People of the Book

by David Stacton

  “Upon my soul, I do not know,” said Mysendonck, who didn’t.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” shouted Frau Larsen, who had given rise to this rumor herself, having mentioned Stöss once nine years ago, and in those terms. People were talking about her. It was the one thing she feared. She feared it far more than the truth. She shooed Mysendonck toward the door, while Lars went about his carpentering, which he did well, but the nails were bad. “At Magdeburg.”

  The habit of truthtelling did not come easily to her. Nonetheless, there was an Epiphanius Stöss, and he was at Magdeburg. Something inside Frau Larsen raged at the thought of him. She stood there with her mouth open until Pastor Mysendonck was out of sight. Then she shut it.

  It seemed to Lars she was drowning. That’s all life is, death by drowning. No matter how stubbornly we tread water, we shall never reach shore, and no one will come to fetch us out.

  *

  Those boards Frau Larsen had had Lars put up over her once windows were planks of cross-ripped yellow wood, furry and fibrous from the saw, and with a sulphurous stench. By autumn they were warped at the edges, the cheap square iron nails that held them had oxydized already from the sea salt. Frau Larson, who had always wanted the best of everything, now seemed content only with the worst.

  She put up no conserves that summer, and in the autumn pickled no apples, though in the privacy of the courtyard she sun-dried a few. She smoked some eel, but put no meat down in crocks. She seemed to be waiting. She did not even go to church.

  She was house proud, everybody knew that. They had thought she would rebuild. She had property; anyone would have advanced her the money. But Frau Larsen did not borrow money; she lent it.

  4

  II.xxii.1: It was observed that some wars were founded upon real motives, and others only upon colourable pretexts. Thus Alexander made war upon Darius, under the pretence of avenging former wrongs done by the Persians to the Greeks. But the real motive of that bold and enterprising hero, was the easy acquisition of wealth and dominion, which the expeditions of Xenophon and Agesilaus opened to his view.

  It was a hard winter, even by Swedish standards. The Emperor in Vienna wished to turn the whole world Catholic, but had not the power. In the Germanies, the Protestant princes wished to resist him, but were too emulous of each other to unite. In Vienna, the joke was that come spring, the Snow King would melt. The Imperialist commanders were mostly aliens whose minds froze with the cold. The Swedes were used to cold, and the freeze made the rivers and saltpans the easier to cross.

  “If we were all as cold as you, we should soon freeze,” said Gustav Adolf once to his Chancellor.

  “If we all blew as hot as Your Majesty,” said Oxenstierna, “we should soon burn.”

  The King distributed cloaks, gloves, woolen stockings, and waterproof Russia leather boots, kept the troops fed, and gave them good usage. By such means he soon had 71,200 men.

  The Imperialist troops had to clothe themselves, and were seldom paid. Therefore they sacked the countryside. The less they were paid, the more expensive they became. Dogs, if untended, run in packs.

  The House of Austria, in order to retrench, dismissed large numbers of its troops; the veterans first, since veterans were more expensive. This was thought an astute, cunning economy. Being trained to no other trade, the veterans promptly went over to Gustavus, who officered them well. He also, unlike most generals, did his own fighting, and a man who does his own fighting is harder to defeat.

  He spent six months consolidating Pomerania, and cast about him for allies. In August he entered Magdeburg, which was considered a triumph for the Protestant cause. A scythe of ravens cut through the sky. The sunsets were disturbing. The Elbe looked like blood. It was a splendid spectacle. But the citizens of Magdeburg, though Lutheran, grew sullen, feared revenge, wanted none of him, and obstructed the building of fortifications. There are always fewer men willing to fight in their own defense than there are to sack a neighbor’s town. And besides, Gustavus was a stranger here. Nobody was going to sack Stockholm.

  Since troops have to be paid for, Gustavus proposed that the French should do it, as part of their policy of endeavoring to sap Hapsburg power by creating diversions in the Germanies, North Italy, and the Lowlands.

