Tyll Read online

  “On the way here they played for us every evening,” said Wolkenstein. “The tall one there is named Hans Kuchner, he comes from the village of Hagenbrunn, he never went to school and can hardly speak, but the Lord has blessed him.”

  “Your Majesty!”

  A couple had come up to her: a gentleman with an angular face and a large jaw, a lady on his arm who looked as if she were freezing.

  Liz was sorry to see that Wolkenstein, who was apparently forbidden even to take notice of the man’s presence, took a step back, folded his hands behind his back, and turned away. The man bowed, the woman gave a courtly curtsy.

  “Wesenbeck,” he said, pronouncing the crack at the end of his name so harshly that it sounded like a small explosion. “Second envoy of the Elector of Brandenburg. At Your Majesty’s service.”

  “How nice,” said Liz.

  “Demanding an eighth electoral dignity. Quite bold!”

  “We have demanded nothing. I am a weak woman. Women do not negotiate and do not make demands. My son for his part currently has no title that would permit him to demand anything. We can only relinquish. I have offered this in all humility. No one else can relinquish Bohemia’s crown, we alone can do that, and we will do it in exchange for the electoral dignity. Demanding the crown for us is what the Protestant imperial estates must do.”

  “Us, that is.”

  Liz smiled.

  The envoy nodded thoughtfully.

  And all at once the thought came to her that she had not yet dared to think. It would work! When she had had the idea of renting the coach, traveling to Osnabrück, and intervening in the negotiations, it had at first struck her as a completely absurd whim. It had taken her almost a year to begin to trust herself and a further year to really set it in motion. But at bottom she had expected all along that they would laugh at her.

  Now, however, standing opposite the man with the large jaw, she realized confusedly that it could actually succeed: the electoral title for her son. I was not a good mother to you, she thought, and I probably loved you scarcely as much as I should have, but there is one thing I have done for you: I did not go back to England, I stayed in the small house and pretended it was a royal court in exile, and I have refused all men after the death of your poor father, although many wanted me, even very young ones, for I was a legend and beautiful to boot—but I knew that there must be no scandal, for the sake of our claim, and I never forgot it for a moment.

  “We’re counting on you,” she said. Had she struck the right tone, or was that too solemn? But he had such a large jaw, and his eyebrows were so bushy, and when he had said his name, tears had almost come to his eyes. For him the lofty tone was probably appropriate. “We’re counting on Brandenburg.”

  He gave a bow. “Then count on Brandenburg.”

  His wife was regarding Liz with an icy gaze. In the hope that the conversation was now over, Liz looked around for Wolkenstein, but he was no longer to be seen. And now the Brandenburg couple too had moved on with deliberate steps.

  She was standing alone. The musicians began anew. Liz counted the beats and recognized the latest fashionable dance, a minuet. Two lines formed, the gentlemen here, the ladies over there. The lines moved away from each other, then they walked toward each other. Partners took each other by the gloved hands. After a spin, they separated, the lines moved away from each other, and everything was repeated, while the music varied the previous theme lightly and liltingly: apart, together, spin, apart. In the notes vibrated longing, which you could feel without understanding whom or what it was directed at. There was the French ambassador stepping beside Count Oxenstierna: the two of them did not look at each other, but they moved, carried by the beat, in step. There was Contarini, whose lady was very young, an enchantingly slender beauty, and there was Wolkenstein, his eyes half closed, abandoning himself to the music, and apparently no longer thinking about her.

  She was sorry that she could not participate. She had always liked to dance, but all she had left was her rank, and it was too high to fit into one of the lines. Besides, she could hardly move, her fur coat was too thick for a hall heated up by so many torches, nor could she take it off easily, because the dress she was wearing underneath was too simple. This ermine coat was all that remained of her old wardrobe, everything else having been pawned and sold. She had always wondered why she had kept it. Now she knew.

  The lines came back together, but all at once there was disorder. Someone was standing in the middle of the hall and apparently making no move to get out of the dancers’ way. At the edges they were still moving to the music—there was Salvius, over there the Brandenburg envoy’s wife—yet in the middle the lines could no longer merge: Dancers crashed into each other, dancers lost their balance, everyone was trying to get past the standing man. He was scrawny, his cheeks hollow, his chin very sharp, a scar on his forehead. He was wearing a pied jerkin and baggy breeches and fine leather shoes. On his head was a colorful cap and bells. Now he began to juggle too: steel things flew into the air, first two, then three, then four, then five.

  It took a moment, but then everyone realized at once: those were blades! People shrank back, men ducked, ladies covered their faces protectively with their hands. But the curved daggers kept returning to his hands, right side up, always with the handle at the bottom, while he now began to dance too—with small steps, forward and back, at first slowly, then more quickly, which in turn changed the music, for he did not follow it but it him. No one else was dancing anymore, they had made room to see better how he whirled around himself, while the flashing blades flew higher and higher. This was now no longer a deliberate, elegant dance, but a wild hurtling toward a breathless, galloping beat, which grew faster and faster.

