Sidetracks

by Richard Holmes

  Catherina Elisabeth Geelvinck was a Dutch merry widow. The charming, spoilt daughter of an exceedingly rich local family of merchants, she married at eighteen, produced a child at nineteen and was fortuitously widowed at twenty. Now twenty-four, exceedingly beautiful and with a large private income, she laid waste the drawing-rooms of Utrecht with broken-hearted suitors. Students sang about her, and foreign visitors (especially the minor German nobility) got drunk in her honour. She was known universally and somewhat breathlessly as la Veuve. Low-voiced, cool and coquettish, she spent vast sums on the latest Paris fashions to show off her splendid, milky charms. Her large brown eyes had a slight cast, and transfixed Boswell with their hint of sexual naughtiness. In reality Madame Geelvinck had a calculating heart, poured all her emotions into her only son and comported herself with enough care to achieve two more marriages and an even larger income. But for Boswell she was an immediate challenge.

  Isabelle van Tuyl van Serooskerken, the expert shuttlecock player, was the eldest daughter of the aristocratic family of van Tuyl, with their ancestral castle at Zuylen, just outside Utrecht. Very different from the languid Madame Geelvinck, she was a young woman of the new age: essentially restless, inquiring, forever dissatisfied with the world about her. She was the same age as Boswell and the very opposite of all his assumptions about Dutch women. Tall, fun-loving, brilliantly quick and clever, she had a fine open face with a high intellectual forehead and carelessly brushed back auburn hair which seemed to flame above her head. From the start she both fascinated and frightened Boswell; she was capable of wrong-footing him at every turn. His very first entry about her says he had put on ‘foolish airs of passion for Miss de Zuylen’; his second that he had been deeply shocked by her ‘unlimited vivacity’.

  Isabelle was highly educated: encouraged as a child to read and write by a clever Swiss governess, she had pursued her studies in classics, mathematics and philosophy, not always regarded as the most ladylike of subjects. While her younger sister married, Isabelle retained her own apartment at Zuylen (overlooking the gatehouse where she could observe the comings and goings of the world) and read Plutarch, Newton and Voltaire late into the night. In her late teens she began to write a stream of stories, essays, poems and letters in French, and patronized the Utrecht bookseller for the latest titles. She became expert in algebra and conic sections, the harpsichord, shuttlecock and witty repartee. She grew mocking about decorous behaviour, dull marriages, Calvinist religion, even money and the weather.

  At twenty, Isabelle met a Swiss army officer at the Hague named Constant d’Hermenches, an aristocratic rake twice her age. They began a clandestine correspondence (via the Utrecht bookseller) which was to last over a decade. The correspondence sealed Isabelle’s reputation in Utrecht for eccentricity and unladylike behaviour. In fact the letters are exercises in style and self-analysis, rather than romance; they give a matchless picture of daily life at Zuylen and Utrecht and contrast Isabelle’s free-thinking views on marriage with d’Hermenches’s worldly cynicism.

  At the time of Boswell’s arrival in Holland, Isabelle had completed a satirical short story, ‘Le Noble’, telling of a romantic elopement from an ancestral Dutch castle surrounded by a moat, with an unmistakable resemblance to Zuylen. In a scene that shocked Utrecht society, the heroine, Julie, hurls down from her bedroom window a series of oil-paintings of her illustrious forebears, in order to form a bridge by which she can escape over the moat into her lover’s arms. The story was signed ‘Zélide’, and it was by this literary pseudonym that Boswell came to refer to her.

  While Boswell’s social life began to flourish, his private existence in his solitary lodgings at the Keizershof was less easy. He was dogged by depressions and the old longing for dissipation. He admonished himself: ‘Fight out the winter here, and learn as much as you can. Pray, pray be retenue.’ Cheerful and amusing in company, he relapsed into the deepest gloom in his lodgings, where the huge cathedral tower cast its shadow over his windows, always standing between himself and the watery winter sunlight. He worried about his future and mused on Calvinist questions of predestination and damnation. He was a young man discovering a contradiction in his own nature – his own national characteristic, perhaps – and slowly finding that the only palliative was what had begun as a light-hearted hobby: his obsessive, self-analytical journal-keeping. Boswell was discovering the controlling element of his literary genius: the impulse towards an astonishingly candid autobiographical form. Describing himself through others, he would end by describing others through himself, with unparalleled intimacy, sensitivity and wit. It was a pleasure that grew out of pain; a sociable form that grew out of extreme solitude; a strategy of survival learned by a traveller in a foreign land.

