Whether satirising or sympathising, Döblin always paints his royal figures as human beings rather than remote idols. In these excerpts we meet a powerful emperor unsure if he is up to the job, a megalomaniac, a native ruler confronted with unfathomable intruders, an overworked imperial General Manager, and a couple of inbred chinless wonders.
“Doctor” Jonas (from Wallenstein Part 1)
This massive epic of the Thirty Years War begins with a feast: the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, along with the elites of Church and Empire, scoffing food and drink as if they mean to devour the whole world. Some months later, as the strains of his position begin to tell, Ferdinand indulges in a grotesque parody of a feast with his Fool, Jonas.
This excerpt (together with the above Feast) was first published in The Brooklyn Rail print edition in November 2017, see https://brooklynrail.org/2017/11/fiction/Wallenstein-Extracts.
Melise of Bordeaux (from Mountains Oceans Giants Part 1)
A recurring theme in Döblin’s epics, crystallised in his 1938 essay Prometheus and the Primitive, poses the question: how can human beings claim sovereignty over Nature when they cannot even exercise it over themselves?
The Zipa (from The Land without Death Part 2)
In the Amazonas novels, Döblin achieved a rare empathy with the ways and mindsets of cultures in existential peril from unfathomable invaders. This scene, the humiliating first meeting with conquistadors of the ruler of the prosperous Muisca kingdom, is described as if through European eyes, yet elicits sympathy rather than Eurocentric scorn for the Zipa.
I the King (from The Blue Jaguar Part 3)
Amazonas contains several delicious passages satirising monarchs and popes. This excerpt depicts the dour Charles, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy, 16th century ruler of the first empire ‘on which the sun never sets’.
Ferdinand the Somnolent (from The Blue Jaguar Part 5)
Inbreeding, and new forces at play in the world, herald the end of the Age of Kings; but foolish rulers can still do damage.
“Doctor” Jonas (from Wallenstein Part 1)
DURING these DAYS the Capuchin monk Valeriano Magno, a creature of the Bavarian Maximilian, arrived at the court in Vienna after many weeks on the road, to request on behalf of his prince the promulgation of a charter transferring the outlawed Palatine’s Electoral rights to Max. Ferdinand silently waved him away to Abbot Anton, who reported that the monk was said to have come from Paris, where Secretary of State Puisieux held Bavaria in particular regard. “And why not?” snorted the Emperor. “Why not?” Abbot Anton crossed himself.
“Sing me something,” the Emperor roared to Giovanni Valentini; and the choir had to stand for hours in the antechamber, singing. The singers were exhausted, the tenor Pichelmayer gave up, the Emperor wandered restlessly up and down along a wall where hung a Gobelin depicting the impregnation of Io; if the choir stopped, he would quickly shout towards the benches: “You are to keep singing.” He had Tyrolean wine brought; then the violins and flutes had to play; he was tireless in his pacing. None of the trusted gentlemen of the chamber could come near; Secretary Frey encountered nothing but outbursts of incomprehensible rage.
One noontime when Ferdinand, face swollen, eyes staring, glanced through the window onto a little courtyard, there beside an empty wagon sat his Fool Jonas, alone on the cobbles in his dun cap and bells, working away at something. Ferdinand quickly closed the window, and waving away his servant descended the spiral staircase. Courtyard overgrown with grass, hot, bare. A heap of sand lay near a shed. Unobserved by the Fool, the Emperor sat down hatless in his loose grey jacket on a barrel at the doorway of the shed. It did him good to sit here; how he had hurried down; it did him good. He leaned his head against the post, thought of nothing, stared ahead. Then it occurred to him it might be possible to snooze here; he pushed himself deeper into the little shed, breathed deeply, and as soon as he closed his eyes was already sound asleep, just what he needed. After a while the Fool tugged several times at the Emperor’s shoe. The Emperor stirred, opened his eyes.
The old mischief gurgled secretively, eager to know: “You been watching me, Ferdie?”
He said nothing.
“It figures, you were watching me. Tell me, what d’you think?” When no answer came, the dwarf attended again to his business.
After a while Ferdinand’s shadow loomed from behind over the Fool’s drawing-board; the dwarf slyly raised a finger: “It figures, you were watching me. I’m working, I’m working.”
“What is it?” The Fool had laid big sheets of blank paper on a packing-case board on the sand; he carefully poured ink from a little jug over them, brushed the ink attentively with broad strokes into the corners, along the edges. “I am composing.”
“What’s the ink for?”
“I’m composing a great work on the stars, Heaven, witches and the Devil. Soon be done.”
How strange: the Emperor did not smile, looked long and hard at the sheet of paper; surely he was still asleep.
“If the sun shines warm and bright this week it’ll be ready. It all depends on the sun, Ferdie, it’ll never be finished in the dark.”
“What is it?”
“If you won’t betray me, green lion, I’ll tell you. And if you’ll give me something.”
“What is it?” He stepped closer. The Fool whined: “They snatch every morsel from under my nose. If only you’d seen yesterday, with the trout. I hardly had any.”
“Come with me.”
The dwarf stepped behind him, grizzling, after covering everything carefully with a sack: “I can’t sleep for worrying. Yet I’m better than the lot of them.” He beamed up at him: “I’ll show you. You can come again. I’m writing a great work about spirits. Wisdom must be spread among the people. But it all takes so long, I see that now, years and years for one book. Many wise men die, green lion, before they finish their book. And that’s why -.” He watched as Ferdinand sat down again on the sand, asked anxiously: “But you won’t betray me?”
“No, no.”
“There are some that deny me everything, they’d like to do away with me.” Timidly he drew the little ink-jug out from under the board, showed it: “See for yourself. My book, if Lord Peter in Heaven wills it, is almost finished. I’ll let you see it first.”
