A Handful of Blossoms

A Handful of Blossoms

by

Lara Biyuts

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Lara Biyuts on Smashwords

A Handful of Blossoms

Copyright 2012 by Lara Biyuts

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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A Handful of Blossoms

In memory of the Author’s Grandmother,

the best grandmother ever (1914-2009). R.I.P.

"A flowering branch whispered, close against the window,

as though asking permission to come in the room."

(Lara Biyuts)

PART 1. KONSTANCE

…is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

(Alexander Pope)

May 20, 1764, soon after 4 p.m. Tawny Room at Chateau Piatralupii

No weather like bad weather, he said yesterday.

Tastes differ. It’s fine today, not for everyone, I love the weather like this. Windy and cloudy yet not rainy. In the humid crowns of the old branchy trees the wind makes the green noise that sounds louder and more distinct after the last night rainstorm, the first one of the year, which makes the sun shine kindly, and I’d not mind taking the air. To walk in the forest, going deep in the wondrous bluish-green perspective which I can admire looking out of my window.

These notes and diary, I began out of boredom, in order to disperse my dismals – but the Notes may help me to realize something or much and to find out a true reason of my stay here, at my current dwelling so unexpectedly unusual it could seem fearsome sooner than catch my fancy. Thanks Heaven, it’s my temporary quarters, as I’ve been told getting some vague hopes of changes for better in my future.

What brought me here? Law and my ignorance. Order of things and my ignorance. Saying that a reason of my stay here is something obscure and difficult for understanding, I’m not correct, because I’m at my Consort’s, away from my home, after our wedding two weeks ago. Who and what else but he can be the reason? True, I am not correct but I am not sly saying that I want to understand something in my current life. For me, only one thing is clear as noon: I know my Consort today yet less than before, less than I always believed I knew him. One can say that it’s my dismals. It is so, and something more.

Homesick? Not exactly, only a little bit. Lonely? Only partly again. Unsatisfied? Who could say no, being in my shoes? Lovesick? Nothing of the kind. Both of us and all around knew that our marriage was a usual dynastic union, the next one at both our homes, nothing more, and yet I could not know that it would be so weird, and now I want to understand it. I want explanation, which nobody around wants to give me. I want some more.

Spiritless, solitary and idle, I begin my reminiscence, sincerely hoping that my grammar won’t fail.

The grammar, yes I’m not good at it, like at many things, for I’m only sixteen, too young to know much or understand all or having time to be taught many things. My ignorance is what he doesn’t want to understand or maybe on the contrary which he knows and uses, as Sophie said. If I want to understand all obscure around, I have to recall in succession and sum up all I know of my Consort, and he is to be the hero of my Notes.

Some things I know for certain -- for example, his age. My Consort is thirty-eight at present; his kin is equal to mine having the weird motto Misce, fac, divide!; he has been married never before; he is an orphan like me, and I first saw him several years ago, one fine day in April, at my 8th birthday celebration.

The feast was in full swing at my home palace; following the dinner there would be a dance, and we children had left the table to play in the house and garden. But first, I said a poem and received presents. The poem was my own translation from French:

"Brother April, besprinkle us with rain!

Flutes! sing anew! It wouldn’t be long now, oh bees!

This week of red sunsets and melting ice,

a white violet dreams about the beyond --

it’s your hand shows white like a white violet

in the sunset. A pan-pipe enchants from afar

sinning a song of sadness and joy,

saying that life is worthless, but death is yet worse."

I was a success.

