that the Kings of France always slept in a state bed, guarded from the world by a railing and balustrade, taking their pleasures elsewhere. It was like sleeping behind the altar in a church. No matter what people might demand of him, they could come no closer than the balustrade which divided the public part of his bedroom from the choir.
The bedroom was high and dark, but the darkness was relieved by the heavy gold of cornices and picture frames. Safe under the baldachin, above which two angels supported the crown, as they do in certain pictures of the Nativity, he was inviolable even to himself. In those moments when he could forget the sacredness of his own person, when drowsily he woke up in bed under the canopy on a cold morning, he felt deliciously safe and cradled within himself, protected from the world by his balusters. No one could get in at him, so long as the gate was closed; and should it be opened, he would hear the click. No matter what he might do anywhere else, here there was no danger that he might defile himself. Here he would always be ready for Lohengrin.
Yet to tell the truth he found the bedroom unpleasant. The private world he walked in was in the garden on the roof.
At Hohenschwangau, he had had a fountain put in his bedroom, so that he should never be out of sound of running water, which was purity itself. A clockwork moon waned and waxed across the ceiling. There he had had the forest just outside, so there a fountain was enough. At the Residenz Palace in Munich he put the forest in the roof.
Others might nod and frown at his eccentricity. Tohim it did not seem eccentric. He had that capacity for direct action which to some people seems madness. But in him it was not madness yet. It was only the logic of a fairytale.
In the fairytales remembered from his childhood, when a man was cornered, he found always a tiny door somewhere , hidden from view, through which he might suddenly escape into a big and propitious world, if he but had the key. Ludwig kept the key to the wintergarden with him always.
Pacing at night alone, by the flickering light of a candle, he had only to lift a curtain in his study, unlock the door, and step back into the only reality he knew. He had only to lock the door behind him, and he was free.
Beyond the door was an enormous garden forest, lit by paper lamps. The temperature was warm. A skiff rode rocking at its rope on the captive lagoon. Sometimes it was a gondola. Sometimes it seemed like a swan. Palm trees scraped against the ceiling. A peacock looked out from behind a bunch of dates. A parrot said good evening. He crossed a little bridge and sat under a chestnut tree in the middle of a mock Indian village. Tiny castles peeped through the humbled trees. An artificial moon was reflected in the water, which at will could be made to turn blue. That was the influence of his grandfather’s love for Italy. Water lilies exploded among their leaves. A fountain played in the middle of a Moorish pavilion. When he tired of it, he could always wander down into the hermit’s stalactite grotto, stooping his gigantic body to pass down the narrow paths. Water played there, too.
And it was there, late at night, almost on towards dawn, while the night sky contended with the artificial moon until he had to turn the latter off, that he sat and thought about that miserable creature, Paul.
For now Paul was important again. He had realized a truth about him. At least he hoped it was a truth. For if Wagner now had, as reports said he had, the woman Cosima von Bülow to protect him, might he, Ludwig, not have Paul to be a Cosima to him? He decided to write to Paul at once. And when the answer to his note arrived, ecstatic and sycophantic, he decided that he had done the right thing, for if we do the only thing we can do, then how can it be wrong? We have no choice.
They were to meet in the wintergarden. He awaited the meeting eagerly, for he had seen almost no one for a month. He was
The bedroom was high and dark, but the darkness was relieved by the heavy gold of cornices and picture frames. Safe under the baldachin, above which two angels supported the crown, as they do in certain pictures of the Nativity, he was inviolable even to himself. In those moments when he could forget the sacredness of his own person, when drowsily he woke up in bed under the canopy on a cold morning, he felt deliciously safe and cradled within himself, protected from the world by his balusters. No one could get in at him, so long as the gate was closed; and should it be opened, he would hear the click. No matter what he might do anywhere else, here there was no danger that he might defile himself. Here he would always be ready for Lohengrin.
Yet to tell the truth he found the bedroom unpleasant. The private world he walked in was in the garden on the roof.
At Hohenschwangau, he had had a fountain put in his bedroom, so that he should never be out of sound of running water, which was purity itself. A clockwork moon waned and waxed across the ceiling. There he had had the forest just outside, so there a fountain was enough. At the Residenz Palace in Munich he put the forest in the roof.
Others might nod and frown at his eccentricity. Tohim it did not seem eccentric. He had that capacity for direct action which to some people seems madness. But in him it was not madness yet. It was only the logic of a fairytale.
In the fairytales remembered from his childhood, when a man was cornered, he found always a tiny door somewhere , hidden from view, through which he might suddenly escape into a big and propitious world, if he but had the key. Ludwig kept the key to the wintergarden with him always.
Pacing at night alone, by the flickering light of a candle, he had only to lift a curtain in his study, unlock the door, and step back into the only reality he knew. He had only to lock the door behind him, and he was free.
Beyond the door was an enormous garden forest, lit by paper lamps. The temperature was warm. A skiff rode rocking at its rope on the captive lagoon. Sometimes it was a gondola. Sometimes it seemed like a swan. Palm trees scraped against the ceiling. A peacock looked out from behind a bunch of dates. A parrot said good evening. He crossed a little bridge and sat under a chestnut tree in the middle of a mock Indian village. Tiny castles peeped through the humbled trees. An artificial moon was reflected in the water, which at will could be made to turn blue. That was the influence of his grandfather’s love for Italy. Water lilies exploded among their leaves. A fountain played in the middle of a Moorish pavilion. When he tired of it, he could always wander down into the hermit’s stalactite grotto, stooping his gigantic body to pass down the narrow paths. Water played there, too.
And it was there, late at night, almost on towards dawn, while the night sky contended with the artificial moon until he had to turn the latter off, that he sat and thought about that miserable creature, Paul.
For now Paul was important again. He had realized a truth about him. At least he hoped it was a truth. For if Wagner now had, as reports said he had, the woman Cosima von Bülow to protect him, might he, Ludwig, not have Paul to be a Cosima to him? He decided to write to Paul at once. And when the answer to his note arrived, ecstatic and sycophantic, he decided that he had done the right thing, for if we do the only thing we can do, then how can it be wrong? We have no choice.
They were to meet in the wintergarden. He awaited the meeting eagerly, for he had seen almost no one for a month. He was
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