And the little man poured a stream of ink over a fresh sheet, began to brush it, chattering in delight: “See how it goes. See how it runs. I do it all at once. There, a whole sheet all at once, a wellspring from the little jug. Right now. Brush it into the corners, one, two. I’m not stupid – sharpen a quill, dip it in the ink, fish out tiny drops! Aye, believe me, you can fish a long while till the jug is empty. And if the jug doesn’t dry up, they fish around in it for three years. See how I do it. That’s the whole joke. Swift and spry, right now. See, Ferdie, down here.”
Six little jugs stood in the sand. “Since yesterday,” the midget whispered confidentially, quickly covered them again. “I fetch the jugs from your Chancellery, they curse when they find them gone; tomorrow I’ll put my first little book in front of them, with the little jugs: how their eyes will pop. It’s about ghosts, witches and all the seven heavenly bodies, I’ve thought it all through properly and written it all down quick as a flash. Oh what they’ll all read in it; about you too, Ferdie, and my enemies! All in there.”
“Now I must be sure, dear Jonas, to award you Doctor with no need for studies or exams.”
Delighted, hands clapping: “Oh, when will you lay on the feast? Oh, you’ll see, there’s better to come. If only you won’t betray me.”
“Let’s drink to it, Jonas. Let’s celebrate here and now; show me the way to the cellars.”
“Come, I’ll take you.”
He tucked his things away like a mother. Close by the shed a low door disguised as a packing-case had been let into the wall, he gave it a shove; stairs led down; a heavy cool smell drifted out.
“Where are you, Jonas?”
“Ssh. Quiet. I’m down below. Someone might hear. Come. Here.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Who is with you?”
“The wine, Jonas and you. The three of us.”
The Emperor felt his way down. “Sit yourself down here at the steps, Jonas, in the corner. And leave the door open so we can see.”
“Ferdie, can you drink from the spigot?”
“Fetch me a beaker from somewhere, quietly; there are people everywhere.”
Long silence in the dark. Huge outlines emerged: black barrels, vats, ferkins, ladders; the cellar extended deeper away.
“Jonas!”
“Here’s the nice little beaker. I’ll pour for you.”
“We shall celebrate you, Jonas, tomorrow I’ll present you with your barley-sugar.” They drank, drank. Sometimes Jonas let a laugh ring out, soon the Emperor joined in. Jonas cried: “Mister Rector, Your Worship, where is your red robe. You show me no proper respect.”
“Jonas,” said Ferdinand after a pause, “fetch me my dog.”
The dwarf was already away. “Here, Ferdie, here’s the little dog.”
It was a cat. The Emperor took it in his arms, wrestled with it. “I can’t keep a hold.” Jonas seized it by the neck, pressed it to his breast; it lay quiet.
The Emperor’s big blue eyes, the creature’s bright slits. “Give me your knife, Master Doctorandus. The kitten must sell me its skin for a red robe.” He immersed himself in the frightened lurking gaze, suddenly went to grab it by the throat. The cat struck out, but the dwarf had already slit its throat with the sharp knife. As it wheezed, sprayed, struggled, twitched on the flags, he slit the pelt, squealing grinding his teeth, slit it from throat to tail, ripped it left right from the warm wet body, the quivering legs.
Ferdinand gulped down his wine. He laid the steaming bloody pelt over his shoulders, wiped his fingers.
A clock struck in the courtyard above. “Jonas, run up before we begin the ceremony. Quick, make haste. Tell my manservant you have an errand from me. Tell the men in waiting in my antechamber, if anyone’s looking for me, I’m unavailable for meetings, they should consult Abbot Anton. Here’s my ring, bring it straight back.”
The Fool waggled his head: “I’m not to tell them where you are?”
“Don’t tell them, Jonas.”
“What will my poor hump say to that?” he whined.
“Go now!”
He came running back breathless. “They were right behind me. I lost them.”
“My ring.” The Fool was wearing it.
“Wretch, give me the ring.” Ferdinand spat as he shook the rascal: “Drink, fellow. Whatever you have. I’m thirsty, fellow.”
Jonas wiggled free, stayed aloof, slurped loudly nearby. Ferdinand stumbled over to him in the corner where a lantern gleamed; there the gnome was scoffing radishes, dry bread. Ferdinand roared laughing: “Damn the pig,” grabbed the basket; the rascal screamed, held fast to the handle, they scoffed tore gulped spat tugged. The cat’s pelt kept slipping, Ferdinand kept adjusting it on his left shoulder. He held his beaker out for refills, slurped, his head was spinning, pulled the basket to his chest.
Suddenly the Fool jumped back, crawled with his basket away ten paces, hissed venomously: “You’ll have no more! You can drop dead, you’re disgusting, you thief.” He sat hidden in the dark.
“Will you give me some radish, dog?”
“Drop dead.”
Ferdinand crawled on all fours, head lolling, called hoarsely, threatened begged. The rascal drew back further. Slyly the Emperor suggested: “A little bite, sir Doctor, just a little bite.”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Not even a crumb, you villain.”
“I want some,” roared the Emperor, “I can’t drop dead in this place.”
“You thief, I’ll show you.”
“What did I ever do to you, Jonas?”
“Nothing. Drop dead, drop dead!”
“A little bite.” Ferdinand sat under a barrel with a dribbling tap, snivelled: “He gives me nothing. Look at the fellow, that Jonas. Has a whole basketful. He’ll never be a doctor.”
“Drop dead.”
Now Ferdinand turned onto his belly, slithered on the cat’s carcase, feet struggling; roared full-throated, raised his hands, slammed them to the ground, anointed his face with dirt, rose to his feet: “This is how you treat me, treat me this way. I’ll bring charges.”
In a rage the dwarf rushed forward, dashed the basket against his legs from behind. “Charges? You, against me? You thief.”
“He’s killing me. Help. Dire danger. What did I ever do to you.”
“Slanderer, bring charges against me!”
“Leave my legs alone.”
Scolding voices up above, people came down casting light into the space.
