Frozen Heart: Growing Up with “The Snow Queen”

LISA LIEBERMAN

It was one of those glass splinters from the magic mirror, and poor Kai had now got it into his heart. It did not hurt any longer, but it was still there. Soon his heart would become hard and cold like a lump of ice. Even this tiny splinter had the power to make him see as evil everything that was good, and it had its effect immediately.

—Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen”



(Illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline)

I was eight when I read “The Snow Queen” in a collection of Andersen’s fairy tales, a birthday gift from my Aunt Clementine in 1963. Earlier that year, my mother, a manic-depressive, had stopped taking her lithium and headed out to San Francisco, leaving my sister, our father, and me behind in Philadelphia. Periodically she’d call to fill us in on her doings; at some point she divorced Dad, married a truck driver she met in Haight-Ashbury, and moved with him to Arkansas. We did not see her for several years.

I still have the fairy tale book with my aunt’s inscription: To Lisa-Jo with love, Aunt Clem. Paging through it, I recognize all of Andersen’s best-known stories. “Thumbelina,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Ugly Duckling,”“The Little Mermaid,” “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “The Little Match Girl,” “The Red Shoes.” Some of these tales were already familiar; others I encountered for the first time. “The Snow Queen” was the one I returned to again and again. Gerda’s quest to rescue her friend Kai from the Snow Queen’s palace spoke to my desire to get my mother back. I’m sure I found solace in the happy ending, when the two children returned home “and all around them glowed bright, warm, glorious summer.” But the resonances of Andersen’s story went far deeper, providing a way of looking at my mother’s illness that made sense to my eight-year-old mind while confirming my worst suspicions about the world.

Andersen was a perfectionist who could work for a year on a single tale. And yet he completed “The Snow Queen” in a matter of days; the story “came out dancing over the paper,” he marveled to a friend. At forty-three pages, it was the longest story in Aunt Clem’s book, but it danced for me as well. Indeed, it sang. Andersen’s heroines had a disconcerting way of dying at the end of their stories. The little match girl and the little mermaid (neither of whom had names) expired poignantly after failing to attain their desires. Crippled by the devilish red shoes, poor Karen’s heart broke and her soul was transported to heaven. But not only did Gerda achieve her goal and survive the ordeal, she went through a series of thrilling adventures in faraway lands not ordinarily permitted to girls in fairy tales. She took risks and got away with them, consorted with robbers and rough women, rode a reindeer to the very edge of the Snow Queen’s territory, and ventured as far as the North Pole without remembering to wear her warm gloves and fur-lined boots.

The story opened with the vignette of the goblins' mirror, a malicious device that magnified all the ugliness in the world and shrank the good to almost nothing. The mirror shattered and fragments of it blew through the air, lodging in people’s eyes and perverting their vision. “The worst off were those people who had by misfortune received a little splinter in their hearts. That had terrible results. Their hearts became cold and hard like lumps of ice.” The glass splinter in Kai’s heart turned him against his playmate Gerda and led him to torment the people who loved him most. One winter day he hitched his sled to the white sledge of the Snow Queen and was never seen again. 





The remainder of Andersen’s story follows Gerda as she sets off alone to find Kai and regain his love.

“The Snow Queen” explained the world I knew and I read it literally. Kai’s transformation after the glass splinter entered his heart reminded me of my mother in the grip of her illness: her increasing remoteness. The furious tirades I overheard late at night, when I was supposed to be asleep. The unaccountable outbursts of tears or rage. I couldn’t decide which was worse, the bouts of sadness that took hold of her for weeks at a time or her terrifying anger. In either case, I felt helpless and yet vaguely responsible. And when she left us, I feared that this too was somehow my fault.

The tale of the goblins' mirror absolved me. Gradually I stopped blaming myself for my mother’s problems, but I soon faced new problems of my own. My third grade teacher was exasperated with me. I held my pencil wrong and my handwriting was so poor that I was not allowed to learn cursive with the rest of the class. I handed in work unfinished and was afflicted with mysterious headaches in the middle of the school day, headaches so severe that the only remedy was to lie on a cot in a darkened room off the nurse’s office until I was sure that math was over. In the spring, when we were given standardized I.Q. tests, I couldn’t be bothered to read the questions and fill in the appropriate circle on the machine-readable forms. I amused myself by making zigzag patterns up and down the columns while my classmates laboriously followed the instructions. The school psychologist summoned me to her office and made me take the test again under her supervision. Then she began to ask me a series of questions about my “home situation.”

