Garden of Venus by Eva Stachniak

Author:Eva Stachniak [Stachniak, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2005-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Sophie

In her Parisian apartment sleep refuses to console her. At first she amuses herself by guessing what kind of a carriage passes in the street below. In the evening, cabriolets are always most numerous, swift and light, drawn by one horse. By midnight heavier equipages prevail, when the best of society return from the theatre and the opera. It is still before dawn when the heavy workhorses of the tradesmen begin their day.

Joseph insists she decline the latest invitations. ‘They will miss you even more,’ he says. She can hardly walk now. In her dreams sometimes the baby is born already and its pale lips search for her. When she bends over the cradle, she can smell sweetened milk and lavender and then something else, something she doesn’t know how to describe yet, but something she will never forget.

The first pangs of pain seize her at dawn.

If only Mana could be here, with her. Mana who has sent a red string to be tied over the baby’s wrist as soon as it opens its eyes. Mana who promised to pray for her daughter’s safe delivery, to pray every day to the Holy Virgin, who knows well the woes of women, until the good news reaches her.

May this sweet child bring you as much happiness as you have brought me.

The midwife has gentle hands. She cannot count the babies she has brought forth to this world. ‘Madame Sue is clean,’ Princess de Lamballe assured her, squeezing her fingers as if to warm them. She also praised the wisdom of smallpox inoculation – an old custom of the Circassians, known for their beautiful daughters. The commercial people, she said, are always more alert to their interests. She too had it done, by a Parisian doctor, when just three years old.

Madame Sue demands a vat of boiling water to be placed in the room and orders everyone out. She places a sachet with dried hyacinth petals under Sophie’s pillow for easy childbirth. ‘No spectacle for the idle eyes,’ she announces, limping across the room to close the door on Joseph and the maids who try to steal one more glance inside. ‘We need peace.’

Madame Sue herself is not peaceful though. She moves about the room talking incessantly, her voice rising and falling. She does not require conversation. She does not expect to be answered or even listened to. But she does not stop.

Sophie listens. Time has slowed down, her pangs come and go at long intervals. What else is there to do.

‘The Queen is due any day now. There must be a boy this time. France is in need of a dauphin, in need of the prosperity and tranquillity such a birth guarantees.

‘When Madame Royale was born, so many of them came to watch that they sucked all air from the room and if it wasn’t for the King, the Queen would have departed this world. His Majesty, May He be blessed, broke the window open and let in fresh air. So many

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