Jonas the dwarf gabbled in delight: “See now if you get the better of me! Haha. In front of them! You fatty.” Bawled into the vaulting: “I’m over here! Seize the thief!”
Crawled away dragging his empty basket, bleated contentment; clapped with his master’s left shoe, creeping close to him he turned a spigot; a stream of wine rattled onto the flags. Catching sight of the empty basket the Emperor howled at the two cellar-boys, who raised threatening fists, then hauled the smeared slobbering man into a sitting position.
“He ate it all. He’s bad. He’s no man of learning. He’s a guzzler, he’s callous. Told me to drop dead. Seize him. Cold-blooded rascal. May God preserve us.”
Melise of Bordeaux (from Mountains Oceans Giants Part 1)
HOW SHE rampaged, Melise of Bordeaux! This female, in whose veins black African blood flowed mixed with the zones of Italy and western France, overturned every agreement reached by the spineless childish people around her. She saw how people delivered themselves to pleasure and grew soft and softer and surrounded themselves with a like-minded clique. She was of a savage passionate sensuality that was at the same time cold and repellent; she herself suffered. Like a giant snake she coiled around her lovers, male and female, crushed them until she was sated, left them lying frightened there. No one ever knew when she was in earnest, this crinkle-haired thick-lipped woman with glittering black eyes, who wept often and loudly, bemoaned herself and her fate. She cried like a drunkard, melodiously without depth, ending in a graceless laugh of annoyance. She induced every clan in her townzones to hand their most important weapons and installations over to her followers. She destroyed a number of installations, not knowing how to make use of them and so deeming them superfluous. Soon she distinguished two categories of townzone over which she exercised dominion: pet-zones and slave-zones. She located infrastructure for food production and life-essential materials in the slave-zones; their governors were developed into leaders and devotees of this work.
She and her followers adopted highhanded ways. They openly put on airs as rulers and sovereigns, relished the astonishment and outrage when they turned up at general assemblies of the western townzones with an extravagant retinue. They provoked fury, but proved infectious. And so Melise of Bordeaux, the big-haired noble-nosed honey-coloured woman and her followers were the hammer that shattered many a ruling group, leading to dangerous convulsions in central European zones. These in fact harboured a desire for similar pomp and savage glory. The going became rough in central Europe whenever a capon tried to run wild, or a hen to strut like a peacock. The ruling elites wore each other down with furtive assassinations, sly acts of violence; order could be restored only through violence.
Sometimes this was London’s work. London never lost sight of the risk of mass revolt. It let things play for a while, then swooped like an eagle on the quarrelsome, forced them to behave. London’s long arm was felt even in the heart of central Europe, where peace seemed out of reach: even before the Urals War, six strong townzone regions of central Europe had lost their independence, among them Munich and Bratislava. They had to endure the domination of English clans.
Melise reigned in Bordeaux as queen-autocrat, had a cathedral built for her on open land by the Garonne, southeast of Bordeaux, where she prayed and had the people worship her. For it was never quite clear what she and the priests she had solemnly consecrated were up to when she sat with them in the altar space, her gaze sweeping across the congregation, heavily beringed hands joined, fleshy arms bare to the shoulder, gold brocade and ivory pendants at her large slowly rising falling breast. Even when the townzones of southern and eastern France fell to her, she was never so presumptuous as to hold her hand out for more. Was always submissive, servile even, towards London. She never sought alliance with the Feminist Leagues which were spreading their shoots everywhere; she had as little love for women as for men, and was unassailable on that score. Her demand was for worship and submission; of these she could never have enough. She killed or castrated dozens of men she suspected of disloyalty. At the same time she killed or rendered incapable of sex any women who came under suspicion along with these men. For some time she wavered in her attitude towards women; it seemed that in her jealousy and pride she could not but see women as her enemy.
And then this queen was broken by a female, a girl of her clan who could have been her own daughter. The charming little pale tawny creature was brought before Melise after her lover was killed. Melise drank a great deal. In her howling misery she clung to the gentle frightened girl, who kept silent. Melise struck at her with a steel hairbrush, at the arms that had embraced that man, the cheeks she had allowed to be kissed, the lips she traced with her fingers, turned to pulp by the hairbrush. The girl wept unresisting, cried, begged for forgiveness and mercy. In fact she had no idea who the man was who had taken her. He had indeed taken her, for she had no desire to know men. Melise, brush in her fist, digging a long needle into her massive thigh, spraying spittle, face red and swollen, stood over the half-naked girl lying on the carpet, whose clothes she had torn off to see what the attraction was. The bleeding terrified creature, tears running down her scored cheeks and joining a stream of blood from her nose to make a slimy trail on the carpet, looked up helplessly wailing, spitting swallowing, wiped her face on the carpet, crawled to the jangling violent woman.
Suddenly, at a glance, this woman was seized by a sense of self-loathing. She lifted her fists from the gentle girl, stared at brush and needle, settled slowly thoughtfully onto a bench. She looked down at the girl, who followed her attentively with her eyes, more frightened than ever. This thing, thought Melise, has done nothing, she’s not guilty, the man took her, the man did to the silly creature what men have always done to women. Men strut around, take this one today, that one tomorrow, curses on them. Melise did not for a moment reflect on herself. She frowned growling, aimed a couple more blows with the brush at the girl, then pulled her struggling threshing and stabbed the needle through her palm, holding the girl’s hand firmly between her knees. The needle went right through the hand of the screaming writhing staring thing into Melise’s knee; she tensed, absorbed the pain, and groaned like the girl with wide open mouth, head flung back. Pulled the needle out and flung it away, sank to the carpet, moaned. Her arms scrabbled uselessly after the scurrying girl, then she crawled after her, pulled her close, pressed the jerking head, which she was holding by the hair, to hers on the damp carpet, howled, aped the girl’s whimpering.
“Come,” Melise sighed, “you are mine. Nothing will happen to you. They won’t do anything to us. No one will dare. Oh it hurts. I’ve had enough. I’ve hurt you. Stay here. Stay with me.”
