Читать книгу The Queen's Physician - Edgar Maass - Страница 11

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I T WAS COZY THAT NIGHT in Annette’s room in the Hotel Zum Koenig von Preussen. The candles were lighted, and the wide chairs with curved elbow rests covered with flowered silk had an air of expectancy. At her dressing table, before the gold-framed mirror, Annette was seated, arranging her dark loosened hair, polishing her fingernails, and then again dabbing her powder puff carefully on her cheeks and her shoulders.

The dressing table was covered with a number of small boxes and vials emitting manifold sweet odors which mingled with the natural perfume of her hair. She was dressed in a wide loose gown of yellow silk which fell back around her thighs, thus affording Struensee a generous look at her well-rounded knees and the smooth skin of her legs. But her mind was no longer set on love-making. Her face had an abstract, preoccupied air. She had turned her back on Struensee, who was seated in one of the chairs, but once in a while her eyes sought his in the mirror with a fleeting smile. After having listened, more courteously than delighted, to some gallant phrases and remarks which Struensee thought the occasion called for, she began to speak in an unemotional though low voice.

She spoke unconcernedly, objectively, so that Struensee was not a little disappointed and shocked. He was deeply disappointed to see that even this fair woman did not live in some imagined Cythera, in that fabulous world of tender feelings and raptures, but that she too, the sensuous delight of his heart, had a strong and unconcerned will with which to make her way through this everyday world, and that, therefore, she observed, registered and judged the feelings and facts of this world with a detached, cool, almost an historian’s eye.

Struensee, the lover, the gallant, felt quite let down and suddenly deflated. But Struensee, the doctor, the ambitious man with wide projects of his own, could not help but be interested in Annette’s report.

Yes, it was nearly a report, an unemotional statement of cold facts, as if delivered by some bureaucrat, that Annette unfolded for him. His eyes still rested on her broad bed from which her maid had lifted the covers for the night. Inaudibly sighing, he turned his attention from the bed with its more attractive prospects to the fate of kings and history which, as he thought, were none of his or her business, at least not at this hour, so full of promises of an entirely different kind.

But, willing in the beginning to listen to what he thought to be the hardly understandable folly of a pretty woman, he began after a while to attend with genuine interest, forgetting his own gallant covetousness. It was no mere historical interest which was aroused in him. It was his curiosity about the soul of man, his thirst for psychological insight, which made him sit up and cock his ears. And it was not the scientist alone who harkened, because for Struensee, scientist though he was, the science of psychology or even the art of healing a sick soul was by no means an end in itself, but only his natural way of furthering his own, Struensee’s aims. Behind the pictures of a soul’s disease, suffering and despair, behind the panorama of a nation’s anguish and a people’s distress, he saw his own glory rising, red and gigantic like the sun after a stormy night. He saw his own power, his own riches, his own happiness—all of which could only be realized by means of another man’s sickness and his own healing hands.

In later years, it often seemed remarkable to him, and a marvellous coincidence of fate, that his life’s task should have come to him in a pretty and very obliging woman’s bedroom and from this woman’s soft and yielding voice. He felt then that dark-haired Annette at the mirror, before her rouge pots and powder boxes, had been his Delphic priestess, vaguely reading the future, his sybilla, calling him to his supreme adventure, as those others had called the warriors and heroes of yore.

Very much later, in a very lonely spot, with much more insight than he had at this particular moment, he was inclined to sense a certain irony of fate, of which he was by no means conscious at present. But even now, as Annette’s story progressed, and detail unfolded itself after detail with the inexorable logic of fate, his eyes wandered from the feminine figure in the long gown and from the lovely face in the mirror. He gazed abstractedly at the long white curtains of the open windows, which rose softly billowing in the breath of the night-wind and then fell tired and despairingly, like human hands. In his heart, yes even in his bowels, he heard, as if it came from the far wide spaces of the night, a muffled and senseless, a despairing cry. A cry for help.

It was a blond young man who touched his heart in this mysterious way. His name was Christian. Behind him, there was a whole people, dark and numerous in the night. For this young man happened to be a king, Christian VII, King of Denmark and Norway.

Christian lost his mother at an early age, when he was not quite five years old. His father, King Frederick, was a good-natured, timid man, loving peace and the arts, particularly the ballet. During his reign he was timid to a point where he frankly distrusted his own judgment. He could hardly bring himself to sign the state papers his ministers laid on his desk. He was constantly in flight from himself all during his lifetime. When forced to show himself in public, his habit was to hold a handkerchief before his face, as if to spare the world the sight of his own intolerable ordinariness and ineffectuality.

After his wife’s premature death Christian’s father had married again, this time the Princess Juliana von Braunschweig, a very forceful woman like so many members of the Braunschweig clan. One of Juliana’s sisters had married Frederick the Great of Prussia, and this piece of luck had filled Juliana with such envy that she could not sleep at night for thinking about it. She nagged and nigged her husband to emulate his Prussian namesake, she flattered him to this end, taunted him, even wept. And in the end she broke her weakling husband’s spirit. His wife even managed to poison his genuine love for music. With ferocious persistence Juliana reminded him that a true king made the acquisition of new territories his life affair, he did not fritter away his days collecting new minuets and new portraits. At last the harassed Danish King withdrew from his spouse, but too late. He could not rid his inner being of the barbs she had carefully planted there. To heighten his most unkingly lack of self-esteem, he began to carouse in the company of loose women. Yet even in these pursuits he was no success. He cut a pathetic figure when he stole away furtively to chambers where excesses within his poor scope had been arranged for him.

Denmark became governed by ministers, who functioned as if there were no king at all. Unable to tolerate this decline of royal prestige, Juliana rusticated in the provincial castle of Fredensborg. Besides the humiliations heaped on her by her husband, she had to accept a cloudy future for the son she had borne the King. Thwarting her burning desire to have her own son wear the crown was Christian, fruit of the King’s first marriage. His cheeks were delicate, his wrists slender, his hair a wave of gold. Neither the father nor his step-mother showed the slightest inclination to have the boy educated for kingship. Since the heir to the throne could hardly grow up half wild, the ministers gave him over to the care of Count Reventlau.