  At the same time as his launch into the drawing-rooms of Utrecht, Boswell almost committed an unpardonable faux pas in the streets by getting involved with a drunken group of students, rashly revealing his rakish propensities. He entered this memorandum for the night of 23 November.

  At night you truly had an adventure. You saw an entertainment of Dutch students; a concert; all keen on meat and drink; then marching like schoolboys with Kapitein and frightening the street. Then home; then saw the masks, and one like a woman; then house again, conditionless, drank roaring – songs. King George [the toast Boswell proposed amidst the mêlée]. Compliments paid you etc. Mark all in Journal.

  The following day, in penitential sobriety, he anxiously recorded this close shave with his private, uncivilized self, and issued a stern warning.

  Yesterday you recovered well after your riot with the Dutch students. But remember how near you was to getting drunk and exposing yourself, for if you had gone on a little longer, you could not have stopped. You have important secrets to keep … always shun drinking, and guard lips …

  Boswell’s public reputation survived this lapse, and in December he set off for the Hague to celebrate Christmas, look up his distant Dutch relatives, make contact with the British ambassador and take stock of his position. For there was now a delicate question forming in his mind, as he later explained to his friend Temple in the bluffest manner he could command.

  There are two ladies here, a young, handsome, amiable widow (Madame Geelvinck) with £4,000 a year; and Mademoiselle de Zuylen, who has only a fortune of £20,000. She is a charming creature. But she is a savante and a bel esprit, and has published some things. She is much my superior. One does not like that. One does not like a widow, neither. You won’t allow me to yoke myself here? You will have me married to an English woman?

  Boswell found out a good deal about his Tulips at the Hague, much of it through dinner-party gossip. He found the Dutch habit of intimate gossip fascinating – everyone seemed to know everyone else’s secrets, rather on the same principle that Dutch parlours never had their curtains drawn against the onlookers’ gaze. He learned to provoke the gossip with innocent questions, and practised recording the dialogue in his journal.

  He passed ‘three weeks in the most brilliant gaiety’ at the Hague, pleasantly surprised by a style of living that was ‘much in the manner of Paris’. He was presented to the Prince of Orange and all the foreign ambassadors and cut a fine figure in his alternating suits of scarlet and Leiden green. He noted ‘formerly such a change of life used to unhinge me quite’, but he felt in control of himself and returned calmly to Utrecht – now ‘the seat of the Dutch muses’ – in mid-January 1764 to resume his studious regularity ‘with much satisfaction’. But the real reason for his equanimity was less the philosophic pleasure of Professor Trotz’s lectures than the tantalizing delights of the Utrecht salons, where his Tulips were now blooming again before his eyes.

  By the end of January he was engaged in an intricate social minuet with the three ladies. The Comtesse tended to be jealous, the widow to be flirtatious, the bel esprit to be satirical. It was all very good for his education. A typical evening of this amorous dance occurred on 28 January, which Boswell recorded with the greatest satisfactio
n.

  At Assembly you was easy with la Comtesse, but saw her piqued. You must make up this by easy complaisance, as she can do you more service than Zélide. You played cards with Madame Geelvinck – charming indeed. You said to Zélide ‘I love Sue’ etc. But the contrary is true with you and me.

  The ‘I love Sue’ was a mocking reference to a popular song about falling in love with a girl before the lover had even met her. Boswell was implying that he felt like that about Madame Geelvinck, but not about Mademoiselle de Zuylen, alas. Zélide was quite up to this teasing, and replied with ironic regret: ‘Oh, I was prepossessed in your favour.’ This hit its mark, and afterwards Boswell feared he had been ‘too severe’ with Zélide.