I knew what to expect. My sister and I had been interrogated by some of the kids on the school bus when Judy let it slip that our parents were separated; divorce was still uncommon in our community and first-hand information was hard to come by. But my mother’s non-appearance at birthday party pick-ups, P.T.A meetings, and synagogue functions piqued the curiosity of adults as well. I’d grown accustomed to being plied with questions about my “home situation” by the mothers of my friends during after-school play dates. How much anyone outside the family knew about my mother’s illness is unclear. She’d been in and out of mental institutions for several years, beginning when I was in kindergarten. I remember visiting her once or twice, playing with a wheelchair in the corridor while my parents talked in the lounge, drinking a coke in the hospital cafeteria. It seems unlikely that Dad could have kept up the façade of normalcy throughout these absences. Well before my mother left for good, my maternal grandmother had moved into the spare bedroom to help take care of us. She was the person who was waiting when we got off the bus and who went hunting around the neighborhood when we failed to come home in time for dinner, calling our names in her operatic voice that echoed across the suburban backyards. “Liiiii-sa! Juuuuu-dy!” The outline of my “home situation” was undoubtedly known, but the details may well have been sketchy.

I was never instructed on what to say and what not to say to the adults who asked questions about my mother. My own questions went unanswered, for the most part, and what little I managed to glean from eavesdropping on my father’s and grandmother’s conversations, I kept to myself. If the school psychologist wanted information, she’d have to find another source. I didn’t trust her; and besides, I had Gerda’s example before me. Along her journey to find Kai, she accepted the help of forest animals: a raven, a flock of wood pigeons, a reindeer. But trusting forest animals didn’t count; everyone trusted forest animals in fairy tales. They understood without having to ask for details: witness Bambi, another motherless creature.

Gerda’s self-reliance impressed me. Her closest human companion was a little robber maiden about her own age who slept with a dagger in her hand and threatened to hurt Gerda if she didn’t stop sighing about her beloved Kai. The robber maiden was not the wisest choice of companions, from the point of view of safety, but she had her uses. The wood pigeons who told Gerda where to find Kai belonged to the robber maiden, as did the reindeer who carried Gerda to the North Pole. Threats aside, the robber maiden was really quite thoughtful, tying Gerda firmly to the reindeer’s back, so she wouldn’t fall off, providing her with a little cushion for comfort, warm gloves (stolen from her mother) and the fur-lined boots (which she’d stolen earlier from Gerda), along with two loaves of bread and a piece of ham.

“The Snow Queen” taught me a valuable lesson: Don’t trust anyone unless you are desperate, least of all well-intentioned adults. 



The old lady who took Gerda in at the beginning of her quest turned out to be a witch, albeit a harmless one who only wanted a little girl for company, not to eat like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel.” But Gerda lost precious time amusing herself with the talking flowers in the old lady’s garden, bewitched into forgetting her friend. 



The prince and princess who took pity on her were completely out of touch with reality. They thought they were doing Gerda a favour by outfitting her with a golden coach complete with a coachman and footmen and outriders, all wearing golden crowns. The minute she left the palace grounds in this lavish get-up, robbers attacked the entourage, stabbed the servants, and looted the gold. Gerda herself was dragged from the carriage and would have become the dinner of an ugly old robber wife if the little robber maiden had not intervened in the nick of time.

Toward the end of the story, Gerda did accept food and shelter from a Lapp woman who possessed a kind of crude wisdom. The Lapp woman sent her to seek the aid of a more powerful enchantress, but even though the reindeer pleaded Gerda’s case, the Finmark enchantress claimed—much like the Wizard of Oz, another disappointing grown-up—that she had nothing to offer Gerda. “Her power is greater than anything I can give her,” the enchantress explained; “it proceeds from her heart—from her being a loving and innocent child. If this cannot give her access to the Snow Queen’s palace and enable her to pull the splinters out of Kai’s heart and eye, we can do nothing for her.”