  Then he began to sing. His voice was high and tinny, but he hit the right notes and did not lose his breath. His words could not be understood. It was probably a language he had invented. And yet it seemed as if you knew what it was about: you understood it even though you could not have put it into words.

  Now there were fewer daggers in the air. Only four left, now only three—one after the other was stuck in his belt.

  A scream went through the hall. The green skirt of a lady, it was Contarini’s wife, was suddenly speckled with red. Apparently one of the blades had grazed the palm of his hand, but you could see nothing of it in his face. Laughing, he hurled the last dagger so high that it flew through the arms of a chandelier without touching a single crystal, and as it whirled down, he caught it and put it away. The music stopped. He bowed.

  Applause broke out. “Tyll!” someone shouted. “Bravo, Tyll!” someone else exclaimed. “Bravo! Bravo!”

  The musicians began to play again. Liz felt dizzy. It was so hot in the hall, due to the many candles, and her fur was much too thick. On the right side of the entrance hall a door was open. Behind it a spiral staircase led upward. She hesitated. Then she went up.

  The staircase was so steep that she stopped twice, gasping for breath. She propped herself up against the wall. Briefly, everything went black, her knees were weak, and she thought she would fall down. Then she recovered her strength, pulled herself together, and continued climbing. Finally she reached a small balcony.

  She threw back her hood and leaned against the stone balustrade. Down below was the main square. To her right, the towers of the cathedral rose into the sky. The sun must have just set. A fine drizzle still filled the air.

  Down below in the twilight a man crossed the square. It was Lamberg. He walked bent forward, with small, dragging steps, toward his residence. The purple cloak flapped languidly around his shoulders. For a moment he stood slumped outside the door. He seemed to be reflecting. Then he went in.

  She closed her eyes. The cold air did her good.

  “How is my donkey?” she asked.

  “He’s writing a book. And you,
little Liz?”

  She opened her eyes. He was standing next to her, resting on the balustrade. A cloth was tied around his hand.

  “You are well preserved,” he said. “You’ve grown old, but your mind is not yet weak, and you even still make a good impression.”

  “You too. Only the cap doesn’t suit you.”

  He raised his unwounded hand and played with the little bells. “The Kaiser wants me to wear it, because that’s how I was drawn in a brochure he likes. I had you brought to Vienna, he said to me, now you should also look the way people know you.”

  She pointed questioningly at his wrapped-up hand.

  “In front of distinguished lords and ladies I always miss. Then they give more money.”

  “What is the Kaiser like?”

  “Like everyone. At night he sleeps, and he likes when people are nice to him.”

  “And where is Nele?”

  He was silent for a moment, as if he had to remember whom she was talking about. “She got married,” he said. “A long time ago.”

  “Peace is coming, Tyll. I will return home. Across the sea, to England. Do you want to come with me? I’ll give you a warm room, and you won’t go hungry. Even when you one day are no longer able to perform.”

  He said nothing. So many flakes had mingled with the raindrops that there was no longer any doubt—it was snowing.

  “For old times’ sake,” she said. “You know as well as I do that the Kaiser will sooner or later grow annoyed with you. Then you will be on the street again. You’d have it better with me.”

  “Are you offering me charity, little Liz? A daily soup and a thick blanket and warm slippers until I die in my bed?”

  “That’s not so bad.”

  “But do you know what’s better? Even better than dying in one’s bed?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not dying, little Liz. That is much better.”

  She turned to the staircase. From the hall below she heard shouts and laughter and music. When she turned back to him, he was gone. Astonished, she bent over the balustrade, but the square lay in darkness, and Tyll was nowhere to be seen.

  If it kept snowing like this, she thought, tomorrow everything would be covered with white, and the return journey to The Hague might be difficult. Wasn’t it far too early in the year for snow? Probably some unfortunate person would soon be standing in the pillory down there for this.

  And yet it’s because of me, she thought. I am the Winter Queen!

  She leaned her head back and opened her mouth as wide as she could. She hadn’t done this in a long time. The snow was still as sweet and cold as it had been when she was a girl. And then, to taste it better, and only because she knew that in the darkness no one could see her, she stuck her tongue out.

  A Note About the Author

  Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Berlin and New York. His works have won the Candide Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Hölderlin Prize, among others. His novel Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages and is one of the greatest successes in postwar German literature.

  A Note About the Translator

  Ross Benjamin’s previous translations include Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew, Joseph Roth’s Job, Thomas Pletzinger’s Funeral for a Dog, Clemens J. Setz’s Indigo, and Daniel Kehlmann’s You Should Have Left. He was awarded the 2010 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his rendering of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on Franz Kafka’s diaries.

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