Читать книгу The Tsar's Dwarf - Peter H. Fogtdal - Страница 16

WHEN YOU’RE A DWARF, THE WORLD IS IMMEASURABLY vast. It’s like some cruel folktale, or a garbage dump for freewheeling fantasies. The furniture is as tall as towering beacons, the doors are portals into gigantic spaces. Even a carpet is a sea that goes on forever. Maybe that’s why people think that dwarves have the same view of the world as children, that we’re endowed with the chaste minds of children, that we thrive on tomfoolery. But nothing could be further from the truth. Whereas children see the world as a long string of nonsensical events, midgets see it as a Coronation Charter, as a declaration of war from a sadistic Creator who spends His time devising new humiliations.

I was sold to a baron in North Jutland on my twelfth birthday.

I don’t know how much money my father received, but I assume that he consulted Our Lord before setting the price. There was nothing dramatic about it. I left my childhood home in a wagon and was driven to Jutland along with chests of drawers, garden furniture, and a couple of old spinning wheels. After that I lived for five years at Count Rosenskjold’s manor, where I worked as a servant and a taster. I became familiar with excellent wines and the exquisite art of portraiture from Venice—with everything in the world of the nobility. And I was allowed to spend time in the library when no one else was making use of it. I continued my reading of the Bible, I studied German, Latin, and French. I learned as much as I could, because I knew that my mind would be my only salvation in a world that tramples small creatures like thistles.

It was actually the intention of my lord that I should function as a court jester, but he quickly discovered that I was too testy and not the least bit amusing. I didn’t smile as often as he liked. I frightened the children and the guests. I wasn’t housebroken enough to be among all those people of refinement. At most I could be allowed to crawl across the chairs and pour wine for those who had newly arrived. But they soon tired of me after I’d spilled the wine enough times.

In actuality, my lord didn’t have need for a court jester; he performed that role himself. He spent all his time putting on airs and expanding his manor in one way or another, seeking to make it a center for folk of quality. He created an orangerie for rare plants, he built a hall of mirrors in the French style, he hired an Italian composer who filled the halls with miserable caterwauling. The refined arts may have come to Jutland, but outdoors it still stank of cow dung.

That’s one of the things I don’t understand about humans: their need to put on airs. Do they really believe that their identity lies in a fancy garden? Does a person become more powerful in the eyes of others if he imports highbrow culture from principalities whose names he can’t even pronounce? That sort of extravagance displays a hollowness of the soul, a depressing emptiness. And that emptiness was quite obvious in my lord. Count Rosenskjold had only one wish: that the king would stay at his estate during one of his visits to Jutland. He lived for the day when His Majesty would arrive with his entourage, when he would dine at the sycamore table in the green hall. But the king never came. He chose to stay in Boller, at Skanderborg Castle, and never with my lord. A sensible person would have accepted this with peace in his soul, but fine folk are seldom sensible.

When pietism won a foothold in Denmark, my lord had something new to which he could devote himself. He began holding prayer meetings in the chapel, which had been decorated by a Flemish artist.

Because I was so well-read, I was allowed to participate.

It was an insufferable experience.

The pietists were marked by an incomprehensible love for their brethren. There was a great deal of repenting, as usual; there was sobbing and handwringing, done with an infernal zealotry. And the false doctrines were jammed down everyone’s throat with gospels and books of chronicles.

When we were done with confessing our sins, we would meet in the library. That gave my lord the chance to show off his Chinese curios and his collection of clocks from Bohemia. In the library the lights were kept dim, the voices were fervent. The fire crackled briskly in the fireplace, though not at full blaze, so that no one would mistake the warmth of the library with Whitsunday in Hell. The conversation was of Our Savior Jesus Christ, but also of his long-suffering disciples, with whom we were supposed to have a close relationship. The disciples were supposed to live inside of us, or so it was said. They ought to find their way into our prayers, they were supposed to be embraced, even loved, like Jesus himself.

On one particular evening in the library, the intention was for each of us to choose our favorite disciple and speak of the specific qualities he possessed. We were supposed to describe the light that emanated from the disciple and that had become engraved on each of our sins.

“And who have you chosen, Sørine?”

My lord placed a gracious hand on my shoulder and gave me a loving look—something he did only with the Bible on the table and a bottle of aquavit stashed in his inside pocket.