Reventlau was a big man, but short of stature, a powerful brute with a wide, peasant face heavily marbled with little blue veins. His nature was choleric to the extreme. Fits of rage sometimes robbed him of his speech. He took his tutelary obligations very seriously, though more fitted to train a fractious horse than educate a delicate boy. Christian was mustered out of bed at six every morning. After a morning prayer and a simple breakfast he was given lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. With two hours break at midday this process of instruction lasted until six in the evening. He was not allowed to play with boys of his own age. After he had laboriously learned how to read, for his brains were a pudding, he was given the Bible, out of which he had to memorize whole passages that he simply could not understand. If he asked about the sense of a verse, Reventlau immediately gave way to a fit of temper and bellowed so loudly that the grenadiers on watch in the castle courtyard shivered in their boots. If the boy faltered in his recitation of a psalm, Reventlau would shout at him: “You’re going to become the same kind of useless pig as your father!” Or—“I can just see you squandering your time with the whores, the way your silly father does!”

Sundays, Christian was twice taken to church services. The sermons were tremendously long and stuffed with edification. Christian sat beside Reventlau in an appropriately stiff and pious posture. If his head nodded, if he stole a sidewise glance, Reventlau would jog him briskly in the ribs. “I demand reverence in the house of God, sir,” he would say, in such a loud tone that the whole congregation started in amazement. And after the services were over, it was Reventlau’s custom to quiz his charge on the content and meaning of the sermon. If Christian slipped up on some particular, if he were unable to explain the nature of God’s grace, Reventlau would roar: “Why, you godless wretch! You’ll be damned to hellfire forever, mark my words. The sins of the fathers will be accounted for.” But if Christian accurately repeated the text of the sermon, Reventlau would say contemptuously: “You gabble like a parrot, my boy.” If he altered a thought, Reventlau’s comment would be: “So your nine-year-old mind isn’t satisfied with God’s teachings. They aren’t good enough for you, is that it?” If the boy thought through what he had heard, interpreting it in his own fashion, Reventlau was annoyed and suspected free-thinking.

When the boy was ten years old his outlook brightened somewhat. He was given over to the charge of a new teacher named Reverdil. The new tutor was a sober, placid Swiss, brought to the Danish court on the recommendation of the philosopher Voltaire to teach Christian foreign languages, history and philosophy. Reventlau very properly considered himself unfitted to handle these departments of learning.

Unfortunately the boy’s nature was already ruined by the time Reverdil arrived on the scene. As soft and weak as his father, Christian had cracked under Reventlau’s sadistic pressure. He hated learning, and only pretended interest when his nemesis Reventlau was in the offing. In vain Reverdil struggled to win over his coy pupil. In contrast to Reventlau, the Swiss seemed comical to the boy’s twisted mind. What Reverdil tried to teach him also contrasted absurdly with the dogmatic nonsense which had been Reventlau’s stock in trade. Christian noted the same discrepancy in the French books he was introduced to. He sensed a totally foreign outlook in the witticisms of Lesage, in La Fontaine’s fables. And yet he could not free himself from Reventlau’s menacing impress. It was very confusing. With a child’s clear eye he observed that, when all was said and done, Reventlau was the master and Reverdil the one who bowed his neck. His intelligence could not get beyond this crude disposition. Gradually he learned how to play off one against the other, meanwhile committing himself to neither party.

About the time of Reverdil’s advent he was taken to the theater for the first time, to see an Italian opera. Christian was charmed. The melodious, easy music, the skillfully painted stage settings showing improbably perfect gardens, the elegant, swishing costumes of the singers, their fine maquillage, their large shining eyes excited him wonderfully. Here was something much more desirable, he thought, than anything Reverdil, and certainly anything that Reventlau, had to offer. Here was real life, the real thing. After the performance he said to Reverdil, imitating Reventlau: “Today for once you have failed to bore His Majesty.”

Christian thereafter tried as best he could to mimic the actors, their dancing gait, their toothy smiles, their involved gallantries, the epicene gestures of their manicured hands. Reverdil was rather pleased with this development—it continued through the years—since it was better than no development at all. He took pains to have his pupil instructed in the art of dancing. Reventlau, however, was incensed. He saw to it at once that the influence of the Frenchman was lessened. The young prince was now handed over to the care of Reventlau’s nephew, Sperling, the Kammerjunker.

Only two years older than Christian, Sperling leaped at the chance. Precociously mature and already more than a little corrupt, he realized that such intimate connection with the heir-apparent would ensure him a lifetime advantage. In all things Sperling acceded to Christian. After a show of reluctance he even promised to initiate him into sexual matters. When they were alone in Hoersholm or Frederiksborg, Sperling promised, he would get Christian to a girl. She would teach him all about the female body and the facts of life.

And Sperling was as good as his word. The adventure was discovered by Reventlau. He was overcome by a terrible spasm of rage. Panting like a congested pug dog he chased Christian with his walking stick raised to strike. “I’ll kill the monster,” he roared. “I’ll flay the hide from his body.” Frightened out of his wits Christian raced to the section of the palace where his father had private apartments. The doors were locked and Christian hammered hard against them with his fists. “Papa, Papa, please help me!” he shrieked in utter terror. “Reventlau is going to kill me, Papa!” But the King was surrounded by some young ladies at the time and could not very well let his son in, since they had loosened their hair and removed most of their upper garments. The King himself was so drunk that he could not stand unaided. When he started to go to his son he fell from the sofa under a table and lay there. Big tears rolled down his cheeks and wetly he mumbled: “What a sad, sad world.”

This event was a prime topic of conversation in Copenhagen for several weeks. One of the King’s obliging young ladies had been unable to curb her tongue and spread the story. Out of pity, of course, so she said, for the King and his darling son. Some of the bourgeois element praised Reventlau’s harshness, others thoughtfully shook their heads. Christian had finally escaped Reventlau by running down into the palace cellar among the cooks and scullery maids, where his bodyservant, Kirchhof, was quartered. Crawling under Kirchhof’s bed he had remained there shaking like a dog for some hours, until the servant finally discovered him and dragged him off screaming to Reventlau. In the meantime the old blockhead had cooled off. With infinite diplomacy Reverdil had made it clear to him that the nephew, Sperling, and not Christian, was to blame. The upshot was that both Christian and Sperling were ordered to get on their knees before Reventlau, two shattered sinners, and take solemn oath on the Bible that never again would they experiment with the girls.

