The Blue Flower

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  Sophie was gone. Left alone with this large-boned, fair-haired creature, Fritz followed his instinct, turning to her at once for advice. ‘Frau Leutnant, would you recommend me to ask your stepfather whether he would consent to an engagement between myself and -‘

  ‘About that I can’t advise you at all,’ she said calmly. ‘You must see how much courage you have. The difficulty is not what to ask people, but when. I suppose your father, too, must be taken into account.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Fritz.

  ‘Well, perhaps the two of them will sit down comfortably together and enjoy a good pipe of tobacco.’ Fritz tried, but failed, to imagine this. ‘In that way everything may be settled without tears. My own husband was an orphan. There was no-one he had to consider when he came to discuss matters with my stepfather, except his unmarried sister, whom of course he must support.’

  ‘I thank you for your advice,’ said Fritz. ‘I think, indeed, that women have a better grasp on the whole business of life than we men have. We are morally better than they are, but they can reach perfection, we can’t. And that is in spite of the fact that they particularise, we generalise.’

  ‘That I have heard before. What is wrong with particulars? Someone has to look after them.’

  Fritz paced the room. Conversation had the same effect on him as music.

  ‘Furthermore, I believe that all women have what Schlegel finds lacking in so many men, a beautiful soul. But so often it is concealed.’

  ‘Very likely it is,’ said the Mandelsloh. ‘What do you think of mine?’

  Having said this, she looked startled, as though someone else had spoken. Fritz, who had reached the point nearest to her and to her bucket, stopped and fixed on her his brilliant, half-wild gaze.

  ‘Don’t look so interested!’ she cried. ‘I am very dull. My husband is very dull. We are two dull people. I should not have mentioned us. Even to think of us might make you weep from boredom.’

  ‘But I don’t find -‘

  She put her hands over her ears.

  ‘No, don’t say it! We who are dull accept that intelligent persons should run the world and the rest of us should work six days a week to keep them going, if only it turns out that they know what they are doing.’

  ‘We are not talking about myself,’ cried Fritz. ‘We are talking about your soul, Frau Leutnant.’

  Sophie reappeared, without pen, paper or ink. It seemed that she had been playing with some new kittens in the housemaids’ pantry. ‘So that is where they are,’ said the Mandelsloh. She was reminded now that she had brought the bucket of water to drown these kittens. The servants were faint-hearted about their duty in this respect.

  Friederike von Mandelsloh had been living in the garrison town of Langensalza, with her husband, a leutnant in Prince Clemens’ Regiment. She had come back home to Gruningen, about ten miles away, because he had been sent to France with the Rheinfeld expeditionary force. She lamented that she had never been able to live long enough anywhere to have a carpet laid properly (and she did possess a large Turkish carpet). But then, she was a soldier’s wife. Although she was, of course, no real relation to Hausherr Rockenthien she was, of all the younger generation, his favourite. In spite of her brusque semi-military manner, developed since she married at the age of sixteen, her china-blue eyes suggested her mother’s assurance, her mother’s calm. ‘You are the best of the lot,’ he told Friederike. ‘You should never have left the house. It amounted to cruelty to myself.’

  Every man, Rockenthien thought, deserved such a presence in his house. The Mandelsloh would check over the wines in the cellar, do his accounts, drown the kittens, keep an eye, if necessary, on Sophgen. And Friederike did take charge, not (as Sidonie did at Weissenfels) out of pity and painful anxiety, but simply as the result of her mother’s smiling ability to impose on her. Frau Rockenthien’s only positive action since Gunther was born and Hardenberg had attached himself to Sophie had been to get Friederike back into the house. Beyond that, however, nothing was really necessary.

  27

  Erasmus Calls on Karoline Just

  KAROLINE Just had never met Erasmus, but even at the door, before the servant announced him she knew who he must be. He was short and slight, his face was round, his eyes were neither large nor bright, but he was Fritz’s brother. She also knew from what she had been told about him that he must be due back, overdue perhaps, for his next term at Hubertusberg.

