“There is no need.”
The night after her father’s death, Eva has a dream. Something happens in that dream that makes her body swell, something moves over her, lies down on her, she knows what it is, but she cannot see it. The worst (and also the best) is that she feels a pushing out in her belly, something pushes into her womb, into that place between her legs she does not even want to name, and there it moves inside her, it lasts but a moment, and that is because everything is broken off by her sudden pleasure, an explosion, and then a weakening. It is a strange moment of shamelessness and destruction. The unpaid bills, the mayor’s glances, the letters from Giacomo Casanova, Roch’s shady dealings and the clumps of silver on the white tablecloth, evidence of triumph—none of it matters anymore. All is invalidated in this brief moment. And even in the dream Eva wants to forget about everything, erase for all time both this pleasure and this shame. And, still dreaming, she orders herself to forget about everything and never to return to it. To treat it as other mysteries of the body are treated—periods, rashes, hot flashes, minor heart palpitations.
When she wakes up, her innocence is restored. She opens her eyes and sees her room, bright, cream-colored, and her dressing table with its porcelain jug and bowl. And the dollhouse made for her by special order in Bürgel. She squints, and as long as she lies on her stomach, she still has access to her dream, and to that unlikely pleasure, but when she turns over onto her back and straightens the cap in which she sleeps in order not to destroy her neatly arranged hairdo, the dream goes, and her body curls up on itself, dries out. The first thought that comes to her mind is that her father has died. And for some reason, that thought awakes in her two completely contradictory feelings—unbearable despair and a strange, rocking joy.
Gossip, letters, denunciations, decrees, and reports
Here is what Offenbach’s Voss News had to say about the funeral of Jacob Frank:
The body of Baron Frank was ceremoniously buried on December 12, 1791, in Offenbach.
He was the patriarch of a Polish religious sect that followed him to Germany and that he ruled with tremendous panache. He was worshipped almost as another Dalai Lama. The procession opened with women and children numbering some two hundred, clothed in white, candles sparkling in their hands. The men went after them in colorful Polish costumes, with silk sashes across their shoulders. Then went the brass and reed band, and the body of the deceased, carried upon a sumptuous bier, followed. On either side of it walked: on the right, the deceased’s children, his only daughter and his two sons; on the left, Prince Marcin Lubomirski, Polish magnate, with the Order of Saint Anna at his neck, along with many dignitaries. The deceased lay in an Eastern costume, red, clad in ermine, his face turned toward the left side in a semblance of sleep. His casket was surrounded by a guard comprising Uhlans, Hussars, and other Polacken in lavish attire. Prior to his death, the deceased had issued his decree that no one lament him or go into mourning for him.
After the funeral, which was attended by the entire city of Offenbach and half of Frankfurt, some company sat down with Sophie von La Roche. Bernard was the first to comment on the matter, being well informed as always:
“People are saying that these neophytes are trying to establish some sort of confederation amongst the Jews. Under the banner of opposition to the Talmud, the Jewish Bible, they challenge authority and follow a version of Turkish laws and beliefs.”
“Well, I think,” says Dr. Reichelt, who was there during Jacob Frank’s illness, “that this entire messianic movement is a rather complicated form of extracting money from naive Jews.”
Then it is the turn of a friend of the family, von Albrecht, formerly a Prussian resident of Warsaw, whose grasp of all matters Eastern is excellent:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I must say I’m surprised at your naiveté. I have always warned that this new sect is an attempt to appropriate and control the synagogue all across Poland, that it would thus be prudent to monitor its activities very closely indeed and inform His Royal Emperor’s office of the development of the situation. That is what I saw many years ago now, when they were first beginning. And now apparently an overwhelming quantity of arms has been discovered at their court. In addition, they’ve been conducting drills there, with alarming regularity, as well as recruiting young men for their army . . .”
“But women, too, apparently,” exclaims Mrs. von La Roche.
“It all raises the suspicion,” continues this erstwhile resident of Warsaw, “that these neophytes were preparing for an uprising in Poland, which would have been aimed against the Prussians. I am therefore very surprised by your prince, who so wholeheartedly agreed to receive them here. They managed to make their sect into a kind of state within the state, ruled by its own laws, with its own guard, and its accounts in the majority conducted outside any banking system.”
“They lived peacefully and honestly,” says Sophie von La Roche, attempting to defend those “little insect-like people—” but the doctor interrupts her:
“They had unimaginable debts . . .”
“Who does not have debts these days, my dear doctor?” Sophie von La Roche asks rhetorically. “I prefer to believe that Eva and her brothers are the illegitimate children of Tsarina Elizabeth and Prince Razumovsky, that’s what we’ve been thinking of them here. It’s more romantic.”
They laugh politely and change the subject.
“Such skeptics,” Mrs. von La Roche comments, in a mock-offended tone.
Yet the matter of Jacob Frank and his disciples hardly quiets down, and now letters and denunciations are carried by an ever more violent wind blowing over Europe, whipping up new fears and further conjectures.
Letters sent around to Jewish communities and to others call for all Jews and Christians to unite under the banner of their sect called Edom. The goal would have been the so-called brotherhood above and beyond the differences between these two religions . . .
It is not known what aims might motivate the sect’s activities, but we can be certain that its individual members maintain close ties with the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, and the Jacobins, however scant may be the evidence from correspondence or from elsewhere . . .