"Grand Coesre's Sekret"
- English translation -
by Nicolai F. Brecht Romanow
Chapter 1: On pig hunt
I.
My youth ended abruptly when I was just eleventh years old, in the year 1672. In late autumn, at vindage time, my father was busy in foreign country to forster his military career, but my mother had gathered her entire family in my parents chateau, being one of the most popular meeting place for ladies and gentlemen of our small province, it was a charming and warm society which shared my parents’ house.
Especially one gentleman from the neighborhood, closely related to the house de la Force , showed up remarkably often.. He loved my mother, she had not lost her attractions during her marriage. Instead the marriage had increased the power and brilliance given to her by nature. And – in addition to that – she was one of those gallant ladies of her times, who were – while not being unfaithful to her spouse – ready to nurture passions and hopes to her lovers, which were never intended to be favored or true.
He, on his side however, was foolhardy enough to think that he might see a fulfilling of his passions if he would finally find her alone at some time.
And this opportunity presented itself during a hunting party , which started in the evening und was extended into the next morning,.
II
Pig hunting was the subject of the day.
The amoureuse Cavalier had chosen to himself a post between two forests, were pig hunting opportunities were to occur not very likely. So he hoped to enjoy the freedom to pull himself back to our Chateau , while his hunting compangnions would have hold out in the dark until dawn . That planning was right and thus he could give his other hunting ambitions a new direction and preference.
He stole himself past the kitchen without being noticed by the small crowd of domestics , and thus entered the apartment, to which my mother’s bedchamber was directly adjacent .
Initially he listened at her door, making sure she was alone in her space – and – he was lucky. Because my mother was about to send her maid away, far away to a remote property on our vineyard.
Her intension was – the girl should enjoy the annual wine festival at that place and my mother had asked her to bring back a basket of fresh grapes on the next morning – for breakfast. Thus, the young confidant was gone and the villain took advantage of the favorable moment, slipped into her inner sanctum , found her in a very casual state , not realizing that I – prevented from the hunt by a malaise – was resting in an adjoining bedchamber. And thus I was the victim and temoin of all that conversation which was going on between that monster and my mother, which could not be overheared.