That room in the ground floor, I entered chasing my new ball which I never caught because it rolled under the sofa. I knelt and looked in the murk and in another instant I heard a male voice behind my rear. The voice offered a help. On all fours, I looked round and saw somebody’s legs wearing dark britches, white silk stockings and shining buckled shoes. I nodded, whispered yes please M’lord, and smiled with confusion. The man bent and with the aid of his cane he quickly extracted the ball. But he did not give the ball to me, drawing himself up and twiddling the ball in his hands, which necessitated me to look up at his face. Periwigless, wearing dark, which looked strange at our feast, he had the white oval face and the dark lank middle parted hair, and I could not discern more in virtue of my uncomfortable position. I never was an ugly child, but my long brown hair was lank and hardly submissive to the curling-irons, and I grew in height more quickly than in breadth. I never was slowwitted, but when goggling at him, I forgot to say thanks M’lord. Then he asked if I want to play ball with him. I shook my head and smiled again. Squatting, I eventually changed my pose, but not standing up and straight for talking with the adult stranger, one of our guests, but on the contrary, I sat down on the floor, and striking this silly pose, I looked up, not because it was my wish or playful thought, but because I felt unfit to start to my feet, unfit as though I was naked and my standing up could open my nudity; I pulled the skirt of my Sunday new pink gown down covering up my legs more and lifted my chin trying to smile cheerfully above my knees, because the polite smile, the eye and faint shaking was all I could do at the instances, besides, the eye and smile was my duty to an adult guest, who began to talk to me, moreover, recently, one famous German artist visited the palace and I was told to pose for my portrait and at the séances I learnt from the artist that a smile was a most important thing in our everyday life, so I did it before the man’s eye, at least this, looking up and keeping silence. So silly, but it could not be helped. An orphan, I was not a downtrodden child, and I was educated enough to behave myself talking with an adult stranger, and I knew politeness was a fashionable duty, but I could change the pose and stand up only after the man left the room. I knew his name, but he was not the man who I was to be engaged to, because by that day, I had been engaged already. My fiancé was a year younger than me, my far cousin of the name of Georg-Valentine, Prince of Ballenstedt, and that day the seven years old boy played among invited children.

Our wedding was to be as soon as my fiancé was 15. But the boy never was 15, because he died when he was aged 14, coming down with diphtheria. That year I lost a half of my childhood friends, those children who played at my birthday parties. So many funerals, so many dear graves in our land and the neighboring, and yet more grief-stricken people. I lost my best friend Antonia-Augusta, the most beautiful girl I ever saw. A most brilliant debutante, she was two years older than me, and her diverse talents made me lost in admiration, more than once -- take that charming performance, for example, when she danced the divertissement, wearing white, like a ballet dancer, moving better than any ballet dancer, with her partner being the beautiful white horse caprioling under the Italian riding-master, at the Easter week, the first most joyous Easter after the war, the long, Seven Years War which ended, at long last. She was beautiful and fearless, and all the rest about her should be passed over in silence by me, her lifetime confidante. Merely, it may be said that unlike me, she was not an orphan, and her death did oh so much grief to her parents. The most horrible in life is seeing your beloved friend dying and all you can do is giving all your love and a cup of posset. The next in the list of suitors, who suited the dynasty, was the man of the name of Konstantin-Leopold, Prince of Askanier-Hortz, which I knew. That was a reason of his interest to me if he ever showed any. Soon after Georg’s death, my guardians, my paternal cousin grandfather and grandmother told me about the new engagement, which was a matter of course. Although an eccentric, the young von Hortz never was said to have a delicate health, Grandmother said, His family have always rejoiced in great wealth; he never lived on the wrong side of the law; having not a mistress; if looking somewhat murky then it’s not because he is on the rebound from an unhappy love affair; and finally, his age is right for settling down. And you, dear Tilia, as well as your principality well may be happy with him. You should know, dear Diary, my guardians were always thoughtful to me. My paternal grandmother Charlotte-Konstance and her Consort, who I have used to calling Grandfather though Christian-Albert is my grandmother’s second husband, but I never saw my own grandfather, who died years before my birth. Grandfather always was a good ruler and guardian, and yes, they always loved me, and yet, whatever my wish was, there was the list, which said that the man should be my Consort, and soon preparations for the wedding began, because my 16th birthday was not are off.