And the beaten tormented girl had to pull the broken groaning pleading woman to her feet, lead her to a chair. Melise sank into it, pulled her onto her lap, rubbed her face against the little breasts. “Oh. What sort of life is this. Murderers all around. If only I could be rid of them. Don’t be cross with me. Are you cross with me, naughty lips, poor little hands. It’ll all be better. We’ll have our revenge.”
And the child put an arm around the woman. Who felt a tenderness that shocked her, a restoring melting tenderness from the smiling gaze the bruised swollen face; it enveloped her. A child, she thought, just a child. What a child I am too. Pressed her face to the source of the upwelling tenderness.
This aborted killing sealed Melise’s fate. She became ever more easily enraged, more challenging. Found no balance between men and women. As always she angrily brushed away approaches from the Feminist Leagues; men she desired not at all.
On a whim, for some obscure reason she took to calling herself Persephone. This happened long before anyone, even she herself, knew what it meant. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, was the one who stole from the Earth the wicked deserving of death and took them down into darkness. She wanted to be Persephone. The death sentences handed down by her court in the cathedral near Toulouse became notorious. The priests were horrified, refused to collude. Melise laughed, dressed women in priestly garb, they had to stay close to her; yet always some, notably the most powerful of the priests, could spot those who feared her and those she kept on a close leash. She had peasants workers arrested on the streets in houses in the fields. Purple and black on her altar-throne, heavily made-up, thick lips bright blood-red, eyes circled in blue, she demanded that they account for themselves. Like a mediaeval prince she surrounded herself with a feared troop of armed bodyguards. They wore caps and masks, thigh-boots to the crotch, were male and female. They had rucksacks, held wirebound staves like spears, stood along the walls and seemed hardly human.
The queen heard those brought before her. They must tell about themselves, what they knew. Then they were stripped of their clothes and must tell more. Persephone saw and heard these people, men women girls youths, brought before her shaking in fear and anger, weeping, begging for mercy. She said: she was Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Did they not recognise the sceptre in her hand, did they not know they must appear promptly, that between now and now, death and life, field and death, street and death, lay only a moment’s space. That moment elapsed as soon as they entered the cathedral. They must leave their work, it would proceed without them; it didn’t merit their hands. The hour had come for her, Queen Persephone. To her must be shown every limb, voice, movement; whether they still had a right to live, or must go below. She screamed, rose from her seat, brandished the sceptre, face dark: “It’s over. Houses streets machines fields have had enough of you. You have given them enough. Now my hour has come.”
But as she sat listened observed interrogated, she had with her whatever she fancied. From her high-piled hair she took the long needles that pinned it on each side. She threw them towards the purple priest-creatures. The one at whose feet they fell was dragged up the steps to her.
It was strong men, lovely lean pale men, husbands and brown youths, voluptuous girls and women that she took to herself and banished from the Earth. Such profound bliss Melise felt, handing her sceptre to a priestess at her side, when she received embraced the man, the woman. How it coiled, warm gentle; they never knew if she was blessing or condemning them. But they were being blessed. The queen drew them to her, stood up. Squeezed their faces in her arms, her bare heavy breasts. Her hands travelled over faces shoulders hips. She touched stroked the secret places of the bodies. The priests and priestesses on their knees, faces averted, sang hymns. A gentle confusion stirred in those she embraced. It entered the throat that offered itself dreamy, savage, scrabbled at the solemn ghastly head, the huge shoulders. Here was its fate. The head that had just now sought Melise’s mouth turned aside with a little moan. The naked body twisted, as if seeking contact it could not find. As Persephone fell back in her chair, drunken eyes, face contorted with sobs, amid the austere whining music that welled and crashed like waves, the person rolled away from her: once it had been someone and now belonged to her, she bore it in her. A body incorporated in her, torn from the fields from the Earth.
Melise swelled with all the bodies she incorporated into her. She was no longer Persephone but Hades, the Underworld itself. Her region, stretching from Bordeaux to beyond Toulouse, remained viable, and England continued to support the growing strength of this state even as it was collapsing in insatiable excess.
The Zipa (from The Land without Death Part 2)
The Zipa’s palace lay at the edge of town in an extensive park, his wives’ houses behind.
It was a round building. The roofbeams were of precious wood inlaid with gold. In the big open space in front of the house stood the Pillar of the Sun, by means of which priests measured shadows and determined the time, and the calendar for feast days and harvests.
Late that afternoon Quesada, abjectly shuffling, exhausted, liverish, was led to the palace. The huge round building amazed him, its centre rising in a slender pyramid high as a palm tree. Before the gate they saw a gigantic carved pillar which aroused their revulsion: on a square plinth of stone stood a rectilinear carving of a wide-mouthed idol with retracted head and tiny body. The idol’s cheeks were painted garishly, heavy gold chains hung from the chest, the girdle was sprinkled with precious stones. Then they were led in by men with nose rings and a half moon on their forehead.
Their amazement did not abate. The corridors they were led along were endless, they went through empty rooms, came to more and yet more corridors. Corridors zigzagged, some led in a semicircle, they traversed bare lofty halls. Quesada looked around for his commander. They were in a labyrinth. It was a trap. But they had swords. All the Whites had been transformed by that night. It was as if they all went around with a dagger clenched between their teeth.
Suddenly they stood at a little door, in no way distinguished from others they had passed. But now the guides halted and turned their backs to the door, knocked on the floor with their tall staves until a signal came from within. Then, without turning, they opened the door.
In a low wide room, the fat old king sat against a bright wall and kept his eyes closed. A row of low gold-chased chairs had been placed some distance from the throne.
