To the Hermitage (36 page)

‘You know that’s quite ridiculous, Grimm,’ our man says, reaching out.

‘Get back, please, philosopher, you’re doing it now!’ cries Grimm. ‘You always were the world’s heartiest thinker.’

‘I love ideas, that’s all. They drive me to distraction.’

‘She says she’s placed a table in between you to get away from your violent ideas.’

‘So she’s complaining to the world I’m much too forward?’

‘No, no. Really she finds you innocent, enchanting. She says sometimes you seem like a man of a hundred, sometimes like a small boy of ten.’

‘Does she? How very strange,’ says our man, remembering a certain dream he had once. ‘And which of the two of us does she prefer?’

‘Oh, the boy, no doubt,’ says Grimm. ‘This court’s full of dotards and professional arse-lickers. What it lacks is a bit of honest truth and youthful levity.’

‘Well, you know me. As I’ve told her already, I’m all innocence and candour. I don’t really know how to behave at court at all.’

At that Grimm nods firmly. ‘Yes, and there are a good many who would agree with you. You really should take a little more care with your fellow courtiers.’

‘Parasites, fleas, spies, sniggerers, little automata. They’re not my fellows at all. And surely if one pleases the mistress, one doesn’t worry about the pettiness of servants.’

‘I can see you’re really not a courtier,’ says Grimm. ‘A court is a jungle, old friend, a hidden example of the most primitive state of nature. Far worse than the brutal world of Rousseau’s
Social Contract
. These animals are always tearing and gnashing at each other. Everyone wants a prize, a flank or a loin. Everyone has to destroy those who are most in favour. You should observe me. I’m always discreet, cautious and charming to everyone in sight. Exactly as you are open, indifferent and crass.’

‘You’re a sneak, and I’m a simple good man.’

‘Every court has parasites. Only you want to be different. You want to be pure as the driven snow. But you’re simply one more little puppet in the whole outrageous spectacle. You know all your movements are watched, your friends and associates are noted, your letters are read?’

‘My letters? Oh, surely not.’

‘Of course. Whatever you write is noted and copied by the cabinet noir. I trust you haven’t been too indiscreet?’

Our Man considers. ‘Not to my wife. Never in my life have I been indiscreet with my wife.’

‘But your mistress, our dear Madame Volland?’

‘There I may just have told the truth once or twice. If a man can’t be indiscreet with his mistress, what’s the point of having one?’

‘A court thrives on every single small indiscretion, didn’t you know?’

‘That’s why I’m a philosopher, not a courtier. I talk reason, not politics or flattery. Don’t they understand?’

‘They understand you’re in a position of influence. Shall we consider your situation? Who’s for you, who’s against you?’

‘Very well, go ahead.’

Grimm takes out his notebook. ‘First, those against you. Number one, Grigor Orlov.’

‘The discarded lover. He’s jealous, and what do you expect? The hours I see her used to be his.’

‘Remember, no one can be more influential than a rejected lover. She can’t afford to offend him, he knows far too much. And now he’s saying you employ those special hours for the most corrupt of purposes.’

‘Not true,’ says our man. ‘I no longer risk it at my age. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m no longer that old buzzing, sniffing, supping high-flying insect, Grimmie. These days I’m content to rest quiet on the surface of the earth.’

‘My poor fellow, I’d no idea.’

‘Now now, before you start with your gossip,’ our man says hastily, ‘though the will may be weaker these days, I can still raise the wizard’s wand quite as often as I wish.’

Grimm looks at him sceptically. ‘Can you? Anyway, that’s not what Orlov means. He’s still sleeping with the éprouveuses, so he knows exactly how near you’re getting to the noble bed of her highness. The corruption he’s talking about is thought.’

‘Ah, he’s against it?’

‘Orlov’s a clever man, but he’s still a brute Russian. He thinks like a beast, by instinct. And he hates all western ideas.’

‘Does anyone listen to him?’

‘Yes. The Archduke Paul, for one.’

‘He doesn’t hate western ideas. He wants to be a Prussian goose-stepper like his father.’

‘It’s not ideas he hates, it’s you,’ says Grimm. ‘I see him every day.’

‘Naturally, you found him the wife he lies with. Maybe he’ll never forgive you.’

‘He forgives me. I have his closest confidence. He trusts me because I’m German. He hates you because you’re French. Also you’re his mother’s friend, and he hates his mother more than anyone else in the world. He says you’re here as a mask to place over her despotism.’