  He also proposed to enjoy himself, for he knew that the French had no idea with whom or with what they were dealing. They seemed to think that they could buy him. And though it may be true, one way or another—for it is not always money—that every man has his price, it is equally true that in such bargains he holds something back, since even the most venal have something that is not for sale. They may deplore the fact, but when it comes to cases, they find they cannot do it, despite themselves. They despise themselves for this, so on this one thing they are so secretive that most men would never guess it to exist. And that small secret, as often as not, wrecks the plans of both sides. For the transparent pretext is much more dangerous than the colored one: it would take a jeweler to find the flaw.

  The man of integrity sells himself much more amiably and readily than the man who has none, for he knows that no matter what he does, he hasn’t done it, for he acts in accord with his own dark conscience, not to cast a long shadow in the glare of public day. And though Richelieu was careful always to consult the dark side of every man, he never realized that there is a lamp down there, willing to leap to light when needed. Men who walk in the dark need no candle, they are used to it. The candle is kept for use in a warm room afterward, when they have come back, their walk done.

  It was Richelieu Gustavus must deal with. For Richelieu was an overholder; the King of France was no more than a man who signed papers. He was an overholder hampered by an ignorance of finance, for though he knew what money could do, he did not know how to raise it, but that did not make him any the less one. Gustavus was fortunate in having Oxenstierna for finance. No man can manage everything.

  We sometimes forget, in our lust to cut them down to our own size or smaller by means of some humanizing anecdote, some petty meanness chosen to prove that greatness requires no ability we do not have ourselves, that the legendary aspects of the great are almost invariably true: that Hampden was Hampden, whether he had a bowel movement every day or not; that though she had a hook nose and too much intelligence, Cleopatra did enthrall Caesar and Anthony; that Luther’s costiveness did not prevent his creation of the German language; that Caesar, though effeminate, bald, and given to the wearing of gold fringe, founded an empire.

  Cardinal Richelieu was no exception to such remarks. His health was bad. He was spindly. He was not really of good family, merely of ancient and impoverished county nobility. His piety was ever in doubt. He was too much the spider. He was insincere. He was not tall enough. He had a tendency to gum his food. He was ostentatious, treacherous, and unduly addicted to cats. He was sometimes spiteful, and often petty. But he was also a personage, ruthless, peremptory, noble, selfless, always just entering a room but never in it, remote, but truly great, not because of what he was, but because of something he believed in. He believed in France. France to him was not a country, but a principle. When he said we, he did not mean what Louis XIII, his master, meant. He spoke out of the allegory, turning his head. He was France. Before his time there had not been such a place. He made it out of nothing but will power, a weak king wise enough to trust him but a religious maniac, some fractious nobles, and a little land. It was his Host. He transubstantiated it. He had turned it into something sacred.

  As a result, when he walked, France walked. When he sat, France sat. When he moved, France was moved. And like Gustav Adolf, he too had his Oxenstierna, his Father Joseph, a man to do the errands and see to the detail, as selfless as himself, just as clever, only not so forward or so glittering.

  Nobody liked him and he did not care. No more would a field care. It was impossible in his presence or out of it to see this star-spangled prince of darkness was only a feeble man with a bad cough. Like the box, he had appeared, no one coul
d remember when or how. He loomed as large as Lucifer, had the same plans, and fell just as majestically through all eternity. And when you caught him at his ease, stroking the warm flanks of his cats while they leaned into his hand, purred, and kinked their tails, you realized that he was playing with them because he had made them only the day before and was amused and pleased with the rightness of the work.

  He was baroque. We have only one human anecdote of him, but that is humane enough. When Father Joseph was on his deathbed, Richelieu, himself ill, went into the room smiling, and for his colleague’s sake told an unnecessary lie. “Father Joseph,” he whispered in his ear, “Breisach is taken.” It was a fort they had both wanted. The two men had loved each other, though it was the love of spinsters.

  But Father Joseph was not dead yet.

  “Yes, yes,” said Richelieu impatiently. “But the ambitions of small men need not disturb us; they are dangerous only in packs.”

  It was Father Joseph’s opinion that Oxenstierna was a dark star, discoverable by his gravity, attraction, and weight, but not knowable. They had best dispatch ambassadors to Gustavus.