Little by little Christian was introduced to Reventlau’s circle of friends, so he might have a taste of society. Landed nobles and representatives of foreign powers bowed before the boy. Reventlau presented his charge as “my doll” and made an unpleasant practice of mocking him before the assembled guests. If Christian hesitated to drink wine, he would say across the table: “Come on, boy, drink up and don’t act like a girl afraid of peeing her pants.” Yet if he drank readily of the wine, Reventlau would say, for example, to the Russian ambassador, Filosov: “Just like his father, Your Excellency. He has all the earmarks of a drunk.”

During this same critical adolescent epoch Christian had a shattering experience, the effects of which never left him so long as he lived. His study hours had been notably lengthened to prepare him for public examination. Reverdil was reinstated to teach him the philosophy of Wolff, such concepts as knowledge a priori and a posteriori, and pre-stabilized harmony. These notions haunted the very dreams of the muddled prince. They became intellectual incubi that all but split his soggy brain. He suddenly became a horrible bundle of nerves. His head was stuffed with weighty nonsense as impossible to digest as gravel. Then, one fateful evening when he was exhausted from twelve nerve-wracking hours over his books, he was told to dress up in his best. Why, he had no idea. Reventlau pushed his way into Christian’s room without knocking. “Follow me, boy,” he commanded, and that was that. Weak with foreboding the Prince tripped along after the massive Reventlau. Outside the palace a carriage was waiting, guarded by dragoons with long sabers that glittered in the lantern light. Reventlau hustled the boy into the vehicle, got in himself and sat silently beside him as they drove away.

By sheer coincidence, Sperling had told Christian the lurid story of the assassination of the Tsar Peter of Russia on Catherine’s instigation. Filosov had made ominous mention of the event at the table, the boy had wondered and Sperling had explained. The bloody tale haunted Christian. Up to hearing it he had never given a thought to his own royal security. Now, sitting in the coach with Reventlau, again he pictured Peter’s death, a slow and painful death by smothering and strangling. The dark, heavy coach, the cold leather upholstering, the hollow clipclop of the dragoons’ horses on the paving stones, the coachmen’s whisperings, Reventlau’s sinister, broad countenance all spelled catastrophe for the frightened youth. He was sure he was being carried off to his death, apparently somewhere on the island of Amager. There the dragoons would be ordered to kill him and throw his corpse into the swamps. Frantically he debated whether he should fling himself at Reventlau’s feet and beg for mercy, or whether he should leap out of the carriage into the night. He did neither, instead sat tight, quaking with fear, his back icy cold, his palms running sweat. Eventually the coach drew up before a large building. Strains of music came floating on the wind, mild candlelight shone obliquely on the bluish snow.

“Up, boy!” said Reventlau, and gave the Prince a handsome poke in the ribs. “We’re going to a masked ball at Count Moltke’s. Straighten up now, little sop.”

“Why didn’t you tell me where we were going?” whined the Prince. He was relieved and shaken with irritation beyond measure.

“Do I owe you explanations?” cried Reventlau. At once the veins in his temples commenced to swell. “If you had an ounce of common sense you’d realize the whole thing has been arranged for your benefit.”

The Prince was taken to a podium covered with red velvet and there told to stand and say appropriate nothings to each lady as she was introduced. This ritual he performed to the best of his small ability, stammering, looking away, hopelessly gauche, especially since Reventlau had taken a post directly in back of him that he might raise his brows in contempt at each gaffe. The boy, who had fully expected to be thrown dead into a wet grave, suddenly found himself in a brilliantly lighted room amidst perfumed women showing a great deal of white breasts, with laughter and gaiety all about. It was too much to comprehend, a sickly, frightful confusion to the senses.

Some days later Christian was led off to a public examination. He was handled like a trained poodle. The consistory of examiners was made up of pastors and members of the royal ministries. Innumerable questions were fired at him, on theology, philosophy, morality and history. These he answered like an automaton. The creaking and rattling of the machine was obvious. The questions entered poor Christian’s brain like so many coins in a slot, and the proper answers came out forthwith, tailor-made and meaningless. He stood before his inquisitors like a life-size doll in immaculately cut coat and hose, silk stockings on his legs, his hair carefully waved and powdered. His face was like a mask, though occasionally an expression of fear came into the eyes whenever his glance encountered Reventlau who, for the ceremony, had assumed a beaming, fatherly expression. Whenever a question was especially difficult, Christian’s extraordinary mentor would nod encouragingly.

The consistory pretended to be overwhelmed by the Prince’s dumb show of learning. On the spot they recommended an honorarium of a thousand gold pieces for Reventlau and allowed the boy a three days’ vacation from his studies. It had occurred to no one to ask the boy any practical questions. The ministers did not dream that it might be worthwhile, for example, to acquaint the future king with the nature of money, or with some manual trade. Their preference was for a king absolute, a king whose absoluteness went so far that he would sign every document put on his desk.

Christian was just sixteen years old when his father died, overcome by venery and the emptiness of life. Those around the boy noticed that he was crushed by this event and frequently wept, which of course they ascribed to grief over his father’s departure. Shortly, however, they found out that Christian’s melancholy had a different source. As crown prince, and free at last from the threat of Reventlau’s ferrule, Christian had hoped to lead an irresponsible existence, a sort of opera bouffe round of pleasures with giddy women and heavy-drinking young men. Christian had intended to play the favorite tenor, the darling of all the world. In the company of the indefatigable Sperling he wanted to skip from the court of One Serene Highness to another, feted, envied for his youth, his charming complexion, his elegant manner. With his father’s death all this suddenly came to nothing. Death had played him a nasty trick, and so he sniveled.

