The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

  “Or,” said Eliza, catching the eye of Johann Georg, “to turn into something else.”

  “Pray, don’t get up!” Eleanor said to her husband, who had shown not the slightest intention of doing so. “I’ll to my bed, and shall see you all, I suppose, whenever you crawl out of yours. I do apologize once more for the miserable state of the accommodations.” This last was aimed at her husband, who did not penetrate its meaning.

  “Right,” said Eliza, once the staircase, and the floorboards overhead, had let off creaking under the movements of Eleanor. She was in the salon now with the Elector of Saxony and his mistress, and she had their undivided attention. She brushed a bit of damp plaster out of her hair. “Where were we? Oh yes, the Chariot.”

  “Chariot?”

  “I’m sorry, it is the name given to the technique that—in those countries that are enlightened enough to sanction the ancient Biblical practice of polygamy—is used by a Sultan when he is at a numerical disadvantage to his wives. I could try to describe it. A picture would be ever so much more effective, but I can’t draw to save my life. Perhaps I should demonstrate it. Why, yes! That would be best. Would you be a dear, my good Elector, and flip yonder table upside down? I’ll fetch an ottoman from the other room—”

  “A what!?” barked Johann Georg, and his hand shifted to the hilt of his sword.

  “As in a piece of furniture. We’ll want something in lieu of reins—my dear Countess, if you’d care to unwind that silk sash from about your waist, ’twould serve.”

  “But the sash is holding up my—”

  “—?”

  “—ah, j’ai compris, madame.”

  “I knew you would, Fräulein.”

  “I HAD TO FUCK SOMEONE,” Eliza mumbled through the hem of her blanket. “I suppose you’ll think me a whore. But my son—I refer to the legitimate one—Lucien—died. Adelaide is a gem, but she was foolhardy enough to have been born female. My husband requires a legitimate boy.”

  “But—with him!?”

  “You said yourself that his imbecility was not congenital.”

  “But how will you explain the timing of it!?”

  “There is nothing that can’t be explained away, if Étienne is willing to play along, and not ask difficult questions. And I think he is willing. None of it matters, probably.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  By way of an answer, Eliza—who was lying flat on her back in bed with a blanket over most of her face—thrust out a hand.

  Eleanor screamed.

  “Be quiet! They’ll hear you,” said Eliza.

  “They—they have already left,” said Eleanor from the uttermost corner of the room, whence she’d fled, quick as a sparrow.

  “Oh. Then go ahead and scream all you like.”

  “When did the bumps appear?”

  “I thought I felt one coming on yesterday. Had no idea they’d spread so rapidly.” Eliza flipped the blanket down to expose her face. Earlier she’d counted twenty bumps, there, by feel, then lost interest. Eleanor gave her only the briefest glance before turning her face aside, and adopting a pose in the corner of the room like a schoolgirl who is being punished.

  “So this is why you insisted Caroline and Adelaide be sent away to Leipzig!”

  “You do a sick woman an injustice there. You yourself told me that the Elector could not take his eyes off Caroline. You mentioned it half a dozen times unbidden. She has only bloomed the more since he last raped her with his eyes. That alone was reason sufficient to get her out of the house.”

  “Does the Elector know?”

  “Know that I have smallpox? Not yet.”

  “How could he have missed it?”

  “First, most of these vesicles have broken out in the last few hours. Second, we did it in the dark. Third, many persons—including some who were not hit on the head as boys—are unclear as to the distinction between smallpox, and the great pox, or syphilis. Given the company he keeps, I cannot but think that Johann Georg has seen much of the latter!”

  “What you have done is horrible!” Eleanor said, turning around, and, when she saw Eliza’s face, thinking better of it.

  “Oh, I’ve had worse.”

  “No! I mean, trying to get someone sick.”

  “You could have guessed yesterday that I had smallpox. You could have warned them off. You chose not to. So your outrage at this moment is very tiresome.”

  Eleanor could not frame any response to this.

