Abundance. Part 24

IN HIS PRESENCE, my heart is light. With the most perfect serenity, I watch the fall season progress. The dark comes earlier every day. The leaves of the trees at Versailles are half dropped, and I see the black skeletal branches emerge from the thinning foliage. The sunsets grow rich with a heavy red and roiling gold.

Sometimes the little being inside me kicks his tiny foot, and I tickle the place where he is making room and yet more room for his growth. The King glows with his happiness for me, and once in the presence of the count, I placed the King's hand against my side to feel the movement. Without the slightest embarra.s.sment the good King exclaimed, "Ah, Fersen, what a thing it is to be an almost-father!" Nor was Fersen the slightest discomforted. We are all three most natural with one another. Royalty aside, we are simply three friends. They both love me, and we are in perfect balance.

Fersen once remarked to us that in the nature of geometry, the triangle is the most stable of forms. We three were admiring a pediment of that shape; his comment was no sly remark on ourselves. At least he had no awareness of it being so. But just as he knows the private, unworded recesses of my mind, so can I discern the shadow of his thoughts, of which he is unaware.

Once I saw Elisabeth, the King's sister, looking at Fersen as though she too was about to join the ranks of ladies who come close to swooning at his glance. Her eyes quite glazed over when she saw him in his Swedish military uniform, looking like an actor in a play, a spectacle of glorious manhood, but authentic and comfortable.

"Elisabeth," I said gently, for she could not help herself.

Her lips parted and she looked as though she were awakening from a daze. "His boots are so beautiful," she murmured. Then her truthful eyes fully met mine. "I am so glad your Highness has such a n.o.ble friend," she said. "We could follow him to the end of the world."

"It is good there are such men," I replied. "The King likes and trusts him entirely."

Meager words! The real essence of this moment is that in its private folds I saw the sincerity of my sister-by-marriage. She does not want what is mine. Always, there has been a bond between us, from the day I arrived for my wedding, and she-a perfect, natural child for all her royalty-flitted about me. She was the little messenger for the Dauphin's pink rose. And now she fills her role to perfection: she is my true friend. Almost, she wants nothing for herself. In her proximity to the King and myself, it is her will and ardent desire to enhance-in every way-our position. I know no way to repay her generosity.

I FEEL THE LABOR pains begin soon after the clock strikes twelve. There is no need for haste or alarm. Soon enough I will be surrounded by dozens, perhaps hundreds of people, but this moment is mine. Who is this little person who knocks at the door of the world? And what a strange portal is the female human body. So it is beginning: pain where there was no pain. A tightening and a squeezing, and the pain pa.s.ses. While I wait, I know that I am smiling.

I think of my mother, and the joy that will be hers. To her, I and my arrival had been no mystery. There were so many brothers and sisters before me. Yet another, she probably thought. And what shall we do with her?

But for me it is the beginning. I am doing what I was born to do, but more gloriously than even my mother had dared to hope. I shall bear the next king of France, G.o.d willing. This new being is made of the royal blood of hundreds and hundreds of years. Old Louis XV must be smiling in his tomb. How pleased he was to join my six-hundred-year-old house of Hapsburg to the Bourbon line.

But the coming child-my body compresses him again, I pray he feels no pain-is but a child. He knows nothing of these proud thoughts. But I think he senses his world is changing. Birth and Death-I think it must be like this when we die: that we but exchange one world and its close limits for a more expansive kingdom. Here in the dark inhabiting my bedroom, I think of the light of eternity. My mother would have me pray at this moment for France and the happiness of Europe, as well as our own, and I am glad to do so. The beads of my rosary slide with their angles and smoothnesses through the tips of my fingers; that they are connected one to another connects me to the intangible beyond.

The clock strikes one, for half-past midnight. How forlorn that gong sounds.

