Farewell, My Queen

to those creatures, you would have said they were at prayer . . . There was one other quiet time for them; that was when they stood on the shore and watched the boats set off for Trianon. They looked in solemn concentration at the big gondola-shaped craft, the yachts, frigates, and feluccas laden with courtiers. Under the unwavering stare of those eyes, haunted by vistas unknown to us, the courtiers would fall silent and return the stare, so that something resembling a wind of petrification passed between the three Africans and the Queen’s Trianon-bound guests . . . And what of the Africans and the Queen? I was convinced that between them nothing could pass, and my opinion has not changed. For it was not so much a matter of passing, but rather something else, something indefinable, a tiny patch of similarity in the mutual passion for stuffs, in the rapture engendered by contact with stuffs. An unlikely patch . . . A love patch?
Yes, if I think now of the Queen as I saw her that morning, with her wide lace sleeves, she all pink and delicate, motionless, her lips parted, while her eyes were fixed on those little pieces of fabric, those swatches of her finest gowns, the word that comes to my mind is love . . .
The lion, too, had died. Laroche had known a terrible feeling of helplessness. He had asked the King for an audience. A very young Louis XVI, who was known at that time as Louis the Virtuous and desired to earn the title Louis the Stern (I never did find out whether he meant “instead of” or “as well as”), heard Laroche’s petition: for an end to the slaughter at the Menagerie. Though well disposed, Louis XVI had not been much comfort. His manner had been evasive. At Versailles, the hot weather brought maladies with it. At such times, a goodly number of humans were unwell, too, and some died. He mentioned a certain Monsieur de Las, who had suffered an open fracture when he fell off his horse. Presently he lay dying in a hunting lodge, where family members had had him conveyed so they could stop being forced to hear his howls of pain.
“But the humans can say what’s bothering them. Whereas my animals implore me with their dying eyes and can’t give me the least hint of what is tormenting them. I’m about to lose the polar bear,” Monsieur de Laroche had moaned, twisting his handkerchief. “Can His Majesty conceive of my suffering?”
“No,” the King had said. “No, I cannot.”
Then, perhaps to punish himself for his lack of feeling, Louis XVI had cast aside the bunch of thyme he was holding under his nose, had bent over toward the despairing man and breathing deeply, inhaled him to the full. And—oh, wondrous working of divine royal essence—the King, so far from being indisposed by what he smelled, drew strength from it. He had squared his shoulders, which he normally held somewhat stooped atop his longish, flabby arms, and smiled.
“I hold you in great affection, Laroche,” he had stated, speaking with his choppy diction. “Let me see you occasionally at my Couchees, I shall be most pleased. As for the animals in the Menagerie, stop tormenting yourself on that score. There are hordes of animals here on earth. God provides for their existence in vast quantities, and He is not ungenerous about replenishing their numbers. Polar bears, for instance, abound in the Far North.”
“I will resign myself to the inevitable. My polar bear is ill, very ill, and I can do nothing about it. Well, never mind! Enough of that!”
From then on, Monsieur de Laroche had stopped talking about the health of his animals when at Court. He discussed it only at the Menagerie. But he had carried away from his conversation with the King a mania for saying “Enough of that,” on any and every occasion. And the words had become a catchphrase among the courtiers, who, initially to make fun of Laroche, then later for no good reason, punctuated their conversations with the ritual formula. There were days when it seemed to me that all I heard anyone say was “Enough of that.”
Laroche drew near; I was submerged in his smell. (Silently, I recited the prayer to the dying: “I beseech you, O Lord, to forgive me the pleasure I have taken in seeking out perfumes and good smells and for having allowed myself to become fastidious in the avoidance of bad ones . . . ”) Moderating his voice, he asked me the reason for my visit. Really, the ostrich? No, not the ostrich . . . It was a long time since we had seen each other, I missed him . . . He was delighted and paid me some compliment or other in return. He, too, was glad to have a companion during the idle hours of this July afternoon.
“Is all well up there?” he said, pointing to the château.
“I haven’t noticed anything out-of-the-way. Two-thirds of the courtiers have colds, and the rest of them sneeze and wipe their noses to be in tune with the group. But you aren’t putting your question to the best-informed person. I’m scarcely ever away from my books and am not invited to the Royal Council Meetings.”
“I should hope not. A lot of good they do! Those meetings are merely so many traps laid for our King, with his natural inclination to justice. The Royal Council Meetings indeed! Even thinking about them makes my blood boil with indignation. The very idea of daring to advise so wise a king as ours is a piece of insolence. Take Master Necker, for instance, can you imagine a more pretentious individual? A more dreadful counting clerk? I heard his opening speech at the meeting of the Estates-General. I could have climbed the wall with boredom! Figures, figures, and more figures! For two hours. Even he finally couldn’t go on.