  By February it was clear that Madame Geelvinck, with her huge brown eyes and generous inviting figure, was winning ascendancy in Boswell’s heart. The Comtesse began to concentrate on beating Boswell at cards, but Zélide – who was less flattered than amused by Boswell – adopted a more subtle strategy to hold his attention. Alone among the ladies at Utrecht, Zélide had penetrated the introspective side of Boswell’s character; she already suspected that he kept an intimate journal (this was one of the ‘secrets’ that Boswell always feared he would let slip) and guessed at his literary leanings. She saw that he played and experimented with human nature – his own and everyone else’s. She saw that he loved drama, complication, self-revelation: the comedy of human identity and exchange. Indeed in this, as in his depressions and solitude, he was much like herself. She therefore teasingly announced that she had written ‘Character Portraits’ of many of her friends – including the Comtesse and Madame Geelvinck – and also of herself, and that if he continued to amuse her Boswell might eventually see them. This was to prove an intellectual seduction quite as powerful, in the long run, as Madame Geelvinck’s promising decolletage.

  As Boswell plunged towards that delicious object, Zélide’s subtler influence continued to make itself felt, although not enough to spoil the would-be lover’s self-importance.

  At Assembly you appeared in sea-green and silver and was really brilliant – much taken notice of and like an ambassador. You begin to be much at your ease and to take a true foreign polish. Madame Geelvinck was charming. You told her you expected to see her ‘Character’ by Zélide. She said, ‘It is not interesting.’ You said, ‘Oh, do not say that to me’ … You played whist well. After it you felt, for the first time in Holland, delicious love. O la belle Veuve! She talked low to you and close, perhaps to feel breath. All the Heeren looked blue. You took her to the coach, and your frame thrilled …

  Throughout February this tantalizing courtship among the cards and candles continued, with Madame Geelvinck whispering in her low voice, ‘looking all elegance and sweetness’, patting Boswell’s hand and ‘correcting his French delightfully’. ‘You are much in love,’ he wrote. ‘She perhaps wishes to marry rationally. But have a care.’

  Meanwhile a very different sort of friendship was developing with Zélide. Boswell was introduced to her family at their Utrecht house and became a particular favourite with her father. He was also much liked by her brothers, sharing tales of field sports and the army. Zélide could speak fluent French and English, and also helped him with Dutch. She could still sometimes be ‘nervish’ and too boisterous for his taste, making fun of anything conventional – even religion and marriage – but on the whole she played gently with Boswell, and talked seriously about his studies.

  You drank tea at Monsieur de Zuylen’s. He shook you cordially by the hand. All was en famille and fine. You talked of your [plan for a] Dutch Dictionary.

  Just occasionally she played the bel esprit and delivered one of her shafts of ironic knowledge, so that he winced.

  You supped elegant at Mademoiselle de Zuylen’s with [her uncle] the General etc. She said, ‘You write everything down.’ Have a care. Never speak on that subject.

  But now, almost without Boswell being aware of it, Zélide had set up an emotional triangle in which the lines of power and affection played continually against each other in his heart. While he was officially ‘in love’ with Madame Geelvinck, he was ‘in confidence’ with Zélide: he courted one woman, but confided in the other.

  This pattern is steadily revealed in his memoranda.

  Yesterday you sent note to Madame Geelvinck, quite young man of fashion … At Assembly you was quite at ease. You begin really to have the foreign usage. You said to Zélide, ‘Come, I will make a pact of frankness with you for the whole winter, and you with me.’ You talked freely to her of prudence. But you talked too much. They all stared.

  Madame Geelvinck perhaps understood what was happening better than Boswell. When he declared his love for her openly on 19 February, she responded with the greatest tranquillity. Boswell was a little put out, as he records.

  Boswell: But did you not know that I was in love with you?

  Mme Geelvinck: No, really. I thought it was with Mademoiselle de Zuylen; and I said nothing about it.