‘Evidently a bitter youth.’

‘Indeed. Unfortunately Chancellor Panin agrees with him. The most powerful figure at court. He always agrees with Paul, he became his tutor when d’Alembert turned down the post. He declares you’re a shameless sponger. One of that kind always knows another.’

‘So that’s three then? Orlov, Paul, Panin? It’s not many.’

‘No, look at it. Three of the most influential people in the court.’ Grimm shows him the list, then gets up and cautiously drops it into the stove.

Our man thinks. ‘But surely some of the courtiers are for me?’

‘Yes,’ says Grimm, ‘Prince Narishkin says you’re the wisest man he ever met. Unfortunately he’s also telling everyone you’ve converted him to atheism. Now he’s going round the court saying the cathedrals should be deconsecrated and the monasteries closed.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘You’re lucky everyone regards him as nothing better than a court fool. Everyone laughs at him. But that means they also laugh at you.’

‘What’s wrong with laughter? They say it’s life’s best medicine.’

‘Unfortunately, as with many of the best medicines, a lot of those who take them fail to survive.’

‘I presume Chancellor Betskoi is for me? He brought me here.’

‘He’s your warm supporter. A pity so many people think they know why. They claim for his own profit he sells off half the pictures you send from Paris.’

‘I don’t believe it. And Princess Dashkova likes me.’

‘Yes,’ says Grimm, ‘a shame no one in Sankt Peterburg can stand her French silks, her Irish fancies and her London airs. She’ll be sent to Siberia or exile in Moscow before much longer.’

Our man looks at Grimm in dismay. ‘I begin to see court life really is very confusing.’

‘Precisely,’ says Grimm smoothly, ‘that’s why my job is never easy, however you choose to despise it. You always have to watch out behind you, or you lose your income, if not your head.’

‘Thank you, Grimm. You’ve really cheered me up. But it’s always best to know who one’s friends and enemies are.’

‘Quite. But do remember your greatest and most dangerous problems aren’t here in Petersburg at all. They’re in Potsdam.’

‘King Frederick. Don’t expect me to admire him. He’s the firebrand of Europe. All the philosophers hate him. He calls himself Philosopher King, when the truth is he’s a despot and a thug.’

‘The most powerful man in Europe,’ says Grimm. ‘You can’t afford to offend him. He expects every important figure of Europe to attend his court.’

‘And look at poor Bach. The Emperor soon stepped hard on his organ, didn’t he? Anyway, I’ve thoroughly offended him already.’

‘I advised you to stop over at Potsdam.’

‘You told me I’d make a complete fool of myself!’

‘Exactly, but better be a court fool than a court enemy. And now you see what’s happened.’

‘What?’

‘You went to Dresden instead, after he’d only just finished shelling it. In his eyes nothing could be more insulting.’

‘Well, luckily his offence is a long way away.’

‘But getting nearer all the time,’ says Grimm. ‘You wrote Her Serene Highness a paper, did you not, “The Daydream of Denis the Philosopher”? Attacking him outrageously. It turned up in his hands within days, of course.’

‘How?’

‘Half the courtiers here work for Frederick, when they aren’t working to enrich themselves.’

Our man sighs. ‘But what on earth can he do to me?’

‘Oh, believe me, everything,’ says Grimm, rather unpleasantly. ‘First he’s been reviewing all your books in magazines right across Europe. Under a pseudonym, of course. He says your writings are corrupting, plagiarized, and totally unreadable.’

‘I see logic is not his strong point. How can they possibly be corrupting, if they’re also unreadable? And how can I be blamed for what they say, if I’ve plagiarized them?’

‘The point, my friend, is that because he sees himself as a philosopher this is the most vindictive monarch in all Europe. Now he’s intending to send emissaries to Her Highness to expose you.’

‘As what?’

‘A false philosophe. A charlatan. An atheist who went around Leipzig trying to draw attention to himself by walking the streets in a red nightshirt.’

‘Nonsense, it’s yellow, I can show you. Except I’ve lost it.’

‘They’ve already warned the Empress you’re here as a French spy.’

‘The Empress knows that story already. Durand tried to make me deliver a royal message. She put it in the stove and is sending him home.’

‘Where he’ll return to Versailles and tell His Christian Majesty you’re a black traitor, only deserving of the gallows. I hardly think your tactics were brilliant.’

Nervous now, our man thinks. ‘Oh Grimm, Grimm, what on earth should I do?’

