The Ludwig Conspiracy
The long drawn-out sound of a ferry’s siren brought them back to reality. Startled, Sara looked at the time.
“Hell, four in the afternoon already,” she said, brushing the leaves off her dress. “I suggest you get back to that curse of yours. You’re supposed to have the bit about Herrenchiemsee decoded by this evening. Meanwhile Uncle Lu is arranging for us to have a private guided tour.”
“How about you?” asked Steven, who was obviously finding it hard to leave their enchanted world in the beech wood. “What will you do?”
“Look around the island for a while.” She kissed him gently on the mouth one last time and then turned to leave. “You don’t want me holding your hand while you work on it, do you? See you at the castle at six. Look after yourself.”
With a final wave, she disappeared among the trees, and Steven was left alone. He ran his hands through his hair, his mind in a whirl. He was clearly in love, a tingling spreading through him right down to his toes. But he had no idea whether Sara felt the same. Steven was reminded of Maria and Theodor. Marot couldn’t be sure either whether the young maidservant felt anything more than friendship for him. Why were women always so complicated?
The thought of the assistant physician reminded Steven of the diary that had cast its spell on him. Still in bewilderment, and with a sense that he was floating on clouds, he sat down on the bench under the beech tree and returned to reading the memoir of a man long dead, a man who was turning more and more into a distant ally of his, a companion linked to him over the years by this book. By now he had stopped transferring the transliteration of the shorthand to his notebook. The entries held him spellbound, too much so for him to have time to make a transcript.
Steven could almost believe he heard Theodor Marot speaking to him between the pages, the whisper as he turned them like the whispering of the conspirators, and he felt as if the king himself might step out of the volume and give him a friendly wave.
After only a few lines, the bookseller was back in the nineteenth century.
20
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We traveled to the Chiemsee on the railroad, going by way of Starnberg and Munich. Ludwig and I sat at the very front, in a royal car with furnishings in no way inferior to those of the king’s castles. It was as if we were coasting through Bavaria in a golden salon. Snorting like a dragon from the world of the sagas, the locomotive made its way past meadows and fields where a few peasants stood around here and there, waving their hats to us.
Nostalgically, I remembered the brief time before the two great wars, first against Prussia, then against France. At that time, Ludwig still appeared in public, and the people cheered for the tall, good-looking young man who was their king. But in the last few years, Ludwig had turned away from his people. With a curiously storklike gait, which he obviously considered majestic, he occasionally stalked down the lines of elderly dignitaries and young officers, but otherwise he remained alone, surrounded only by his closest companions. It was a self-chosen internal exile that he had left, at the most, only for his friend Richard Wagner, whom he revered and who had died two years earlier.
In silence, eyes closed, he sat hunched in his compartment, and so I finally decided to go several cars down the train, where I met Maria with several of the servants. The loud merriment here made the silence in the king’s private car all the more uncanny.
“If you know the king so well,” I said, sitting down beside Maria on the wooden bench, “then tell me what Ludwig thinks he’s doing. He acts like a man from another world.”
Maria smiled and looked out at the landscape passing by us. “He is a man from another world,” she replied. “He comes from a time long before ours. At heart he’s a boy acting in his own play. With knights, castles, and wicked dwarves. Those are the ministers as he sees them, wicked dwarves.” She laughed and pointed to a couple of the footmen in our compartment who were standing at the windows, open-mouthed, while putting their heads outside to feel the wind. “We race through the world, drawn by iron horses. We build machines and factories. But Ludwig stands still and lets all that pass him by. He’s like a king from one of those Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Sometimes he reads them to me, and then I’m Snow White and he is the prince turned into a shaggy bear by a bad fairy’s spell.”
“Prince? Bear?” I shook my head in dismay. “Maria, the king is not a child anymore. He has a country to rule . . .”
“A country that has stopped dreaming,” Maria said, interrupting me. “Don’t you understand, Theodor? Ludwig dreams for us because we have forgotten how to dream. To him, a king is not just someone who signs documents and moves armies from place to place; he is a dream, an idea.”