Seeing the man again, I could discern his face than for the first time. He seemed to have gained some weight for the last several years, ten pounds at least. His pale face neither repelled nor attracted, and his expression seemed to be always mostly melancholic, as well as his manner in public, in our drawing-room and at table -- for this look he was nicknamed Plato, which surprised me, for I knew he was neither a philosopher nor writer, and which did not lend more attractiveness in eyes of ladies, as I learnt much later. His face didn’t let read his thoughts, but nothing strange was in that. As my Grandmother says, he seems to be one of the new people who can laugh with no smile and weep with no tears; whom nothing can surprise or touch; who look like they look not because they pretend but out of habit; who don’t show a single emotion, and no one motion betray the mystery of their soul. He could talk about the saddest with a charming smile and about the most pleasant with the contempt which seemed to explain all curious questions in advance. His manners were like his dress, simple and buttoned down. One could not say either a grief locked up his heart or it was a mere noble habit not to experience emotions in public, or it was a good pretence. As my Grandmother says, it all is so mixed up in the new generation which seems to make it a rule being an enigma for everyone and for themselves perhaps the most. He did not dance, and his main interests at parties seemed to be sipping wine and playing cards with old men and women, which he did looking polite and modest -- but the look could be but a guise, and later, my surmise proved to be right, because I could see the true snakelike eye and manner of this tall handsome man. Behind the mask, like under a layer of ash, there were the embers which were in a constant readiness for turning into a blaze. Now, the banns were called. In the church, as we stood side by side at the altar, I proved to be only an inch shorter than he. The coronet of tight rosebuds on my head smelled softly yet distinctly and the aroma seemed to support the distant between us. When we kissed... or rather he imprinted a kiss on my lips, it was my frist kiss with a man. His tight lips were so dry. No languor. Apropos, talking of flowers, my wedding bouquet, the lovely small bunch of the lovely tight rosebuds was nowhere about when it was time to take it; in its place I saw the other bouquet instead, but what flowers it was… Hermodactylus tuberose! Pastel yellow and dark violet big calyxes, three-mouthed-dragonhead-shaped, eleven or so, and foxtail grass surrounding the flowers, well… The bunch of the first springtime flowers looked beautiful, even exquisite, but… Seeing it I felt confused for some reason. I never hated hermodactylus, I merely didn’t know a person who loved the flower. And my ladies-in-waiting felt confused yet more: firstly, by the fact that my wedding bouquet had been replaced, secondly, by the name of the flowers. Some called the strange flower Snake’s-head or Widow Iris. Ominous. But Sophie said that the flowers had the third name: Velvet Flower-de-Luce. With that, the problem was settled, the new bunch of flowers became my wedding bouquet, and everyone was in a hurry too much to inquire for its origin, and as a result it remained unknown, where the mysterious bouquet was my fiancé’s gift or not. At the wedding dinner, he showed his good appetite, and then we got changed for journey, our luggage and servants were loaded in two carryalls drawn by his well-groomed horses, and our caravan launched out. We went by two different carriages, and it was nice, much better than a way together. The order of the day was his idea, and it looked quite reasonable, but the hurry made me feel abducted which could not be called a pleasant feeling. By the way, when it was time of throwing the wedding bouquet, I did it, according to the tradition, but nobody got it, because I threw it too high and far; the bouquet fell somewhere beyond the channel fence and disappeared in the channel (a part of the river Nister, which flows east to west through my homeland.)

Weary by the surge of the thoughts, reminiscences and writing, I have to finish, for today. Only one more thing. The fact that my Consort is a woman-hater is obvious to me, for really, there is no one female in his household, in the whole big castle, situated in the blessed northern part of Transylvania, the land which maux de la guerre have not touched too much, and at present, when European boundaries have been returned to their status quo ante bellum by the Treaty of Hubertusburg, it seems so peaceful all around, and no other females in the Castle but my lady-in-waiting and me, as though women were called up here seven years ago and not men, and sometimes, some signs and nuances make me think that all what the Castle dwellers want is my death or disappearance, and my good health and the big promising dimension of my body is what he dislikes most. He dislikes it because it doesn’t give him a reason to despise it, looking down on it like he happened to do, two or three times, when I was a child. Who’s said it? Who’s written this wise thought right now? Me? But I can’t remember my mind formerly procreating any wise thoughts. Me, so young and simple? But I surmise -- long before my coming here I guessed that I would not find it all jam at his -- and I saw that he was disappointed hearing that I was a total abstinent indifferent to any sight of alcohol. True, I am young, but my mind can make some conclusions, and really, the Notes can help me to understand something, and I seem to get wiser than before, than I am in my everyday life, and I feel spiritless no longer. However, some more meditations are of use. Tick-tock. The clock seems to count up my innumerable frustrations (my own graceful boudoir clock, and not one of his.) See you soon, dear Diary, maybe tomorrow.