  Coelestin and Rahel Just were out. They were very much occupied at the moment with the purchase of a garden plot within walking distance of their street. They would grow asparagus, yes, and melons, and build a garden house, an earthly Paradise. They had gone out to drink coffee with the neighbours and to discuss the project, about which everybody already knew everything. Karoline, of course, was invited. But she did not go out very much these days.

  ‘I am afraid there is no-one but myself to welcome you,’ she said. ‘Your brother of course is still lodging with us, but he is on a visit to Gruningen.’

  Erasmus had come on a wave of tenderness and an impulse of conscience towards Karoline, or rather towards Karoline as he imagined her, which should properly have been felt by Fritz. He needed, too, to share his dismay at the intrusion into his life of such a creature as Sophie with someone who would surely understand him. He hoped at the same time to find out rather more about her, since his dispute with his brother meant that they could no longer discuss the matter, even in a letter.

  ‘Fraulein, I speak to you in all sincerity.’

  She asked him to call her Karoline.

  ‘You must know Schloss Gruningen quite well, isn’t that so? Your Uncle Just goes there, and must sometimes have taken you with him.’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ said Karoline. ‘What do you want to know about it?’ But Erasmus broke out, ‘What do you think of her? Who is she, truly?’

  ‘I was naturally more the friend of her eldest sister, who has married now and left home.’

  ‘Speak to me honestly, Karoline.’

  She asked him, ‘Have you never met Sophie von Kuhn?’

  ‘I have. I went to Schloss Gruningen and knocked at the door, as I have knocked at yours. I no longer have any decent manners, or any explanation for my conduct. Perhaps I am going mad.’

  ‘So, you have seen her. She is mature for her age, in some ways. She walks gracefully. She has pretty hair, dark hair, that is a good point.’ For the first time she looked frankly at Erasmus. ‘How could he?’

  ‘I hoped that you would answer that. I came here in the hope that you might tell me that, and also because -‘

  Karoline collected herself enough to pull the bell. ‘I am going to ask them to bring some refreshments, which we don’t want.’

  ‘Of course we do not,’ said Erasmus, who, however, when it arrived, ate large quantities of Zwieback, and drank some wine.

  He is twenty years only, she thought. He pities me. Never again will he have such sympathy for another human being whom he does not even know. But she did not want to be pitied. ‘Wait here a minute.’ She left him sitting there, uncertain what to do - he did not like to go on eating while she was out of the room - and came back with the verses which Hardenberg had sent her:

  Some day, in the noon-tide of life, we shall both sit at table,

  Each of us will be married, with the one we love beside us,

  Then we shall look back to how it was in the morning -

  Who would have dreamed of this? Never does the heart sigh in

  vain!

  Erasmus sat there, almost beyond words humiliated and embarrassed. ‘Four of you then, Karoline, I make it four of you, sitting round this table. Then there is someone else you know and care for.’

  ‘That is what the poem says,’ Karoline told him cautiously. ‘You may read it for yourself if you like.’

  She handed him the verses, dashingly written over two whole sheets. ‘So much waste! The back of the paper not used!’

  ‘He always writes like that
.’

  ‘Did you think I was in love with Hardenberg?’

  ‘God forgive me, I did,’ Erasmus said at last. ‘He has spoken of you so often. I expect I admire my brother too much. I deceive myself into thinking that everyone must feel about him in the same way. I am truly glad I was wrong - but we both continue, don’t we, to feel the same about - you mustn’t think I would be unjust to a young girl, and you must understand that although I have always shared Fritz’s life I have also known that the time must come when I will lose the greater half of him, and I have always hoped that when that time comes I shall have strength enough to content myself with what’s left for me - but Karoline, disappointment must have its limits - we continue, surely, to feel the same about -‘

  Karoline covered her face with her hands. ‘How could he? How could he?’

  28

  From Sophie’s Diary, 1795

  January 8

  Today once again we were alone and nothing much happened.