Yet I love this darkness, that I am alone. I want to remember this black peace. I can see the curtains at the windows. I suppose soon I will get up and pace about. The King will come, and I will feel his love for me and I for him that together we have made the reality of this little life. I wish Maria Carolina were with me. One after another, her children have come easily. She would tell me what to expect, and how best to help the progression. When I close my eyes now, I can feel her lips kissing my forehead. Such love. The pain attacks again. If she could, Charlotte would labor for me. How often she took my hand, when we were little together, to lead me forward to some new play. To the menagerie! To see Clara, the rhinoceros, plated like a knight of old, but dusty.

Here comes another pain.

The clock bongs. I give myself another half hour of solitude. Then I'll ring the bell, and its silver sound will announce the impending event. Probably never in my life will I be again so alone as I am in this moment. I am not afraid. Blessed solitude. Sweet secret! Is it possible that what is now within will be soon without, and separate from myself? But my arms will comfort him and hold him close against my flesh, this outer wall of the room of his unborn life. Remember, I'll say, only hours ago you were inside. My hands smooth and soothe my big belly as it goes rigid again with pain.

I test time by counting to sixty, and yes, those moments are gone, and another minute is here to be counted out. Such is life! Such is life: the pa.s.sing of moments, none more or less real than another, for all their difference in import. The moment it takes to move my eyes from left to right is as real as a moment of love or fear. I read my way across the room, starting from the tall door frame on the left, spelling out draperies and cabinets, chairs and paintings till I arrive at the other wall and view the high door on the right. So we spend our moments, which have their own will and will spend themselves whether we are aware of their pa.s.sing or not. Suppose we could give away time, like a sparkling bracelet. The lapis bracelet I received when I arrived for my wedding comes to me, a broad band, with diamonds, and the clasp I have liked to wear next to my pulse. My cipher MA, with the letters intertwined, two mountains, with three peaks among them. Hold on tight, Marie Antoinette-it is the voice I heard at home when we rode our sleds through the snow, the voice of the Empress, giving good advice. I wish it would snow this December night, for the world needs to be new and pure as white linen, as white as swansdown for my baby.

I am glad it is December, the month of Christ's birth, when Mary herself had her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Blessed art thou among women. And blessed am I. Mary, Mother of G.o.d, Mary, my special patron saint, and that of all my sisters and of our mother before us, may the fruit of my womb be blessed, for the sake of the people, for France, which I shall love better than ever I have before.

One. The clock chimes once again for half past one in the morning, 19 December 1778, and I ring the call bell for those who will attend me. Only a few moments pa.s.s, and here they come. First is the Princesse de Lamballe, as superintendent of the household, her pale face a lozenge of love, who dispatches the news to all the royal family at Versailles and beyond, by pages, to Saint-Cloud, and on to Paris with the news. Men scurry out, then ride away from the palace into the cold, full of my news. I hold out my hand to be a.s.sisted from this stately bed, leaving the print of my warmth behind me. Before I return to this bed, I will have given birth. I arise to begin my pacing, which will hasten the process and prevent my blood from pooling.

IT IS EIGHT in the morning, and the pains come too close together, and my body is too weary for any more walking. I look at the little white bed that has been prepared for the actual delivery of my child. Were it my tomb, I would lie in it now, for respite. Daylight appears in a vertical slit where the draperies meet.

It is the face of my husband and King that most comforts me now. They called Louis XIV the sun king, but it is my husband's big round face, beaming at me, that most resembles the sun. His gentle, hooded eyes sparkle encouragement to me. All the others, I ignore. The room is stifling with the press of people-there must be two hundred crowded about me-many faces I know, all those of the court who must have the honor of being present, but beyond them crowd the curious people who have walked out from Paris, and others who happened to be in the palace. I see the little seamstress among them, but her name is gone from my weary mind. I think "Rose," but that is the name of her mistress, not her own name-Rose Bertin who has made me beautiful in softly draping garments during my pregnancy, with soft feathers for my hair. Mon Dieu! The pain! And two strangers are perched on top of high cabinets to get a fine view of me lying here, trying to open my body. Mon Dieu! The pain! They are like the gargoyles leaning out on Notre Dame. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! I count eleven bongs of the clock, mon Dieu! If it strikes noon, and I have not delivered, I will die. I am resigned to it.