Gerda eventually managed to reach the Snow Queen’s realm. Though barefoot and wearing only a summer dress, her prayers sufficed to protect her from the intense cold and cutting winds, not to mention a host of ice monsters. She found Kai in the frozen palace, playing with blocks of ice. Her friend was entirely without feelings: cold, silent, motionless. Gerda was wounded by his aloofness and began to cry. Her tears fell upon Kai’s chest and melted his icy heart, dissolving the splinter of glass. Would that my own wounds could be so easily healed! Tears had no effect upon my mother’s indifference and crying tended to make things worse when she was angry. Of course, I was nowhere near as pure and trusting as Gerda. It wasn’t obvious to everyone because I was quiet and generally polite—our grandmother schooled my sister and me in Old World manners—but my refusal to fill in the circles on the I.Q. test answer sheet was just the tip of the iceberg. At home too, I made my own rules, proud of my ability to look after Judy and myself, wary of even the most well-meaning offers of help or advice.

You never knew when you might have to go it alone. My paternal grandfather had killed himself during the Depression, abandoning his family when my father was still a boy. We didn’t talk about it often, but the knowledge hung there like a threat. Dad loved us without conditions; I never doubted his devotion. In an era when few fathers were involved with child rearing, he gladly took on the responsibility of raising us while working to get his business off the ground. More than one of his former associates has told me how he would walk out of a meeting in order to be on time for some performance of ours. On summer nights, we’d all get in the car and chase the ice cream truck through the neighborhoods of row houses just across the Philadelphia line from our suburban development. Once I was eating a push-up Popsicle and I pushed too hard, sending the tube of ice cream sailing out the car window. “There goes John Glenn!” Dad said. He always knew how to make me laugh in the midst of small disasters.

As Judy and I grew older, Dad worried about Grandmother’s ability to keep up with us. I think he also lacked confidence in his own ability to handle two teenage girls. He tried hiring a live-in governess, who turned out to be nothing like Mary Poppins and didn’t last long; Grandmother claimed that she drank. When I was eleven he remarried and we moved into a large new house with my stepmother and her three children. Taking a generous view, I can see how difficult the situation was, in the late sixties especially. Family therapy was in its infancy and the media barely acknowledged the existence of blended families like ours. There was the von Trapp Family, but Maria didn’t bring any children of her own to the marriage and the need to flee the Nazis soon overshadowed the family’s interpersonal problems. Sanitized sitcoms like “The Brady Bunch” missed the point entirely. The domestic dramas in our household could not be resolved in half an hour and none of those programs was about divorced families.

Fairy tales offered greater insights into our conflicts than television or movies. My stepmother was not wicked, but she did favor her son over my sister and me—and over her own daughters, I should add. Although I did not feel that she wished me ill, neither did she take pride in my accomplishments. It seemed as if there was not enough love to go around in our household. Damaging rivalries developed, many of which persist to this day. I saw myself as an outsider in the family, like Cinderella, and spent as little time as possible at home. I stopped being a problem child at school. In fact, I became a model student, a good girl. But the Finmark enchantress’s words haunted me: only a pure-hearted child had the power to restore lost love. How could I restore my innocence?

When I was thirteen, my mother moved back to Philadelphia with her husband and two-year-old son, my half-brother Mike. Shortly after the birth of my half-brother Rob, she left her husband, an alcoholic, and moved into an apartment near Grandmother’s. I recall an afternoon here, a weekend there, when traces of her illness emerged. Winter days when she kept the shades down in her apartment and never got dressed, letting Mike and Robbie watch television all day and eat cereal out of the box. Screaming arguments with Grandmother over everything and nothing. A trip we all made with an old friend of hers, a woman she’d met years before in the mental hospital, the two of them laughing, drinking, chain-smoking, talking ceaselessly and making no sense, when it seemed like we’d never get home. I still cannot pinpoint the time when our roles reversed, when I took on the burden of being the parent and she became the child.