At last, then, he was standing in the softly snowy winter twilight on a balcony of the Christiansborg Palace. Before him the gray towers of Copenhagen melted into gray air. Reventlau, Moltke, Bernstorff and Saint-Germain were arranged in phalanx behind him. Below the people rumbled and seethed in the square. Great crowds were still streaming in from the Fishmarket and the Exchange, out of the narrow streets of the inner city. Steady burghers with their wives and children in tow, artisans, fishermen stinking of oil, market-women, soldiers, servants and beggars formed an enormous, uneasy mass of gray humanity in the half light. “Long live Christian!” they shouted at intervals. And again: “Long live the King!”

Women wept when they saw how blond and pretty the new King looked, a young man straight out of a fairy-tale, so young and nice. They could not know, looking up at him posed on the balcony, that even now he was older at heart than the oldest of them, his spirit as lifeless and cold as a dead flounder on the dock. They had no way of knowing that it was costing him a great effort of will even to raise his hand to acknowledge the mob’s salute.

The regime stayed the same after Christian’s accession to the throne. Even had Christian actively wanted to bring about administrative improvements, he would have been utterly helpless, for he would not have the least idea where and how to begin. In Reventlau’s study were large files labeled “Norway,” “Holstein” and “Schleswig.” These provinces he had reserved for himself; as if they were his personal property. Revenues from Denmark were assigned to Worthey, Reventlau’s brother-in-law, for this gentleman had sired twenty-four children and needed quite a bit of money to get along.

Bereft of thought and decision Christian sat before a pile of letters and documents. He was staring over them at the wall when Reventlau came in unannounced and shouted at him in his usual arrogant tone. “What’s wrong with you now? Why don’t you open your letters? And sign those orders there? Are you going to be the same lazy dog of a man your father was?”

Goaded into action by Reventlau, Christian called in Reverdil. Shaking with apprehension he asked the Swiss what he should do. Reverdil promptly broke the seal on one of the documents and read off the contents to Christian. Then he explained what was wanted and why. “Sign here, Sire, to show you’ve read it,” he said, handing the King a quill. The King did as he was told without further comment.

“From now on you’re the royal letter-opener, Reverdil,” he said. He was greatly relieved. “Please do that for me, my dear Reverdil.”

“I thank Your Majesty,” said Reverdil. “It will be a great honor.”

Christian smiled slyly. He thought signing letters a great joke.

The central question of the day was the emancipation of the serfs. Christian’s father had taken some preliminary steps in this direction. But the difficulties besetting the transformation of slaves into citizens had proved insuperable. The father had soon tired of the endless haggling, preferring to sport with his women friends. The question of manumission was very complex, since merely altering the legal status of large numbers of the Danish population was only a first step. The freedmen would have to be furnished with land and money in the form of agricultural loans, small sums and small acreages individually, to be sure, but adding up to a vast subsidy for a country so heavily in debt.

Yet Reverdil had not talked with Voltaire for nothing, nor for nothing exchanged long letters with Helvetius and read deeply in the works of Rousseau. He saw a golden chance to build the state of Denmark into a polity organized to promote justice and opportunity. At the same time he realized that he was neither statesman nor diplomat. He did the best he could, that is, struggled to make clear the essentials of the situation to the languid Christian. He took the young King to inspect the royal domains in the vicinity of Copenhagen. He showed him how the serfs lived in huts, he familiarized him with their diet and life habits. He did what he could to figure out for Christian how large an acreage of pasture would be required to feed one cow, how much vegetables and potatoes a farming family would need to maintain life, how much money the state would have to advance to purchase land, chickens and geese for the prospective freedmen.

For a time Christian was mildly responsive to Reverdil’s enthusiasm, not so much perhaps because he cared for the peasants themselves, as because he imagined great fame in bringing about their manumission. He fancied himself being recorded in future history books as “Christian the Emancipator,” or “Christian the Beloved.” He would be praised by Voltaire, revered in all the councils of Europe. He shed tears dreaming about his future glories, he lost himself in woolly fantasies. But Reverdil was forever spoiling his swimming reveries, with his ridiculous figures, tables, prospectuses and his Frenchman’s insistent skepticism. Christian would shrink and yawn as he sat at his desk and think how much pleasanter it would be to go hunting, or to have a game of battledore and shuttlecock with some pretty wench. One day he frightened Reverdil by casually announcing that he had drawn up an edict of emancipation and signed it. Reverdil begged for time to study the matter. In a few weeks the paper was forgotten and began to gather dust in a far corner of the personal files. Reverdil’s dream collapsed.

During this epoch it was Frederick of Prussia who held Europe’s undivided attention. The bitter recluse of Sans-souci, with his Italian greyhounds, his snuff-stained vests and his cynical smile kept Christian on the hop trying to imitate him. Christian got himself a crooked walking stick, a severe blue coat and a gold snuff box. He, too, tried to assume a caustic tone and rode before the troops on parade, though military antics secretly bored him. He had his minister of war, Saint-Germain, brought before him for an audience. He was told to bring data on the number of Danish regiments with him, the count of squadrons and batteries, an inventory of weapons, tactical plans and all his strategic maps. Saint-Germain adroitly dragged the names of Turenne, Marlborough and Prince Eugen into the preliminary conversation. He recommended that his King read Caesar’s Gallic Wars and Vauban on the construction of fortifications. These studies, he admitted, were onerous and made demands on one’s time, but such was the military art. Christian suddenly objected. A genius, he declared, did not need to bother his head about pedantic detail. His free flights, for he was having some, might indeed suffer from too much cogitation.

“Saint-Germain,” he said, rapping the floor with his Prussian stick, “my plans are made. I’m going to declare war on Prussia.”

The minister of war turned pale. His jaw actually dropped and for a little while he was quite unable to speak. At last he stuttered: “But, Your Majesty, our relations with Prussia are perfectly amicable. Why, they couldn’t possibly be better!”

“How dare you tamper with the royal will!” screamed Christian, in the violent style of Reventlau. “Do you understand me? It is the royal will that we declare war on Prussia and conquer this Frederick. Who conquers him will be considered the greatest general of all time.”

“Unquestionably,” said the minister of war, slowly gathering his wits. “So Your Majesty would be considered, and I do not gainsay it. That is, if Your Majesty won.”

“That’s treason,” shouted Christian. “I’ll banish you to Norway, my good man.”