  January 9

  Today we were again alone and nothing much happened.

  January 10

  Hardenburch came at mid-day.

  January 13

  Today Hardenburch went away and I had nothing to amuse me.

  March 8

  Today we all decided to go to church but the weather held us up.

  March 11

  Today we were all alone and nothing much happened.

  March 12

  Today was like yesterday and nothing much happened.

  March 13

  It was a day of penance and Hartenb. was there.

  March 14

  Today Hartenber. was there he got a letter from his brother.

  29

  A Second Reading

  THE 17th of March, 1795 was Sophie’s 13th birthday. Two days earlier she had promised Fritz that she would marry him.

  On the 16th of June the always obliging Karl sent a pair of gold rings from Lutzen (where he was stationed) to his brother in Tennstedt.

  On the 21st of August he wrote again from Lutzen, where, he said, he had been ‘vegetating’ since the Peace of Basle. ‘I am sending the stirrup with its leather, and both the straw hats, on one of which I have left the ribbon, which is the latest fashion. The other one can be worn according to taste.’ One was for Erasmus to give to Karoline, one was for Sophie; the distribution was left to Fritz. There was also a workbox for the Mother, and, for the second time, Fritz’s gold ring, which had been sent back to Lutzen and had now been engraved, as he had asked, with an S. This could not have been done by a jeweller in Tennstedt - a place so small that they evidently didn’t know the fashion in straw hats, and indeed had no straw hats to sell - and certainly not in Weissenfels, where it would have caused notice and comment. The Freiherr von Hardenberg had not even been asked for his permission. The very name of Sophie von Kuhn had not been mentioned to him.

  The Rockenthiens, on the other hand, had scarcely needed to be asked. They were overjoyed, in the first place, simply by the new happiness in the house. Fritz was asked to be little Gunther’s godfather. George told him that if he was thinking of marrying it would be absolutely necessary for him to buy a new horse. The Gaul could go for cats’ meat.

  The Hausherr, rather surprisingly, seemed to take no offence at the idea that the Rockenthiens might be thought not good enough for the Hardenbergs. ‘She is too young to marry as yet. I do not know even if her periods are regularly established. By the time she is fifteen, we shall find a way out of our difficulties.’ Fritz had thought that Coelestin Just, his father’s good friend, might be let into their confidence and act as a kind of emissary between Weissenfels and Gruningen. ‘Oh, I think that wouldn’t serve,’ Herr Rockenthien said amiably. ‘The Kreisamtmann, as you probably noticed, thinks of me as a fool.’

  Almost as soon as he had offered Sophie her ring, and seen her - since she could not wear it openly - hang it round her neck, Fritz asked if he might read her the opening chapter of The Blue Flower. ‘It is the introduction,’ he told her, ‘to a story which I cannot write as yet. I do not know even what it will be. I have made a list of occupations and professions, and of psychological types. But perhaps after all it will not be a novel. There is more truth, perhaps, in folktales.’

  ‘Well, I like those,’ said Sophie, ‘but not if people are to be turned into toads, for that’s not amusing.’

  ‘I shall read my introduction aloud, and you must tell me what it means.’ Sophie evidently felt weighed down by this responsibility.

  ‘Do you not know yourself?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘Sometimes I think I do.’

  ‘But has no-one else read it?’

  Fritz searched his memory.

  ‘Yes, Karoline Just.’

  ‘Ah, she is clever.’

  The Mandelsloh came in, said that she too would listen and handed Sophie her day’s sewing. Even in this prosperous household they were turning the sheets and pillow slips sides to middle, which meant that they would last another ten years. Sophie was diverted for a moment by her needle-case. - ‘You gave me this, dear Hardenberg!’ - but then fell silent.