“An idea?” I said skeptically. “Did he tell you so? Does he teach you such things?”
“At least he doesn’t treat me like a stupid woodcarver’s daughter, as you do.”
Maria fell silent and stared out of the window.
Sighing, I decided not to continue this conversation. After a while I returned to the king, who was still sitting with his eyes closed. He looked like a monument to himself.
In the evening we reached Prien on the Chiemsee, and from there we crossed to Herrenchiemsee by water. While Maria and the rest of the domestic staff drove to the castle in a jolting cart, I stayed with Ludwig at the island’s little harbor.
I soon noticed that the building work was not far advanced. A little locomotive, whistling and hissing noisily, towed a few trucks laden with stones and timber up to the castle. But even from the bank it was clear that large parts of the building were not yet completed. The side wings looked curiously naked, mere shells, and what would be an avenue in the future was nothing but a dirty transport road. On the western side of the castle, craftsmen were at work hammering and filing the basin of the fountain, and the canal was only half dug. Nonetheless, you could already guess at the design of this castle, in which Ludwig hoped to emulate and honor his great example, the Sun King, as a Bavarian Versailles.
“The sun rises exactly here and sets over there, on the other side of the island.” Ludwig, now in high good humor again and leaping about among the workmen like an excited child, indicated a place on an imaginary axis leading from the avenue to the canal. “The castle lies exactly between them,” he called to me, laughing. “I can see the chariot of the heavens rising and falling from my bedroom. Isn’t that wonderful, Marot? Mon Dieu!”
All at once Ludwig’s expression changed. Imperiously, he beckoned to an overseer of the building work in a black coat. “Here, you! What’s gone wrong with the figures there on the Fountain of Fortuna? The triton is holding his hand up. Didn’t I give clear instructions for him to hold it down, like the one in Versailles?”
Looking anxious, the man made him a deep bow. “Majesty, forgive us, but there were several different designs, and . . .”
“Different designs?” Ludwig’s face flushed red as a lobster. “What’s the meaning of this? Only the latest design counts, the one I commissioned myself. What impertinence! By God, this is lèse majesté!” And with his strong arms he suddenly snatched up an easel lying on the ground and began belaboring the overseer with it. “Take that figure away!” he cried like a man possessed. “This instant! Ruemann must cast a new one, the way I damn well told him to.”
I hurried over to Ludwig and tried to get the little wooden easel away from him before he beat the poor man to death. “Stop, Your Majesty!” I cried. “It wasn’t his mistake. Stop before there’s an accident!”
Ludwig suddenly stopped beating the man and looked at me in surprise. For a moment, I thought he was about to thrash me in the same way. But he dropped the easel and turned away from the unfortunate overseer. “You . . . you’re right, Marot,” he gasped. “I mustn’t let myself get so carried away. But there’s so much at stake here, an idea towering above all human conceptions. Do you understand? One sometimes must exercise severity.”
“An idea?” I hesitantly asked. I remembered what Maria ha
d been trying to explain to me on the train.
“You’ll see. This very night you’ll see.” The king beckoned over a second overseer, who approached only with reluctance. “This evening all the candles in the Hall of Mirrors are to burn,” he ordered in a loud voice. “For me and for my dear companion here.”
“But that’s almost two thousand candles,” the man cautiously objected. “I don’t know whether we . . .”
“This evening at eight, and I’ll suffer no contradiction.” Ludwig took my arm and drew me away from the building work. “Come with me, Marot. We will take a simple meal in the monastery. I need a friend now.”
WQI, ID
By winding, narrow pathways we approached the old monastery of the Augustinian Canons, which had housed a now-defunct brewery. On the floor formerly occupied by the canons and princes, Ludwig had had a few rooms furnished in Spartan fashion, and from this vantage point he intended to supervise the building for the next two weeks. I myself was given one of the rooms on the second floor, but the king told me to accompany him at once to his meal, which we took in one of the magnificent halls of the old monastery. Reluctantly, I followed him. I had really hoped to eat down in the kitchen with Maria and Leopold.