“Me!” said Saint-Germain.

“I said you,” Christian told him. “To Norway. For good.”

“I am not doubting Your Majesty’s military prowess,” said Saint-Germain smoothly. “I merely point out that our army is very small and certainly not prepared at the moment to wage war.”

“What am I paying you for?” Christian demanded. “I give you three days to bring the situation to order.”

“That’s utterly impossible, Your Majesty,” said Saint-Germain. Again exasperation and disbelief were undermining his self-control. “If Your Majesty persists in this matter, I must tender my resignation.”

Now Christian was stumped. He looked in perplexity at Saint-Germain. “I cannot accept your resignation at this time,” he said finally. “But I’m convinced we must fight. Perhaps I can give the army some practice by declaring war on Russia.”

Saint-Germain smote himself on the forehead with the flat of his hand. “Sacré bleu, fantastic!” he nearly shouted. “Does Your Majesty not understand that the Russians, who outnumber us, I should say, ten thousand to one, would devastate Copenhagen with fire bombs? They would make an alliance with the Swedes in a twinkling. Surely you must see that war on Russia would end in the conquest of Denmark. Even Your Majesty’s life would not be secure!”

“I’m no coward like you, Saint-Germain,” retorted Christian loftily. “Kindly remove yourself from my presence and do something about the troops. My decision is irrevocable. We must have war, I say. I won’t be hindered by such old fogies as you. Get out of here, before I lose my temper.”

Saint-Germain stumbled out of the room and ran to Reventlau, in such agitation that against sacred precedent he burst in without knocking. Hardly able to talk straight, he recounted Christian’s remarkable proposals. Reventlau turned mulberry red. The veins in his head swelled to cords. Blowing like a sick horse he heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll crack that idiot’s brainpan,” he assured Saint-Germain. “I’ll cut him to pieces if he dares put a finger on my army and my provinces.” Bellowing incoherently he looked around for his cane, found it and dashed out of the room. With thunderous steps he strode down the marble corridor to Christian’s apartments.

“What is this I hear,” he said to the King without even bothering to greet him. “Why, you absurd little rat, you criminal! How dare you upset people with your damnable stupidities! How dare you fling your country about like a rag! Will you make me lash the skin off your back, you cretin!”

Cowed by this onslaught Christian slipped out of his chair and crept into a far corner of the room, put his hands before his face and burst into tears. Reventlau, his rage seething like a cauldron of brass, seized Christian’s fancy Prussian stick and broke it over his knee. “Why, how dare you imagine you’re a Frederick,” he said, his words an avalanche. “You puppet, you couldn’t make war on a milkmaid.” And then a curious thing happened. Suddenly Christian began to scream at the top of his lungs drowning out his tormentor.

“I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough,” he screeched. “I’m the King, not you. Do you know that I can have you exiled and put in chains, you dirty old man? Do you know I can have you thrown into Kronborg, if I please? If I want to I can have you seared with hot irons, you beast!”

Reventlau stared in disbelief. His eyes were bursting glassily from their sockets. Mechanically he took one step towards Christian, then began to sway. He toppled forward, making the parquet floor tremble as he crashed, a fallen oak. Christian cried out in horror. Like a trained monkey with one leap he was at Reventlau’s side. He lifted the lolling head onto his knees, and in a paroxysm of terror watched the swollen lips turn blue, and the thick tongue protrude from the gaping mouth like the tongue of a slaughtered ox. “Reventlau, Reventlau,” the boy King stammered tearfully. “Dear Reventlau, please don’t die.”

The unconscious man did not stir. Christian folded his hands and prayed. “God, help my friend and teacher,” he whispered hoarsely. “He is all I have. Denmark needs him. What can I do without him. Where will we be without Reventlau.” Servants flocked into the room, curiosity overcoming their discretion. They stared reproachfully at the King. They saw him kiss Reventlau’s limp hand and weep wildly when four lackeys came forward to lug away the helpless carcase. Wringing his hands and chafing his thin wrists the King trailed after the fallen giant.

But as it happened Reventlau recovered rapidly from his stroke. The only visible result was that Christian permanently washed his hands of military projects. He found this easier than he had imagined, for someone graphically described the rigors of military life for his benefit. According to what was now fixed custom, authority in Denmark continued to be invested in the ministers. The question now was not who would rule, but how. This interesting question was solved in a negative fashion by a certain Count Holck. Count Holck was a big man with a mighty barrel of chest and simple features. Behind the surface simplicity was a cunning mind. Holck was a very sly fellow indeed, ambitious and corrupt under his attitude of clumsy joie de vivre. Through his intervention Christian was removed entirely from the process of governance, and the ministers did as they pleased.

The King, already accustomed to Sperling’s abject sycophancy, was greatly taken by Holck. At last, Christian thought, here is someone that I can like, a good horseman, a hunter who holds a musket as if it were a feather. Holck was past master at playing the good companion. He was the sort of man who could bend a thaler double between forefinger and thumb, lift the back-end of a sledge knee-high and knock a lackey unconscious with a clip on the chin, which last he often did to amuse Christian. Holck was also a powerful tippler. In the course of an evening he could make away with a whole bucket of wine. His wig might get out of place, his tongue might thicken but he took great pride in never falling under the table. He had countless shortlived affairs and not only with the court ladies. In erotic regard Holck was very democratic. Indeed, he had little sexual respect for what he described as powdered nannygoats. They had too much on their minds, he declared, to know how to please a vigorous swordsman like himself, for that was an affair requiring wholehearted concentration. It was his athletic habit to assault the women of his fancy like a bull at stud, hardly waiting for them to compose themselves for passion’s play.

To Christian his friend Holck was a Hercules. A sort of rude brotherhood, a sensual affinity, held them together, though actually they were an unlikely pair. People smiled to see the small-boned, willowy Christian with his gigantic companion, who had a neck on him the size of a capstan. Steadily Holck gained ascendancy over the boy King and finally ruled him completely. With chosen companions the two would slip out nights to revel in the taverns and brothels of Copenhagen. Christian loved these incognito excursions, the free and easy conversation about the long inn tables. Great quantities of beer and wine were drunk at these tavern brawls while half-naked strumpets danced and diverted the guests with coarse mockery and humor.