  ‘His father and mother were already in bed and asleep, the clock on the wall ticked with a monotonous beat, the wind whistled outside the rattling window-pane. From time to time the room grew brighter when the moonlight shone in. The young man lay restlessly on his bed and remembered the stranger and his stories. “It was not the thought of the treasure which stirred up such unspeakable longings in me,” he said to himself. “I have no craving to be rich, but I long to see the Blue Flower. It lies incessantly at my heart, and I can imagine and think about nothing else. Never did I feel like this before. It is as if until now I had been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me into another world. For in the world I used to live in, who would have troubled himself about flowers? Such a wild passion for a flower was never heard of there. But where could this stranger have come from? None of us had ever seen such a man before. And yet I don’t know how it was that I alone was truly caught and held by what he told us. Everyone else heard what I did, and yet none of them paid him serious attention.”’

  Not sure how much more he was going to read, the two women sat without speaking, with their sewing on their laps. Sophie was pale, her mouth was pale rose. There was the gentlest possible gradation between the colour of the face and the slightly open, soft, fresh, full, pale mouth. It was as if nothing had reached, as yet, its proper colour or its full strength - always excepting her dark hair.

  The Mandelsloh, who had given the reading her serious attention, said, ‘This is only the beginning of the story. How will it end?’

  ‘I should like you to tell me that,’ Fritz answered.

  ‘So far, it is a story for children.’

  ‘That is not against it,’ cried Sophie.

  ‘Why do you think this young man can’t sleep?’ he asked her urgently. ‘Is it the moon? Is it the ticking of the clock?’

  ‘Oh, no, that doesn’t keep him awake. He only notices it because he is not asleep.’

  ‘That is true,’ said the Mandelsloh.

  ‘But would he have slept well, if the stranger had not talked about the Blue Flower?’

  ‘Why should he care about a flower?’ Sophie asked. ‘He is not a woman, and he is not a gardener.’

  ‘Oh, because it is blue, and he has never seen such a thing,’ said the Mandelsloh. ‘Flax, I suppose, yes, and linseed, yes, and forget-me-nots and cornflowers, but they are commonplace and have nothing to do with the matter, the Blue Flower is something quite other.’

  ‘Please, Hardenberg, what is the name of the flower?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘He knew once,’ said Fritz. ‘He was told the name, but he has forgotten it. He would give his life to remember it.’

  ‘He can’t sleep, because he is alone,’ continued the Mandelsloh.

  ‘But there are many in the house,’ said Sophie.

  ‘But he is alone in his room. He looks for another dear
head on the pillow.’

  ‘Do you agree?’ asked Fritz, turning towards Sophie.

  ‘Certainly I should like to know what is going to happen,’ she said doubtfully.

  He said, ‘If a story begins with finding, it must end with searching.’

  Sophie did not possess many books. She had her hymnal, her Evangelium, and a list, bound with ribbon, of all the dogs that her family had ever had, although some of them had died so long ago that she could not remember them. To this she now added the introductory chapter of the story of the Blue Flower. This was in the handwriting of Karoline Just, who did all Fritz’s copying for him.

  ‘Sophgen likes listening to stories,’ Fritz wrote in his notebook. ‘She doesn’t want to be embarrassed by my love. My love weighs down on her so often. She cares more about other people and their feelings than about her own. But she is cold through and through.’

  ‘What I have written down about her does not make sense,’ he said to the Mandelsloh. ‘One thing contradicts another. I am going to ask you to write a description of her, as you have known her all her life - a portrait of her, as a sister sees her.’

  ‘Not possible!’ said the Mandelsloh.

  ‘I am asking too much of you?’

  ‘Very much too much.’

  ‘Do you never keep a journal?’ he asked her.

  ‘What if I do? You keep a diary, but could you describe your brother Erasmus?’

  ‘He describes himself,’ said Fritz. His distress remained. There was not even a passable likeness of Sophie in the house, except for a wretched miniature, in which her eyes appeared to bulge like gooseberries, or like Fichte’s. Only the hair, falling defiantly over her white muslin dress, was worth looking at. The miniature caused the whole family, Sophie above all, to laugh immoderately.