The emperor gives a heavy sigh here, he would stop reading were it not for the fact that he recognizes the signatory’s name at the bottom of the letter. And so he reads further:
. . . who brought it back again to Europe, making room for the generation of many heresies. That same science, or parts of it, has become an essential cornerstone of what the Masons believe and what their central activities are—but not all of them, only those like Thomas von Schönfeld, aka Moses Dobrushka, one of the most important among them . . .
“My dear, can your father make gold?” the emperor asks Eva, when a few days later he has her in his bedroom in Schönbrunn. He calls her “meine Vogel,” or “my bird.”
“Of course,” says Eva. “Right outside our home in Brünn there is a passageway to our secret gold mines—they lead all the way to Silesia.”
“I’m serious,” says the emperor, frowning so that his immaculate forehead is marred by a vertical wrinkle. “I’ve been told that it is possible.”
At an opera premiere, Eva is approached by an elegant, tall, well-built, but no longer young man. His white wig is perfectly arranged, and his outfit is exquisite and so different from those worn here in Vienna that there can be no doubt about his having come straight from Paris.
“I know who you are, madam,” he says in French, not quite looking at her directly.
Eva is flattered that he has recognized her amongst so many important ladies, and their acquaintance might end on that high note, yet the elegant man goes on:
“You, madam, are someone like me—someone who is a stranger to this spectacle. Am I right?”
Eva starts. Now she thinks he is impertinent; she wants to go, and reflexively she seeks out her father in the crowd.
“It is evident, madam, that your nobility and beauty are of a much deeper nature, coming from a pure heart; you, madam, are like a star that has erred under these banal roofs, like a lost spark from the purest comet . . . ,” the stranger continues. Even if he is a little past his prime, he is still very handsome. His powdered face strikes Eva as impenetrable. Out of the corner of her eye she catches the curious gazes of other women.
Since the emperor isn’t interested in her that evening and quickly vanishes with his latest lover instead, Eva spends more time with her new acquaintance. He is too old for her to treat him as a suitor, too soft, too talkative—in fact, he seems to her entirely unmasculine. They go to the smoking room, and her companion offers her some fresh tobacco. He brings her champagne and—stranger still—they converse about dogs. Eva complains that her greyhounds are too delicate and seem silly to her. She misses the dog she had in her childhood. The man turns out to know a great deal about canine behavior and the mysteries of canine breeding.
“Big dogs are sickly and do not live long—greyhounds are a prime example of this, inbred to the point of complete degeneration. The same happens to people,” adds the elegant older man. She should have a little dog, but one that is also brave. A little lion. They breed dogs like that in Tibet, where apparently they’re sacred.
Who knows how and when the conversation comes around to the “work.” It is a topic that fascinates everyone, though few get very far with it; most are only after gold. But after all, alchemy is also the path to wisdom. And Giacomo Casanova explains to Eva Frank in intricate detail the meanings of the individual stages of the “work.” Now they are at nigredo.
Eva squeezes her stomach. She has dismissed Magda Golińska, who has a big mouth, and who has now returned to Brünn. Magda is marrying Szymanowski, who took her away from Goliński. Only Anusia Pawłowska knows everything, but they do not speak of it. She helps Eva wrap her hips and her rounded waist, doing it as if it were completely normal. Her touch is delicate but firm. Once Eva’s father came to Eva while she was lying in bed, sticking his confident hand under the covers. His rough, bony fingers palpated that embarrassing roundness. Eva bit her lip. Her father lay down next to her and petted her head, but then his fingers latched on to her hair, pulling her head back by it. He looked her in the eye for a long time, as if he were seeing not her, but what was about to happen. Eva was terrified. The worst-case scenario had come to pass—her father was angry. Eva panics at the thought of his anger. He did not come back to see her after that, and she did not go out, pretending she was ill.
In the end, Wittel Matuszewska came and gave Eva a lot of salt water to drink; it was mixed with something bitter and disgusting. The next day she came again, kneading Eva’s stomach until in the evening there was blood. The child was tiny and dead, the size of a cucumber, long and slender. Matuszewska and Anusia wrapped it in rags and took it somewhere. The French girl who had been teaching Eva happened to peek into the room. She was dismissed that same day.
Every variety of ash, or: Recipes for homemade gold
When Thomas pronounces the world “alchemy,” he does it as if a small, round loaf of bread were emerging from his mouth, still warm.
He is given the last room at the end of the corridor, next to Jacob’s chambers, for his studio. Jacob has ordered a special apparatus from Italy through Marshal Pallavicini, whom he met at the imperial court. This machinery, consisting of burners and retorts, glass tubes and jars, is set up carefully upon tables and shelves made expressly for this purpose, so that on Christmas the fires under the retorts can be lit with the first Hanukkah candles. Whenever he is in the country, Thomas von Schönfeld comes straight here. He has already fathered three children, and he is always in his snow-white wig and elegant outfit. He brings enormous quantities of presents, for every one of the brothers and every one of the sisters.