I imagine another ending to “The Snow Queen” where Gerda finds Kai but cannot melt the splinter of glass in his heart. Despite Hans Christian Andersen’s assurances to the contrary, the power of childhood innocence is tragically overrated. So her friend remains cold and cruel, unreachable, and Gerda is stuck in the frozen palace forever. Or perhaps she never finds him but carries on the search to her dying day, always believing that he was a victim, a prisoner whom she failed to free. I suspect that it makes no difference, whether Gerda found Kai or not, because by the time she reached the Snow Queen’s palace, she had lost the ability to cry. Somewhere in the course of her journey to the barren north, a splinter of glass from that same mirror had pierced her own heart. It is there still.

CAPERUCITA ROJA - ROALD DAHL

CAPERUCITA ROJA

según

ROALD DAHL

Traducción de Sandra Dermark

En cuanto a don Lobo Feroz

le entró un día una gazuza atroz,

llamó a la puerta de la Yaya.

Al abrir, vio la buena anciana

colmillos como bayonetas,

y don Feroz dijo: "¿Me dejas

entrar?" Ella sentía pavor.

"¡Me va a devorar, oh, Señor!"

Por supuesto, tenía razón:

entera él se la zampó.

Pero la Yaya era algo dura,

y gritó el Lobo con locura:

"¡Vaya que un humano tan viejo

no es más que hueso y pellejo!

¡Pues no me siento nada lleno!"

Corriendo fue por la cocina,

gritando fuerte y con inquina:

"¡Necesito un segundo plato!"

Y añadió, por pasar el rato,

en un tono más bien siniestro:

"Ahora ocuparé su puesto

y esperaré a la nietecita,

a que venga Caperucita

de su paseo por la foresta".

Se puso la cofia en la testa,

los quevedos y el camisón,

las zapatillas, con tesón,

y hasta rulos y mucha laca,

antes de tumbarse en la cama.

Entró la niña de escarlata,

se detuvo y le miró fijo,

y, acto seguido, le dijo:

"Abuela, ¡qué orejotas tienes!"

"Para oírte mejor", respondió.

"Abuela, ¡qué ojazos tienes!"

"Para verte mejor", respondió.

Y sonreía el caradura:

"Me zamparé a esta criatura,

que, con la Yaya al comparar,

deberá saber a caviar".

Y dijo Caperucita: "Abuela,

¡qué cacho hermoso abrigo de piel tienes!"

Y don Feroz: "¡Pardiez! ¿Te has olvidado

de que de mi BOCA habrías hablado?

Ahora, no importa lo que digas:

de tí no dejaré ni migas."

Ella sonríe. La fiera traga.

Se saca un Uzi de las bragas

la niña, apunta al entrecejo,

y, ¡PUM!, el travestí cae muerto.

Algo más tarde, en la foresta,

vi a la niña de la cesta...

pero, ¿qué fue de aquella capa

inconfundible y escarlata?

Al saludarme, ella elogió

su abrigo de LOBO FEROZ.

THE DANGER OF WARMTH

The Danger of Warmth 

Under my lids a splinter sharp as his 

Has made me wish you lying dead 

Whose image digs the needle deeper still.

