章節 9: Christmas (2)
Austria, December 25th 1788
2:52 PM
'Where did I get the idea that my household was depressed from?' Lukas questioned as he sat on Frida's lap and she chuckled while she listened to a noble's story.
Lukas was received very well by every noble in there, specially the ones from the Von Neumann house. Lukas confessed that he was kinda skeptical about the noble's reactions to have a baby in their party, but babies apparently are very well-regarded among nobles.
'Maybe because we are gonna be nobles in the future? I mean, we already are, but we kinda of are still not completely... you know what? Whatever!'
Lukas pouted as he couldn't finish his reasoning properly and decided to analyze the people sitting at a table, they were all very well-dressed and most of them were quite good-looking.
He could see Helen and Mia sitting on their chairs and even though most nobles there were stunning, the young girls' beauty still stood out.
Even though the party was very pleasant to the eyes, the same couldn't be said to the nose. Once Frida put her foot in the room of the party with Lukas, the young boy started tearing up, the huge blend of perfumes and toilet water that invaded his nostrils was enough to make him want to throw up.
'I did notice that mother was wearing a strong perfume, the same goes for the other two girls, but this mix of everyone's perfumes really makes me nauseous!'
Despite the unpleasant scent, Lukas enjoyed to be flattered by all the nobles. He was filled with compliments.
'I know most of them were quite made-up, but I still wanna enjoy them! I don't care!'
After looking around a bit more, Lukas noticed that neither Karl nor Elias were there, which made Lukas remember another thing.
'According to what I have heard, there are many people from the Von Neumann house here, but I don't see anybody from the Hügel house! Why is it?'
Lukas sighed.
'I don't have enough information to think about something, I only know that the two members of the Hügel house that live here hate the Von Neumann house, but still, one of them married one of its members!'
Lukas still didn't know exactly what a marriage is, he only knows that it's some ceremony where you bound yourself to another person.
'Shouldn't you at least be able to bear that person in order to bound yourself to them?'
Although Lukas's head was filled with doubts, a conversation that was happening at the table managed to give him some answers.
"My daughter is already engaged to Duke Müller! This is a great accomplishment for the Terzaghi house!"
"Really? A duke?! Wow! That's indeed amazing, Mr Terzaghi! Your house will be able to go up a lot in the hierarchy!"
As Lukas heard that conversation, a few things started to fit inside his head.
Marriage was something meant not just to bound people, but also to bound entire noble houses? That's why it was so important to get married to someone powerful!
'Still, duke? What's that? I wonder if it's some kind of position? A pretty strong one apparently.'
Lukas still wasn't very familiar to this kind of political words, he wanted to learn to read as soon as possible in order to boost his knowledge in words of the kind, but it was much harder than it seemed.
Actually, it was pretty much impossible to deduct all the sounds of the words by yourself! You'd need someone to read it to you for you to be able to start.
'I don't know how to make other people understand that I want them to read me the book. Actually, it doesn't even make sense! Why would a baby who supposedly doesn't understand the language want to have a book read to him? I have to think about another plan!'
As Lukas zoned out, a noble man took a rolled paper out of his purse and showed it to some other people.
"See. This is my family tree. All the members of my noble house are perfectly married to each other."
Lukas raised his brow.
'Are you barging about that? By the way, family tree? Does it, like, show all your relatives? Wow, I wonder if there's something like that in my family.
By the way, what does he mean with it? "All the members of my noble house are perfectly married to each other."? It only means that his position in the hierarchy isn't going up! Unless his position in the hierarchy is already very high up.'
While a noble house that is very down in the hierarchy goes up when one of its members married a noble who's more high up, the noble who's high up in the hierarchy can also go down a bit. Anyway, that's all speculation for now, but that's a very good explanation for this situation, they don't marry anyone who's not from the same house because they don't wanna go down in the hierarchy.
Also, although that's a pretty good idea, does that mean they marry members of their own family? That's pretty weird, but I guess that doesn't cause any harm to anyone. I doubt that the Von Neumann or the Hügel house have practiced that kind of stuff already. Not just because I'm not a child of the same house, but also because I don't think they're powerful enough for that. I wonder which is more powerful? The Hügel house or the Von Neumann?'
When Lukas stopped his thinking, he glanced at Frida who was talking to a noble man.
"Really? My Lukas also knows how to draw! He's very good at it!"
The noble nodded his head with a curious look.
"Seriously?! He's so young! Can you show me, Mrs. Von Neumann?!"
Frida hummed for a bit and then she shrugged.
"I don't know, it's him who decides whether or not he draws."
The noble chuckled.
"Well, well, that's not a problem! Let's just let him decide then."
He glanced at one of his servants on his side.
"Please, bring me some sheets of paper, okay?"
The servant nodded and left.
Lukas raised his brow.
"I wonder if he even knows where the sheets of paper are."
