Читать книгу Garden of Venus - Eva Stachniak - Страница 6

In the end it fell to Rosalia to make sure that the imminent departure of Countess Sophie Potocka (accompanied by her daughter, Countess Olga Potocka, and companion Mademoiselle Rosalia Romanowicz) via Paris to the town of Spa for her prescribed water cure—had been announced three times in the Petersburg Gazette. Only then the passports could be collected and the padrogna—the permission to hire horses on the way—be signed by the Governor General.

The countess left St Petersburg on 12th July, 1822, (July 1st in the Russian style). ‘On Paris, I insist with utmost gravity,’ Dr Horn said—his voice raised, as if defending himself and not offering medical advice—‘French surgeons are far superior, even to the English.’ Before departure, everyone, including the servants, sat around the breakfast table to pray for a safe journey. They had already been to confession, asked forgiveness for their sins from everyone in the household, and exchanged parting gifts with those who would be left behind, sashes with sweet-smelling lavender, ribbons, holy pictures, and boxes lined with birch bark.

The morning was cold and wet, but, thankfully, the thunderstorm had ended and there was no more talk of omens, in spite of Marusya’s dream about her teeth falling out and making a clunking sound as they scattered on the marble floor of the hall. (‘Why didn’t you stop this foolish talk,’ Olga snapped, as if Rosalia could have.)

The kitchen carriage left first, with provisions, cooking utensils and a collapsible table, since the inns en route with their smutty ceilings and walls grown shiny from the rubbings of customers’ backs were not to be trusted. Two more carriages were packed with luggage, one carrying a trunk that opened to convert into a bedstead with pillows, so that the countess could rest during the journey.

Rosalia may have come to St Petersburg as the countess’s companion, but it wasn’t long before the timely administration of compresses and salves became more important than keeping up with the daily correspondence, greeting guests, or reading aloud after dinner. Which, as Aunt Antonia triumphantly pointed out in one of her many letters was not that hard to foresee.

Aunt Antonia, who liked to remind Rosalia that she was her only living relative and, therefore, entitled to such straightforward expressions of concern, might have forgiven Jakub Romanowicz for marrying a penniless Jewess only to die and leave his wife and child on her doorstep, but she could not forgive Maria Romanowicz for writing to Countess Potocka and begging her to take care of her only child. In Zierniki, the family estate near Poznań, a room was waiting for Rosalia. A room overlooking the orchard, with an iron bed the maids washed with scalding water each spring. A room where her mother’s old dresser still stood, its drawers smelling of dried rosemary and mint to keep the mice away.

There had been many times on this long journey when Rosalia pleaded with the countess to stop. The sick needed peace to regain strength and how was she to assure these precious moments of peace with all the packing, unpacking, and constant ordering of vats of boiling water (the grime of the inns had to be washed before the beds could be brought in). She too had her limits, and her nerves were strained to the utmost with this constant migration of coffers, crates, and trunks, the nicks and bruises of carelessness and neglect, futile searches for what should have been there and wasn’t. (The embroidered scarves and votive lights for the holy icon of St Nicholas had been left behind three times in a row and a servant on horseback had to be sent back to retrieve them.) Through August and September they had travelled for not more than a few hours daily, usually from four until ten in the morning, to avoid the heat, and then, perhaps, for two more hours in the afternoon. Often, in spite of the hot-water compresses Dr Horn had prescribed for the journey, the countess was in too much pain to travel at all.

It was already the beginning of October when they reached Berlin where Graf Alfred von Haefen put a stop to the nonsense of further travel. The Graf met the countess at the city gates and did not even try to hide his horror at the sight of her. ‘I forbid you to spend another hour in this,’ he said, pointing at the Potocki’s carriage. ‘My ears shall remain deaf to all objections. You’ll have to submit to a man’s judgement. This is the price of friendship.’ His Berlin palace would be at their disposal and so would be his own personal physician, Doctor Ignacy Bolecki. Bolecki, one of the best doctors in Berlin, was a Pole but had been trained in Paris. After assuring himself that the drivers understood his directions and would not attempt to take the wrong turn at the first junction—on moonlit nights oil lamps were put out to conserve fuel and that made the sign of Under the Golden Goose tavern where the right turn had to be taken barely visible —the Graf said to no one in particular that if an operation were truly necessary, a French surgeon would be sent for immediately.

By the time their carriage rolled into Graf von Haefen’s courtyard, the party was greatly reduced in numbers. Five servants with the kitchen carriage were sent back to the countess’s Ukrainian palace at Uman, leaving Rosalia with only two maids, Olena and Marusya, Agaphya, the cook, and Pietka, the groom. Mademoiselle Collard, the French lady’s maid had left in Poznań without as much as giving notice. ‘I have to look after myself,’ she said to Rosalia before leaving. ‘If I don’t, who else will?’ Always eager to question the refinement of Countess Potocka’s tastes, she did not fail to remind Rosalia that the white Utrecht velvet upholstery and green morocco-leather seats of the Potocki carriage had been chosen by Countess Josephine, the Count’s previous wife.

‘You are my prisoner, mon ange,’ Graf von Haefen said, opening the carriage door to help the countess step out into the chair that was waiting already, kissing her hand twice and holding it to his heart, ‘and there is nothing you can do about it.’

To Rosalia’s relief, her mistress did not protest. By the time the countess was resting upstairs, awaiting the final arrangements of her sick room, their journey, she calculated, had lasted three months, three days, and five hours.