The Blue Flower - Candia McWilliam

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when I was appointed Director of the Salt Mining Administration of Saxony, which necessitated my living in Weissenfels. But the Hardenberg property, our true home and lands, are in Oberwiederstadt, in the county of Mansfeld.’ Dietmahler said politely that he wished he had been fortunate enough to go to Oberwiederstadt. ‘You would have seen nothing but ruins,’ said the Freiherr, ‘and insufficiently fed cattle. But they are ancestral lands, and it is for this reason that it is important to know, and I am now taking the opportunity of asking you, whether it is true that my eldest son, Friedrich, has entangled himself with a young woman of the middle classes.’

      ‘I’ve heard nothing about his entangling himself with anyone,’ said Dietmahler indignantly, ‘but in any case, I doubt if he can be judged by ordinary standards, he is a poet and a philosopher.’

      ‘He will earn his living as an Assistant Inspector of Salt Mines,’ said the Freiherr, ‘but I see that it is not right to interrogate you. I welcome you as a guest, therefore as another son, and you will not mind my finding out a little more about you. What is your age, and what do you intend to do in life?’

      ‘I am two and twenty and I am training to become a surgeon.’

      ‘And are you dutiful to your father?’

      ‘My father is dead, Freiherr. He was a plasterer.’

      ‘I did not ask you that. Have you known what it was to have sad losses in your family life?’

      ‘Yes, sir, I have lost two little brothers from scarlet fever and a sister from consumption, in the course of one year.’

      The Freiherr took off his nightcap, apparently out of respect. ‘A word of advice. If, as a young man, a student, you are tormented by a desire for women, it is best to get out into the fresh air as much as possible.’ He took a turn round the room, which was lined with book-cases, some with empty shelves. ‘Meanwhile, how much would you expect to spend in a week on spirits, hey? How much on books – not books of devotion, mind you? How much on a new black coat, without any explanation as to how the old one has ceased to be wearable? How much, hey?’

      ‘Freiherr, you are asking me these questions as a criticism of your son. Yet you have just said that you were not going to interrogate me.’

      Hardenberg was not really an old man – he was between fifty and sixty – but he stared at Jacob Dietmahler with an old man’s drooping neck and lowered head. ‘You are right, quite right. I took the opportunity. Opportunity, after all, is only another word for temptation.’

      He put his hand on his guest’s shoulder. Dietmahler, alarmed, did not know whether he was being pushed down or whether the Freiherr was leaning on him, perhaps both. Certainly he must be used to entrusting his weight to someone more competent, perhaps to his strong sons, perhaps even to his daughter. Dietmahler felt his clavicle giving way. I am cutting a mean figure, he thought, but at least he was on his knees, while Hardenberg, annoyed at his own weakness, steadied himself as he sank down by grasping first at the corner of the solid oak table, then at one of its legs. The door opened and the same servant returned, but this time in carpet slippers.

      ‘Does the Freiherr wish the stove to be made up?’

      ‘Kneel with us, Gottfried.’

      Down creaked the old man by the master. They looked like an old married couple nodding over their household accounts together, even more so when the Freiherr exclaimed, ‘Where are the little ones?’

      ‘The servants’ children, Excellency?’

      ‘Certainly, and the Bernhard.’

       3

       The Bernhard

      IN the Hardenbergs’ house there was an angel, August Wilhelm Bernhard, fair as wheat. After plain motherly Charlotte, the eldest, pale, wide-eyed Fritz, stumpy little Erasmus, easy-going Karl, open-hearted Sidonie, painstaking Anton, came the blonde Bernhard. To his mother, the day when he had to be put into breeches was terrible. She who hardly ever, if at all, asked anything for herself, implored Fritz. ‘Go to him, go to your Father, beg him, pray him, to let my Bernhard continue a little longer in his frocks.’ ‘Mother, what can I say, I think Bernhard is six years old.’

      He was now more than old enough, Sidonie thought, to understand politeness to a visitor. ‘I do not know how long he will stay, Bernhard. He has brought quite a large valise.’

      ‘His valise is full of books,’ said the Bernhard, ‘and he has also brought a bottle of schnaps. I dare say he thought there would not be such a thing in our house.’

      ‘Bernhard, you have been in his room.’

      ‘Yes, I went there.’

      ‘You have opened his valise.’

      ‘Yes, just to see his things.’

      ‘Did you leave it open, or did you shut it again?’

      The Bernhard hesitated. He could not remember.

      ‘Well, it doesn’t signify,’ said Sidonie. ‘You must, of course, confess to Herr Dietmahler what you have done, and ask his pardon.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘It should be before nightfall. In any case, there is no time like the present.’

      ‘I’ve nothing to tell him!’ cried the Bernhard. ‘I haven’t spoiled his things.’

      ‘You know that Father punishes you very little,’ said Sidonie coaxingly. ‘Not as we were punished. Perhaps he will tell you to wear your jacket the wrong way out for a few days, only to remind you. We shall have some music before supper and after that I will go with you up to the visitor and you can take his hand and speak to him quietly.’

      ‘I’m sick of this house!’ shouted the Bernhard, snatching himself away.

      Fritz was in the kitchen garden patrolling the vegetable beds, inhaling the fragrance of the broad bean flowers, reciting at the top of his voice.

      ‘Fritz,’ Sidonie called to him. ‘I have lost the Bernhard.’

      ‘Oh, that can’t be.’

       ‘I was reproving him in the morning room, and he escaped from me and jumped over the window-sill and into the yard.’

      ‘Have you sent one of the servants?’

      ‘Oh, Fritz, best not, they will tell Mother.’

      Fritz looked at her, shut his book and said he would go out and find his brother. ‘I will drag him back by the hair if necessary, but you and Asmus will have to entertain my friend.’

      ‘Where is he now?’

      ‘He is in his room, resting. Father has worn him out. By the way, his room has been turned upside down and his valise is open.’

      ‘Is he angry?’

      ‘Not at all. He thinks perhaps that it’s one of our customs at Weissenfels.’

      Fritz put on his frieze-coat and went without hesitation down to the river. Everyone in Weissenfels knew that young Bernhard would never drown, because he was a water-rat. He couldn’t swim, but then neither could his father. During his seven years’ service with the Hanoverian army the Freiherr had seen action repeatedly and crossed many rivers, but had never been put to the necessity of swimming. Bernhard, however, had always lived close to water and seemed not to be able to live without it. Down by the ferry he was forever hanging about, hoping to slip on board without paying his three pfennig for the crossing. The parents did not know this. There was a kind of humane conspiracy in the town to keep many matters from the Freiherr, in order to spare his piety on the one hand, and on the other, not to provoke his ferocious temper.

      The

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