The Blue Flower

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  ‘This from Wilhelm,’ shouted the Freiherr, ‘who scarcely knows one note from another. The horses in his stable recognise more tunes than Wilhelm.’ He continued to take, and discard, advice. ‘The French manufacturers are the best,’ old Heun assured him. ‘They escaped the unpleasant situation in Paris, they have all taken refuge in London, where they live in the British Museum. You may enquire of them there.’

  If the Freifrau had been consulted she would have said that she did not care for the pianoforte, as an instrument, at all, and thought it dull in comparison with the sparkling chatter of the harpsichord, which reminded her of her girlhood. The harpsichord, which had now been moved out of the house, was in fact the one she had brought with her to Oberwiederstadt on the occasion of her marriage. It was French, and had a picture of a ruined temple by moonlight on the inside of the lid. But the relentless damp of Weissenfels, where the Saale secretively chose its own time, at any season of the year, to flood its banks, had mouldered it gradually away. The painting had become almost invisible, the jacks were like a row of ageing teeth, some missing. It had come to need re-tuning every evening, and by the morning the pitch was gone. Bits of it, too, appeared to have come unscrewed. ‘I dare say I shall be blamed,’ said the Bernhard. And in fact Karl complained that they had allowed the Angel to make a Pfuscherei of the harpsichord while he was with his regiment. ‘But in any case you cannot play it as well as Anton,’ said the Bernhard, ‘and it is being sold for firewood.’

  The Freiherr bought a piano by Johannes Zumpe, one of Silbermann’s apprentices, which had been advertised in the Zeitung. In this way he succeeded in not following his brother Wilhelm’s advice.

  Anton was called upon. Anton, who had been thought to have not much interest in life beyond following Karl’s example, was now the necessary person. All the family could play - Erasmus could play anything by ear, Sidonie was truly musical, but they could not play like Anton.

  The Zumpe piano had a third pedal, which allowed the three lowest octaves to be sustained, while the treble was damped in the ordinary way. Anton sat alone, refusing any help, in the salon. Although it hadn’t been one of the Freiherr’s requirements when he bought the house, the Hardenbergs’ salon had been built originally as a music room and for nothing else, and the airy space faithfully carried every note, balanced it, and let it fall reluctantly.

  The Freiherr now told his wife to invite suitable guests from Weissenfels and the surrounding neighbourhood to a soiree. ‘He is so good-hearted, Sidonie. He cannot rest until he has shared the beauty of the new music.’ Hardenberg went out so little, except to meetings of the Brethren and on tours of inspection, that he did not realise that a piano was anything but a novelty at Weissenfels. Chief Magistrate von Lindenau even had a Broadwood, ordered from England to his own specifications.

  ‘Surely what we are sharing is my father’s heartfelt pleasure in Fritz’s engagement,’ said Sidonie.

  ‘Of course, my dear.’

  ‘The party from Gruningen - we can’t tell how many will come - cannot, of course, return home the same night. They must all stay here, and you will have to consider about the rooms.’

  ‘How fortunate that we bought the slop-pails!’

  No-one in Weissenfels looked forward very much to the Hardenbergs’ invitations, but they were so rare - this was not thought of as meanness, everyone knew of their piety and charity - and so formally expressed, that they seemed less of a celebration than a register of slowly passing time, like mortality itself. Most of the guests would be town officials, all would know each other. But none of them would have met the Rockenthiens, except of course the Justs. The Justs had the farthest to come, but would spend the night at the house of old Heun, who was Rahel’s uncle.

  Lukas was at the door, Gottfried in charge of the Vorzimmer, which led into the great downstairs reception room. His last trip with the Freiherr to Neudietendorf seemed to have left him in a position of mild, almost benign authority, which had not been so noticeable before. Erasmus thought it possible that he had been drinking.

  ‘Inconceivable,’ said Sidonie. ‘You have been too long away from home.’

  Small groups of people, in threes and fours, lingered in the Kloster Gasse to watch the Hardenbergs’ guests arrive, particularly the rarely-seen country nobility. Old Count Julius von Schweinitz und Krain was driven up in a great barouche like a coffin. ‘Take me to some quiet place.’ Gottfried gave him an arm to the study.

