Farewell, My Queen Black Moishe (short novels in english .txt) 📖

Six or seven persons were gathered in the salon. Diane’s usual headquarters staff: Count Vaudreuil, the Duke de Polignac, the Duke de Coigny, and Father Cornu de La Balivière, Almoner in Ordinary to the King, who had become a member of this tight little circle through his passion for gaming. There was also Gabrielle de Polignac. She lay on a sofa, listless, her face hidden by a fan. At her side, her daughter, Madame de Gramont, was looking sadly at a newborn son from whom she would have to be parted. For the observer with a complete view of this tableau vivant, Gabrielle de Polignac and her daughter represented an enclave of inertia and melancholy, in stark contrast to the other characters, who had Diane at their center, very much in command.

*      *      *

“I would rather die here and now than end up in a watering resort!”

Peremptory as always, Diane de Polignac leaned slightly back and crossed her arms. Her hard features, the authoritarian attitude, that uncivil manner of speaking . . . I could only cringe. Her short hands with their stubby fingers were like parts of a machine for distributing slaps in the face. She was very liberal with these, and if her domestic staff thought twice before approaching her, it was from fright, not respect. They handed things to her at arm’s length and, turning their bodies a little away, ready to dodge. Their vigilance did not prevent those twin paddles from coming down on them with terrible precision and violence, leaving them bruised and convinced that the blows emanated from a diabolical power. There was something of that sort in her nature.

“Spa!” yelped Diane. “You want to send us to Spa! There is nothing so mortifying as staying in a watering resort. Those places smell of mildew and rotten egg. You are at the mercy of a lot of beastly doctors. There are some I know who have no compunctions about undressing you.”

Count de Vaudreuil sniggered. Along with the Duke de Polignac, he was examining several habits cut from dark cloth, such as merchants wear. The priest, standing at a billiard table and concentrating on his shot, was at the same time considering the matter of desirable destinations. The suggestion of a watering resort must have come from him.

“I shall not leave Versailles, where it is not the custom to thwart my wishes, in order to fall under the jurisdiction of a bunch of doctors. I shall no more go to Spa than to Plombières or Vichy. The only people to be met at such places are fools who think they are dying. They persecute one with the account of their physiological disorders. They can age you ten years in the space of an hour. They have no conversation and to be regularly in their company is quite intolerable.”

“And yet I remember a stay at Bath . . . ,” protested the Duke de Guiche.

“Be quiet, Mimi. I was referring to the danger posed by doctors and by doctors’ clients who fancy themselves ill, to say nothing of how disagreeable it is to be surrounded by whores and adventurers. The most vulgar members of society pullulate in towns where people come to take the waters. Not to mention the waters themselves, which are poisonous. In short, Reverend Father, Spa is out.”

The priest bowed. He was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. A great hunter and unrepentant gambler, he had been known to rise from the gaming table and go directly to the altar where he said Early Mass. Parishioners taking Holy Communion, watching him dexterously manipulate the Host, had complained that it was like watching a player cut a deck of cards.

“The precise destination does not matter a damn. What matters is getting well away from here. Putting a frontier between the cannibals and us. Any frontier. If need be, we will throw them a bone so they will have something to get their teeth into.

(I shivered inwardly, and the uneasiness I felt, at casting my lot in with this godless, lawless band, became more pronounced.)

“I have attended to the basic problem, finding a carriage and horses. Now we must think how we are to be dressed. Let us bear in mind that, even if Gabrielle is the person most threatened, we are all in danger.”

Diane went and sat in an armchair, which she filled as though it were a throne. Accustomed to organizing the daily activities of her family and associates, she had no difficulty organizing their exile. All at once, there were sounds of banging from a nearby apartment, accompanied by calls for help.

“Go and see,” ordered Diane. In the past, which she did not yet fully understand was indeed past, she had only to toss out an order, casually, and there would always be someone to do her bidding. But this time no one budged. The command had dissolved into the air, and the din, whatever its source, got louder. Diane dropped the papers she was busy examining, looked around, and saw only relatives, people of her own blood and rank, people whose lives she was in the habit of running but whom one did not order to go and see. Then she spied me, in a corner, clutching my bundle. “Oh. Would you be so good, Madam . . . ”

I let the noise guide me. When I reached the door that was being pierced with cries and pounded till it shook, I heard: “Rondon de La Tour, you useless goddam Count! Let me out of here, for God’s sake! It’s me, La Joie, your valet. You forgot me, you crummy bastard! You take off and leave your drudge behind, just like that. Here I am, sweating over the Horoscope Set at Naught. I’m churning out lines of Alexandrine poetry. I’m slaving away. I’m knocking myself out:

O lady, ’twas in vain that once I courted you,

And told you of my love, and spoke as lovers do.

My prick was