A deeply engrossing, philosophical novel by a rising Estonian literary star.
Wrapped into his long coat against the incessant rain and accompanied by a strange parrot, the young Dutch student Laurentius arrives in Estonia on an icy day at the end of the seventeenth century. On the run from a dark past and suspected of heresy, he has fled to Tartu, 'The City of the Muses', to study at the famous university. Laurentius has been searching obsessively for a cure for the mysterious melancholy which torments him, and is desperate to understand where the soul comes from, and how it relates to the body. But the more he searches, the more he is attracted to the world of instinct, superstition and magic of the peasants in the surrounding countryside. A world which he knew as a child, but which now persecutes him in dreams and visions which increasingly blur with reality.
In this astonishingly atmospheric novel, Friedenthal enters the bowels of Shakespeare's century to tell the story of anguished modernity, and of the advent of the Age of Enlightenment - while medicine is still progressing on the lines of humours, fears and alchemy, and the dark North dreams of radient antiquity, of symposia in Mediterranean gardens among the sweet hum of the bees - the birds of the muses, the souls of poets.
Release date:
August 1, 2017
Publisher:
Pushkin Press
Print pages:
256
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It had been raining without end. The rain had rotted the crops in the fields; it had caused mildew on the wooden walls of the houses, and made the ships’ decks as wet as seaweed. Laurentius had been eating rotten bread for several months now, and living in mildewed houses; during the last week he had been slipping on the wet decks too. Black bile had accumulated in him like the sludge which collects on a stick thrust into the river. Finally, he stepped from the rocking boat onto the harbour quay, onto the slippery boards knocked onto poles rammed deep into the silt, and he looked unsurely at his surroundings. As gusts of wind from the low sky blew drops of water into his face, he tried to comprehend what kind of country this could be, where he had come of his own free will. The bare strip of shore, with its white sand and lone bulrushes, and the uniform grey clouds closely resembled the harbour which he had set out from. Set against the backdrop of grey sky the postal ship’s masts looked just as before, and the sailcloth stretched across them was as grey and impassive as when he had started his journey. Alongside the wharf, which stretched far out into the sea, a breakwater could be seen, half-submerged under the muddy water, and at the end of it an old watch house was stooping low into the water. Clearly no one had used it for some time. Ruined buildings of this kind could be found at any harbour, and despite the wretchedness of the scene it had a reassuring effect on him. Here too the harbours had been rebuilt; here too they had been extended to accommodate new ships, and the old watch houses had been left neglected. He sighed and fiddled uneasily with the cover of his cage, which was dripping wet. He had managed to bring all his trappings with him without too much trouble. One chest knocked together from oak boards had fully accommodated all the things which he had thought necessary to take on his studies. Now it was at the tollhouse together with the other goods transported in the ship’s hold, and he probably wouldn’t be able to get hold of it until evening. The ship’s cargo and the passengers’ personal baggage had been carefully checked and anything which could be liable for tax had been noted down. He had not had any bother on that front, since he had nothing of any value with him. His few personal books were all officially authorized, and he had only brought the bare minimum of medicaments. The difficulties were caused by his rose-ringed parakeet in its cage. He had already been warned back home that transporting the bird wasn’t likely to be the easiest of undertakings, and that the conditions on his journey could prove too much for it. But he had no wish to leave his companion behind, and so he had decided to take the risk. Now that he had arrived, his main concern was to get the bird out of the cold rain and into the warmth as soon as possible. Despite his wide-brimmed hat the rainwater was trickling down Laurentius’ face, and he had to wipe it out of his eyes. He glanced under his coat flap at his pocket watch and began to look for someone who could direct him to a tavern, and perhaps later bring his chest from the tollhouse. He didn’t dare entrust his cage to anyone. He had to act quickly now since the roads were already in a poor state, and he could not delay the onward journey any longer. The autumn rainfalls were becoming more violent and had already started to erode the soft roads, so it was getting more difficult to traverse them with every day. The air was also starting to turn icy cold, and he feared his parakeet might fall ill. He had to find a carriage or cart and start travelling towards Dorpat as soon as possible. “Hey!” Laurentius called out. The harbour quay was glistening-wet from rain, and only a few curious onlookers had braved the vile weather to come and wait for the boats to arrive. They had probably already decided that there was little chance of finding work, so they didn’t at first think to react to Laurentius’ call. The seamen had unloaded the ship’s cargo near the tollhouse, and the haulers who worked for the merchants were thronging over there. Some of them had started heaving the slippery boxes and damp bags onto the carts with looks of bored indifference on their faces, while the harbour officials marked up the goods. Laurentius called out again. “Hey, you there!” A bystander in a flimsy, worn-out coat looked up blankly and Laurentius gestured to beckon him over, just in case he had not understood. The man looked like a character from one of the paintings by the gloomy artists of the Middle Ages which he had seen back in Holland. Tangles of hair of an indeterminate colour protruded from under a lopsided felt hat; his nose was red and swollen, and a pockmarked chin could be made out underneath his sparse stubble. It occurred to Laurentius that a sign hanging under the man’s neck reading “Villainy” would have suited him very well. Those sorts could be found loitering about every harbour, and one’s gut feeling about them based on