  In the reception room the servants slowly circulated, offering small glasses of arrack. Fritz kept a watch for those whom he thought of as his own friends, and for those who understood poetry - for example, Friedrich Brachmann, the advocate, who had studied with him in Leipzig. Brachmann was crippled from birth, but he walked so carefully, you wouldn’t know it (everyone in Weissenfels knew it). Brachmann was hoping to enter the tax department. His limp would not matter there, his ideas about aesthetics would not matter much either. Fritz put an arm through his, and the other one round Frederick Severin.

  ‘Ah, best of friends, I congratulate you,’ said Severin. ‘And how is the little brother who likes the water?’

  ‘I think he is not supposed to be downstairs,’ replied Fritz, ‘but I daresay he is.’

  Louise, Brachmann’s sister, was the dear friend of Sidonie, who moved towards her as her name was announced by Gottfried. Louise was twenty-nine, and a poet.

  Both girls were in white, run up by the same dressmaker, but Sidonie seemed to be moving in flight or in a drift of whiteness, delicate, weightless, strange to the onlookers of Weissenfels, while Louise could only hope not to hear, at least for this summer, the suggestion that it was perhaps time Fraulein Brachmann should give up wearing white altogether.

  ‘Oh Louise, Louise, I have spoken to Fritz: he is going to send your poems to Friedrich Schiller, only you must keep copies, my dear, because these great men frequently lose what is sent to them.’

  Sidonie’s eyes shone with the pleasure of pleasing. Louise did not reply.

  ‘But that was what you wanted, Lu?’

  ‘Is your brother not going to read them himself?’

  Sidonie faltered.

  ‘I am sure he must have done.’

  ‘What did he say to you about them?’ Then, after a moment. ‘It does not signify, they are only words, the broken words of a woman.’

  Sidonie wished that the party from Gruningen would arrive, and fix the attention of the lot of them: then the piano would surely draw them all together. That the Rockenthiens had set out she knew, since the Mandelsloh had had the good sense to send off the stable-boy (the new stable-boy) as messenger the moment they started. The boy, covered with a thick coating of dust, had now arrived, and was being petted in the kitchen. Meantime here were the Justs, Coelestin magnificent in the dark green ceremonial uniform of his rank. Heun, who came with them, was also entitled to a uniform, though not, apparently, one that fitted him. Karoline, who rarely took anything, swallowed half a glass of arrack, and went to stand with Fritz, Erasmus, Severin and Brachmann.

  ‘Where is Sidonie?’ she asked.

  ‘With Louise, with poor Louise,’ said Erasmus. ‘But all that matters is that you have arrived. You are the best friend any of us have, the very best. You are the conciliator. Not even Sidonie can do it so well.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Fritz. ‘Where Justen is, one can be at peace.’

  ‘Then I hope, mademoiselle, you will visit my bookshop,’ said Severin.

  ‘Of course she will,’ Fritz cried. ‘She knows as much about books as I do, and far more about music.’

  ‘There is nothing to know about music,’ said Karoline, smiling.

  ‘You must play for us later on.’

  ‘I would not dream of it.’

  ‘Fritz bowed and excused himself, having duties everywhere. Karoline looked slowly round her, not allowing herself to watch where he went. She saw the guests as drifts of grey, black, and brown, with the uniforms (since most of those who wore the
m preferred to talk to each other) as knots of glittering colour, becoming less harsh as the evening light began to fade. The twilight, God be thanked, merciful to us all. The white dresses, now the most conspicuous of all, still lingered on the outer edge of the groups, except for Sidonie’s. She had hurried to the side of Senf, who was standing entirely by himself, wearing, to mark his consciousness of his former disgrace (although he had plenty of good clothes), a patched swallow-tail coat. Sidonie was shaking her head at him, and laughing. This seemed extraordinary, for Senf had never been known to say anything amusing. He looked surprised, almost bewitched.

  Fritz himself was for the moment with Louise, bending over her awkwardly, but with an instinct of true kindness. The poetess gaped up at him like a fish.

  Brachmann drew Erasmus aside a little, towards the windows, and said, ‘You know, I have never met Fraulein Just before. She is no longer quite young, but she has worth and serenity.’ He paused. ‘Do you think she would consider a lame man for a husband?

