Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [77]
Madame Wallis told Lucia that the empress had heard she was in Baden and had spoken well about her. “She also asked whether I had kept my good looks during all these years,” Lucia could not help boasting to Paolina. “Don’t tell anyone, I am blushing even as I write this to you…But since you are another me, I feel I must keep you informed about what is said of us…”5
Lucia was soon a familiar figure, trotting along in her buggy on her way to the waters in the morning or taking her ride out at half past four in the afternoon. She began to enjoy exploring the small world of Baden and following its easy routine—it was a way to distract herself from the anxious thoughts about Massimiliano that never left her. The one thing she did not get used to, though, was the sulphurous water she had to drink every morning. It was warm and murky and smelled of rotten eggs washed in chlorine. “Simply bringing the glass close to my lips makes me want to throw up,” she complained.6 Nor was she enthusiastic about sitting with the other ladies in tepid pools of dirty water, especially after finding out that her Austrian companions thought nothing of taking their baths when they were menstruating. “Here women don’t really care one way or another,” she told Paolina in disgust.7
She was happiest out in the countryside, driving her buggy to nearby villages or taking walks in the woods that sloped down to the edge of the town. One of the rituals in Baden was the Monday afternoon excursion out to the gardens of Schonau, the beautiful property belonging to Baron Peter de Braun and his wife, Josephine. Baron de Braun was a very successful impresario who had started out in the business twenty years earlier and had risen to become the director of the Court Theatre. He was by far the most influential person in the world of musical entertainment, and one of the richest. At Schonau, de Braun had turned his flair for entertainment to garden design. He had landscaped his vast estate in the English manner, with rolling hills, leafy groves and natural grottoes. Clear, slow-moving streams connected a network of ponds on which small Ottoman vessels—caiques—carried visitors from shore to shore. The focal point of the gardens was the Temple of the Night, a neoclassical building symbolising death, which one reached by entering a maze of underground passages, similar to catacombs, inscribed with maxims for a virtuous life.
A large crowd pressed at Schonau’s entrance gate when Lucia arrived there on her first visit. She could not make her way through, but she heard Baron de Braun himself was going to lead a party of dignitaries across the lake, to the temple area. So she walked away from the crowd and over to a wharf where a smaller group of distinguished guests was already waiting for the Baron, ready to take up the seats in a small flotilla. Lucia stepped into the main boat, secured a seat for herself and waited until Baron de Braun appeared. Later, she described the excursion in detail to Paolina:
The Baron finally arrived, followed by a party of the highest nobility. The large caique then sailed across the lake, trailed by two smaller vessels tied together and carrying an orchestra that played music during the brief crossing. We glided straight into a vast cavern hidden behind a sheet of clear, pure falling water. Inside, a crowd of spectators stood watching us from a bridge, under which we passed smoothly. I saw the Emperor and the Empress, the Crown Prince and his sister, mingling among the visitors incognito and watching us pass by. They wore unexceptional clothes and as far as I could see they were not accompanied by any member of the Imperial retinue, nor by any of their servants. Still, I was able to recognise them because I had seen them only a few days earlier. We finally disembarked. [Baron de Braun] held a torch that made light for those in front, while the rest of us stumbled along in perfect darkness. The unevenness of the narrow, tortuous passageway, the