‘First, you agree to call in at Potsdam on your return journey. It’s right there on the way home.’

‘What? As far as Frederick is concerned, I’m a plagiarist, a charlatan, a nightshirt wearer and a spy.’

‘Yes, well, I am a good friend of his.’

‘I know, you’re a good friend of everyone. Everyone who just happens to sit on a throne. You have no standards, no honour, no taste . . .’

‘Now now, my friend, let’s not quarrel. I use my talents, I don’t abuse them. I attend and advise. I inform and I please. I’m a mixer and a fixer. I’m an intermediary, and to tell the truth I’m quite indispensable.’

‘A spider who sits grinning in the middle of a great web.’

‘Europe wouldn’t begin to work without me.’

‘It certainly doesn’t work with you.’

‘There would be no treaties, no children in the court cradles, no heirs to thrones. It would be a place of sterile dynasties, brutal tyrants and vacant palaces.’

‘It is already.’

‘Without me it would be a good deal worse,’ says Grimm, rising to repowder his face in the mirror.

‘There would be no music, no court theatre. No Gluck. No Mozart. No Diderot at the Russian court, with a nice little pension for eternity, and his posthumous reputation taken care of. Think of that. Well, now I must go.’

‘No, no, Grimm, wait, my dear dear friend,’ says our man, hurrying after him into the lobby. ‘I can’t bear to quarrel with you. I’m just anxious, that’s all. I can see now I may be garrotted in Petersburg, shot in Potsdam, hanged at the Bastille.’

‘As Voltaire says, that’s what happens to the man of reason.’

‘And I do understand now I’m not a courtier, not even a court jester. My face is just much too near my heart . . .’

‘Never mind,’ says Grimm generously, ‘for a dozen afternoons you’ve kept the Empress happy, and no doubt drawn her attention away from repressing her people. What could be more useful?’

‘That’s something then. But, my dear fellow, tell me, what shall I do?’

‘Why not let me write a little letter to Frederick, telling him you’ll stop at Potsdam on the way home.’

‘I refuse to stop at Potsdam on the way home. I despise Frederick and he detests me.’

‘Then I warn you, he’ll make your life a total misery.’

‘Too late. Really. Life has done it already.’

‘You’re not in total misery, Diderot. Your fame is assured.’

Our Man stares at him, pained to the heart. ‘Look at me. Stuck in Petersburg. Stricken with the everlasting shits from the Neva. I’ve offended my king. I’m cut off from my wife and even worse from my mistress. I’m surrounded with enemies. I’m struck down with the Swiss disease.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Eternal homesickness, Grimm. I’m longing for the high mountain peaks of my life.’

‘It’s nothing. Every honest man is homesick. Everyone’s in exile. Voltaire’s in Switzerland, homesick for Paris. Rousseau’s in Paris, homesick for Switzerland. People like us don’t have homes. We’re wanderers and vagabonds. All of which reminds me, there’s something you can do for me.’

‘Of course, you only have to ask,’ says our man.

‘Good then. Speaking of vagabonds, you remember the little music prodigy who came with his papa to Paris and stayed for a time in my house?’

‘Amadeus, little master tra-la-la? The mannekin pisse? I shall never forget how you took him to Versailles to meet La Pompadour. And then he sat up on his hind legs and proposed marriage to her, even though he was only, what, six years old?’

‘Well, now Her Imperial Majesty is after him. She desperately wants to bring him here to court.’

‘Why not, another dwarf for the collection? That boy will come if you ask him, surely? He owes everything to you.’

‘Of course he’ll come. Musicians are like travelling acrobats, or philosophers, they always come. And Mozart’s a jealous little fellow. He wants to drive out all the old kapellmeisters and become composer to every court in Europe.’

‘I don’t see the problem then.’

‘The problem is the Empress. Maybe you don’t know, but the lady’s tone-deaf. She can’t tell a harp from a harpsichord. Music is just a great braying noise to her. She always claims the only notes she can ever recognize are the sound of her dogs barking. Well, I tell you – she even loves Gluck.’

‘No matter. You’re allowed these quirks when you play the patron.’

‘You don’t know our little Master Upstart. One hint that his music hasn’t been understood and worshipped, and he’ll lose his tiny temper and sweep out of Russia in a mortal fury. And that will be two enemies made at one stroke. What do I do?’

Suddenly our man is all delight. His eyes are glowing, his worries are gone. ‘As a good and clever courtier, you mean? An expert parasite?’