In good time these royal expeditions occasioned public complaints, especially after Holck, emerging tipsy and inflamed from an inn, seized a girl passerby who happened to come from a respectable household. Holck was prevented from raping her—Christian was fascinated by the big Count at work—only by the timely intervention of the night-watchmen, who raced to the spot with pikes on guard and lanterns swinging. A regular street fight ensued. Good burghers were roused from their sleep by the shouts and thuds. They hung out the window with their nightcaps askew and mortification in their hearts. One spirited old crone emptied a chamberpot on the battlers’ heads, thoroughly dousing Christian, and still not satisfied she denounced him as a “whoremaster.” Not till the King was fully recognized did the night-watchmen cease their determined struggle to preserve public peace. By then the damage was done. The next Sunday the escapade became the subject of a dozen sermons, many drawing heavily on the analogy afforded by the wayward Absalom. The congregation looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. When the time came to say the obligatory prayer for the King, this ritual was deliberately scuffed through, to underscore respectable sentiment.

Count Holck was unmoved. He cursed the Philistines who dared interfere with youth’s exuberances. But he resolved in the future to curb himself, at least for a time, especially since it was becoming noticeable that Christian was not equal to so much night-life. The King was pale, irritable and very shaky on the morning after. Moreover, he often exhibited much more disturbing symptoms of weakness. The King had confessed to Holck that he suffered from bad dreams.

The King’s dreams were so bad, in fact, that sometimes he was afraid to go to bed. There were periods when the prospect of nocturnal horrors depressed his whole waking existence. A candle had to be kept lit at his bedside. Sperling, who slept in a room off the King’s bedchamber, had standing orders to wake him should he groan or toss in his sleep. The content of these nightmares the King would divulge to nobody. But no doubt they were shockingly disturbing. Coming out of them he would foam at the mouth, and cry out in a frenzy, not knowing who or where he was. On one occasion he had a seizure during which he tried to smash his brains out on the marble of the fireplace. Afterwards he lay propped up among the pillows, trembling and pale as death, lisping incoherently.

Although Holck was by no means a student of human nature, he realized that there was a definite connection between the King’s nightly visitations and his dissolute life. He introduced Christian, therefore, to a different form of entertainment, the worst possible for one mentally out of kilter. Holck had noticed that the King found a peculiar satisfaction in looking at pain and blood. If someone was injured at a hunt, if a servant was thrown from a horse and broke his leg, if a lady had a nose-bleed, Christian was beside himself with pleased interest. In view of this predilection Holck was inspired to introduce the King to the torture chambers of Copenhagen. Here he had ample opportunity to feast on human suffering. The gloomy rooms were filled with the shrieks of unfortunates subjected to the press of boot and pilliwinks and even more ingenious instruments designed to squeeze out the truth till it was white.

At these extraordinary séances Christian would sit very quietly and watchfully, his blue gaze riveted on the prisoner’s twisted features. When the sufferer screamed in agony, the King would start with delight and hug himself. He had been known to remark, when the criminal’s broken and bleeding body was being carried off: “Fine, fine, that was a good one!” Still, these violent distractions failed to counteract Christian’s dreams. In fact, the terrors of the night grew worse under their stimulus, and there were times when they became so acute that the King shook, twisted and strained his body as if he, himself were in the hands of some invisible torturer.

Holck decided to alter his tactics. He smiled to himself to think how stupid he was not to have thought of it before. What the young King needed was a regular mistress, a woman of his own. Of course Holck was not too keen about actually supplying this deficiency, for he was afraid of the common fate of friend rejected for lover. The temperate pleasures of friendship, he realized, could hardly compete with the charm of female conversation and the magic of an experienced female body. His choice, therefore, had to be extremely judicious. There was a certain young woman in Copenhagen who was under Holck’s thumb, since he had a dossier on her shady past. She had spent a year in a Hamburg prison for robbing a drunk. This was the woman Holck picked out for his King.

The young lady was widely known as “Booted Kate”—her real name no one knew—and at the time Holck picked her up was making a fair living for herself by catering to Copenhagen young bloods. She was a dark-haired girl, slender of build, with dark and rather protuberant eyes in a long, faintly horsy face. She liked to wear a riding habit, the more easily to lift the folds of the costume to show off her slim legs, on which she wore gold-trimmed boots of calf length made of special soft leather. It was her habit of wearing these fancy boots that had got her the nickname of “Booted Kate.” But she was also called “Milady,” since for a short interval she had been the favorite of the English ambassador, the Marquis of Keith. Kate had proved too strenuous a lover for the elderly ambassador. Milady, as he called her, had a peculiarity that rasped his ancient nerves, namely, a sadistic turn. She was no run of the mine slut, people said. Word spread that she had noble blood and probably was the illegitimate daughter of a Holstein aristocrat. When she felt like it she was capable of showing good breeding, though her polite moods were rare. In moments of erotic excitement it was her sexual custom to strike out and claw at her lovers, then sink her teeth into their shoulders, weeping hysterically, as if to avenge her shame.

There are men who enjoy such types of women, and Christian was among them. He had scarcely set eyes on her when they became thicker than thieves. Milady rode with him on hunts, she sat beside him in his carriage and in his theater stall. She ruled him as if he were a servant, she had him tie and polish her famous boots. When he was awkward in assisting her from her horse, she would strike him smartly across the face with her crop. But these love-taps were nothing compared with the exotic practices that the pair carried on in privacy.

When Kate showed her temper, when her black eyes began to pop neurotically out of her head, when she began to rave and stamp the floor with her booted feet, an expression of fearful delight would steal over the King’s narrow, pretty features. Once, on a hunting party, she refused to speak with him because he had forgotten to drink to her success, the King ran after her with tears in his eyes, begging for mercy. She had him kneel down before her, whereupon he impulsively covered her boots with kisses and flung his arms tightly about her knees, until she detached him with a cut of her riding whip across the shoulders, saying: “Come, now, that’s enough, little fellow.”