  “I don’t know a single man at Versailles who has not killed someone, at least once in his life, directly or indirectly, by omission or commission. It is done commonly, and on the slightest pretexts. I might not have done what I did last night, had you not told me that the Elector desires Caroline. But knowing what I did of his lust for the girl, and his power over you, and knowing how it was likely to come out—well, I did what I did. Now, Eleanor, that is enough of talking about it. I really am spent. Last night took too much out of me at a time when I ought to have been conserving my strength. Now I’ll pay the penalty. I wrote out instructions—in case of my death. It’s under my pillow. I’m sleepy. Good-bye.”

  Jean Bart to Eliza

  MAY 1694

  My lady,

  I take the liberty of sending you a first draft, only because the English Navy is massing in the Channel to lob more bombs on to French soil, a most tiresome practice of which they have lately become quite fond. They would prefer, of course, to destroy the many ships of our fleet (which all ought to be named Eliza, as we owe their existence to you). But these are moving targets, which their vessels are too slow to pursue, and their gunners too inept to hit, and so instead they have have taken to shooting at buildings. One is reminded of some old Baron who phant’sies himself a brave hunter, but is too shaky, senile, and blind to hit anything, and so stands in his garden blasting away at stuffed animals that his servants have propped up against the hedge.

  But life, and this letter, are both too short to be wasted on the English and so I shall go straight to the point and pray you’ll forgive my bald way of speaking.

  My services are much in demand of late, as trade has stopped, owing to some confusion in the world of money. I do not understand it at all. You, I am certain, understand it perfectly. In between my perfect ignorance and your perfect knowledge stand the rest of humanity—innumerable persons of greater or less dignity, who phant’sy they understand it. Whatever the case may be, these persons know that your humble and obedient servant, Captain Jean Bart, is, at the present time, the only person making money in France (some small-minded pedants would assert that this is only by virtue of the fact that I steal things by force from their rightful owners; but this is a fine distinction that I shall leave to the Jesuits, so that one of them may one day come to me on my death-bed and inform me whether I’m bound for Heaven or Hell). Call it what you will, I bring money to France and deposit almost all of it into the King’s coffers, in accordance with certain rules and procedures that have seen set down, or so I am told, to govern my métier, viz. Privateer. In consequence, I have been noticed by many persons, foreign and domestic, who are owed money by our government. They write me letters, sidle up to me at soirées, tug on my sleeve at the many levées and couchées to which I am invited; they loiter before my house, overhaul me on the high seas, pursue me down streets and garden-paths, send me wine, plant the most alluring whores in my very bed, mutter to me in the confessional, and threaten to kill me, all in the hopes that I shall, by some prestidigitation, channel the next treasure-ship to this or that port, so that it may fall into the hands of this or that local official who shall route the proceeds to this or that account.

  You might recall that two years ago I took a large amount of silver from Lothar von Hacklheber, who waxed very wroth, and sent me the most impertinent letters, claiming that the money had been meant to cover some French government loan that had been made down in Lyon. I replied to his representative that Lyon was a long way from Dunkerque—I even offere
d to draw him a map—and I threw up my hands, knowing little and caring less of these Lyonnaise follies. In time, von Hacklheber stopped importuning me about this; but then after an all too brief respite he got after me again, claiming that the contrôleur-général had failed to make good on that Lyon loan. It seemed that he or his agents had inquired in every pays and arrived at the conclusion that the only way he would ever get his money back was through Dieppe; for in that port he had come to some sort of understanding with the local officials, such that, of the King’s revenue that happened to come in there, some moiety would be diverted to the House of Hacklheber in repayment of the loan that it had extended to France.

  Of course, I ignored him; though this did stick in my memory, for I recall that you had some sort of unpleasantness with Lothar von Hacklheber, though you would not part with any of the details; and in his communications, which were often of a most bizarre character, he made liberal use of your name.