  Erasmus, staggered, was able to answer, ‘Oh, but her affections are engaged - I don’t know where and I don’t know who to, but I do know that much.’

  What an embarrassing pair they are, he thought, this brother and sister. It would be much easier if they could marry each other.

  ‘You were asking about the Bernhard,’ said Karoline, left alone with Severin. ‘I believe Hardenberg is truly interested in his younger brother. Indeed, he is altogether very fond of children.’

  ‘Quite possibly he is,’ said Severin. ‘As to Bernhard, you must remember that not all children are child-like.’

  44

  The Intended

  PERHAPS there would never be another evening quite like this in Weissenfels. The guests were waiting, although they were not accustomed to it: even in this great airy room, most of their faces had turned a comfortable fruit-red, but they were unable to settle down to their familiar inspection of each other’s costume, followed by discussion, slight advance, slight retreat, circulation, repetition, deep and thick gossip, then indulgence in pickled goose legs, black ham, fruit liqueurs, sweet cakes, more spirits, an amiable progress home, an uncertain climb up to bed. Tonight they could not quite count on anything. Uncertainty and expectancy moved among the guests like the first warning of fever, touching even the most stolid.

  Still no Rockenthiens, still no Affianced. In the kitchen, the cook induced the protesting stable-boy, who felt that he was held in some way to blame, to kneel down and pray for his employers’ safe arrival.

  ‘They will come,’ he blubbered, ‘but Fraulein Sophie cannot be hurried, she has been ill.’

  The Freiherr was unperturbed, for it had never crossed his mind, since the day when he had agreed to the engagement, to alter any of the arrangements he had made. In fifteen minutes they would all go upstairs to hear the piano, then supper, at which he would not take his place at the head of one of the tables, but would move about, pausing now at one chair, now at another, while Fritz and his Intended sat side by side, then music, and if Sophie’s health permitted it, dancing. There were six-and-a-half minutes to go until they adjourned to the music room; he allowed himself a short visit to his old friend Schweinitz und Krain, who was still half-slumbering where Gottfried had left him.

  ‘Hardenberg, what is this I am drinking? Is this what they call punch?’

  ‘Yes, I am told Fritz mixed it up himself.’

  ‘It has to be mixed up?’

  ‘Yes, it seems so.’

  ‘Time wasted, Hardenberg.’

  ‘I will get them to bring you something else.’

  ‘Hardenberg, who are these Rockenthiens?’

  The Freiherr shook his head.

  ‘Alas! my old friend!’ said the Count.

  They had all been swept up the great central staircase, all were seated on faded and tattered chairs brought from all over the house. Most of the candles had been extinguished. Anton, still only fourteen, with raw wrists protruding from his first cadet’s uniform, sat down at the Zumpe, where the brightest light fell.

  ‘I will begin with something by Johann Friedrich Reichardt,’ he announced boldly. ‘I will play one of his revolutionary songs.’

  ‘What is that, boy?’ called out the Freiherr.

  ‘Anton, you will start with some religious music,’ cried the mother, with the authority of anguish. ‘You will play “Wie sie so sanft ruhn”.’

  Anton turned towards her and nodded. Then the piano lifted its voice, so peaceable, so clear.

  The gentle air continued, cut off from any noise in the Kloster Gasse. But then the doors of the music room were thrown open, and light poured in from the broad passage-way outside. Gottfried, although clearly in doubt as to the interruption, introduced Frau von Rockenthien, beautiful but sleepy-looking in a pale violet dress, the Hausherr, a chastened George. But where is She?

  ‘They gave me orders to go ahead,’ bellowed Rockenthien. ‘My stepdaughter is resting for the moment at the bottom of your stairs.’ He advanced on his hosts, huge, weather-beaten, clapping his hands.

  ‘He might be scaring rooks,’ muttered Louise Brachmann. ‘Heaven help us, they’re like a troop of farmhands come up for the hiring fair.’

  The Freiherr received the party with faultless courtesy, making a sign to Gottfried, who set about relighting the candles. Anton, at the end of the next phrase, stopped short, and folded his hands. Where was the Affianced? The elder guests murmured in pity and rank curiosity. She would be carried in, she was debilitated.