Milady took no interest in politics, and her financial demands were not excessive. But Denmark was so heavily in debt and taxes so high, the poor so utterly without hope and so bitterly disappointed in the new king, that Christian’s affair got him in terribly bad odor. The Danish people had dreamed of the emancipation of the serfs. Instead they were fobbed off with more promises. They wanted to be rid of oligarchic rule by the ministry, they wanted to cast out the teeming nepotistic elements milking the treasury. The people had also expected that Christian might do something about abrogating the use of torture in the legal process. He did none of these things. Instead he became the disgustingly ignominious lover of a perverted whore. He would have been forgiven an ordinary royal mistress, some retiring young woman in crinoline, wearing her hair heavily powdered, tinkling prettily on the spinet amid the usual circle of sporty aristocrats, demi-mondaines, would-be poets and philosophers with an argument to peddle. But this blood-curdling, randy fishwife, this horrid virago in boots, was too much of a pill to swallow.

About this time—it was now the sweet spring of the year—the failure of the last fall’s harvest inexorably began to make itself felt in the capital city of Copenhagen. Incessant rains had rotted and mildewed the sheaves as they stood in the fields. Simultaneously an epidemic broke out among the sheep in Jutland. During the winter the coast of Norway had been battered by unprecedented gales, which worked havoc with the herring catch, and inundated whole islands along the western coast. The poor of Copenhagen, who even in normal times lived pretty much from hand to mouth, no longer had even a crust to eat. One herring cost as much as formerly a turbot. Crowds of angered, bewildered people roamed the streets. Theft and murder were daily occurrences. Mothers killed their own children to relieve their sufferings.

In their seethe of discontent the people imagined they saw the retributive handiwork of God. When the stables housing the royal stud burned flat they were doubly sure that God was very, very displeased with Denmark. That Sunday Pastor Muenter preached from the pulpit of St. Peter’s on a text from Ezekiel: “How ye, Woe worth the day.” The church was packed, even the aisles, and more still tried to fight their way in that they might take comfort in explosive language. The wonder was, people said, that the walls did not burst. With his fist raised like a mace, Pastor Muenter turned towards Christiansborg and cried: “Woe to them, I say, who bring misery on us. Better to hang a stone about his neck and drown him in the deeps of the sea than to tolerate this corruption!” Hollow-eyed, cheeks sunken in, many shoeless and in rags, the congregation listened in an awful deadly silence. The drop of a pin would have echoed through the church after the Pastor’s ultimatum. Then the choir sang: “Lord, have mercy on Thy people.”

After the service men, women and children poured out of the church and raced towards the palace, gathering recruits on the way. They plundered shops, they hurled stones through the shiny windows of the fine houses in the Amaliengade and Bredegade. They massed by the thousands in the Fishmarket, roaring denunciation at the King. A delegation went to Fredensborg and there petitioned the intervention of the Queen-Dowager. The guardsmen protecting Christiansborg whispered nervously among themselves, not really knowing where their duty lay. The crowd threw filth and stones at them, knocking off their tall hats, but failed to budge them from their posts throughout the critical night.

During this uprising the King was deep inside the palace. One minute he threatened to order the troops to open fire on the people. The next he burst into tears and wept on Reventlau’s breast. He threw his arms about Saint-Germain, he kissed Moltke and whined: “I’m good, I’ve done my very best, haven’t I?” He agreed to dismiss Milady, though it was really unnecessary, for she had had the good sense to flee Copenhagen a day or two before the storm broke. Moltke eased the situation by having rations of bread and fish distributed among the poor. About midnight the crowds began to break up and filter homeward. The next morning, on Saint-Germain’s command, the Zealand dragoons came to Copenhagen on the gallop and set up posts and patrols covering the key streets and squares of the city. In this way order was restored for the time being. Still, the crisis had merely relaxed and was not in the least permanently solved. The root of it, Christian’s irresponsible behavior, would have to be extirpated. The privy-council met in emergency session and it was decided to marry off the young King, to pin him down in marriage and so bolster the rapidly waning prestige of the royal house.

When Annette, with a senseless sigh, had finished her lengthy and matter of fact report of a king’s youth and the ominous beginnings of a reign, she obviously thought that she had done too much of a good thing and was suddenly, as is the way of women, completely tired of life’s seriousness and matters of state and even of her own future. She raised herself from her chair, her eyes smiling, opened her arms and cried softly, laughingly, “Enough, my darling. The night is so precious and short.”

For the second time this evening, Struensee found himself rushed from one region of feeling into another unexpected one. But, though he was now anxious to know more about the king and to explore the king’s fate and his possibilities in even greater detail, he took the sudden change in his mistress’s intentions with good grace, after the perfect manner of his frivolously civilized time, in which matters of grave importance were broached in the vicinity of silken petticoat and God Himself in his heaven was discussed over little porcelain cups of chocolate and boxes of perfumed powder.

He lifted her hair charmingly and kissed first one ear, then the other, slowly, devotedly. She sighed: “You are so good, my friend.”

“You are not bad at all yourself, my love,” he laughed slyly and took her gown from her shoulders, not forgetting to touch these shoulders with lazy caressing movements of his hands.

“You should extinguish the candles first, mon coeur. My good Gaehler always does that,” she said smilingly, reprovingly.

“But I am not your husband, love! I am your lover. Don’t you know that only a bachelor, like myself, understands the true feelings of a married woman?”

“Coquin!”

“Besides, what is there to hide! The beautiful limbs of a goddess should be seen in the full light of the midday sun. So, do not be suspicious of these poor trembling candles.”

“You fascinate me, darling,” she said, half seriously.

“As a snake a bird?”

“No, not that way,” she said, and pressed his hands against her breasts, “vos jolies phrases caressent mon oreil et flattent mon orgueil. Elles m’emportent.”

“Would you have it different, my love?” he asked, with half hidden satisfaction.

“Oh no, never, never,” she said with conviction, and kissed him fervently, “it is such a relief to have and to give, darling.”

He led her toward the bed. It did not, he observed, require much guidance.

When, finally, the lights were being turned out for the night in the Hotel Zum Koenig von Preussen, Christiansborg, palace of the Danish kings in Copenhagen, about three hundred miles to the north of Hamburg, was still brilliantly lighted. A thousand windows blazed in the night. The palace was like a Christmas tree.