For Lukas's surprise, after a moment, the servant appeared holding some sheets of paper. He put them on a small table in front of the armchair where the noble was sitting and he nodded.
"Thank you, Thomas."
'F*ck you, Thomas!'
Lukas cursed mentally as he didn't know what to do, he couldn't just draw some impressive things in a huge noble party! It could be dangerous to him!
'Ok, calm down! Mum wouldn't say it unless it was safe... right?'
Frida placed Lukas on the table in front of the sheets of paper and a quill and pot by him. He took a deep breath and took the quill.
'Sh*t! Did they notice the deep breath! Calm down, Lukas! Just do what you usually do!'
Lukas started roaming the quill around the sheet of paper as he started drawing. His drawings were still not perfect, it's not the same thing as drawing a regular geometric shape. This kind of drawing demands a lot more of skill.
'I already know what I'm going to draw. It's not very complex, but it's still impressive for a baby... well, that's pretty much everything, right?'
Lukas decided to draw a quill and pot, he usually draws much more complex things, but he didn't want to stand out that much.
'I like being flattered, but there are limits! I don't know what will happen if I draw something very complex.'
This was a very interesting strategy Lukas had thought of, not just wouldn't he show that much of a skill because that was a very simple drawing but also wouldn't he show that he has such a good memory for an infant.
He had overheard that babies' memory usually is horrible, so he decided to just draw things that were around him, so it wouldn't be so strange.
As Lukas finished his drawings, the noble looked at his drawing in admiration, that was quite a sketch for an infant.
"Wow, amazing! Your child sure has talent!"
Frida smiled begrudgingly as she nodded.
"Yes, but I would like you not to tell it to everyone, I don't want Lukas to be pressured for being so much talented."
Lukas raised his brow.
'Then why did you even tell him I know how to draw? You are kinda impulsive, you know?'
The noble raised his brow too but then he nodded his head.
"Very well, Mrs. Von Neumann, I shall not tell it to anyone. But if you have a hard time finding an engagement for him, I have some girls about his age in my house."
'What?! Are you kidding me?! I am literally a baby! And you want to engage me to someone already?!'
Frida nodded her head as she smiled brightly.
"Very well, I'll take that in consideration. And thank you, Mr. Althann."
'I give up. Apparently these people do this kind of stuff all the time and I don't like it at all!'
Another noble woman appeared and decided to join the three nobles there.
"Matthäus! There you are! Oh, Mrs. Von Neumann, I do apologize I had not seen you."
Frida shook her head.
"Not at all. How are you, Mrs. Althann?"
'Is that woman his wife? Well, they apparently are from the same house, so they are probably related.'
"Hello, Anja! I was talking to Mrs. Von Neumann about the possibility of Lukas marrying one of the girls of our house."
Anja smiled.
"Really? That would be great! Despite the polemics that appeared recently, I still admire the Von Neumann house very much!"
'Polemics?! What polemics?! I wanna know god damnit!'
Frida was a bit taken aback by that statement, but she still smiled and nodded her head.
"Thank you very much, Mrs. Althann!"
Anja sighed and then looked at Lukas.
"Well, but I can see that it won't be easy to marry Lukas, just by looking at him right now, I can see he will be a huge heartbreaker!"
'What does that even mean?'
Despite Lukas already being very familiarized with the world he was living in, he was still very naive with a lot of things, specially with romantic ones.
Frida nodded.
"I agree."
"Speaking of that. Where is his father?", Matthäus asked.
Frida showed a sad expression.
"Oh, Elias? Neither he nor his brother are feeling very well, so they didn't come."
Lukas frowned with his mother's statement.
'Why doesn't that story convince me? It's too convenient! They were pretty fine yesterday and they suddenly feel bad on a day where they'll see a lot of members of the Von Neumann house?'
Matthäus nodded his head.
"I see. What a shame."
Frida nodded back as she looked at her feet.
"Indeed."
-----
Austria, 25th December 1788
5:34 PM
'It's finally over!', Lukas finally sighed as all the invited nobles were leaving the mansion. Lots of them lived far away, so they needed to leave "early".
'"Early" my ass! It's about time for me to sleep!'
Although the party was pretty enjoyable due to the lots of information Lukas got about his world, he got tired of it pretty quick. He had started feeling sleepy.
He only felt better when Helen and Mia met him again and started filling Lukas with cuddles, of course, he never showed that he was enjoying it at all.
'I also have my principles!'
Frida, who was holding Lukas looked down at him and said:
"It's bed time, honey!"
'About time! And I want a bath first!'
Frida called another servant to take care of Lukas since Olivia was very busy with the cleaning of the room of the party.
"Please, Sarah, give him a bath and then put him to sleep, okay?"
Sarah nodded as she smiled.
"Very well, Mrs. Von Neumann, I'll do it right away."
"Thank you very much."
Sarah picked Lukas and looked at his cute face.
"It's bath time, young master!"
'Finally! I'm so tired I could die!'
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