against all dangers. Or maybe it’s the Devil who looks after his own. Without interruption. Day and night.
Not long ago Æreboe entertained me by telling me about all the perils he has survived in his eventful life. He has compiled a list of the dangers, assigning each a number on his meticulous list. A list that starts off with a drowning accident when he was just a little tyke; then a fall through the ice outside Svendborg when he was a youth; and a bloody battle in Novgorod, when he was confronted by twenty Russians but fought his way free with his hunting knife. It was one miracle after another. Twenty-three times when Rasmus Æreboe should have been dead, if it hadn’t been for a merciful God up above.
But is God merciful?
I find Him utterly cold-blooded, a humorless lord who punishes His children, as if He were the most specious of castigators. The longer I live, the harder it is for me to see the difference between the Lord and the Devil. They use the same means; they fight for the same souls. They’re both little more than peddlers of fancy goods, making overblown promises of sex or salvation. Which would it be better to cling to? And does it really make any difference? God and the Devil are cut from the same cloth, twins who have been joined at the hip. That’s why I have a hard time with all these lunatic prayers of thanksgiving.
But Æreboe loves them. Every day he thanks the Trinity for the mercy he so little deserves. He even gives thanks for an accident he has suffered—for every stillborn child that his wife “blesses” him with. How can anyone be so eternally emptyheaded? It’s one thing to be grateful for the good things. But is it also necessary to be grateful for the bad?
I wish that I had such faith. Gratitude is a wondrous gift—at least for a simpleton.
“A dreadful book, Sørine. Utterly dreadful.”
I glance up.
Rasmus Æreboe is talking to me, but his words don’t reach me. I have no wish to listen. I want only to sleep.
“…there’s no doubt that Robert Molesworth’s book has damaged Denmark’s prestige in the most appalling manner.”
I nod.
“Have you heard of the book?”
I shake my head.
“All of Europe has heard of it. In the German district of Moscow, all the foreigners have read that loathsome text.”
Æreboe suddenly begins to hiccup.
“But you’ll hear all about it when you get there.”
I nod despondently. The coach shudders and then slows down. I look out and discover that a cow is blocking the way. Several of the street’s copper lamps have gone out, but the silhouettes of teeming rats are clearly visible.
Æreboe’s servant jumps out to chase away the cow, but it doesn’t want to cooperate. At that moment the stink of rotting kale fills my nostrils. The smell makes my stomach turn over.
Light is starting to appear on the horizon. A narrow fissure is pushing back the night. The first stars are fading in the pale sky.
The coach turns down Størstræde, heading for Holmen’s Canal. Under the arch of the High Bridge the outline of a barge can be seen. Soon the farmers from the island of Amager will stream into the city with grains and peas.
We stop in front of a house facing the canal. There is a sense of peace over the area; only the barking of a dog breaks the silence. Æreboe’s servant holds open the coach door, and the notarius attempts to lift me out. I lash out at him and end up landing in some horse droppings. The notarius laughs loudly at my stubbornness.
By the time we finally go inside, little streaks of dawn have cast an amber glow over the canal, Størstræde, and the city.
14.
THE NOTARIUS HAS HIS OWN STEWARD—AN OLDER MAN, bleary with sleep who comes to greet us holding a lamp. Æreboe tears off his wig and goes into his office. Delicate light seeps in through the small windows, and the steward lights the lamps in the wall brackets. He looks half-asleep in his nightshirt, but he is wise enough not to laugh at my size.
“Does my lord wish for a serving of soup?”
“No, nothing. We just want to…sit.”
The steward nods and slips out of the office like a shadow. Æreboe throws himself into a chair, and for a moment it seems as if he has fallen asleep. Then he stares down at the leather pad covering his desk and turns to give me a hazy look.
“The Russians aren’t so bad,” he says.
“No.”
“And remember that they’re called Russians, not Muscovites. Russians are very proud and take offense easily.”
I nod.
Æreboe smiles. “You’ll do just fine over there.”
“What do you think will happen to me?”
“You’ll be very popular, there’s no doubt about that.”
“At the tsar’s palace?”
“At the tsar’s palace or living with one of his ministers. You’ll have a good time with your fellow little people.”
“What fellow little people?”
“The other dwarves.”
“I can’t stand dwarves.”
Æreboe looks at me in astonishment. “Why not?”
“I can’t stand anyone.”
Æreboe collapses into convulsive laughter.
“You’re priceless, Sørine. I wish you could stay here with me.”
“I’ll tell you one thing: I refuse to share a roof with a bunch of slobbering dwarves with hunchbacks and pitiful castrato voices.”
“You must take things as they come. And you must for all the world do as the tsar commands. Watch out for Peter Alexeyevich. He is a powerful prince with a genius for many things, but the tsar is not like our beloved Frederik. He is brutal and merciless—and nothing, absolutely nothing escapes his notice.”
I nod again and study the notarius in the flickering light from the lamps in the wall brackets.
“Even when the tsar is drunk, it’s as if there is another tsar sitting behind him—a tsar who watches everyone around him and takes note of who can be used and who cannot be used. The tsar is a skilled craftsman, and everyone is a tool in his toolbox.”
Æreboe almost tips over the desk as he stands up.
“If you’re interested, I can lend you my diaries from my years over there. They will give you an idea of what to expect. Russia is a marvelous kingdom, filled with beauty and melancholy… but it’s also a land of unrivaled cruelty. I can’t explain it any better than that, but you’ll