The dark courtiers who accompanied Quesada and his retinue walked backwards into the middle of the room. Then one crawled right up to the king’s feet and spoke without lifting his head. The conversation lasted a long time. The servants of the Zipa too, all in sumptuous garments, and at their breast golden shields of varying sizes – on the heads of some, above their long black locks, swayed great gaudy feathers alongside a golden half-moon, others were adorned with little caps of spun gold, everywhere big emeralds sparkled – all of them, olive-green noblemen, vassals, courtiers, stood with eyes downcast. Quesada was asked to repeat what he had told the cacique regarding the purpose of his mission. As Quesada spoke – along with his retinue he had meanwhile sat down, sword in front of him, apathetic, and here in the deep calm slowly felt his way back to the role of governor that had deserted him – the old man regarded one by one governor, priest, commander. His eyes were small and bloodshot, a little white beard sprouted from his chin, he wore a red headband, his strong face showed no expression. His head was set low between his shoulders, with his short arms and legs he was the very picture of a giant turtle.
He asked about the country and the gods of the Whites. The priest stood, advanced closer, held up the cross. He challenged the Zipa to renounce the shameful idolatry indulged in by him and his people, and accept baptism. After some crawling to and fro and translating, the old man murmured something. The Whites learned that the highest god is called Bochica. He bestows protection on the Chibcha people. He carries the world on his shoulders.
The priest, when he heard the translation, smacked a hand indignantly on his book. Then the Zipa murmured something else. They learned that he wanted to be carried to the marketplace, to see the band of white men and also the big animals that they sit on, not to mention the tame jaguars and thunder tubes. Quesada, impatient already, nodded, and they stood up.
Outside, a handful of soldiers were swiftly drummed into line. This was no easy task, but there was no hurry. Hours went by before the Zipa was properly attired and borne forth.
Officials with little drums and trumpets ran ahead of him through the devastated streets and, as if nothing had happened, ordered everyone to stay indoors, for the Zipa was venturing out of his palace. Accompanied by several dozen lancers and archers, preceded by a little orchestra blowing on conches, horns and flutes, ever so slowly the old king’s purple-curtained litter moved through the wide open palace gates. It lingered a while by the huge stone idol, at whose feet the Zipa laid a string with stones.
In the plaza soldiers had again piled up logs, for evening was approaching. A small group of riders sat on their mounts, which were still mere skin and bone after the terrible privations and exertions in forest and mountains; the riders only reluctantly and with some nervousness imposed any load on them. Nearby, under a mat awning, menaced the five small cannon, only two of them serviceable, rust had destroyed the other three. Behind them, feet apart, presenting musket, halberd, arquebus, stood the few foot soldiers rounded up at such short notice. Most were still snoring indoors, and many were drunk. Even among those available for this honour guard, the majority were drunk.
And so it was that, as the Zipa and his curious solemn train proceeded to the endlessly slow tempo of the orchestra into the plaza, and the governor and officers sat on their horses, the Zipa was greeted by roars of laughter. Some of the riders positioned at the entrance to the marketplace fell off in their excitement that the king himself had come to visit them, and their efforts to remount drew ribald comments from the foot soldiers. The musketeers were dirty and bloodstained. They looked like a troupe of mummers, for they had grabbed whatever garments and cloths came to hand in the houses, to celebrate their victory most wore the colourful woollen shawls of women, splendid necklaces, on their heads the fine spun-gold caps of women. Even the big hounds they were feeding with pigeons had enormous bright ribbons around their necks.
The Zipa’s train proceeded with unchanged slowness and solemnity. The excited mercenaries yelled: “Tcha, tcha, giddy up! On you go!” Governor, officers and priests made not the slightest effort to dampen the noise and high spirits, they too were infected.
At the stone house, residence of the town’s cacique, the orchestra stood away to one side, still playing. The Zipa’s chair was carried towards the horsemen. The chair halted, and as the whole plaza looked on in mounting suspense, the old man with the purple headband climbed out with the aid of his entourage, and stood in front of an emaciated nag. He inspected the piebald beast from the front, thrust his head close to the beast’s nose and eyes. He stepped sideways a couple of paces, looked at long bony legs, ribs, tail. The rider was grasping the bridle, laughing and jesting as he tried to set foot in the stirrup, it kept eluding him. Then the Zipa, to jeers and raucous laughter, bowed awkwardly to the animal, which stood there following his movements with big dark eyes.
Now the Zipa stepped across to the musketeers. Since the governor feared mischief from this unruly band, an officer took an arquebus and blocked the way. The old man dared not move. He murmured something. A translation: The Zipa would know what one says to the thunder tube when one wishes to do magic with it. At Quesada’s word the officer took aim and fired into the air over roofs. The bang caused the old man to fall to his knees, the entourage threw themselves to the ground. The mercenaries hopped and squealed in delight.
After some minutes the Zipa stood up, looked about him in a daze, the drunkard on his horse gestured at him with both hands. The entourage led the old man back to his litter. Before climbing in he bowed deeply to governor, mercenaries, horses. The governor raised his sword in salutation, seething with rage. The behaviour of his troops was beyond all bounds. Amid halloos and mocking shouts from the mercenaries, who were already dispersing back into town, the Zipa withdrew, preceded by the gentle tootling of the orchestra, at the same slow stately pace. A guard of mounted officers protected the train.
I the King (from The Blue Jaguar Part 3)
In Spain, in Buen Retiro, when I the King read what the Jesuit Fathers were planning he was certainly not pleased, for sourness was his nature, but when he stood up from the desk he could move his knee more easily. He was concerned with all that happened around him in the palace, for he felt duty bound to keep it under control, but what happened outside in his realm also concerned him, for the same reason. I the King was like a scullery maid in a hostelry, to whom at every hour from morn till midnight they bring dirty dishes, for the eating never stops, but all she ever sees of it is dirty plates.