And yet I think of the Empress, my mother, who delivered fifteen times, as though it were no more difficult than a hard sneeze. The throng is breathing up all the air and leaving none for me.

I wave my hands toward the windows, sealed against the winter cold, but no one understands I am stifling for lack of breath, that I beg the windows be reeled open. Use force, use force! I command, but they think I refer to the babe within me, and awful hands enter me, searching. I will not scream. Never let them make you cry out, the Empress told me. Never for any pain or injury that is personal to yourself. One shrieks for the state, only for the kingdom.

One! The clock is at half past eleven. It is Yolande de Polignac who tells us all: Now, now the baby crowns. And with all my heart I love her for her tidings. I open my eyes, just a slit, to see her face once more before I die. Her countenance is calm and happy. She sees nothing awry. Her gaze meets mine. "Very soon," she says in a low voice like the purr of a cat. I believe her.

I push, then relax; the child is born. The room falls silent. I fear he is dead: that is the meaning of their silence. There is no applause, no exclamations of joy. The heat of the room engulfs me. I sink into the fires of h.e.l.l.

HOLD ON TIGHT. Yes, the sled sped along, down and faster. Faster. The frosty wind hits my face, streams into my nostrils. Bits of ice sting my cheeks as I rush down, and faster, colder, down.

But I am not in Austria. They have opened the windows. The air in the room is fresh, and it is French. It pours over me like a spray of snow.

The King presents our child to me and tells me we have a daughter, healthy, robust. "Keep her warm," he says to me.

Ah, they greeted her with silence because she was not a dauphin.

"Little Marie Therese," I say to her, holding out my arms to this bundle, my child. Never have I heard such gentleness in my own voice. "All France wished you to be a boy, but never mind." I look at her small head, a tiny version of myself, fair of skin with sweet light hair. "To me, no child could be more dear." I touch her petal-soft cheek with the back of my finger. "Now you are mine." Having come out of me into the world, someone to touch and see and smell, I know she is more mine than when she was closeted within. "The court, the people would have owned a boy, but you," I tell her again, "dearest little girl, you are mine." She is asleep and swaddled; I check the wrapping cloths, and they are not too tight. I hold her close to myself. My breath touches her face. "I will take care of you, and we shall share our lives and comfort each other."

I tell them I am quite revived: they must close the windows tightly, lest the winter air chill my daughter.

"She is so newly born," the King says wonderingly, and I look at him. His countenance expresses all that I knew it would. He continues, "I could not be more pleased with her, or with you."

My husband's kindness causes me to weep. I know the courtiers think I am disappointed to have birthed a daughter, but that is not it at all. My travail is finished, and a new chapter of my life begins. I have had a child. I can have another.

"My little daughter will suckle at my own breast," I tell my husband.

He nods, and I know that he will support me in all that I ask.

FAREWELL TO COUNT VON FERSEN.

Three months old, my daughter is only in the next chamber; should she whimper, and should she continue to whimper, then I will leave all these lords and ladies, to give my little tyrant the breast she most prefers.

People remark on how lovely I looked last night at the Opera Ball. Of course the King was too busy to attend, but I walked with Count von Fersen, and if I did not look radiant it would indeed be a great shame, for I felt myself to be nothing but aglow. Always attentive to my moods and thoughts, always approving of me, and always himself, he and I both felt a perfect happiness, for we are kindred spirits. As I walk about and speak to friends today, in my mind I stroll again with him, my dearest secret friend. In the glamour of candlelight, reflected prismatically, with all the jewels appropriate to attendance at the opera glinting around us like fairy lights, we did glow from within.