May 21, 1764, 3:30 p.m. Tawny Room at Chateau Piatralupii

This morning Sophie wept again. Consoling her as usual, I don’t weep, because seeing her tears I feel stronger.

Seeing him dismounting after horse riding, looking cheerful, surrounded by stable-men, I summed up courage and went down.

Seeing my coming, the menservants politely moves aside. I approached their lord and said, Might m’lord speak to me? He said all right and told me to await him in the Main Hall in an hour. In an hour, two menservants silently left the room with my coming in. I subsided in a chair and looked round. One of the gilt-framed pictures on the wall attracted my attention. A portrait of a man and woman, apparently his parents Gustaf-Otto and Beata-Margareta, and most probably, the picture was made only twenty years earlier than that of my own parents Magnus-Gustaf and Christina-Catharine. He was punctual, as the grandfather’s clock showed -- I watched a richly inlayed lute on the wall, at the moment, when he entered to room, wearing in deep-purple, with a snow-white neckcloth, and with no attendants -- usually, he preferred to talk with me in presence of the third person. He often had a stick or cane in hand, and now I saw a whip in his hand, and what a dreadful thing it was! Long, thick and truly fearsome. Tapping with the whip on his soft-leather high boot, he asked, well, Milady, what problem do you have? I said, no… nothing serious, M’lord. He said nice, Milady adding that he was glad that I enjoyed living at his, and he left the hall making his way outside.

Who would not grow timid in my place? Frightened, I forgot to ask about a book for reading. To complete my confusion, it seemed to me that I saw some motion at a distance, in the shade, by the cold fireplace. When a fair-haired head appeared above the back of the chair, it seemed more than impressive. Judging by the boy’s calm curiosity as he goggled at me, he was one of the Castle pageboys. Jumping up from the chair, I picked up my grass green satin skirt and left as quickly as I could.

Am I rich? A richest landowner of my princedom, I am my late father’s legatee, not so rich as King of Prussia or King of Bavaria, and yet… I do not rule, of course not, living under my guardians’ regency. After my guardians’ death, their regency will be over, and the princedom will belong to my Consort and me.

Coming here, I’ve been ready for the family life as every married princess. Unlike it was on the day of our first meeting, sex life is not a mystery for me. Just be obedient and do whatever your husband wants in the bedroom – for us, for me, what can be more natural than doing whatever Husband tells? -- besides, my friend was Antonia, in her lifetimes, the fearless girl, elder than me, who never enforced me to be as fearless as she, but her amity was like a rampart, for me, as the question of sex self-satisfaction concerned me since I was aged 10, and it must be said that I’ve succeeded in self-satisfaction, knowing clitoris orgasm alone, without waiting for a meeting with my dream man or my Consort, whoever he were, and who deigns to give me this pleasure and make me enlightened. Living at court, it’s difficult to remain unaware of carnal love or ill-informed of the main difference between man and woman, as you know, dear Diary.

So, my sex self-satisfaction made me self-sufficient, as for friends, they never were numerous in my life, and now all of them are far off. Telling about something so candidly in the Notes, it’s not anybody’s reading what I dread, since I believe nobody in the house cares about my diary and what I write. My existence itself hardly interests anybody here therefore I can be free in my thoughts and writings, free like the wind of Anhalt-Welf, miles and miles to the west of the Castle.