He and Jacob almost never leave the studio at such times, and they admit no one else but Matuszewski and an intimate of Thomas’s, the Count Ecker und Eckhofen, who danced so beautifully with Eva at the emperor’s. It is now universally known that he is not interested in women, though this does not interfere with him knowing the “work.” Unfortunately, they are unable to produce a single piece of gold or even silver by March. In the innumerable vessels and jars, all that appears from time to time are stinking liquids and every possible type of ash.
Jacob dreams that the Countess Salm, whom he met at court and who shows him special consideration, advises him that for the neck pain that has been bothering him a great deal lately he must “take a dose of Moravia.” This must mean that soon help will come in the form of gold. That would be particularly welcome, since the court’s debts have soared to unimaginable heights, despite Thomas’s speculation. Or maybe even because of his speculation. For he has persuaded Jacob, and above all the Zwierzchowskis and the Czerniawskis, to invest in the stock market. And though in the beginning they did make enough to pay off their debts, soon their run of good luck turned. That was how the idea of alchemy came about.
Now Thomas comes up with an even more exquisite concept—they start to bottle a transparent, fragrant liquid with a yellowish tinge, the derivative of a certain weak acid. Diluted properly, it does no damage to the skin. A drop of it consumed with a cup of water cures all diseases, claims Thomas. Jacob tried it out on himself, having suffered from rectal bleeding, and was completely healed come summer.
The first boxes of tiny bottles of this miraculous liquid go to kahalim of true believers in Prossnitz, and once they’ve caused a sensation there, Wołowski takes them to Warsaw. In the summer, a little factory is created in the room next to the alchemy lab, and there the women put small decorative labels on the bottles, then place them in the boxes that will travel to Altona.
Unfortunately, even these “golden drops,” as they are called, do not cover all their debts.
How the Lord’s dreams see the world
The winter does not bring anything good. It is cold in the palace on Petersburger Gasse, and the Lord is always sick and moping, while Her Ladyship barely ever leaves her rooms. Suddenly, as though cut off by a knife, their expeditions to Vienna have concluded. One of their carriages has been sold, while the other, a small, elegant coach, is still kept in t
he coach house, on the off chance that the emperor might ever want Eva back. In order to be able to pay what they owe to their purveyors, they have also had to sell their valuable dinner service. It went for a song to Pallavicini. Quite a few people have been sent home, and it is quiet in the palace now. The stoves are kept on only in the bedrooms, and there is the fireplace in the large hall. That is why the majority of those who remain at court spend the majority of their days in there.
Early in the morning, before they even have breakfast, the faithful go down to listen to the Lord’s words. The Lord comes in when all of them have assembled, and how he is dressed is important. The women have noticed that when he is wearing a white shirt, that means he will be in a bad mood that day, and a number of people will get scolded. If, on the other hand, he has put on a red robe, it means his mood is good.
The Lord narrates his dream, and it is written down by young Czerniawski or Matuszewski. When Jakubowski is in Brünn, he takes notes, too. Eva tells them her dream, and they write that down, too. Then these dreams are widely discussed and commented on. They have also established a custom by which the others, too, can tell their dreams, and in this way comment upon the dreams of the Lord and Her Ladyship. This produces extraordinary coincidences, some of which can be discussed for days on end. The narration of dreams can, at times, last into the afternoon of the following day, so that Zwierzchowska has to make a small breakfast available.
The corridors and staircases get swept up in a penetrating chill, and the tiny claws of the icy snow scratch at the windowpanes; the wind strains in the chimneys. You can almost feel the other worlds all pressing in on the home in Brünn, worlds where no one is who he is, but rather someone else entirely, and everything that seems stable and sure loses its contours and all the certainty of its own existence.
The Lord is at the court of the Prussian king Frederick, and he serves him the best wine, but before he pours the wine, he sprinkles sand into the glass, and then he mixes the wine in with the sand. The emperor drinks this with relish. Then he gives the princes and the kings who are there the same thing by way of beverage.
It is strange how a dream like this can make itself at home in the world of day, and then all of them can see this image of a goblet with sand and wine, and even as they are eating in the evening and drinking wine, the image of sand being sprinkled returns to them, which causes some of them, especially the women, since they seem to dream more, or at least to remember more, to say that on the following night they also drank sand or gave sand to others to drink, and so there arises this possibility of transmutation that will be with them now—transmuting sand into wine. Transmuting wine into sand.
The Lord appeared in the dream of Rabbi Symeon, father of Jacob Szymanowski, and he told him that an heiress from Wojsławice was waiting for him. And she appeared to him as a beautiful young woman, all in white. The Lord told Symeon: Yet she is old, ugly, and always dressed in black. Symeon replied: Pay no mind to that, that is just a shadow. She has great wealth and wants to give it all to you. The Lord was still young and plump in this dream, and the heiress from Wojsławice caressed him and bared her breasts to him and wished to have intercourse with him, but the Lord did not wish to and defended himself against it.
They all agree after the telling of that dream that what it means is the end of their financial woes.
The Lord saw on a great field thousands of Uhlans, all of them true believers, and his sons, Roch and Joseph, were their commanders. The Lord’s interpretation: I will leave Brünn and will finally occupy my proper place, and then many gentlemen and Jews will come to me in order to be baptized.
