Some books arrive on my book shelf by mysterious means. I suspect I picked this one up to discover the magic of Isak Dinesen’s writing. She is also known as Karen Blixen of “Out of Africa” fame. Ehrengard is called a fairy tale on the back of book blurb. There is a stunning princess and handsome prince. This story, though, uses them as a setting for the real tale of Ehrengard.
The narrator is a court painter who sees the world with Dinesen’s painterly eye:
“Imagine to yourself that you be quietly stepping into a painting by Claude Lorrain, and that the landscape around you becomes alive with balsamic breezes wafting and violets turning the mountain sided into long gentle waves of blue…
The Goddess of Love, the Lady Venus herself, has entrusted me with the work, and I have only followed her instructions.”
pg 32 – Ehrengard
In this story, we follow Herr Cazotte around as he creates a scene where he is attempting to seduce the princess’s fair handmaiden.
I wonder, what would she be thinking as all this plays out.
Ehrengard is the only daughter from a strong military family bred in the mountains of northern Europe. Several times Herr Cazotte refers to her as an Amazon. In this scene, though, that descriptive was probably not what came to his mind because, even in the third person narration, his feelings shine through:
The great artist was gentle and courteous, if a little impersonal, in his manner with the highborn maiden. From his rich treasury of knowledge he took out for her benefit strange tales of ancient times, theories of art and life and fancies of his own on the phenomena of existence. He entertained her, too, with narrations of his own eventful life, dwelling on the days when he was a poor boy in shabby clothes, or slightly touching on his triumphs at academic and courts, and sprinkling his talk with accounts of the life of outcasts in dark streets or with bits of scandal from sublime places.
He found that the girl has read little and lent her books from his exclusive library or read out to her in the shade of the big trees. Poetry, new to her, puzzled and fascinated her. Herr Cazotte had a voice made for reciting poetry and had often been asked to read by princesses and beaux-esprits. At times he would lower the book with a finger in it and go on reciting with his eyes in the tree crowns.
On a very lovely evening he had been reading to her in the garden and was slowly accompanying her back to the house, when he stopped and made her stop with him by a foundation representing Leda and the swan and repeated a stanza from the poem they had last read together. He was silent for a while, the girl was silent with him, and as he turned toward her he found her young face very still.
“A penny for your thoughts, my Lady Ehrengard,” he said.
She looked at him, and for a moment a very slight blush slid over her face.
“I was not,” after a pause she answered him slowly and gravely, “really thinking of anything at all.”
He had no doubt that here, as ever, she was speaking the truth.
pg 52 – Ehrengard
What was she thinking? Besides, finally silence.
Herr Cazotte seems to make the assumption that she is an uneducated country maiden. Even if the girls were left to needlepoint, they were also taught the management of the household. Ehrengard would have, also, would have learned a lot from the antics of her four brothers. Much can be gleaned from watching and listening. Women have learned that well over the years. Outside of her duties, she seems quite meditative. Herr Cazotte sees her as simple. I can see her as strong, feminine and not interested in playing demeaning flirting games. I can see her statuesque figure enjoying a pastoral view when she is interrupted by a flea that she has no desire to acknowledge or to give platitudes.
I was concerned that this book would not be relevant in the age of #metoo. If we stand in Ehrengard’s character, we wee a woman who understands the world and walks her own path. It is a fairy tale where the happily ever after comes from being true to oneself.