  A little bit more recently, I have begun to receive communications of a markedly similar nature from none other than the contrôleur-général himself, M. le comte de Pontchartrain, who is keen that I should get in the habit of bringing my prizes to the port of Le Havre. For it would seem that he has so arranged matters that any of the King’s revenue passing through that port shall be channeled to some destination that is pleasing to him. He too has mentioned your name; for he knows of my passionate, wholly inappropriate and scandalous, and (so far) unrequited affection for you.

  Now as a practical matter nothing of value has entered either Dieppe or Le Havre for some weeks, as both were attacked, bombed, and burnt by the British, in the manner I have already described. These disturbances have not hindered me from plying my trade, and so I have, during the same interval, garnered much treasure I would fain unload. Instead I have, perforce, kept it stored away in the holds of diverse ships—which, being moving targets, are perfectly safe from the British Navy. Why, in the hold of my own ship Alcyon, where I sit writing these words, are stored three-quarters of a million livres tournoises worth of silver and gold. I’ll not unload such treasure in Dunkerque, for, as much as I love my hometown, its land connexions to France are too tenuous, and infested by highwaymen and Vagabonds. Dieppe or Le Havre, being closer to Paris, would be better—but which?

  Far be it from me to spite the contrôleur-général, and so Le Havre is the obvious choice—yet just a few weeks ago you bestowed on me the honor of escorting you to Hamburg, so that you could pursue some errand among the Tatars, the Cossacks, or the Germans (as a sea-going man, I am unclear as to whatever fine distinctions might be observed, by geographers, among these landlocked tribes). Rumor has it that you are near Leipzig, the seat of Lothar von Hacklheber. It would seem, therefore, that my actions in respect of the gold and silver that is stored in my hold must have consequences for your venture. But I can’t for the life of me make out what those consequences might be, and what is the best course for me to take.

  To summarize, I am surrounded by persons who ask much of me but give me nothing that I desire. Far away are you, my lady, who have done more for me than anyone alive—and all simply because you are infatuated with me (don’t bother denying it!). Yet you have never asked me for anything. And so, perversely, it is you, and no one else, whose bidding I would do in the matter. I hope that this finds you in good health in Crimea, Turkestan, Outer Mongolia, or wherever it is you have got to. Please know that I am awaiting some clarification from you as to whether I should call next at Dieppe, Le Havre, or some other port.

  Your tumescent love slave,

  (Capt.) Jean Bart

  Leipzig

  MAY 1694

  And why then are we to despise Commerce as a Mechanism, and the Trading World as mean, when the Wealth of the World is deem’d to arise from Trade?

  —DANIEL DEFOE,

  A Plan of the English Commerce

  PRINCESS WILHELMINA CAROLINE of Brandenburg-Ansbach wrinkled her nose, and flipped her braid back over her shoulder. “ ‘Tumescent love slave’—is this some sort of French idiom? I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

  “Noise! It is an idiocy that Captain Bart threw in at the end, for he knew that he had to wind up the letter, but could not make out how, and became desperate, and lost his wits. Thank God he is more even-tempered in battle! Pray don’t dwell on that, my lady—”

  “Why do you call me that? It’s weird. Stop it!”

  “You are a born Princess, and very likely to be a Queen some day. I am a made Duchess.”

  “But to me you are Aunt Eliza!”

  “And to me you are my little squirrel. But the fact remains that you’re doomed to be a Princess whether you like it or not, and you’re going to have to marry someone.”

  “As happened to my mother,” said Caroline, suddenly serious.

  “Please do not forget that it happened twice. The second time around, she had to marry someone who was not suited for her. But the first time she was in a good marriage—to your father—and a perfectly wonderful Princess came of it.”

  Caroline blushed at this, and looked at the floor of the carriage. A whip-pop sounded from outside, and it lurched forward. They’d been stalled, for a time, outside the north gate of Leipzig. Caroline’s eyes came up off the floor and gleamed in the light of the window. Eliza continued: “Why did your mother later end up in a bad marriage? Because things had gone against her—things she was powerless to do anything about, for the most part—and in the end she had very little choice in the matter. Now, why do you suppose I’m letting you read my personal correspondence from Captain Bart? To pass the time on the road to Leipzig? No, for if we only wished to make time pass, we could play cards. I show you these things because I am trying to teach you something.”