  But Sophie, quietly followed by the Mandelsloh, came almost running across the room with her old impatience, pale, yes that’s true, but eager and high-pitched as ever, transparently ready to enjoy herself. She was dressed in embroidered silk - Chinese silk, they thought - where would that have come from? Her hair was hidden under a white cap, quite appropriate for an Affianced. She wore a single white rose.

  ‘Hardenburch!’

  He was there.

  ‘They said I must not come -‘

  Everyone had thought that this would be the end of young Anton’s recital, but the Mandelsloh, who had decided on her tactics as soon as she entered the house, singled out the Freifrau and persuaded her that they must all of them hear it to the very end. The front rows of chairs emptied and shifted to make place for the newcomers. Anton nodded, and continued with a setting of some of Zinzendorf’s hymns for the Brethren, passing on to the airs from two or three Singspiele and the, what was the piece that he played after that? - that very beautiful piece, I did not know it, could Anton have improvised it himself?

  No-one admitted to knowing it, but all half-closed their eyes in pleasure.

  He ended with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Capriccio on the Departure of His Brother. Deeply the audience sighed.

  Some of them at least, too, had expected at the supper to see an exchange of rings, after which the father of the future bridegroom, as host, might declare what he intended to give in the way of furniture, feather beds &c. &c., with, perhaps, a list of property. But the Hardenbergs did not do things in that way. The Freiherr only rose to his feet to halt the determined eating and drinking for a few moments, to announce his own happiness and that of his wife’s, to welcome them all, and to ask them to join him in a short prayer.

  It had also been thought that after the supper, on account of Fraulein Sophie’s recent illness, there would be no dancing. But Sophie begged for the musicians.

  The Mandelsloh reminded her that Dr Ebhard, perhaps relieved to have something definite to say, had forbidden dancing absolutely.

  ‘I wish I had him here,’ cried Sophie. ‘I’d make him waltz till his brains boiled.’

  She sat between her own mother and Hardenberg’s mother, the Freifrau. Frau Rockenthien, as almost always, smiled. She wished Anton was still playing, particularly that piece, rather towards the end, whose name she had been sure she once knew, and she wished she had the baby with her. She was not embarrassed by her husband’s loud voice - her first husb
and had also been very noisy, and neither of them had had any more effect on her than windy weather.

  The Freifrau, meanwhile, struggled alone with the demon of timidity. The single glass of arrack which she had taken had not helped her at all. In her heart - although she was afraid this might be a sin of thought - she was terribly disappointed in her future daughter-in-law’s appearance. Sophie had a certain touching, bright eagerness but it was a child’s brightness. Perhaps because she had never been much to look at herself, Auguste attached great importance to dignity, to height, and to regal beauty. Perhaps Sophie might look better if she let her hair down. Fritz had told her that it was dark.

  Since his Intended must not dance, Fritz brought forward the dignitaries of Weissenfels, one by one, to introduce them to her, and among them the younger ones, his own friends. ‘I have the happiness to present you to Fraulein von Kuhn, who has done me the honour … This is Sophie, this is my true Philosophy … This is Sophie, this is my spirit’s guide in all things …’

  ‘O, you must not mind him,’ she replied to their congratulations. She was constraining herself not to tap her feet. The music seemed to pass into them and upwards through her whole body: she felt like a bottle of soda-water. A faint rose colour had come at last into her face.

  ‘O, you must not mind him … when he says such things I laugh.’ And she did laugh.

  On the whole, Sophie impressed favourably. She was not at all the kind of wife they would have expected for a Hardenberg. But she was artless, and that pleased. Nature always pleases.

  How much money would she bring with her? they asked each other.

  George, nearly choked by his first high collar and frill, intended to join the dancing as soon as convenient, but did not feel that he had had quite enough to eat to keep his strength up. Downstairs in the half-darkened dining room, which had not yet been cleared, he came across a boy a couple of years younger than himself with the appearance (irritating to George) of an angel. George silently helped himself to cold pigeon-pie, doubling up his left fist in his pocket in case it came to a matter of best man wins, and it was necessary to give the angel a hacking. He said loudly, ‘Don’t you think my sister Sophie is pretty?’