However, the atmosphere within the enormous building was anything but festive. Even the Palace guards, as a rule so stonily indifferent in their white uniforms and two-foot grenadiers’ busbies, stood about with worried mien, industriously chewing their mustache ends. Up the great staircase, past little marble gods ornamenting the balustrades, hurried an elderly gentleman with a great deal of gold braid on his coat and a wide red ribbon of silk draped across his chest. This was the Marquis of Keith, the English ambassador. The lackey who led the way with a candlestick smirked as much as he dared. It amused him to be able to read the Marquis’ evil mood. The old gentleman had been disturbed at one of his beloved champagne suppers, at eleven in the evening, just at the point when he was beginning to make a little progress with the French dancer, a feat that took some doing at his advanced age. The diplomatic corps had been summoned to emergency discussion and so there he was, puffing up the palace stairs.

Meanwhile, in another section of the palace two much younger gentlemen, Kammerjunker Sperling and Count Holck, supported between them, one holding each arm, a blond youth of seventeen or so. Firmly they dragged their charge towards the throne room, and argued as they went.

“Pull yourself together, Christian, my boy,” said Count Holck, a rough even in his court costume. “They’re not going to cut your throat, you know.”

“You want to marry me off, that’s what you all want to do,” the boy moaned and stared into the Count’s slabby face with tragically distended eyes. “I’m too young, I tell you. I don’t want to do it. Now, let me go, both of you.”

“Shut up,” said Holck. “You bleat like a sheep, Christian. The little one, they say, is very nice, a sweet little pullet.”

“But she’s too blonde,” the boy said. “Why, her hair is nearly white, her hair’s so blonde.”

“She looks all right in the picture they sent you,” growled Holck. “Watch your tongue, will you!”

“But I like brunettes,” the boy said in tearful irritation. “I don’t want any blonde, I tell you.”

“You like Milady, you mean,” said Holck.

“Yes, I do like Milady,” the boy sobbed. “Whatever will I do about her? You’ll tell me, Sperling, won’t you, even if Holck won’t? What will I do? There’s only one Milady in the whole world, Holck.”

“That’s no exaggeration,” said Sperling.

“Of course, she is a rare bird,” said Holck. “But when everything is fixed up nicely and calmed down, you can have her brought back, my dear Christian. You see?”

“When I’m married, you mean?” Christian asked. He began to wipe his eyes dry as much as the grip on his arms would allow.

“Of course, why not?” grumbled Holck.

“Yes, but what would the other one say?” said Christian. “Do you think my wife would allow it?”

“What do you care about your wife, damn it,” said Holck in sheer irritation. “Christian, you talk like a dealer in fish. Are you trying to tell me that marriage is a sacrament? Mon dieu! Were you seriously thinking you’d have to be glued fast to one woman? Especially the one you marry! Sperling, listen to the boy. Feel the wet behind his ears, will you. No wonder the poor pet is so troubled!” Holck laughed like a bull and was echoed by Kammerjunker in a more moderate outburst. The earthquake of laughter affected Christian. He, too, squeaked with amusement, his tears now suddenly forgotten.

“By Milady’s riding whip,” he said showily, “I’d forgotten that I’m His Majesty the King and can do what I please. And, in case you’ve forgotten it, you two, have others do what I please.”

“Well, that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said this evening,” Holck said. “Come on, now. Forward march. The wedding can’t be delayed forever, my son.”

“I know, Holck, I know,” said the boy, smiling crookedly. “I have my own little idea. This blonde is going to pay through the nose for upsetting the applecart, I can tell you that.”

“Don’t be sure about that, Christian,” said Sperling. “You may even come to like the little lady in good time.”

“I may, and I may not,” said Christian. “That all depends. But I’ll say this much. No little English slut is going to look down her nose at me. Is she, Holck?”

“Bravo, the King speaks,” said Holck drily. “If you want some private advice, my boy, let me warn you that most women are a good deal better off if their husbands give them a backhander across the mouth every so often. It sweetens their disposition, it tickles their feminine nature, so to speak. Nothing like it to sharpen their affections, Christian.”

“You don’t understand me, Holck,” said Christian. “My blows will wound the soul.”

“Fine, fine, all the better,” said Holck. “After all, we Danes are not Russian peasants, are we? Now, get on ahead of me and stop talking so much. It will make a better impression.”

With dancing steps Christian moved ever closer to the throne room. A frozen, silly smile was on his face. Holck and Sperling trailed behind him at a carefully maintained distance of three paces. The guards presented arms smartly when Christian, without so much as turning an eye to look, pranced by.

Reventlau and Moltke, seeing Christian come prancing nonchalantly to the throne room where they awaited him, could hardly believe their eyes, for they had nerved themselves for scenes of hysterical resistance. Instead the King bowed to his step-mother, the Queen-Dowager, who looked back at him as black as a dragon, her brows knitted together. He bowed to his brother-in-law, Prince Karl von Hessen, and waved his hand elegantly in recognition of his ministers. Then he made a pretty little speech, right out of a clear sky.

“Mesdames et messieurs,” he said, “allow me to anticipate your worthy decisions. I thank you all beforehand for your devotion, and in addition may I say that I have decided to marry the beloved Princess Caroline Matilda, to whom I have been betrothed these many years. I have been considering this step for a long time, and have decided to delay no longer. I would like all my relatives, friends and trusted servants to be the first to know about it. I feel sure that I can count on your joyous approval, mesdames et messieurs.”

The Queen-Dowager embraced her step-son. Reventlau gaped at Count Holck, who winked at him confidentially, as if it were all his doing. A deep sigh of relief went through the room. Christian sat down and turned to the English ambassador. “My dear sir,” he murmured silkily, “I feel certain that with your usual adroitness you can overcome any obstacles that may conceivably arise.” Smiling to himself he pretended to think things over, with one thin finger stroking the large diamond on his other hand. He kissed the stone, slowly drew the ring from his finger and gave it to the Marquis of Keith, saying: “My dear Keith, would you have a special courier take this to my bride as a token of my enduring affection?”