My Consort’s house is situated in a picturesque valley surrounded with blue mountains. Only a part of the Castle is lived-in, and my private quarters are spacious and even homelike, because the furniture of all lived-in rooms in the Castle are rich and comfortable, not modern day, rather in the baroque, but it looks nice. And the Main Hall, the enormous room looks like a museum, full of beautiful statues, bronzes, marbles and tapestry. The cases along the walls were full of curios and gilt-edged books. What if my Consort is not a mere bookworm but a warlock? This thought did not frighten me. Why not? Parties would be more interesting in the warlock style. However, I’ve had not a chance to see over the museum. On the second day after my arrival, I learnt that almost all of my six ladies-in-waiting should be sent back home, going away as soon as they help me to settle at the new place, and I was allowed to have only one lady-in-waiting. At the same time, I was told not to signet my letters, which I was about to send, and which were to be sent along with all the rest mail of the Castle. Opening and inspection of private mail?! Shocking. Outrageous. So shocking that I never told Sophie about that -- and yet I had no choice but to surrender, for We place our freedom in their hands, as my Grandmother said. My lady-in-waiting Sophie is the only person who is unhappier than me here in the Castle, because she had to go down, through the passages with the rampant arches, several times a day for our meals, with me unable to accompany her, according to the prescribed etiquette, and she dreads our lord’s big dogs and the sportive guys -- (guys seems to be everywhere in this house, in the yard, in the garden, at stables, guests and menservants, living and statues; from the window of my rooms we can see them coming and leaving the Castle, riding, in carriages or on foot; we can hear their voices and whistling, and one hardly can understand whether the guys are his friends, guests or vassals, because the native clothing is rather old-fashioned and utilitarian) -- the place in whole horrifies Sophie (although the smells of cooking food, which a wind brings by day, are good, and by night, we can hear sounds of music from the ground floor and the music is bearable too), and I have to console her fits of uncontrollable panic, which have begun in a week of our stay here, after it was clear that a reason of my Consort’s indifference to me was not another female, and that there were not females in the household but two of us, which fact overthrew Sophie’s all fundamental ideas of the world, destroying her nerves and making the personality of our lord and his house mysterious or misgiving if not hazardous. She and I never were close friends; she simply volunteered to share my solitary. On the day when my Consort’s indifference got obvious, as though by the way, she told me a legend or tale which she heard from her grandmother and her grandmother heard the tale from her great grandmother. The tale’s summary is in the following. A middle-aged man got married to a girl; they began living in his house; time passed, but he was not about to sleep with his young wife. In the end, it turned out that the man was something like a warlock, and he wanted to have a girl as his wife not for a happy family life and procreating but for his weird rituals. He needed her blood as a blood of a virgin for the rituals, and he kept his wife as a mere source of the blood. Brrrr… In reply, I said no, it’s but a fairy-story, and nothing of the kind is possible in real life. True, my Consort and I are not intimate, but we simply have not had time for intimacy, besides, it’s the disparity in age… True, my Consort and I have meals separately, but he says that it’s settled solely for my comfort; however, here at desk, talking with my Diary alone, I can say openly that it’s unknown whether he’s genuine saying that or not; yes it’s true too, but even if I had to dine at the table in my Consort’s dining-room, very soon I’d refused doing it and ask to serve my meals separately, because of the men at the big long table in the feast hall, who seemed to be my Consort’s tablemates every dinner, as I could understand having the meal the next day after my arrival, who were unknown to me, whose look confused me and whose presence showed me unequivocally the fact that I was a mere nothing at this place. A little more and I’ll believe in Sophie’s tale.

There is a chapel in the precinct, though I’ve never heard the toll. The Chapel is dedicated to Peter the Hermit. If my memory of the time spent at my home classroom and reading books doesn’t fail me, Peter the Hermit was a priest of Amiens and a key figure during the First Crusade. The look of the Chaplain left me cold. At the divine service, which I was present, the chapel’s Gothic interior was illumed by the light of dozens of tapers, the lay brothers were two boys, who I seemed to see earlier, in the midst of the pageboys, and all seemed to be in the right way, but I did not feel like visiting the Chapel again without a urgent need.

The cuisine is bearable… no, I’m sly, it’s good. My meals are tasty and substantial, so it looks like nobody is about to starve me to death here. Fresh milk every morning. And I can have coffee as much as I want, or rather I could, if Sophie’s courage let her go down to tell to make coffee for me oftener, as often as I want to have a cup of coffee, which I want at any time of a day. (The dainty for coffee, which they have here, is simple but tasty: a slice of bread, buttered and with honey, white or golden or dark amber. Delicious! And Sophie’s cowardice is unbearable.) The household has its steward, a young good-looking man of noble birth, who is my Consort’s cousin nephew of the name of Sylvian, as the young man was introduced to me, and he seems to be the first after his lord at the household, and I find nothing sinister or weird in this or in the fact that there is not