their appearance was usually right. But they were always the most in the know about the town’s inns and hostels, so some use could be had from them. They would be sure to swindle you, of course; the only question was by how much. “Please direct me to a decent inn,” Laurentius instructed curtly, and then watched as the man turned round and set o6 without uttering a word. Hopefully he had understood what Laurentius said, although it was possible that he had just guessed at the meaning. Laurentius lifted up his parakeet cage, and, cradling it in his arms, followed the man in the direction of town. The bird started squawking agitatedly. “Shh, Clodia, be quiet.” They walked on into the thickening dusk, and Laurentius tried to rock the cage as little as possible. Against the backdrop of the evening sky he could see the threatening silhouettes of the sheer city walls, formed from stacks of sturdy boulders, rotund medieval fortress towers and four tall church spires. The lower town buildings were swallowed up in the sodden mist which was seeping from the heavy clouds. The man walking ahead of him was unexpectedly fleet of foot, and looked like he knew very well where he wanted to end up. But by now Laurentius could feel his old illness flaring up with increasing severity. The constant damp permeated everywhere, making everything waterlogged, and he now felt more vulnerable to it than in earlier years. The surfeit of black bile which was seething inside him would not normally have caused such listlessness until late autumn, but this year the rains had started on Midsummer Day, and the endless spatter had swathed his internal organs, his heart and his brain in a sticky mist. Even when he had stepped of the ship onto dry land, and walked on the flat paving stones, rubbed to a smooth shine, the memory of the swaying sea made him feel as if he were forcing his way through a bog. Every step was a strain. “Uh,” he muttered under his breath. “Just a bit further.” He looked at the hunched back of the ragamuffin walking ahead of him, and decided that he should definitely send someone else to go and fetch his chest. There was often trouble to be had from this kind of chance character picked up at the harbour. The innkeeper should be able to help him. He tried to remember the currency which was used in Reval; several passengers on the ship had offered their views, from which he concluded that he couldn’t hope for full clarity on the matter. Ars apodemica, the books about the art of travelling, made almost no reference to the situation in Estonia and Livonia—there was just some general guidance on what was worth seeing, and the best way of taking in the surroundings. These lands and their cities were completely uncharted from an apodemic perspective—after all, anyone who travelled for personal pleasure would go elsewhere, to the south. To the places of culture and history. Laurentius’ head had started throbbing, and he could remember nothing relevant at all. “Very well,” he eventually decided. “One sixth of an öre should be sufficient.” It was nearly pitch black by the time they came to a stop under a yellow lantern which illuminated an unexpectedly decent-looking inn, situated just a short way from the city gates. The ragamuffin turned towards Laurentius with his hand outstretched. Laurentius had already fished out a small coin from his pocket in advance, and now he dropped it into the man’s palm, making sure to look towards the ground as he did so. The man quickly checked the money and then smiled broadly. “Damn,” thought Laurentius. “I gave him too much after all.” He turned and started to enter the inn, pushing his cage through the door ahead of him. “Would he desire anything else?” enquired the ragamuffin in unexpectedly good German. Laurentius faltered. He knew that the ones who latch on to you were usually the worst kind of scoundrel, and he would normally have been happy to see the man make a swift departure. “I need to start moving in the direction of Dorpat,” he found himself saying. “And as quickly as possible.” He could send someone else for his chest, but there was probably no harm in asking the way. The stagecoaches were supposed to pass through at some point; on the ship they had told him that a group of travellers departed for Dorpat almost every week. He had been shown two possible routes on the map—both of them took several days, longer depending on the road conditions. The man cast another glance at the parakeet cage, bowed somehow insincerely and left. Laurentius shrugged his shoulders and entered the inn. He placed his cage on the table closest to the fireplace, lifted the damp, dark cloth from it, and stood watching his parakeet preen itself on the perch. “So, Clodia, ready for another journey?” Laurentius asked. The heat radiating from the hearth had a restorative effect, warming the parakeet’s freezing body and lifting Laurentius’ mood. He took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and scattered some seeds from it onto the bottom of the cage. He had not been sure if he would find sunflower seeds anywhere in these parts, so he had brought some with him. As usual, the other guests who had been idly standing around quickly thronged round the cage, hoping to get a closer look at the strange, coloured bird. “So where does one of them kind hail from?” “What does it eat?” “Can it sing?” Laurentius started explaining. On the one hand, dragging his parakeet around with him was troublesome and inconvenient— and not just for Laurentius: clearly the bird suffered even more—but it was also a wonderful way of getting to know people. Clodia had already been a great help to him in this respect on the ship. “So you’re a university student, are you?” someone asked, getting up from behind one of the tables. “Yes,” Laurentius replied. It seemed that the man had already had an eye on him for some time—he could always sense that acutely, and he had learnt to keep his own gaze fixed on the ground, so as not to look straight into some curious bystander’s eyes accidentally. He had realized as a young man that this always led to trouble. At first people grew suspicious of him; then they would hold their fingers crossed behind their backs as they talked to him, or even turn street corners to avoid him. The safest thing was to keep his gaze fixed on the ground. “I wouldn’t advise you to go to Dorpat at this time,” said the man.
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