identity. Soon thereafter, newspapers reported that the entire business concerning the fabulous journey of the King of Prussia through those parts was mere unsubstantiated rumour. Yet, once anointed monarch in the popular imagination, a monarch I was bound to remain,
and, moreover, one of the richest and most regal monarchs the world had ever known – though no one could say for certain over what realm I ruled. Still, the world has never had grounds to complain of a lack of kings, least of all in these times; the good people, who had never actually seen a king with their own eyes, traced my provenance now to this place, now to that – Count Peter, in any case, remained Count Peter. Once there appeared among the transient guests of our little spa town a merchant who had declared himself bankrupt only to recoup his fortune, a man who enjoyed public esteem and cast a broad, albeit somewhat pallid, shadow. He wished to make a public display of the wealth he had amassed, and he even had the ill-advised notion of challenging me to measure my fortune against his. I had only to reach into my trusty purse; soon I had the poor braggart so badly beaten that he had once again to declare bankruptcy just to save face, after which he fled in disgrace across the mountains. So I was rid of him. I admit that I attracted the attention of many ne’er-do-wells and idlers in the region.