And yet this daylight scene is lovely too, with flowers-tulips and narcissus, p.u.s.s.y willow, and forsythia bending in a yellow arc-blossoms and fronds beautifully arranged in vases wherever one looks. Flowers look best in daylight, and I love the lighter dresses of daytime that complement the flower petals quite as much as the princely robes of night. The day speaks of the freedom of nature, the night of the glory of jewels and regalia.

A whisper reaches my ears that one of the ladies has said she is grateful she is not in love with the Swedish count-how helpless one is before him, she says, be she lady or queen.

Yolande de Polignac asks if we are to have music this afternoon, and I reply, "I am waiting only on my Gluck-and Axel von Fersen." I can confide in her almost as well as I can in him, but the nature of my confidences changes, depending on whose ear is inclined toward me. With Yolande, I am my most wicked self-imperious, a bit greedy for what is not yet mine, full of criticism for others, and making light of their vanity and pitiable judgment. While I will not flaunt my power, my pride is that I can give her anything she wants.

As I muse, in the midst of many, my fingers travel up and down, over the gray fuzzy nodes of p.u.s.s.y willow, and I recall how recently in the dead of winter, my fingers visited the hard beads of my rosary as I prayed for deliverance.

With the count (as with my child), I am my best self, I feel my deeper urges, experience delight through all the levels of my psyche at the beauty of a buckle or of a song. The fingers of the musician at the keyboard have never seemed more nimble or true, as when I listen with the count at my side. The hues of the flowers in their vases, the floral forms and postures, never please me more than when he is near. Ah yes, flowers like people have a distinct carriage of their heads and lifting of their leaves. When Fersen stands beside me, elegant, amiable, intelligent, and kind, I have no impulse to criticize or complain of anything or anyone; with every breath I want to enjoy, enjoy. Secure in my happiness, I know that he will never ask anything of me.

And here is my friend Axel von Fersen, of Sweden, come again as he has come countless times to my entertainments. I simply smile and nod; the crowd parts-they disappear from view, they melt away as his figure commands all my sight. He fills the frame of my seeing as surely as if he were a painting commanding all my focus.

Far from fixed in the eternity of art, he moves toward me, through the golden light of the afternoon, among the March blossoms, past the vases whose very forms break the heart with their grace, his face fairer than any lily. The colors in the carpet before his feet are more vibrant than they ever were before.

I am not the least afraid-though today he is more compelling than ever before in his appearance, but I think just so every time I have the pleasure of looking at him. Because he approves of me, his perfection improves any inadequacy I may have ever felt about myself. I meet him on equal terms, with equal joy. All is perfectly proper; no one can claim that they themselves have been greeted by me with any less joy. I please them all, a.s.sembled here today, the princes, the ducs and comtes, my ladies, and it is effortless.

"And tell us all the news, for our number and our happiness are complete," I say to him so all can hear, "now that you are among us."

He clicks his heels together softly, brings his hand to the knot of lace at his throat, slightly bows, and speaks, "All of my news is good, for the desire of my father has come to fruition. I have many kind friends to thank. The King of Sweden has spoken to the Comte de Rochambeau, and my dreams of military service will be given opportunity."

"You have received an a.s.signment," I say with a smile, but I can feel a cloud pa.s.s over my brow. I actually touch my forehead as though to wave it away. Yolande is at my side. She whispers in my ear, as is her privilege, but I cannot hear what she says, though her very lips tickle the porches of my ear.

He is wearing a coat of bright claret, a color I have always favored, and while I drink no wine, I am always pleased when others drink claret so I can admire its color in the lifted crystal, when the sun pa.s.ses through the liquid.

Again he bows his head. "If it please Your Majesty, I have been appointed the aide-de-camp of the Comte de Rochambeau."

There is a buzz in the room, or have bees entered my brow, mistaking it for a hive.

The Comte de Rochambeau is the commander in chief, and he embarks for the American colonies forthwith. My heart panics. Express panic as pleasure caused by the presence of all a.s.sembled, for their eyes are upon you-thus, my dramatics master instructed me, before I floated onto the stage from the wings, so long ago, when I was a daughter of the Danube.

