Читать книгу The Tsar's Dwarf - Peter H. Fogtdal - Страница 21

THE NOTARIUS HAS HIS OWN STEWARD—AN OLDER MAN, bleary with sleep who comes to greet us holding a lamp. Æreboe tears off his wig and goes into his office. Delicate light seeps in through the small windows, and the steward lights the lamps in the wall brackets. He looks half-asleep in his nightshirt, but he is wise enough not to laugh at my size.

“Does my lord wish for a serving of soup?”

“No, nothing. We just want to…sit.”

The steward nods and slips out of the office like a shadow. Æreboe throws himself into a chair, and for a moment it seems as if he has fallen asleep. Then he stares down at the leather pad covering his desk and turns to give me a hazy look.

“The Russians aren’t so bad,” he says.

“No.”

“And remember that they’re called Russians, not Muscovites. Russians are very proud and take offense easily.”

I nod.

Æreboe smiles. “You’ll do just fine over there.”

“What do you think will happen to me?”

“You’ll be very popular, there’s no doubt about that.”

“At the tsar’s palace?”

“At the tsar’s palace or living with one of his ministers. You’ll have a good time with your fellow little people.”

“What fellow little people?”

“The other dwarves.”

“I can’t stand dwarves.”

Æreboe looks at me in astonishment. “Why not?”

“I can’t stand anyone.”

Æreboe collapses into convulsive laughter.

“You’re priceless, Sørine. I wish you could stay here with me.”

“I’ll tell you one thing: I refuse to share a roof with a bunch of slobbering dwarves with hunchbacks and pitiful castrato voices.”

“You must take things as they come. And you must for all the world do as the tsar commands. Watch out for Peter Alexeyevich. He is a powerful prince with a genius for many things, but the tsar is not like our beloved Frederik. He is brutal and merciless—and nothing, absolutely nothing escapes his notice.”

I nod again and study the notarius in the flickering light from the lamps in the wall brackets.

“Even when the tsar is drunk, it’s as if there is another tsar sitting behind him—a tsar who watches everyone around him and takes note of who can be used and who cannot be used. The tsar is a skilled craftsman, and everyone is a tool in his toolbox.”

Æreboe almost tips over the desk as he stands up.

“If you’re interested, I can lend you my diaries from my years over there. They will give you an idea of what to expect. Russia is a marvelous kingdom, filled with beauty and melancholy… but it’s also a land of unrivaled cruelty. I can’t explain it any better than that, but you’ll understand once you’re there.”

I fix my eyes on Rasmus Æreboe as he goes over to the cabinet. He fumbles with a key, opens the door, and then places several books in front of me.

A moment later he staggers out. I’m alone in the office with the scissors chairs, the writing desk, and the exquisite copper engravings.

IN FRONT OF me are five brown leather volumes embellished with gilt.

These are the notarius’s diaries: The Russian Years, 1709 to 1714. Next to them is a cardboard folder tied with black ribbons. I don’t know where to start, so I decide to read them from the beginning, which is October 1709.

To my surprise there is nothing frail about Æreboe’s handwriting. It’s bold and angular. The letters press up against each other, breaking away and then sticking together like hard candy.

I start reading about Rasmus Æreboe’s first journey to Russia.

The notarius arrived in Moscow at the end of 1709 as private secretary to Just Juel, the envoyé extraordinaire. He had been hired because of his knowledge of Latin. The journey over had been awful, first by ship to Danzig, then along the coast to Königsberg, east to Novgorod, and by sleigh to Moscow. They stayed along the way at the tsar’s mail-coach inns. They heard wolves howling in the distance and saw a populace so impoverished that it defied all description.

I keep reading. Outside Copenhagen is awaking. The sounds stream in from the fish markets, but I’m no longer in this city. I’m traveling with Rasmus Æreboe to Moscow—a city so filled with highwaymen that every morning citizens are found dead in the snowdrifts. I’m in Petersburg, which is one huge construction site, rampant with epidemics and a cold that seeps into your bones. The notarius describes the beautiful churches with their gleaming gold icons. He is disgusted by the spiced head cheese and the chicken stomachs stuffed with ginger. He isn’t used to being in the company of people of high rank, and he’s indignant at the immorality surrounding the tsar, at the lack of respect for life in the mighty realm.

I grow more and more uneasy as I read.

That’s when I catch sight of the picture.

It’s in the third volume of the diaries: a copperplate engraving showing a number of people wearing peculiar attire. At first I think the picture seems straightforward enough, but when I study it more closely, I see that it shows two dancing dwarves. They’re both dressed in elaborate garb, surrounded by people wearing powdered wigs. But something is wrong, terribly wrong.

I look closer, studying the faces of the two dwarves. They seem to be laughing. They’re swinging around to the music. Their bodies are relaxed, but their eyes are vacant and empty.

I turn the page in the diary. The next pages are stuck together. Carefully I pull them apart. Another copperplate engraving is inside the book. It’s much bigger, but done on thinner parchment. It has been folded scrupulously in half, and I open it with trembling hands.

The copperplate engraving shows a room adorned with tapestries and high windows. A number of fine gentlemen are eating as they sit with their backs to the wall. In the middle of the room are eight tables where a large number of dwarves are seated. I try to count them. There are at least fifty. All of them are eating from little plates, using little knives and forks. Their chairs are dwarf height, their goblets tiny. I have the impression that the dwarves are part of a performance, and that the fine gentlemen are their audience.

My eye is caught by a detail on the left side of the copperplate engraving. Two chamberlains are bending over a female dwarf. At first I can’t tell what they’re doing, but then I discover that one of them is holding a hunting knife, the other a bludgeon.

I reach for Æreboe’s spectacles on the table. Then I study the details. One of the chamberlains is laughing; the other is gawking. But there is absolutely no doubt: they are beating the woman. Below the picture it reads “Dwarf Wedding.” And underneath that: “In the Year of Our Lord 1710.”

I slam the book shut and stand up. The floor is alive, the furniture as big as altars. I close my eyes. I have never felt such a rush of fury before.

At that moment the door opens, and the notarius’s steward is staring at me without blinking. I walk past him over to the front door and try to reach the handle.

The steward looks at me.

Then he laughs.