It was a ghastly dinner. The king did not eat; he gorged. Gravy and crushed green peas spattered his beard and his coat, but it did not occur to Ludwig to clean himself up with a cloth. He tipped great drafts of wine down his throat, and the red liquid ran over his chin and down to his collar. Only on rare occasions did the king dine in a company of any size, and if he did, he would hide himself behind mountains of plates and glasses. He shoveled everything down his throat like some Bacchanalian god of ancient times, as if the food would extinguish an inner fire.
“Help yourself,” he said between two mouthfuls. “You’ll need your strength for the sight I am going to offer you tonight. You are my chosen one.”
“Very good, Your Majesty.” I nodded and went on pushing my peas around with a fork. I briefly considered speaking to the king again about the ministerial intrigue but decided against it. This did not seem to be the right time. Ludwig appeared very much in danger of slipping away into his dream world. I would have to wait for one of his more reasonable moments.
“Is something the matter, Marot?” asked the king, and in his surprise he stopped eating. “You know you can say anything to me. I am your king.” He smiled, and I saw the festering blackened stumps of teeth between his full lips. “Your king and your friend,” he repeated with gravity.
“I know how deeply to appreciate that, Your Majesty,” I replied, and felt myself breaking out in a cold sweat. “But I assure you it’s nothing. Merely weariness after the long journey.”
Inwardly, I shuddered. Ludwig had proclaimed me his close friend several times before, but I knew that his choice of friends never lasted long. Ludwig liked to have handsome men around him. At the same time, the king had never yet made unseemly advances to me, nor could I imagine that he was even capable of such desires, whether for men or for women. He had separated from his fiancée, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, a sister of the Empress Sisi of Austria, after only a few months’ engagement. But now he seemed to have taken a fancy to me, and I didn’t know what to think of it.
“If you are tired, then I have something that will cheer your heart again.” The king rose, breathing heavily, and his chair fell over. “Let us go over to the castle, my dear Marot. It’s time we did in any case. Let’s hope those lazy dogs have already lit the candles.”
We left the monastery down a narrow flight of steps and walked in silence over to Herrenchiemsee Castle, accompanied only by two footmen in costume and powdered wigs. In the west, above the canal, the fiery red globe of the sun was just setting.
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It was an amazing sight. In the darkness of the wood, something bright and incredibly large shone like a monstrous lantern. As we left the trees behind us, the castle suddenly emerged. The whole of the second floor was glittering; the windowpanes sparkled with warm light that shone all the way down to the fountains and the flower beds.
“I see all has been prepared,” said the king, and an emotional note came into his voice. “Good. Very good. Then follow me, my faithful paladin.”
He gave the two footmen a sign, and they bowed low and stayed where they were. The two of us walked on through the entrance hall, which was lined with marble statues, and up a broad staircase to the second floor, where the king had his own apartments. On the way, I saw many unfinished rooms, bare and unplastered, which seemed to exhale a curious chill. The rooms to which we now came struck me as all the more fantastic. The walls were covered with gilded stucco, marble, and paneling in precious woods. Chandeliers sparkled as they hung from the ceiling, and the floor was made of oak, polished until it shone like a mirror, with ornate inlays of Brazilian rosewood. Pictures of the Sun King of France in all his glory hung everywhere. In battle, at court, larger than life in a sweeping royal cloak. Busts and small statues of the French king greeted us from every corner. Louis XIV was everywhere; he seemed to hover over us like the sun itself.
Ludwig strutted ahead of me as if he were alone on a stage, taking long strides, holding his head stiffly upright. He seemed entirely absorbed by the effect of the splendor around him.