Yolande whispers in my ear, "The Americans have done nothing but cause trouble since they came into existence."

"You must bid my little daughter farewell," I say to Axel von Fersen, "and take your leave of her before you sail. Perhaps she will then be old enough to form a phrase with her own lips." I feel confused. I fear the room will begin to spin, though my eyes are fixed on nothing but his eyes. The Princesse de Lamballe is suddenly at my other side.

"Ah, look," she says with great spontaneity, "it is the Chevalier Gluck, come to entertain us with exquisite music."

I s.h.i.+ft my gaze only enough to see that my old friend has arrived. My Gluck seems to pant, as though he has come in haste; his hair is badly powdered, and much of its natural color shows through. His short stocky figure is always most welcome, but my eyes pa.s.s from him back to the elegant count. Modestly, he waits till I address him again, but I cannot.

Yolande asks him, "And what time, in the morning, do you sail? We are so sorry to think that this must be farewell for a while."

Could she have said in the morning?

"I apologize to Her Majesty and to all my friends that I have come late to our gathering only to announce that I leave early in the morning. But Chevalier Gluck is here, and let us not delay further the moment for music."

He looks at me in such a way that tells me he understands my sorrow, that he must go, as it is duty, that we must go forward with our gaiety, which is also our duty.

"I claim my privilege to go first," I say, "for after Gluck has played for us, no mere amateur will dare to sit at the harpsichord."

"Because the performance of the amateur springs from love," the count says to me, and smiles with exquisite grace, "such music always moves me most."

Slowly I sit myself on the hard little bench. When I was a child in Vienna, Gluck told me the bench needs to be hard so that our backs are never seduced to slump. I spread my skirt about me, a lavender one today, which evermore I shall a.s.sociate with death. At each elbow is a round puff of the pale purple. "Yes, an amateur is one who plays for love," I say quietly. "And I hope there will be some charm in my effort, for all of you who are so kind as to listen."

I place the tips of my fingers on the smooth, flat keys. How cool they are in their repose, waiting to speak at my touch! "Listen with your hearts then, for I play with mine, and forgive my fingers should they stumble." Indeed, I feel uncertain, but I lift my eyes to him and begin.

I sing an aria from Dido. My fingers ply the keys well enough, but my voice betrays my feeling and trembles. To steady myself-to perform, perform-I imagine the dramatic reality, the world of Dido, and not my own distress. I sing her words, "Ah, what a happy thought led me to admit you to this court," but the word for court is slurred and sounds almost like coeur-heart. Yes, I have admitted him into my heart; it matters not whether he attends my court.

Though I look only at him, his eyes are modestly turned downward. For my sake, no action of his ever betrays the bond between us. All is done in such a way as to efface himself, to belie the fact of the special position that he holds in my regard. No egotism mars his natural compa.s.sion; he asks for nothing. My eyes fill with tears. And if they see my tears-I do not care!

When I rise from the keyboard, I indicate to my old music master that now he is to entertain us, and he does, playing Rameau's "The Mysterious Barricades." Alas, the barricades that hem me in are anything but mysterious. Rameau's music boils with energy, played in the brightest of the major keys. I fade into the group, and soon Fersen, without displacing anyone, is standing beside me. I hear him breathe deeply: it is the opposite of a sigh.

"I hope you will write letters to your friends in France when you are in America?"

"Nothing would please me more. For those who are true friends, however, distance-I know Your Majesty agrees-cannot separate their spirits."

He glides away. I circulate among my guests. "Is it not wonderful news?" I say brightly. "And I understand Lafayette is going, as well."

At the moment of farewell, I hold out my hand to the n.o.ble count. He bends and kisses it, glances up just once, his soul in his lifted eyes; then he raises his head and chest, squares his shoulders, smiles, softly clicks his heels, turns, and leaves the room. My eyes follow his back-straight without stiffness, all ease, all grace-and he rounds a corner and is gone. I listen for the sound of his feet on the marble stairs, but I hear no hint of his pa.s.sage. The back of my hand hums with the whisper left there by the feather of his kiss.