  *

  The French emissary, Charnacé, was a polished courtier, distressed by stenches belowstairs only if the floor happened not to be parquet. He was not impressed by this northern king. He was not accustomed to autocrats. The aristocrat prides himself on a simpering indifference to self-sufficiency. If you ask him what he thinks, he must ask his valet. He is an entire materialist, but not a realist. He cannot take care of himself in an emergency. He does not recognize the existence of emergencies until such time as he is taken out and shot. The autocrat—they sometimes occur even among the aristocracy—makes damn sure he knows how to shoot a gun and boil an egg. He is thus more apt to survive than is his cousin, and though less acceptably puerile, infinitely more to be dreaded. Charnacé found Gustavus boiling an egg, and was affronted. It was as they said in France: the man was no better than an adventurer.

  Gustavus shelled the egg in a basin of cold water and, with a twinkle, ate it. He offered Charnacé one. The offer was not accepted. He suffered fools gladly; in a world in which no man can hope for heaven and must spend his daily life trying to make hell livable, it is a delight to know they shall not be with us, on the other side. They are sure of heaven. They tell us so themselves. So we may go to the Elysian fields to pick squills and talk over old campaigns, secure in the knowledge that the place will not be cluttered, that Charon wouldn’t have them as makeweight in the boat, so let them fribble on and leave us honor. There is no real harm in them, except among themselves, for what man was ever struck down in full career by a buffer for the nails?

  The French offered 400,000 crowns, payable in Paris twice yearly, in exchange for the maintenance of thirty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry, to be used against Hapsburg power; Catholic rights to be respected, Lutheran also if need be.

  During negotiations, Gustavus went right on fighting, usually too close to the enemy’s fire. One of his captains told him to take better care of himself. “But, Captain,” he said, “I have a foolish sort of fancy, which tempts me to imagine that nothing can be better seen than when I observe it for myself.”

  And so he had. And that creature wished to be addressed as King. Charnacé refused to do it. The Vasa were not of French family. The only French thing in this camp was Charnacé‘s clothes. He was a man who prided himself upon the excellence of his points.

  “If you have brought nothing in your portmanteau but such foolishness, you are master of the day and hour of your return to France,” snapped Gustavus.

  The simultaneous existence of four absolute Kings by Divine Right, two of them of the same family, and one of them an Emperor, gave rise to disputes over protocol. However, if you were outside the system, it was the easier to stick pins in it. Gustavus’ rightful titles were restored to all state papers. The treaty was signed. Payment was to be made in May and November.

  To the English envoy, who still wish the Palatinate for nothing, Gustavus gave the privilege of retiring without having presented his credentials.

  The ambassadors were displeased that negotiations had been conducted, on the Swedish side, not by accredited professionals but by the Great King and two generals, Horn the Elder and Banér, who fought all day and yet seemed able to talk all night. The King himself seemed to find such procedure in no way irregular, and what was worse, bargained well.

  This made them thoughtful. Nor did he use the royal pronoun. His sentences were impersonal, and as absolute as theorems. He did not even say “I.” He had no vanity, and yet he seemed in excellent health. He sometimes barked, a shattering noise. Richelieu, when about to unfrock you, had a little voice modulated to purr and crackle. Rules may be broken, but how do you break an exception to them?

  Richelieu would have to be informed.

  On the Swedish armies marched, through a curious landscape. On moderate hills the trees were rimed with ice. Fish hung suspended in the frozen rivers. It was so cold, it was almost impossible to urinate outdoors. It was so damp that boots moldered overnight. It was mitten weather. The peasantry sealed themselves in their huts, and towns surrendered for the price of kindling. As for cold nights, you could not blame the Imperialists for traveling in a cloud of doxies: a prostitute is cheaper to stoke than a stove. She requires less wood.