Adrienne Rich, The Snow Queen  

I watch the young man sleeping soundly in my bed. He has broad shoulders, curly black hair, and his eyes, if open, would be a dark blue. His skin is very cool in spite of the bearskin under which he lies; this is due to its recent contact with my flesh, blindingly white and bitterly cold as it is. 
I am the Snow Queen and reign wherever winter holds sway. If I look in a mirror (a normal mirror) I see pale grey eyes surrounded by long lashes of curled icicles, set in a white face framed by sable hair. My mouth walks a strange line between being too full and too thin – it changes depending upon my mood. My age, an impolite thing to discuss, is indeterminate, although something suggests that I am very old, old as the permafrost not so far to the north of my castle. Perhaps it’s the languid ice‐floe movement of my limbs; perhaps it’s the ever‐so‐fine lines at the corners of my eyes, like hairline fractures starting in an iced‐over pond, just before a skater falls through. 
I am far older than this warm‐blooded boy who has shared my bed for almost a year and I still do not understand the urge that compelled me to seek him out. Eight years ago (such a speck of time for me, but span enough for him to grow to manhood), I flew past his window and beckoned. He refused to come. He was a child then, so the annoyance I felt was out of proportion. Sometimes I tell myself it was a thwarted maternal urge, but the rage was too sharp for that, the urge to acquire bit too deeply.   
I sent shards from the shattered mirror (the thing I ordered made, the thing that broke over the icy backs of the mountains, the thing that went into the world as I never imagined it could) to lodge in his heart and eye, so he would think only things of ice and snow beautiful. When he had grown, I went to collect him: he tied his too‐small sled to the back of my sleigh, as the neighbourhood boys did, and off we went, deep into the countryside, until darkness frosted the sky. When we stopped, he unfurled himself from the sled and stared at me, with hostility at first, then with growing wonder. 
‘Come to me, Kai, you’re frozen.’ My voice rang out like crystal chimes. ‘Creep up under my bearskin.’ 
He climbed in beside me and I wrapped him in my white fur, my hands unerringly finding their way under his jacket, sweater, shirt and vest, to the hard planes of his flesh. I pressed my fingers over his heart, feeling the shard that lay there like a beacon. It vibrated, sensing the closeness of the flesh that had given it direction. 
‘This I recognise. This calls to me. This is mine,’ I told him. ‘This is mine, too.’ 
My hand slid lower and I felt him twitch, like a bird surprised in a snowdrift, startled, then hardening. White breath escaped into the frozen air as he gasped. 
‘I love you,’ he said. 
‘I know.’
Now he lies still, exhausted from his labours, my pet, my toy, my frozen youth with snap‐dried freshness. I reach out, tousle his curls, run my hand down his sculptured chest, tracing the thin trail of black hair that leads to a nest and the cock that, for the moment, seems at peace. It reacts to the touch of my hand, instinctive, guiltless, with no loyalty whatsoever. Its owner stirs, settles as I draw my hand away, and begins to snore softly. 
I hate the snoring. It makes me wonder what I see in humans. Still, it has not deterred me from taking refuge in his warmth these past months. But not now; I reach instead for my white bearskin robe, lying at the foot of the bed. 
The ends of the fur are tipped with tiny diamonds; I rub my hands down the robe, feeling the gems against my palms. I wrap my arms around myself, wondering at the desire (for I recognise it as a want, not a need) for warmth. I could just as easily walk naked through a blizzard and suffer no harm, but still I seek warmth or its approximation. I shake the thought from my head and leave the bedchamber. 