  “What, exactly?”

  It was a good question, and brought Eliza up short. For a few moments there was no sound in the carriage except what came into it from without: the clopping of shod hooves, the crashing of rims on road, the oinking and grunting of the suspension. A shadow enveloped them, then fell away aft: They’d passed through the gate into Leipzig.

  “Pay attention, that’s all,” Eliza said. “Notice things. Connect what you’ve noticed. Connect it into a picture. Think of how the picture might be changed; and act to change it. Some of your acts may turn out to have been foolish, but others will reward you in surprising ways; and in the meantime, simply by being active instead of passive, you have a kind of immunity that’s hard to explain—”

  “Uncle Gottfried says, ‘Whatever acts cannot be destroyed.’ ”

  “The Doctor means that in a fairly narrow and technical metaphysical sense,” Eliza said, “but it’s not the worst motto you could adopt.”

  And now for the tenth time in as many minutes Eliza reached up to scratch and probe at her face. In half a dozen places, small disks of black felt had been glued to it, covering crater-like excavations that smallpox had made in her flesh, but not had the good grace to fill back in before it had departed her body.

  Most of what she knew about the progress of the disease, she knew second-hand, from Eleanor and the physician who had come to tend to her. Eliza herself had descended into a sort of twilight sleep. Her eyes had been open, and impressions had reached her mind, but the span of time she had spent in this trance—about a week—seemed both very long and very brief. Very brief because she remembered little of it—it was “when I had smallpox” to her now. Very long because, during it, she had heard every tick of the clock, and felt the budding of every pox-pustule, its growth as it peeled layers of skin asunder a slow steady agony that sparked whenever two pustules found each other and fused. In some places—particularly her lower back—those sparks had built to a wide-spread fire. Though Eliza had been too delirious to know it, these had been the moments when her life had hung in the balance, for if that fire had spread any further or burnt any brighter, her skin would have come off, and she’d not have survived it.

  It was at such times that a physician wou
ld emerge to tell a room of hand-wringing loved ones that the case was very grave, and that the patient’s life hung in the balance. Had it gone any further, the report would have changed to “not expected to survive,” and everyone would have known, from this, that the disease had moved on to its sausage-grinder phase. In Eliza’s case this had not happened. Fate had flipped a coin, and it had come up heads. The disease had nearly flayed her lower back and some parts of her arms and legs, and done damage internally, too. But it had spared her eyesight and left perhaps three dozen pocks on her face, of which most could be seen only in direct sun; of the ten or so that were obvious even by candlelight, some could be hid by a lock of hair or a high-collared dress, and the remainder got the black patch treatment. Eliza did not seriously intend to begin every day for the rest of her life by gluing these horrid objects to her skin, but today was special; she was venturing out of the dower-house of Pretzsch for the first time since she had arrived there six weeks earlier. She was going into Leipzig—which passed for a big city in these parts—and she was going to meet some people.

  Of the six weeks at the dower-house, the first had been spent in (in retrospect) the prodrome of the illness, and culminated with the sending away of Caroline and Adelaide and the visit of the Elector and his mistress. After that it had been all pustules for two weeks. Eliza had not really come awake and begun to weave her impressions into coherent memories again until the twenty-fourth day; which happened to be the same day that the distant church-bells of Torgau and Wittenberg had begun to toll, announcing the deaths of the Elector of Saxony and his mistress. Eleanor was a widow for the second time. She was henceforth the Electress-Dowager of Saxony. Which meant she was living in the right house for once: The dower-house was where a dowager was supposed to live. The new Elector was Johann Georg’s brother, August. August the Strong. He already had a hundred illegitimate children and was said to be hard at work on the second hundred, and his passion for engaging wild beasts in single combat would do nothing to improve Saxony’s reputation at Versailles; but he had not been hit on the head, he bore no ill will toward Eleanor, and he didn’t want to screw Caroline, so it looked like a win.