  *

  At Wollin everything seemed made of bitter glass. If you touched it, it shattered. If you breathed on it, it was scratched. The world sparkled. It was a world of white fire. A thick hoarfrost condensed by midafternoon, and did not dissolve until after dawn, though as the low sun laboriously slanted up the wall, you could see the earth steaming. Ears were the purple of a dead man’s fingers. The cold sea, this winter, kept the shore warm.

  If you had the blood to stir about in it, this silent cold left you full of joy. There is nothing to match the freedom of a winter’s morning. Though there was ice on the sea, you could skate to the sandbars and the pressure ridges beyond, the water heaving between them in an open space. The water near the shore was an urslime ooze that dribbled against the tidemarks among long frost crystals and twigs sugared with rime. The sea itself seemed to have shrunk.

  There was no snow on the beach. The snow began on the dunes, and at the town. Some of the supports of the pier had been shoved away by ice, as though by that game in which men link hands with their elbows on a table, and strive. If the leopards had been there, they would have gamboled in the weather. But they were probably dead in the interior by now. Loot never lives long.

  Lars knew better than to tell Hannale that. He knew as soon as she asked, that the leopards meant something to her. What she wanted to know was whether they were free now, if their fur was white again. He told her yes.

  There was something final about this winter, he sensed that. The whole world had turned terminal. It was hard to tell the smack of a snowball from the blur of a white cat. Cats turn around to look at you when they are strays, as though they had a sudden weakness in their haunches. The cat had yellow eyes. There were in Wollin these days few but old folk, who moved as though there were straw in the street. After thirteen years of war, there was no good life but to turn poor devil, and go for a soldier. So the younger generation had sloped away.

  Young Mysendonck was nowhere visible. Old Mysendonck’s sermons had turned to vinegar. The cross is made heavier, he said, for our redemption. He meant Gustavus. And where is Simon the Cyrenaicean, to bear our burden? He meant himself. He was nailed to the cross, he said. His voice had a burr like a nail, you could hear the pleasure of it as he drove it in. In any Catholic parish house, the public rooms are austere, but open the wrong door and there are comforts and good rugs. The Pastor’s parsonage was no exception. He was a snug, warm, well-fed bigot, who persecuted his children for not obeying him. He knew how to shout down the Devil, but when it came to God, he had somehow failed his family. He was a good man. They never ask what harm they do. They like everything tied up with
string.

  *

  Grotius, though he was no coward, was stubborn, the next best thing to courageous, and had once made a celebrated escape from prison. But he was not a military man, and so omits to quote Homer, Odyssey, xix, 7: “For the steel of itself hath a spell and it draweth men on unto war.”

  *

  Frau Larsen began to cook again that winter, but only by fits and starts, like a madwoman, puzzled by the gestures of a half-remembered sanity, who tries again and again but cannot remember the other half. Insanity is a habit, like any other; like any other, it is difficult to break. Habits impede our movements.

  There is the problem of good and evil. Can evil really be this ill-favored seedy little man sitting on a chair, who has spent the last twelve years pulling the tail off a dead mouse, and whose fingers are so clumsy he cannot do it? Lucifer is one of the great myths by which man has sought to ennoble himself. Pain, disease, torture, cruelty, malice, the desire to punish others for no crime, we call these things evil, in order to give them a dignity they do not have. Nobody who administers the world of affairs talks of good and evil, except to sway the mob. Nobody who undergoes them talks about them either. The more people speak of these things, the less they are moved by them, so they take refuge in unction. They pull the tail off the dead mouse and offer it up to Great Lucifer. And this they do, not because they are afraid of causing pain, but because they are afraid of the corpse.

  God has no moral quality. He is neither good nor evil, He is beyond all that. But then there are many things to be learned on a frosty night, alone with the stars.

  Lars, like mild men anywhere—and they are not among the weak—was fearless by nature, and so the problem of courage had never come up. Neither had the problem of evil, but he had his own knowledge of who was sick and who was well. His winter occupation was to set snares for rabbits. It got him out of the house.

  There were fewer rabbits on Wollin this year than formerly. Not only had they been eaten, but there was less for them to eat. He was thus able to go farther and farther afield, and the farther he got from the house, the healthier he felt. There was something wrong there.