*

The door to this room has been shut tight for a week. I have avoided looking into the mirror, avoided seeing what it has to offer. I could not bear to see her, dogged and determined in her red boots, the little rose‐grower, the tenacious mender of shirts, the faithful heart that will not cease. I could not bear to see that still she comes, in spite of every obstacle I have thrown in her path. And she comes for my warm‐bodied boy. 
Once upon a time, when I entered this room, I would mount the dais, carefully placing my narrow feet one in front of the other, sweeping onto the carved throne like a snowbird settling onto her nest. Now, though, that dignity is no longer mine. I push open the heavy door and pad to the edge of the lake, lying smooth as glass, waiting for me. I sink to my knees like a penitent, like a beggar, and feel fear creep up my spine as I force my eyes to seek out the shape that moves in the snowstorm. I have watched her progress for months, addicted to the tale that has unfolded in the surface of this lake. 
She is small, blonde; once she was plump and wore her puppy fat like a blanket. Privation has melted it away. A child when she set out on this quest, now a young woman, ripe and fresh, her breasts, proudly jutting, are surely frozen (does she still feel the tongue of the Little Robber Girl on them? Does it warm their pink tips to think of that wet, cunning tongue? I watched that, too.) Her clothes are rags but the boots, the red boots that Kai made for her before I turned his heart, are sturdy. She comes, tramping frozen‐footed and heavy‐lidded through the sleet. 
From the moment I knew she would come I used all my powers to stop her, distract her, even to simply slow her down so my time with Kai would be extended, stretched, pulled out of true, and somehow endure. From the moment a tremor shuddered through the ground at my feet (when she jumped in the river to drown herself in despair, when the current caught the hint of who she was and sent her hurtling toward my castle), I began to plan, to scheme to keep her away.
The crow, my fine servant, distracted her for a while with a tale of a prince with Kai’s face who had won a princess with clever kisses. That sent her off the track, journeying to the home of the princess, hiding in the bedroom to see the prince who shared the famous bed. But the moment she saw him, she knew he was not Kai, not her Kai, not my Kai. So she set off again. 
The Little Robber Girl, surely, I thought, would keep her. And she wanted to stay. Oh, how Gerda wanted to stay – I could see it in the way she watched her dusky girlfriend, the way she moved in time with those dark fingers, the way she learned so quickly how pleasure can be given and taken at the tip of a long tongue. I relaxed for a while, was certain she would stay on in that warm, secluded cave, but no. After some weeks, she prevailed on her lover to let her go; her duty must be done, her loyalty could not be thrown aside so easily, not even for love. And, weeping, the Little Robber Girl gave Gerda her precious reindeer, and made her promise to come back if Kai no longer wanted her. 
I raged. I brought down a mountain in my anger and (to my shame) placed a jagged fissure at the feet of the reindeer. He broke a leg and Gerda used the pearl‐handled knife the Little Robber Girl had given her and let him bleed out quietly into the snow. It was something I would not have thought her capable of, initially, but watching her for so long I now know it to be entirely in keeping with her character. She is stronger than I would have believed: harder, determined. 
I gave Kai his task, then, his challenge: he was to form the word ‘eternity’ from shards of ice. He was to do it and make it his promise to me – to be with me forever, impermanent being though he might be, my stolen springtime. 
Now, I give her one last look, curling my hands into claws, tearing at the icy ground until I feel a nail, diamond hard, snap. Such a thing should not have happened; but then, none of this should have happened. I should never have decided a human was of paramount importance to me. Keeping him like a pet should not have become a priority. I should never have fallen in love with warmth. 
I rise, clench my fists and turn away. She will be here soon, perhaps within the hour, depending on the storm. I have no power to stop her. She is youth incarnate and he will leave me for her. 

* 

‘I was looking for you.’ 
The door shuts behind me with a hollow sound, a sound of loss, of abandonment. He smiles sleepily and reaches for me. I come to him hungry and fearful, my mouth demanding, my hands possessive. It takes him only a moment to match my need, and the bearskin robe falls to the floor. He lies on the warm fur as I straddle him, his heated flesh penetrates me. I run a hand across his chest, press my fingers to the spot over his heart and wish that I could remove the shard that lives there; and the one in his eye. Remove them so he could see for himself what I am and decide whether to stay or not. When she arrives it will all change; but I want this action to be mine, I want to be the one who gives him a choice. I don’t want him taken from me. Alas, I cannot remove the pieces of my spite for I cannot melt anything. 
I feel liquid heat on my face. Tears are foreign to me so, for a moment, I do not know what is happening. I fear that my skin will melt under this flow, disappearing like snow under a handful of salt. The fluid, not clear but smoky and strange, falls onto Kai’s chest, then into his eyes. He gasps and I see his vision clear; sense that the shards have gone, melted by my tears, by a power I did not know I had. I stare into his eyes, with their veil torn away, steeling myself for what I might see there but refusing to look away. 
His hand reaches up and brushes the sable hair back, then traces the lineaments of my face. ‘Gerda comes,’ I say. I want to shout, to rage, to tell him of her antics with another woman, I want to scream everything I know that may turn him against her. But I do not, though it hurts my heart, I do not. He pauses, his hand slides down to cup one breast then the other with tenderness. 
‘Let her come. I am happy here and she must find her happiness elsewhere.’ He pulls me down, so our lips are close. ‘I will not leave you, my Queen of Snow and Ice.’

UN CUENTO ROCOCÓ CON SORPRESA

UN CUENTO ROCOCÓ CON SORPRESA

A Sonia por su cumpleaños
Que cumpla muchos más
y que siga encantándole leer.