  In other conversations (Boswell was now revelling in his dialogue-writing) Zélide’s name keeps cropping up at the very point where Boswell is trying to be most intimate with his glamorous widow; she is summoned up at the exact moment that should be most private. It must have been very tiresome for Madame Geelvinck to be flirting through the invisible presence of this third party:

  Boswell: Madame, I am discreet. I would that my heart were plucked out for you to see.

  Mme Geelvinck: Are you good-natured?

  Boswell: On my honour. I am a very honest man with a very generous heart. But I am a little capricious, though I shall cure that. It was only a year ago that I was the slave of imagination and talked like Mademoiselle de Zuylen. But I am making great advances in prudence.

  Mme Geelvinck: Have you good principles?

  Boswell: Yes. When I say, ‘That is a duty’, then I do it. Mademoiselle de Zuylen says that I am never bored, but I do get bored, though I never show it.

  The widow had many other admirers, but Boswell joyfully kept up his siege, reporting back to Zélide on his manoeuvres: he cornered la Veuve at card parties, whispered to her behind the potted plants at the Assembly and even got himself invited to her little son’s birthday party – a notable coup – tactfully informing her that the boy was like ‘a spark from the sun in heaven’. However, at the end of the month Madame Geelvinck announced that she was leaving for the Hague, and though she promised to write, Boswell knew he was now doomed to play the much less satisfactory role of abandoned suitor. On the day of her departure, after a restless night, he rose before dawn, slipped a flask of gin in his pocket and hurried over to the St Catherine’s Gate to watch her coach leave Utrecht. It was freezing, but deploying his new-found Dutch he talked his way into the sentry’s guard-post and, huddled in the doorway, he watched her pass. ‘She looked angelic, and that glimpse was ravishing. You then treated the sentinel with Geneva (gin). You stood on the ramparts and saw her disappear. You was quite torn with love.’

  Boswell then marched manfully off to his fencing lesson, but was miserable – ‘very bad all day’ – and had an awful premonition that his depression was about to return. He managed to keep up a good front at the Comtesse’s evening reception, but fell into gloomiest reflections back at his lodgings. He now had only one Tulip left, and the next morning he tried to take comfort from that.

  Love has now fairly left you, and behold in how dreary a state you was in. At night you was listless and distressed and obliged to go drawling to bed. This day study hard; get firm tone; go on. Mademoiselle [de Zuylen] will be your friend.

  He had need of her. In March the dreaded Utrecht depression returned. The weather became damp and foggy – although not cold enough for skating – and he caught a severe head-cold which lasted for nearly six weeks. He then received news from friends that his illegitimate son Charles had died. The regular Assemblies closed down for the season. He felt horribly marooned. There was only one source of light.

  You was f
ine with Mademoiselle de Zuylen. She was amiable. She said you might see her at home at least once a week … She said la Veuve had no passion, and often ill humour. This girl trusts you; like her … Shun marriage. Today, honey for cold.

  Boswell’s battle with gloom, ill-health and homesickness was to last until April, and Zélide gradually became his main ally in the fight.

  She gave him her ‘Character Portraits’ to read and also probably her satirical story ‘Le Noble’. She began to share confidences with him, describing her claustrophobic situation at the castle at Zuylen and hinting at her clandestine correspondence with Constant d’Hermenches. But Boswell was never quite sure how to respond, how far to trust her; she was so changeable, so clever. He never quite admitted his guilty secret about Charles to her.

  You told her you was distressed for the death of a friend, and begged to see if she could be company to the distressed. She said yes, but she soon showed her eternal laughing … You told her she never had a better friend. She said, ‘I believe it.’ This day retenue; be firm and only silent. What a world is this!

  When he was impatient with her, he considered writing a comedy about the absurdities of her life, her blue-stocking intrigues and her stolid Dutch family (of which, in reality, he was very fond). It was to be entitled The Female Scribbler, with a good range of character parts, and himself as the ‘sensible’ foreign hero. It would contain ‘old, surly squire; weak, ignorant mother; light, trifling lover whom she does not care for; foolish maid; heavy, covetous bookseller; generous, sensible lover etc.’ In this mood he also vented his spleen on the Comtesse, by the more direct method of trouncing her at cards.