The Lord saw Count Wessel, from whom he tried to rent a palace in Pilica, sitting atop a small table in his carriage. The Lord’s interpretation: Aid will come in gold, and the count’s request will be carried out, for he had asked for his daughter to become one of Eva’s ladies-in-waiting.
The Lord saw a beautiful maiden sitting upstairs, and all around her were herbs and fresh, lush grass. Between her legs came a source of pure, cold fresh water. An untold quantity of persons stood and drank from that source. And he, too, drank, but discreetly, so as not to draw attention to himself. The exposition of that dream takes place in the evening in Eva’s bedroom; lately she has been very depressed. The dream must mean one thing: that she will finally be married.
Eva waits for a sign from the emperor. But it doesn’t come. Since his mother’s funeral, he has not sent for her. And he no doubt won’t. Even though she knew things would turn out this way, she still feels rotten and abandoned. She has lost weight. She does not wish to go to Vienna, her memories are too painful there, though her friend the Countess Wessel has tried explaining to her that, having been the emperor’s lover, she may now have anyone and everything she wants. Eva goes for the empress’s funeral, but so great is the crowd that her new dress disappears in it, along with her hat, her beautiful eyes, and her Eastern charm.
The empress is beautifully dressed for the casket, her dead heft drowned in a foam of lace. Eva Frank gets close enough to see the tips of her blue fingers folded on her chest. From then on, she has fearfully beheld her own each day, worrying that this blueness is a sign of impending demise. People whisper at the funeral about what caused Maria Theresa’s death. Apparently the empress slumped down in her armchair and started to choke. One of her ladies-in-waiting said in a dramatic whisper that the young emperor, cold-blooded as always, had taken the time to remark upon her ungraceful arrangement in the chair. “Your Majesty has positioned herself poorly,” he is said to have said. “Just well enough to die,” the empress apparently retorted, and then she actually died.
Eva promises herself that she will also die with dignity. “Preferably young,” she says, though it irritates her father. Jacob claims that now that Joseph is the sole ruler, he will finally do what he wants, and he believes that what he wants is to marry Eva.
He tells her to get her wardrobe ready, since she will soon return to court. But Eva knows she will not be returning. She is afraid to tell her father of it, which is why she spends her evenings with Anusia Pawłowska, mending torn lace.
Eva has been biting her cuticles for some time. Sometimes her fingers are so torn up she must wear gloves to hide them.
Of the lovemaking of Franciszek Wołowski
Franciszek Wołowski, Shlomo’s firstborn son, also known as Łukasz Franciszek Wołowski, is a calm, tall, handsome young man, a year older than Eva; he speaks slowly, carefully. He went to Polish schools and dreamed of attending university, but he did not succeed. Yet he has read a great deal on his own and knows about a great many subjects. He speaks Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, and German, each of these in his own particular way, since he has a slight speech defect. He does not want to stay on with his father in Warsaw and be a brewer. After all, he does have a noble title. He wants to do great, important things, even if he doesn’t yet know what things. By the time he comes to Brünn, he is already of marrying age. As the son of one of the oldest and most important brothers, he has privileges. He’s given a double room—he’ll be sharing it with his cousin. The cousin, several years younger than he, has just graduated from the Piarist college, which makes Franciszek very jealous.
His father had already written to Jacob Frank on the matter of his son’s marriage; perhaps he did not address it directly, but the letter was exceptionally warm and full of recollections, harking back to Elisha Shorr—may he rest in peace—as well as assurances of brotherly love, which might have suggested that the Wołowskis were counting on something that would cement the links between the Warsaw machna and the court in Brünn. There is something so obvious about this idea, and such a marriage was mentioned so many times back in Ivanie, when the children were little still. What could be unexpected about Franciszek coming to ask for Eva’s hand?
Franciszek calmly waits until they invite him into their rooms in the evening. Finally, dressed very neatly, he greets the Lord and Eva heartily, and then, after a somewhat challen
ging conversation (he has never been good at talking freely), he is allowed to turn the pages of Eva’s score as she plays her newly purchased instrument. Soon Franciszek, as his parents so desired, has fallen in love, though it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that Eva has yet to even register the presence of this page-turner.
“Doesn’t it bother you that she’s been off in Vienna taking her turn among the cabbages?” his cousin asks him once they are both in bed, tired from a full day’s Hussaring and drills. Franciszek isn’t suited for the martial life at all.
“She was taking her turn among the cabbages with the emperor. Besides, you don’t call it cabbages when it’s the emperor. The emperor flirts, the emperor has romantic liaisons . . . ,” Franciszek answers sagely.
“And you want her to be your wife?”
“Of course I do. She was assigned to me, with my father being the true believer closest to the Lord, the oldest of the brothers.”
“Mine, too—mine is maybe even closer. He was with him in Częstochowa, and then he ran away over the wall when Her Ladyship Hana passed away.”
“Why would he run away?”
“That’s what he said, that he was so scared he jumped down off the wall.”
The Books of Jacob Page 89