En los tiempos galantes, cuando los nobles y las damas llevaban satén de colores claros y los cabellos empolvados, en aquellos tiempos en que los reyes habitaban en elegantes quintas rodeadas de jardines franceses bien ordenados con sus juegos de agua y sus parques para ir de cacería (lo cual había sido hecho posible por el retorno de la paz, tras treinta largos años de conflicto), había en una de estas mansiones un rey y una reina jóvenes, bellos e inteligentes. Fruto de su amor en aquellos salones fue una única hija, una princesita adorable, y, seis años más tarde, la pequeña tuvo la desgracia de perder a su augusto padre, fulminado por un infarto, como si le hubiera caído un rayo.

La reina viuda asumió la regencia de aquel punto del horizonte, lado del mundo, tierra, reino, lugar, región, provincia, o dilatada extensión de territorios prósperos que le había tocado en suerte. Y, educando a su hija como la heredera que era, fue a buscar por varios puntos del horizonte, lados del mundo, tierras, reinos, lugares, regiones y provincias a los eruditos más expertos en las artes creativas, en historia y cultura, a los más diestros maestros de esgrima, de canto y de danza. Con una plantilla de profesores tan bien escogida, la joven princesa no tardó en estar capacitada para gobernar, mientras su madre, ahora más entrada en años, pensaba en quitarse la corona y dedicarse a su pasión: las labores de costura. Por ahora, la joven se dedicaba a observar los astros, a montar a caballo y a escribir poemas de amor dirigidos a ninguna persona en especial. Hacía falta casar a la princesa Elisabeth, lo antes posible, pero que ella se decantara por un pretendiente no sería una tarea poco difícil.

Las proclamaciones fueron enviadas, a los cuatro u ocho puntos del horizonte, a varios lados del mundo, tierras, reinos, lugares, regiones y provincias, que todo joven de buen parecer podía presentarse en la corte y hablar con la futura reina, y que ella escogería a aquel que le pareciera más encantador.
Oyóse un gran estruendo, y era que venían de todos los lados del mundo los caballeros que combatían y tenían en su brazo la fuerza, cabalgando en caballos vestidos de hierro. Los más bravos venían de la tierra de Francia, en donde había la más terrible lucha, y del reino de Inglaterra, sacudido por la revolución. De todos los lugares venían. De modo que el salón del trono pronto estuvo lleno de uniformes y corazas.
Un Wallenstein bohemio de unos treinta años le presentó las banderas que habían capturado sus ancestros en sangrientos campos de batalla durante el siglo anterior. Un lord cuarentón, ferviente protestante, que era coronel y hermano de armas de Mambrú, le mostró su cara cruzada, su ojo izquierdo de cristal y el garfio que tenía en vez de mano derecha. Un joven teniente prusiano, rubio y lampiño, le explicó cuánto esperaba su bautismo de fuego, entregándole su fino estoque, y que estaría dispuesto a morir por el rey y por la patria (de Prusia, claro). Ningún aparato de potencia y ningún signo de victoria pudieron hacer que Elisabeth hiciese oír su encantadora voz.
Los herederos de los grandes reinos también se presentaron: el zarévich de todas las Rusias, un bastardo del rey de los franceses... pero el más renombrado fue un pretendiente de latitudes más cálidas, de rizos como la medianoche y tez como el cobre. Su carroza y sus vestidos y todo él estaban adornados con las perlas de su reino, las cuales despiden aromas excelentísimos como las más olorosas flores, y son las preferidas de las hadas madrinas. De los más remotos lugares, él había traído un vestido también decorado con perlas en forma de signos del zodíaco, y dos docenas de eunucos morenos y lampiños tan frágiles como muchachas.
Un catedrático de Uppsala, cuatro ojos y treintañero, le trajo la mariposa diurna más grande que había podido encontrar: era tan grande como una hoja de arce.
Ninguno de ellos logró ser el elegido de ella o despertarla al amor, como ellos lo habían sido desde sus países lejanos. Eso sí, ella aceptó el vestido y sólo dos de los eunucos como lacayos, así como el estoque del teniente y las banderas del Friedländer.

Del lado del país de las hadas llegó entonces una gran carroza en donde maravillosos liristas hacían sonar sus liras, y jóvenes hermosas agitaban palmas en una alta figura de mujer; con grandioso decoro extendían dos alas como un ángel, y tenían cerca de sus labios, asido con la diestra, un largo clarín. Y la princesa miró el carro glorioso y dijo tres palabras:
-Son tan hermosos...

