“They’re saying it’s some Polish baron with his sons and his daughter.” The cavalcade goes slowly through the city’s outskirts, squeezing onto the narrow cobbled streets. The men on horseback shout back and forth in some foreign language, and their whistles can be heard. Mrs. von La Roche feels as if she’s watching a performance at the opera.
When Sophie gets together with her equally excited female cousin, her stay in Berlin quickly retreats into the background of everyone’s mind. They are all talking about that Polish baron with the beautiful, mysterious daughter he brought here at the archduke’s invitation, renting from him the house in Oberrad where the newcomers will stay first.
Her cousin rented a carriage especially to go to Oberrad and saw the whole ceremonious process of getting everyone out of their carriages. Now she says excitedly:
“Those two sons led out a tall old man in red wearing a Turkish hat. He had a diamond star pinned to his chest. From the second carriage his daughter got out, dressed like a princess. I saw diamonds in her hair. You can’t imagine, they looked like an imperial couple. You will be neighbors, once they’re installed in the castle.”
Since March 1786, Offenbach has been gripped by light to moderate hysteria. As bricklayers work in the castle, dust flies out the windows. Enormous quantities of wallpapers, carpets, materials for the walls, furniture, and bedding are brought in—all the things you would need to create a comfortable residence worthy of a Polish baron.
Sophie von La Roche, who is a writer and whose custom it is to write, is careful to note down in her diary everything she sees:
It is very interesting how our dear co-inhabitants of Offenbach are dealing with the scant information with which they have had to content themselves on the subject of these Poles. The human mind cannot tolerate uncertainty or things left mostly unsaid, and so right away every possible history began to be invented regarding these insect-like people. According to the rumors, the old man in the Turkish costume is some sort of alchemist and Kabbalist, like that Saint-Germain, and he owes his fortune to the gold he has produced in his own workshop, which workers have confirmed on carrying inside some secret crates filled with glass, and jars and little bottles. Our dear Mrs. Bernard told me that this Baron Frank-Dobrucki is none other than Tsar Peter the Third, miraculously saved from death, which explains the arrival of all the barrels of gold from the East, for the maintenance of this court of Nebuchadnezzar. I permitted myself to take part in the game and informed her she was wrong. This supposed daughter and her two brothers are in fact the children of the previous tsarina, Elizabeth Petrovna, by her lover Razumovsky, and the baron is actually just their tutor. She nodded, and that very same day, come evening, the rumor returned to me through the lips of the doctor who came to let my blood, in no way altered.
Of Isenburger Schloss and its freezing residents
The castle stands just above the water, and on a number of occasions it has fallen victim to flooding. Careful recording of the water level can be seen in two places inside. The highest one was from two years ago. Hence, no doubt, the lichen on the walls, from the moisture. Eva spends a long time selecting her room, wondering if she would rather have a view of the river, in which case she would have a balcony, or perhaps a big window looking out on the city. In the end she decides on the river and the balcony.
The river is many colors here, soft and gentle. It is called the Main, but her father stubbornly insists on calling it the Prut—the name of the river that divided Turkey from Poland, where so many of his followers had once camped in anticipation of him. The sight of the barges and the boats with double sails floating down this river—the Main—soothes Eva. She can just sit like this on the balcony, looking out over the water, which she experiences as a kind of tender caress, the fluid motion, the movement of the sails, all of it in some way touches her body and leaves a pleasant streak along her skin. She has already ordered furniture: a desk and two wardrobes, as well as sofas upholstered in bright material and a coffee table. Her father takes two rooms with a view of the Main. She went especially to Frankfurt to order him carpets, as her father will no longer recognize any sort of chair. The most beautiful room, with a string of stained-glass windows, will be a temple, she has decided that already. This is where the brothers and sisters will gather.
The castle is impressive—it is the largest building in the area, and it makes a bigger impression than any church would. From the flat bank it is separated by a road that is eternally wet, reinforced every year by stones workers bring in. There is also a harbor for the ferry that can be taken to the other side. Near the harbor there is an inn and a smithy. On tables assembled from wooden boards, fish from the river are sold, mainly pike and perch. They, the Polacken, as they are called in town, also buy whole baskets of fish.
The castle has five floors. Eva and Matuszewski have sketched out the use of each. On the first floor, then, will be the ceremonial halls, on the second she and her father as well as the oldest of the brothers and sisters will live, as in Brünn. Above, the kitchen and the women’s rooms, and the two final floors will be for the young people who will come. There will also be a kitchen and a laundry in the building next door. Eva, who has investigated the emperor’s palaces in Vienna, has a vision for how it’s all supposed to look. For her renovations, she has engaged the services of an architect from Frankfurt; sometimes it is hard to explain to him what it is they want—the meeting room is to be without furniture, just carpets and pillows, the home chapel is to be without an altar, just a dais in the middle. There are many things this man can’t understand. They spend the entire summer painting the walls and changing out the rotted floors. The worst is the first floor, where two years ago there was stagnant water. In all the windows they had to put new panes. They have already purchased in Frankfurt large quantities of rugs and blankets, because it is cold inside, even in the summer. The buyers hand over money with pleasure, without so much as a murmur. Frankfurt bankers turn up immediately to offer them loans.
By the time they move into the castle, there is no longer any pomp and ceremony. They move into the castle at the same time as Mrs. Sophie von La Roche, who has been widowed, settles permanently in Offenbach, in the winter of 1788.