by Douglas Messerli
Isak Dinesen Ehrengard (New York: Vintage Books, 1975)
Upon discovering
the predicament, the Grand Duchess arranges for the two to retreat to the
country estate, Schloss Rosenbad, where, accompanied by only a few stalwart
loyalists, Cazotte among them, the couple will remain until a sufficient time
passes after the birth that they can announce the new heir.
Among those
joining the Rosenbad (dubbed by the participants as Venusburg) party is the
beautiful Ehrengard von Schreckenstein, with whom Cazotte soon falls in love.
A child Prince
is born, and the court is overjoyed with the boy's perfection. The whole
fabrication seems to be working wonderfully. Even Cazotte, a wily and seasoned
figure, is overjoyed by the beauty of the royal family and the countryside. One
night, however, while taking in the rapturously beautiful sunset he
accidentally comes across Ehrengard and her maid swimming nude in a nearby
brook, and, overwhelmed by her beauty, is determined to seduce her, not through
the usual manly wiles, but by painting her so precisely that when she witnesses
the artwork a blush will rise to her face with the recognition of what has
occurred, making her, he imagines, his love alone.
So begins
Cazotte's dangerous voyeurism, seemingly encouraged by Ehrengard's continued
trips to the stream. At one point she even seems to taunt the painter to
accomplish his abstract rape:
My maid tells me," she said, "that you want to paint a
picture. Out by the east of the house. I wish to tell you that
I will be there every morning, at six o'clock.
Fear and trembling ensue.
Meanwhile,
enemies of the court, particularly Duke Marbod and other intriguers, suspect
something is unusual about the gathering at this castle. Lispbeth, a woman
hired to suckle the new Prince, has a husband, Matthias, whom she has left
behind, jealous for her being taken from him, particularly since she has, at
home, a suckling child of her own, and she has told him there is no child at
the court. Inspecting the castle grounds, Mattihas encounters his wife. She, in
turn, is so fearful of scandal that she reveals that there is a child, and she
will show it to him the next day.
Marbod and the
others are delighted to hear from Matthias the new information, and with him
they plot the abduction of his wife and the baby, determined to meet up at the
Blue Boar, a nearby inn. When the absence of the child is discovered, both
Cazotte and Ehrengard race toward the inn, discovering the nurse, Matthias, and
others are within. Even more surprisingly Ehrengard encounters there her
fiancee, Kurt von Blittersdorff, who is startled by her looks:
"Ehrengard!" Kurt von Blittersdorff cried out in the highest
amazement.
The girl’s
cheeks as she tossed back her hair were all aflame
and her eyes shining. She opened her lips as if to cry his own
name back, then stiffened, like a child caught red-handed.
Racing to the room where the child and nurse are imprisoned,
Ehrengard ignores Kurt's inquiries. He follows, and upon seeing a child demands
to know, "What child is it?"
At that very
moment Cazotte also arrives, just in time to have two more impossible lies cast
into the comic foray. Ehrengard claims it is her child, and when all demand to know who was the father, she
answers: "Herr Cazotte is the father of my child."
In a stroke of
brilliant irony, Dinesen has suddenly reversed the character roles, as
Ehrengard accomplishes what Cazotte had hoped to impose upon her:
At these words Herr Cazotte's blood was drawn upwards, as
from the profoundest wells of his being, till it colored him
over like a transparent crimson veil. His brow and cheeks, all on
their own, radiated a divine fire, a celestial, deep rose flame, as
if they were giving away a long kept secret.
The story of deceit has come to an end, with the first
glimmer of truth finally revealed: It is Ehrengard who has seduced the great
"Casanova" Cazotte.
It hardly matters
that in an epilogue we discover that everything is later straightened out, that
Ehrengard is married to Kurt with "the light blue ribbon of the Order of
St. Stephan" (an award given to noble ladies for service to the house of
Fugger-Babenhausen) pinned upon her white satin frock. For the royal houses of
Dinesen's tale have lied only in order to be saved again by her lies. And
unable to face the truth of his love, Cazotte escapes to Rome to paint a
portrait of the Pope.
New York,
September 18, 2009
Reprinted from EXPLORINGfictions
(October 2009).