The Fathers of the Society of Jesus out there in the New Indies were a ray of hope. There was no more pleasant reading for Philip than their letters, they were better, braver than those of old Las Casas. The scrolls found a place on his enormous desk, which was a kind of operations centre, close to the spot reserved for his right elbow, in a region that he secretly called the ‘consolations of his heart’. Here were gathered a prayer book, his rosary, a locked box containing the daily report from his secret police about goings-on in the palace, in his immediate environment, especially among his family, for he almost never spoke to his family, preferred to be informed of their activities and opinions by spies. Beside this box a basket with food for his two massive hounds, trained man-hunters. And this is where the scrolls from the Jesuit Fathers in the New Indies ended up.
I the King, the dumb man – he had forgotten how to open his mouth to speak, speaking seemed such a servile activity, he would have preferred even to confess in writing, and his Father Confessor would not have minded, but there are rules – I the King had cares. He made no progress in the world. You could spy, decree, set up a ubiquitous network of police, troops, priests. Always something fell through the net. On some days I the King collapsed in his chancery under the burden of painful purgatives, reports of failings, complaints, and thought: it would take ten kings to put all this right. Then he had himself carried in his litter, sour and careworn, into the fresh air, and gazed through the curtains of the litter at figures who loomed close and vanished into the distance; meadows, woods, people, all looked so harmless, disgracefully harmless. But how they plague one with worries. However much one writes, decrees, punishes, orders, it all happens over again.
He and his Council of the Indies had issued particular instructions concerning the New Indies. But governors, generals, captains, eager adventurers brought it all to naught. It made one weep to compare the magnificent intentions formulated in the King’s cabinet with the fate they suffered. For example, a certain governor Don Diego de Centeno died before he could take up office. Another was called Don Juan de Sanabrar. He was very rich, which was good, and taken into account. He was tasked to gather two hundred soldiers and a number of white families to accompany him. They considered in detail the country over there, which consisted only of forest and grassy savannah, inhabited by idolaters; in Buen Retiro they wanted only the best even for Indian forests, and instructed the governor to load his ship with wheat, barley, rye and seeds of other useful cereals and plants, and in addition to take ample supplies of iron, steel, provisions, they prescribed what kinds of artisans he should procure, and named him captain-general, governor, alguazil mayor of the province of Rio de la Plata, with extensive rights and authorities. These things the royal chancery, with utmost meticulousness, heaped upon Don Juan de Sanabrar. Who at once set off for Seville, and there at the last moment received a royal edict, forbidding him under any circumstances to engage in trade with the Portuguese. And Sanabrar, armed with these most sagacious instructions, stood there gazing at his ships. And then died before they could sail.
They reported this to I the King at Buen Retiro. They wrote that there was a son who mourned the hidalgo. The King decreed: offer the same commission to the son. He was just as wealthy, and still young. The son agreed. Ships, crew, cargo of passengers and merchandise were all in place, he climbed aboard, climbing aboard was all he had to do. For a long time no news came of the son and his squadron. At last he sailed into the great bay of the Rio de la Plata and gazed upon his province. Then he suffered shipwreck and was drowned. Some sailors saved themselves with planks, and in the town of Assomption told what had happened.
Hot on the heels of this, from the same troublesome region came a report of a remarkable novelty. Juan Romero, a brave captain of troops, had gone about the country with a hundred soldiers to pacify it, and in order to bring even the Indians of the riverlands to heel he made use of two brigantines. He travelled with these up a small river that flowed into La Plata. One noontime he went ashore with his soldiers and set up a tent on the riverbank for their dinner. And as they sat there eating, the whole broad bank suddenly collapsed and took them on an excursion downriver. When the people in the tent noticed that the bank was moving, and the ground under their feet loosened and gaped, they tried to swim to the brigantines still anchored nearby. Despite the strong swirling current they reached the ships. And as they stood dripping and breathless on deck, gazing at the suddenly swollen waters, the bank collapsed again, the ships themselves were overturned, and this time swimming was no use, it was as if a jaguar had been hunting a deer and now went for the kill. All the people and the brigantines sank and drowned in mud and debris.
Such incidents were reported all the time from the New Indies. And as for the authorities, who sat there having been selected and instructed with such care, their fascinating antics left nothing to be desired. Some conducted themselves like madmen, some scooped up gold with no attempt at concealment, as if the world were blind, and you had to arrest them, confiscate their gold and throw them in gaol. In one corner of this vast empire a man, an ordinary man holding no office, declared war on the King of Spain himself.
One day I the King limped as careworn as ever, his back hurting, into his study, placed his leather rug on the chair and sat down. His private secretary had already sorted the post from the Indies, and read out to his cantankerous sovereign a communication from the Marañon river, in the jungle: the people there had deposed I the King! A cadet officer called Fernando de Guzman had done this, and elevated himself to king. I the King despairs of the world this day, leaves his chancery and occupies himself only with his hounds. Later more of this letter is read to him: the crazed horde of this cadet Guzman has penetrated as far as the Orinoco, and has everywhere attacked the royal officials selected and instructed with such care by Madrid. In the end this band, so they heard, was led by a Basque hunchback, Lope de Aguirre, they murdered and raped among defenceless Indians. And His Catholic Majesty in Buen Retiro does not know what to think of this, where will it lead, when one day the text of a letter is placed on his lectern, from this very Aguirre, this hunchbacked nullity, this murderer, addressed to him in person from a town called Burburata:
“I, Lope de Aguirre, your vassal, a Christian, a poor man, born of poor but noble parents, I and those with me put an end to the cruel injustices exercised in your name by your governors and judges.” And the man writes that he is lame and crooked from two arquebus shots sustained in fighting for the king, and curses: “From this hour forth all your royal mercy and pardons mean as little to me as the writings of the arch-heretic Martin Luther.”
The king is long past astonishment, he would like to hear what his faithful secretary, who stands at his side reading and listening to everything, really thinks about it, about this madness, this chaos that ever and again trickles through one’s fingers like sand, but his mouth is frozen, he cannot speak. Finally it comes to an end, at least this affair. The gang is captured. The mad Basque is not taken alive to be broken on the wheel. When all is lost, the tyrannical cripple strangles his own young daughter, and with this his comrades in arms have had enough of him, hoping to earn some merit they pierce him through with their spears. Thereupon the criminals all have to jump the sword. The soldiers suspend Aguirre’s head in an iron cage and parade it through the scenes of his shameful deeds.