LATER IN THE EVENING Yolande comes to me and tells me I do not look well.

"I have a bit of fever," I say truthfully. I will not give her any news of my heart.

When she asks to see the backs of my hands, I give her the one that Fersen did not kiss.

"Those red spots on your fair cheeks suggest measles," she replies, her voice full of concern. "Several people not at the musicale are reported to have the disease."

"Was it not a delightful afternoon?" I feel hot and listless.

"I overheard a most interesting exchange between the d.u.c.h.ess of Fitz-James and our count."

"Do tell," I urge and feel brighter, interested.

"She said, 'What is this, Monsieur? You are deserting your conquest for the sake of American liberty?' And he replied, with perfect composure, 'If I had made a conquest, do not imagine I would desert her. Because I am going away quite free of connection, I am leaving-so much the worse for me-with no other person feeling any special regret.'"

"He displays not a hint of pride," I reply, well satisfied with my friend's discretion.

"And yet, I think," she replied with a toss of her dark head, "that he would certainly be able to give bliss to any lady who wished to bestow favor and true trust upon him."

I smile at my friend with perfect equanimity, but I do not find her remark amusing.

"Indeed, I have heard testimonials of just such happy ladies," she adds, examining her nails, adjusting a diamond bracelet I have lately given her because I saw her admiration for mine with the lapis clasp and my cipher.

I glide away and look out the window. Had she been able to do so, Yolande would have goaded me to seal with the count, ere he left. It needs no seal: my confidence in his devotion cannot be shaken by gossip. "When summer comes again," I say, watching the gardeners transporting carts of roses toward their planting beds, "perhaps we shall take nocturnal walks again, among the bosquets and fountains, as we did when I was pregnant, with fragrant music wafting on the breeze."

"Madame Vigee-Lebrun, the painter, tells me there is no music more gay than Mozart's. Vaudreuil finds all her opinions about aesthetic matters to be worthy of attention."

"I'm told Mozart came and went during my pregnancy, declining the offer of a position of some sort."

"Many say that he exceeds Gluck as a composer."

"He is just my age. I heard him play, as a child. The Empress gave him-Wolfgang-a splendid suit that my brother Max had outgrown."

Memory presents the scamper of small feet across the large room at Schonbrunn, his running toward my mother, his confident occupancy of her lap. Yes, I would love to cuddle a little boy, my own cherub-child with plump cheeks and stubby wings in my lap.

How life has changed for me, how I have grown, since I envied Mozart as he kissed the Empress!

"I suppose he has grown up, now, as we all have. Really, I do not feel well," I tell my friend. "I must send for the doctor."

COVERED WITH THE MOST hideous red spots imaginable, I have removed myself to Trianon and have dwelt there-night and day now-for three nights.

When I first look at myself in the gla.s.s, I weep at the sight of me. I open my mouth to inspect my tongue, to see if even it has become spotted, but before I can see, I burst into laughter. What would Axel von Fersen think now of my beauty!

I send for the four most amusing of my male friends and tell them they shall be my nurses, and their duty is to make me laugh throughout this siege of spots. Baron de Besenval, though a colonel in the Swiss Guard, tells the most delicious stories, complete with witty dialogue. Does the King care? Not at all-whatever pleases me, pleases him. My only regret is that he and our daughter must stay their distances till I am free from contagiousness.

Count Esterhazy, my favorite of the four, for he loves me most, tells me that the whole court and half Paris is laughing, and what if the King should come down with measles-would he have four ladies to nurse and amuse him? Toward such barbs I present the tough skin of a rhinoceros. I could not have survived the onslaught of obscene pamphlets continually circulated about me had I not learned to ignore all but what I myself know to be the truth. The King hires spies to try to find the origin of such horrid printing, but I know he cannot stem the tide, for all his fury and indignation.