The Blue Flower Read Online Free Page A

The Freiherr was, as always, infuriated by his brother’s remarks and still more by their tone. Wilhelm was ten years older than himself, and appeared to have been sent into the world primarily to irritatehim. He was a person of great distinction - ‘in his own eyes’ the Freiherr added - Governor of the Saxon division of the German Order of Knighthood (Lucklum branch). Round his neck, on very many occasions, he wore the flashy Maltese cross of the order, which was also embroidered, in plush and braid, on his greatcoat. The Hardenberg children knew him as the ‘Big Cross’, and His Mightiness. He had never married, and was graciously hospitable not only to his fellow landowners but to musicians, politicians, and philosophers - those who should be seen round the table of a great man, to offer their opinions and to agree with his own.
    After a stay of only a few months, Fritz was returned to his father at Weissenfels, taking with him a letter from his uncle.
    Lucklum, October 1787
    I am glad that Fritz has recovered himself and got back on to the straight path, from which I certainly shall never try to remove him again. My way of life here is pitched too high for his young head. He was much too spoiled, and saw too many strange new people, and it could not be helped if a great many things were said at my table which were not helpful or salutary for him to know …
    The Freiherr wrote to his brother to thank him for his hospitality, and to regret that he could not thank himmore. The white waistcoat, breeches and broad-cloth coat which had been made for Fritz by his uncle’s tailor, apparently because those he had brought with him were not considered smart enough for the dinner-table, would now be sent to the Moravian Brethren for distribution to charity. There would be no occasion for him to wear them in Weissenfels, where they lived simply.
    ‘Best of Fritzes, you were lucky,’ said fourteen-year-old Erasmus.
    ‘I am not sure about that,’ said Fritz. ‘Luck has its rules, if you can understand them, and then it is scarcely luck.’
    ‘Yes, but every evening at dinner, to sit there while these important people amused themselves by giving you too much to drink, to have your glass filled up again and again with fine wines, I don’t know what … What did they talk about?’
    ‘Nature-philosophy, galvanism, animal magnetism and freemasonry,’ said Fritz.
    ‘I don’t believe it. You drink wine to forget things like that. And then at night, when the pretty women come creaking on tiptoe up the stairs to find the young innocent, and tap at your door, TRIUMPH !’
    ‘There were no women,’ Fritz told him. ‘I think perhaps my uncle did not invite any.’
    ‘No women!’ cried Erasmus. ‘Who then did the washing?’

7
The Freiherr and the French Revolution
    W ERE things worse at Weissenfels when a letter from the Big Cross arrived, or when the Mother’s elder brother, Captain August von Boltzig, happened to come to the house? Von Boltzig had fought in the same battalion as the Freiherr in the Seven Years’ War, but had come to totally different conclusions. The King of Prussia, whom he admired without reservations, had supported total freedom in religious belief, and the Prussian army was notably fearless and morally upright. Must one then not conclude -
    ‘I can see what you have in mind to say next,’ said the Freiherr, his voice still just kept in check. ‘You mean that you accept my reasoning,’ said von Boltzig. ‘You admit that there is no connection, or none that can be demonstrated, between religion and right conduct?’
    ‘I accept that you, August von Boltzig, are a very great fool.’ The Freifrau felt trapped between the two of them, like a powder of thinly-ground meal between the millstones. One of her night fears (she was a poor sleeper)was that her brother and the Uncle Wilhelm might arrive, unannounced, at the same time. What would she be able to do or say, to get decently rid of one of