“I have chosen Judas,” I said.

My lord’s eyes turned glassy. He leaned back. His big hands lay dead on his knees. And during my speech he looked only at his guests, never at me.

I spoke with great sincerity about Judas—why I was fond of him; how I felt that he had been cowed and misunderstood. Judas was not a criminal; he had merely allowed himself to doubt. Judas had asked questions of the Savior—questions that the Savior could not answer. He had been critical instead of howling along with the wolves who were his companions. And it was there that the greatness of Judas resided: He saw through the duplicity around him. He was not a hypocrite, and that made him dangerous in the eyes of the Christians.

Judas also seemed the most intelligent of the disciples.

He was not filled with hatred like Paul; he was not a coward like Simon Peter. He loved Jesus with all his heart, but he had seen through the hollowness of the rebellion, because Judas was a thinker, not a fanatic. But did this lack of fanaticism make him a demon? Did he take the silver talents because he was greedy and avaricious? No, Judas took the money because he was weak, just as all of us are weak at one time or another. It had nothing to do with a lack of nobility of soul. Judas was simply something that was not often found in the Bible. He was a human being!

After my little speech there was silence in the library.

No one looked at me. The participants looked away or down. The silence was deep, almost mournful—as if they had all been witness to a soul’s fall from the heights.

My lord looked at me for a long time.

“Woe is you, Sørine, for you are treading in the footsteps of Cain.”

I met his glance, but there was no more to discuss. There was never anything else to discuss in the world of human beings. I was blasphemous, sacrilegious, inflammatory. And there was no place for someone like me in Jesus. Or in the absolute monarchy of Denmark.

RASMUS ÆREBOE IS once again the person who comes to see me in my cell.

I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here. Time never has any meaning in the dark; maybe it has no meaning at all.

I’ve slept off and on, been awake for a while and played with a couple of gluttonous rats. I’ve named them, pampered them, and let them sleep in my lap, as rats should.

As a child I collected grass snakes. I found them down at the marsh and took them home to the parsonage, but my father killed them with a shovel. Then there was a period when I collected toads and shrews. My father turned them loose in a vain attempt to educate me. On the other hand, he was fond of horses, so I was supposed to be fond of them too. A horse, he said, was a “good” animal, an animal that ought to be enjoyed. Not merely as a utilitarian beast, but as a “holy” and poetic animal whose beauty was apparent to everyone who had eyes to see. Yet horses are anything but beautiful. And even for an animal they’re obtuse. I have observed them for years, and horses have a slavish temperament and a submissiveness that I find disgusting to a high degree. Add to that the fact that they can be tamed. If an animal can be tamed, I have no interest in it.

I have no interest in Rasmus Æreboe either.

He’s now standing here, holding a tallow candle and wanting my praise in order to rescue me. But I don’t want to be rescued. I’m done with running the gauntlet between tsars and Pharisees. Rather a public whipping at Torvet than the esteem of fools.

“Come with me, Sørine,” he says in his melodic voice.

I stay where I am, seated in my cell. Why does the human being think that his world is so attractive? Isn’t it possible that I feel better in the silence? Last night Terje visited me. He put his arm around me and called me his good wench, even though I had helped him on his way into the next world. Terje would never make an appearance in the Light. But in the Dark he came to me, bringing solace and relief. In the Dark he could slip away from God and whisper what he hadn’t been able to say when he was a scoundrel here on earth.

“We have a new dress for you.” Rasmus Æreboe smiles. “You’re going to have a splendid visitor.”

He turns around, expecting me to follow him.

Dwarves are always supposed to be grateful. We’re supposed to be grateful for every crumb we receive—for every flatbed cart that does not run us over; for every axe that does not chop off our heads. Dwarves are supposed to be grateful to live in a world where seven-year-olds outgrow us!

“What’s going to happen?” I ask.

The cavalier beams mysteriously but doesn’t answer. His eyes are a lighter blue than I remember. In spite of the scar on his forehead there is something virginal about his face. Against my will I wonder whether Rasmus Æreboe is married; whether he has children and a wife; whether his home is an earthly paradise with wig stands, a Bible, and chamber pots made of faience—whether Rasmus Æreboe is a puppet, a human being, or something else.