That distant land is truly a chamber of horrors. I the King is able, on one occasion, to smile as his secretary reads out among other curiosities: In the town of Assomption, on the Paraná, the seat of a bishop, the royal lieutenant-general attends the cathedral to hear Mass, and the bishop has him arrested. “This cannot be true, the bishop, and my lieutenant-general?”
“The bishop holds the royal lieutenant-general prisoner in a dungeon. This is what the royal governor-general writes.” All they can do is credit the report, and recall both men to Spain and never let them return.
In the place on his desk reserved for consolations of the heart lie letters from the Jesuit Fathers. The king has arranged it so that his right elbow nudges them as he writes. He immerses his thoughts in the Jesuits. They have had their fill of aggravations with stupid and useless events and people, and can no longer be bothered with them. They want to bring Christianity, people try to stop them, they leave San Paolo to its devices and go into the wilderness. If only he could do likewise. A clear plan, a settled system, every point thoroughly considered and put into effect without opposition, and in the face of all ridiculous events and people. Enviable men. They deserve every protection. The secretary takes notes, he inscribes marks that attest to the king’s pleasure in this matter. The marks are meant for various officials spiritual and temporal, who for their part keep a close eye on the king and his family.
Having settled this account, I the King is better placed to turn his attention to matters closer to home. The stagnating morass in the Netherlands can be set in motion, a duke is dispatched to the region with plenipotentiary powers and an army; the fools there want to become Protestants even though they are Spaniards, they are hanged and beheaded and then everything goes swimmingly. The same method works also in Our own household in the case of Our son Don Carlos, against whom secret agents lay unfavourable reports.
Now, says I the King, lying abed one evening looking at his very pale thin arms and legs: this meagre flesh suffices to steer the affairs of the world. People have fat and heat. They are an utterly deranged, stupid and helpless breed. I believe that if they were not led, they would never take even one straight step. They would be at each other’s throats out of sheer cluelessness, of course also out of caprice, lust for power. They have drives, and that is everything to the little creatures. I thank God that he made me. And placed me in this position, rather than one of those many princes who prance about the world. They make their nations unhappy. Perceptive people know to thank me. The masses of course do not. They scream because they cannot go where they want. I shall continue to shepherd them strictly and well. Thank you, Lord, for my office, for my wisdom. Finally thank you, great Creator, for me.
And he thanked his mother for being Isabella of Portugal, and not from the house of a mere marquis, hidalgo or, perish the thought, farmer. It was a major act of Providence that preserved me from such a fate and gave me this woman as my mother. And then he thanked Emperor Charles V for being Emperor of Rome, King of Spain, and his father. And thanked all their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, lay on his bed and, after gazing once more at his yellow bony hands, fell asleep.
A remarkable scene occupied his dreams. He is strolling with his two hounds through the extensive gardens of Buen Retiro. A sentry stands at every crossing in the path, and as he approaches they thumb their noses at him. It’s astonishing. He goes up to a sentry, tries to pull down his arm. But it’s impossible. He goes to the next one. Same thing. He goes along the whole line, without success. Troubled, he seeks out a grove where he can’t see the sentries. He thinks he should ask the sentries what they have against him.
Then he sleeps. In the morning he had no memory of it.
Ferdinand the Somnolent (from The Blue Jaguar Part 5)
As the turning point became outlined more clearly, and instead of conquerors, murderers, robbers, rapists attended by mumbling priests, it was now trees and useful plants that spread across the southern continent, as Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno arose among European humanity and uttered their words – at this same time the custodians of the old European world began to shrivel. The violence they had wrought now began to cause all kinds of unpleasantness.
An array of remarkable figures occupied the throne of I the King, one after the other. One became mad. One proved incapable of behaving sensibly, a tyrannical wife had to conduct the government for him, they lay upon the land for twenty years and squeezed huge sums from the half-dead empire so that the idiot and his wife Luisa could be happy and have their Versailles.
This was the palace of Granja de San Ildefonse. At the time of which we speak it housed a son, a dull unhappy lad, he was sorely tormented, suffered attacks of moroseness and spasms. For his wife they had given him a Braganza, a small person of devastating ugliness, with small eyes, bulging lips, sagging jowls, but she carried herself charmingly. For company, the couple had brought to the late idiot’s resplendent palace two men from whom they were inseparable, neither was a real man, one was a cleric, Rabago, a Jesuit, her confessor, the other Farinelli, a castrato from Naples, whose singing provided diversion.
Rumours penetrated to Granja de San Ildefonse of difficulties in the New Indies and the fact that ministers were at a complete loss. And Barbara of Braganza, the Queen, smelled with her little nose that this concerned money, something she never joked about. Recently the whole country had come to revolve around money, the situation was already desperate. She had her confessor tell her all about it, and when she heard about the merchants from the ports whose representatives could be found in Madrid, she expressed a wish to hear them. The whole world was shocked. But Barbara insisted, and now everyone was happy that at last somebody insisted on something, this was a ray of hope.
So the traders were dispatched to San Ildefonse, an undertaking they accepted with some irritation on account of all the ceremonial to which they had to submit, but in the end, because of the sums in question, they let themselves be persuaded. They were not dazzled by all the palace glitter, they expressed themselves in insulting terms back in Madrid regarding the shameless and quite unjustifiable pomp and excess indulged in there. The arrogant demeanour of the two elder emissaries shocked the Queen’s entourage, several breaches of ceremonial etiquette were noted and discussed.