“My bedroom,” he whispered, pointing to a huge four-poster bed with a blue canopy and silk curtains interwoven with gold thread. In front of it was a gilded stand, on which a glass globe shimmered on the inside with a blue light. The king picked it up as a soothsayer might his crystal ball, and he began caressing it gently. “Right here is the central point of the sun’s course, the center of the universe,” he said, kissing the globe. “The place from which the king presides over the fate of his people.”
“Is that the idea of which you speak?” I asked with a touch of skepticism. “Are you yourself the center of all being?”
The king straightened up to his full height. For a moment his eyes blazed angrily, exactly as they had that afternoon when he had struck the overseer. “God gave us all our stations on this earth,” he finally replied, turning away. “Come with me, and you will understand.”
Ludwig went ahead, and we crossed a small room on our way to a double door.
“Voilà,” whispered the king. “Feel the breath of history upon you!”
He theatrically flung open the two wings of the door, and I saw a mighty hall that surely extended for more than a hundred paces to both right and left. Countless historical scenes in which the Sun King appeared adorned the ceiling. There was a view of the forecourt of the castle from a dozen arched windows. Opposite the windows hung an equal number of mirrors. But most impressive of all were the chandeliers and the gilded candelabra that stood like an army, bearing thousands of candles, on both sides of the hall. The candlelight reflected over and over again in the mirrors, and in this way the whole room shone so brightly that for a moment I had to put my hand in front of my eyes to avoid being dazzled.
“My Hall of Mirrors,” said the king, standing in the middle of the room with his arms outspread. “It is larger than the one in Versailles. I can walk here alone by night, giving myself up to my thoughts, like such great kings of past centuries as Louis the Fourteenth.” The king looked at me with a dreamy smile. “Did you know that there is a direct link between me and the Sun King? My grandfather was named after Louis the Sixteenth. I feel that I am the heir of the Bourbons, the last to live out the monarchy in accordance with divine principle.”
“Is this place the idea that you spoke of?” I asked, indicating the sparkling light of the candelabra all around us. “A light in the darkness? Are you to be the light of Europe?”
Ludwig nodded fervently, and his eyes burned with enthusiasm. “The king is the bright center. All else revolves around him. He is the real picture, not the shadows on the wall. Without the king, the world would be turned upside down, and chaos would follow. Just look around you, Marot.” He pointed to the view outside the window. ?
??Wherever the eye falls, there’s nothing but war, destruction, estrangement. We are rushing headlong toward a century of cannibalism. Believe me, I am not mad; it is the times in which we live.” The king sighed deeply. “A God-given responsibility rests on my shoulders. That makes a man lonely, Marot. Very lonely.”
Suddenly I realized what I had been feeling for all these last minutes, which made me shiver despite the warmth from the many candles. It was not the chill of fall that wafted through these apartments, but of loneliness itself. We were all alone in the yawning void of this empty castle, with its unfinished rooms, its gold leaf, its imitation marble on the bare stone. There were no laughing maidservants, no whispering footmen, no good smells from the kitchen, no music, no sound of rushing water, nothing. When the lights in the Hall of Mirrors went out, cold and darkness would invade the castle once more. I could almost smell the king’s fear that a sudden gust of wind might blow all the candles out and leave him alone with the night.
“I need a friend,” said Ludwig in the silence. “They have all abandoned me. Lutz, the other ministers, my much-loved Wagner, even the faithful Hornig. Be my friend, Marot. I ask it as your king.”
“It . . . it would be an honor for me, Your Majesty,” I stammered. “But believe me, you are not alone. The people love you. Go to Munich and show them that you return their love.”
Ludwig was smiling again, but there was something unspeakably sad in his eyes. “Did the Sun King show himself to his people?” he asked quietly. “Barbarossa? Friedrich, Duke of Swabia? They were all lonely men. I can assure you, a king loses his brilliance if he throws himself at the feet of the common people.”
I felt an inner rebellion against such obstinacy. “You have only to show yourself.” I implored. “Is that too much to ask? A wave of your hand, and there will be an end to your enemies’ scheming.”