Así que los ocupantes del carro glorioso fueron invitados a la corte, a quedarse en una de las alas del palacio real. Al preguntarle a la princesa qué clase de poemas querían que recitara, ella les contestó:
- Los herederos de los grandes reinos y los más bellos mancebos no han conseguido más que la amistad de Su Alteza. La fuerza no puede calmar mi sed de amores: tampoco me he conmovido ante el desfile de los conquistadores que han pasado cubiertos de hierro, con sus enormes hachas y espadas, semejantes por su fortaleza a los invisibles caballeros de los truenos.
La fuerza y la guerra no le interesaban mucho, ella prefería escuchar los poemas sobre signos del zodíaco y galanes seducidos por hadas que los autores a quienes la Casa Real patrocinaba le habían escrito.
- Es la gloria, cuyas palmas conozco y he escuchado resonar en el más espléndido y admirable de los carros triunfales. No estoy mintiendo para adularos... ¿no podéis ver en mis ojos la chispa de la verdad?
Y en sus ojos se reflejaban, en efecto, destellos que delataban que era sincera.

Los ocupantes del más espléndido de los carros triunfales representaron, en el Teatro Real, una historia de amores y malentendidos: "La condesa de Toggemburgo", que decían ser la leyenda original que había inspirado a Shakespeare para su Otelo. La hicieron como una ópera, con canto y danza hasta el final. Aunque hubiera escenas de combate, éstas eran pocas, y se mostraba el conflicto como un azote irracional. Y Elisabeth quedó fascinada por la gracia y la apostura del joven lirista que interpretaba a Konrad, el Cassio de turno. Se emocionó y quedó cautivada por las penas que pasaba el mancebo desde su caída en desgracia hasta su feliz redención. Entre bastidores, felicitó al lirista Astrid por su sorprendente Konrad y se prepararon juntos para la gran fiesta galante que sucedería a continuación. Ya las damas y los sirvientes hablaban de un enlace seguro.

El sol se estaba poniendo entre suaves nubes rosas dignas de abrazar.
Y surgió durante el festín, a la luz del sol poniente, reflejada en el champán que burbujea como una disolución de topacios hirvientes, reflejada la luz de un sol agonizante en las copas de cristal de Bohemia y las jarras donde espumea el vino que embriaga sin dar fortaleza. Ya habían servido la tarta, las castañas glaseadas y los macarons, todo regado con transparente eau-de-vie que, una vez dentro, parecía fuego líquido. Los más irascibles, a pesar de ello, se contenían para no perturbar la alegría general.
Allí estaban los oficiales con sus galonados uniformes, y las damas con sus mejores tocados, todos vestidos a la moda. La reina madre enlutada en un trono forrado de satén negro medianoche. Y, en un rincón del salón, la princesa y su Astrid, con chaleco verde y peluca empolvada. Una suave declaración de la augusta joven, antes de volver al minué: "Te quiero".
Su otra mitad, de suaves mejillas encendidas ligeramente por la intoxicación etílica, responde que hay una verdad que las dos tienen que saber. Un corazón ebrio está demasiado alegre como para atender a razones. ¿Qué será ese secreto que ahora saldrá a la luz en el tête-à-tête?
- En realidad, no soy varón. Soy una contralto a quien, por su voz y su aspecto físico, le toca interpretar papeles masculinos, y siempre ser el héroe joven o el muchacho inocente.
A Elisabeth no le importaba en absoluto lo que fuera Astrid en realidad. Tras persuadir a su augusta madre, que ya estaba para quitarse la corona, la princesa se casó con la contralto en las capillas reales. El celebrante no tuvo reparos ni se opuso tampoco a entregar su bendición a las dos novias.
Ya que no podían tener descendencia, adoptaron a tres hijos (de los cuales dos eran niñas) de una rama menor de la Casa Real. Durante varias décadas, hasta el fatídico año en que, al caer la Bastilla, salieron al paso de la eternidad, vivieron felices y en paz en aquella región, entonces llamada "el reino de las dos reinas".