In a Dark Wood Wandering (2 page)

I had a manuscript, but I was uncomfortably aware that I had polished and rearranged Mr. Kaplan's sentences and that, since I had not looked at the original text, I might have carried the prose, inadvertently, far from the rhythm of the Dutch prose. I felt I had no choice but to follow in Mr. Kaplan's footsteps by procuring a Dutch dictionary and painfully fighting my way through the Prologue in Dutch. I discovered that I had indeed smoothed away a good deal of the vigor and liveliness of Hella Haasse's style. Accordingly I revised the first fifty pages working against the Dutch text, and the author made further emendations. I called upon a Dutch friend, Nini Blinstrub, who lives in Chicago, and she spent a long afternoon with me, going line by line over some scenes that I had felt to be murky or confusing. I then went carefully over the last hundred pages of the book and over all scenes that seemed ambiguous, to make sure that they corresponded in tone and meaning with the Dutch original. I had learned also that Mr. Kaplan had worked from an edition of the book containing passages which the author had cut from later editions; it was necessary to check constantly against the Dutch text to make sure that these passages were also excluded from the English translation. Finally, Hella Haasse flew to Chicago in March of 1989 to go over the book with me line by line as Nini Blinstrub had done with a limited number of pages. Thus—although I am uneasily aware that nothing is perfect in this world—both Hella Haasse and I are satisfied that the following pages offer a faithful English version of a book which I, like
Lewis Kaplan, am convinced is far too important to be kept from readers of English.

The question of the title was a knotty one: the author was not happy with “The Forest of Expectations”; “verwachting” does not mean “expectations” but “long awaiting”. There is no real English equivalent. Since we were fortunate to have a son who specialized in Renaissance literature, we turned to him and he suggested the line from Dante that resulted in the present title. Hella Haasse was delighted with “In a Dark Wood Wandering” and that now seems to us to be the only possible English title for this work, although we spent weeks agonizing over it.

Here then, after forty years of accidents and disasters, and as a direct result of Lewis Kaplan's remarkable choice of avocation, is an unforgettable chronicle, rescued from its wanderings in the wilderness.

—Anita Miller

Chicago, Illinois

May, 1989

C
AST OF
M
AJOR
C
HARACTERS

N
OVEMBER
24, 1394

Valentine Visconti, Duchess of Orléans.

Wife of the King's brother, Louis d'Orléans, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan.

Charles VI, King of France.

The elder son of Charles V, who was also known as Charles the Wise.

Isabeau, Queen of France.

The wife of Charles VI.

Louis, Duke of Orléans.

The younger son of Charles the Wise; brother to Charles VI, husband of Valentine Visconti.

Philippe, Duke of Burgundy.

Also known as Philippe the Bold (Philippe le Hardi). Brother of Charles the Wise and therefore uncle to Charles VI and Louis d'Orléans. He is married to Margaretha of Flanders; their son is Jean de Nevers.

Jean, Duke of Berry.

An obsessive aesthete, collector and bibliophile. The patron of the famous Book of Hours. Also a brother of Charles the Wise and therefore uncle to Charles VI and Louis d'Orléans.

Louis, Duke of Bourbon.

Brother-in-law of Charles the Wise and therefore uncle to Charles VI and Louis d'Orléans on their mother's side (Queen Jeanne).

(N
OVEMBER
24, 1394)

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovae per una selva oscura,
che la deritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the journey of our life,
I found myself in a dark wood,
For the straight way was lost.

— Dante Alighieri

alentine, Duchess of Orléans, lay in her green-curtained bed of state, listening to the bells of Saint-Pol. The church was not far from the royal > palace—only a stone's throw away. The pealing of the bells swelled into a heavy sea of cheerless sound; Valentine folded her hands over the green coverlet. The christening procession of her fourth son, Charles, had left the palace.

The people of Paris, crowded behind the wooden barriers set up to protect the procession, strained to see Charles VI, the godfather of the royal child, and the King's brother Louis, the father, preceded by torchbearers, noblemen, high dignitaries of the Church and clergy. Following Charles and Louis were their uncles: Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, and the Dukes of Berry and Bourbon.

The King walked faster than the solemnity of the occasion dictated; the agitated movements of his head and his aimless, wandering stare betrayed his unfortunate mental condition even to the uninitiated. But the spectators' attention was riveted on Louis the Duke of Orléans, because of his smile and splendid clothes, and on Isabeau the Queen, surrounded by princesses and royal kinswomen and followed by many ladies-in-waiting. In the midst of the women's crowns, veils, pointed headdresses and trailing ermine-trimmed
mantles, the infant Charles d'Orléans was carried to church for the first time.

Valentine's weary body lay beneath the coverlet. She stared at the women busying themselves at the hearth, at the open cupboard filled with platters and tankards, the torches set along the walls in their iron brackets, the green wall hangings of the ducal lying-in chamber. Before the hearthfire stood the cradle on small wooden wheels in which Charles had slept from the moment that, washed, rubbed with honey and wrapped in linen cloth, he had been entrusted to the care of his nurse, Jeanne la Brune. Women hurried back and forth from the adjoining room, filling the platters on the sideboard with sweets and fruit, bringing green cushions for the benches along the walls. The torches gave off a stupefying smell of resin; their heat, together with the heat of the hearthfire, was almost unbearable in the tightly-closed room. The Duchess broke into a sweat.

Her body had been worn out by four confinements in four years' time. But more exhausting still, perhaps, was the pace of court life—an uninterrupted series of dances, masquerades and banquets. On Valentine Visconti, exhaustion worked like a poison. At her father's court in Pavia, she had loved the small elegant gatherings frequented by poets and scholars, the debates and word games, the music played in her own chambers. Gian Galeazzo Visconti, although denounced as a tyrant and a sorcerer, had a more acute eye for learning and the fine arts than the pretentious inhabitants of Saint-Pol.