The Queen was most indignant. She complained to her first minister, who had accompanied the coffee-sacks, a certain Marquis de Ensenada (alas, she did not know that this gentleman, who shared her opinion of the barbarous ship owners, was himself a dubious upstart in the ranks of the gentry, but from many generations ago). This magnificent bewigged giant of a gentleman, with his protruding belly, managed by whispers, laughter, complaints and pleas to calm the royal bird-scarer down. They agreed: we are dealing with a mob of colonials, a concept alien both to those of royal degree and to feminine charms. Since Madame Braganza had nothing to say to this, she began to cry. And she sent away the dubious gentleman, and wept before the king.
His Majesty, when she sat beside him, happened to be afflicted with one of his frequent spells of melancholy, which at that time one could suffer without being ill, even at the head of a kingdom. Their protégé Farinelli was sent in to them. His warbling and trilling alerted the whole palace to the royal couple’s dejection.
On the third day the king asked his queen why she’d been crying. She told him. So he had maps of Spain and the New Indies brought in and spread before them on a table. They looked together at the maps, and saw that if money from the Indies stayed away they must starve, perhaps even leave the palace of Ildefonse and move to a smaller place, less well furnished.
So she began to cry again. And this time the major-domo became uneasy and alerted Rabago, the black-robed man, confessor to their Highnesses now sunk in an apathetic stupor. First he asked Farinelli what he had been singing. Then he went to the Mistress of the Robes and asked what she knew of la Braganza. Then he went to Braganza and asked after the king. Then he requested an audience with the royal couple.
He found them sitting alone and forlorn in the corner of a huge stateroom, like two sick parrots in a giant cage. All along the walls were mirrors, and when you entered you saw a dozen sick parrots crouched side by side, a whole gallery of parrots with red noses and drooping heads.
The black man asked them both how they felt. They replied, hesitant and shamefaced, that they would die of hunger, would have to leave the palace of Ildefonse which the king’s father had built with contributions from the whole of Spain, and move to a smaller place not so nicely furnished. – How so? – The New Indies, the New Indies are lost. – How so?
Then Barbara de Braganza wept, and screwed her face into such fearsome grimaces that even the seasoned Father Confessor could not prevent himself from clapping his hands over his eyes.
“They sent merchants here from Cadiz and Malaga, they told us how the Portuguese are taking over our territories.” King Ferdinand nodded despairingly and stretched out his skinny arms, lovingly they regarded his dirty hands and long black nails, it was royal blood, he had it from his father.
“And then,” she couldn’t go on for grief – “these men only bowed twice, once when they came in and once when they left.”
“Disgraceful,” said Rabago.
Barbara emitted a long wail, and fluids streamed from nose, mouth and eyes. Such wailing, not otherwise bothersome, was well known to the priest. When the king sat like that and the queen wailed like that, you had best leave them to it for the whole day. All you needed to do was pull their chairs into the corner, draw the curtains, bring food and drink, and then put them to bed – nothing would happen, you should just leave them undisturbed. Rabago went to the windows, closed all the curtains, checked to see that chairs were suitably placed, that candles were well lit. Then he withdrew from the chamber of sorrows, executing the prescribed number of bows.
Two days later, when the king and queen raised timid voices and called for their Farinelli, you knew they were ready to rejoin the world. And behind Farinelli appeared Rabago the Jesuit. The queen at once asked what had been happening meanwhile in the New Indies. Rabago reassured her, those lands are still there, enjoying the protection of the Spanish Crown. – And Sacramento. – Also still there. And in addition, we have our navy. – Our navy is too small, wailed the queen. The king, who was not quite there yet, jerked upright and spread out his arms in despair. – Then we must work on the Portuguese court, apply spiritual pressure, use bribery, said Rabago. – That’s all been tried, cried Barbara behind her handkerchief. Rabago knew this. The king collapsed again, wearily laid his head back down, a certain quantity of grief played on his face as he relapsed into a doze. – Then we must try something completely different, declared Rabago
“Well, what then? What?” This was the expected riposte.
He pointed a finger at the map of the New Indies, still spread out on the table before their sorrowing majesties – as if it were the portrait of a relative overseas who had failed and you keep him in your thoughts: “We drive the Sacramenters inland, away from their harbour. In exchange for that pernicious little town, we offer the Portuguese a strip of land in the interior, as big as they like.” And with a generous flourish his hand described a great arc across the map.
The king (the Indies are lost) was already snoring. Barbara, taken aback by this proposal, wavered between two feelings: should she start sobbing again, or stand up? Since she considered it possible that King Ferdinand the Sixth would wake up if she stopped sobbing, the left hand down in her lap made little signals to the priest to stay, while above it she sobbed on for half an hour.
Then she stood up carefully, tear-streaked, and left her damp handkerchief lying there, her face was red and swollen, the priest cast a furtive hasty glance and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not as bad as it had been recently, the crying had evened out the swellings so that individual bulges had disappeared.
“Where is Sacramento?” Barbara asked the man in black at the big table. He pointed. “Oh, there?” she sighed, “Ferdinand and I were searching in quite another place.”
“It is easy to be confused,” said Rabago, “King Ferdinand’s realm is very large.”
She breathed: “Don’t say his name, he’ll wake up.” And she began to sob cautiously for a while, looking at the king, this time she had no need of a handkerchief, there were no tears. After several minutes tensely observing the sleeper, she turned again to Rabago: “And where is Buenos Aires?”
He showed her. She was puzzled: “But they lie together.”
“That is precisely the problem,” declared Rabago. “What can we do, for God’s sake, we can’t simply tear them one from the other.”
She did not understand. So he started from the beginning and pointed to the whole enormous adjoining region, still unexplored, the hinterland, Brazil, which could be offered, in part of course, to the Sacramenters in compensation. That way you don’t need money. The queen felt herself wavering again. Should she, as was proper, sit back down on her chair, her perch of sorrows, at the king’s side, and cry, or should she rejoice, for this really seemed like a way out. She looked at the priest. He understood. He whispered, wanting to harvest his victory: “His Majesty is resting. It would be best not to disturb him.” She quickly escorted him to the door, turned around and said, perhaps to the sleeping king: “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
