B008AITH44 EBOK (64 page)

In order to see the imperial private rooms, Schratt needed Elisabeth’s intervention. It was the Empress herself who took her “friend” to her husband’s quarters for the first time. Franz Joseph to Schratt: “How happy I am to show you my rooms and show you the inside of that certain window on which you have so often been gracious enough to direct your glance from the outside.”
¹²

To see each other at all, the couple had agreed on specific times when Schratt was to walk across the Burgplatz. On those occasions, she would always look up at the window behind which the Emperor stood and greeted her politely. For a long time, this was the only opportunity, aside from performances at the Burgtheater, for the Emperor to see his beloved.

If we recall how jealously, with what deep disappointment, the young Elisabeth greeted the escapades of the young Emperor, how she had let herself be carried away by almost hysterical attacks and precipitately fled the family circle, we will realize how fundamentally the situation had
changed. What linked the two had long ago ceased to be love. Elisabeth felt compassion for the lonely man with whom she no longer wished to live or could live. She proved to be a good and generous friend, acting in extremely tactful ways. On Schratt’s name day in November 1887, for example, Franz Joseph wrote to his friend, “This day I dined alone with the Empress and Valerie and was astonished to see champagne glasses on the table, since normally we do not allow ourselves the luxury of this wine. The Empress explained that she had ordered the champagne so that we could drink to your good health, which then occurred most sincerely. This was a successful and charming surprise.”
¹³

Thus, the love story between the Emperor and the actress could unfold. In February 1888, a mutual declaration was made, and the Emperor issued an assurance to Frau Schatt: “You say that you will control yourself, so will I, though it will not always be easy for me, for I do not wish to do anything that is not right, I love my wife and do not wish to abuse her trust and her friendship for you.”
¹⁴

With a clear conscience, Franz Joseph dispelled all Schratt’s fears that the Empress might hold something against her. “The Empress has … repeatedly expressed herself in the most favorable and gracious terms about you, and I can assure you that she is very fond of you. If you knew this wonderful woman better, you would, I am certain, be filled with the same sentiments.”
¹⁵

Elisabeth did everything in her power to show her sympathies, as when Schratt suffered from some indisposition. Franz Joseph to Frau Schratt: “The Empress is very worried about you, she even claims more than I am, but that is positively untrue. Whenever I go to her room, she asks me for the latest news of you, and I cannot always oblige her, since I cannot be so brash and importunate as to constantly send for news of you.”
¹⁶
On another occasion, he wrote, “The Empress, too, was shocked at your ride yesterday, and keeps admonishing me that I alone will have to bear the blame should you fall seriously ill.”
¹⁷
And again, “The Empress would urge you not to take any cold sea baths at this time of year, instead she recommends baths of warm sea water and then rinsing with cold.”
¹⁸

*

Elisabeth’s strong support of her husband’s love affair did not mean that she found Katharina Schratt as likable and lovable as Franz Joseph assured Schratt. In her poems, Elisabeth struck up a richly complacent tone. If her husband’s infatuation did not rouse her to jealousy, it nevertheless gave rise to mockery. Franz Joseph’s frequent infatuated questions about the
whereabouts
of his friend at any particular time occasionally strained Elisabeth’s
nerves. Franz Joseph to Katharina Schratt: “The Empress thinks that it may be an honor to be my friend, but
assomant
[sic; immensely boring] because of my constant inquiries about your whereabouts.”
¹⁹

When Prince Albert of Thurn und Taxis was visiting the imperial family at the Hermes Villa, he saw, in the Emperor’s apartments, a portrait of Schratt, whom he did not know.

Elisabeth, lightly: “How do you like this one?”

Taxis: “She looks horribly common.”

Bright laughter from the Empress greeted this declaration, and even the Emperor could not help joining in, whether he felt like it or not.
²⁰

From this time on, Elisabeth’s poems no longer referred to Emperor Franz Joseph only by the name of Oberon (the counterpart to her Titania; she also called him King Visvamitra. This was the name of a legendary Indian king who loved a cow (Sabala), and as such the name also occurs in Heine.

As early as August 1888, Katharina Schratt came to Bad Ischl to join the Emperor and Empress. Twenty-year-old Archduchess Marie Valerie recorded her disapproval in her diary. “In the afternoon, Mama, Papa, and I showed Frau Schratt the garden … she is truly simple and likable, nevertheless I bear her a kind of grudge, although it is not her fault that Papa has this friendship with her, but wicked people talk about it and cannot believe the childlike view Papa takes of the matter, how touching he is even in this. But he is someone one should never talk about—I feel bad about it, and I think for this reason, Mama should not have encouraged this acquaintance so much.”
²¹

But even Marie Valerie clearly saw how much good the friendship with Katharina Schratt did the Emperor. “She is so easygoing that finally one cannot help feeling comfortable—I understand that her calm, very natural ways are attractive to Papa.”
²²

After the tragedy at Mayerling, Franz Joseph’s friendship with Katharina Schratt proved to be a true blessing, especially for Elisabeth, who now attempted to get away from Vienna entirely. Schratt relieved the Empress of her feelings of guilt and her worry about the deeply afflicted Emperor. Schratt had become the only bright spot in his sad life. Elisabeth to her sister-in-law Marie José: “I must get away. But to leave Franz alone—impossible. And yet—he has Schratt—she looks after him as no one else does and watches over him.” And: “With Schratt he can relax.”
²³

Harmless chatter in Schratt’s increasingly elegant parlor, a little warmth and human feeling, of which the Emperor had had so little until then; no philosophical discourses, no spiritualism and no poetry; instead, extremely
worldly, uncomplicated, and undemanding topics, over breakfast with coffee and croissants. These are what gave the Emperor comfort and provided him with distraction during the next few years.

In 1889, Schratt settled in Vienna in a house next to the park at Schönbrunn, and she bought a villa in Bad Ischl adjacent to the imperial summer residence. According to Franz Joseph, this had “the advantage of nearness, which makes it possible, with your permission, for me to visit you much more often, the Empress also wishes to give to you the key to the little door through which you can arrive in our garden without having to go through the streets of Ischl.”
²⁴

By this time, Marie Valerie understood the true situation. She held it very much against her mother that the Empress promoted the relationship. “Oh, why did Mama herself go so far! … but of course, now one cannot and may not change anything, I must, although it embarrasses Franz [her fiancé], meet with her [Schratt] again and not give away my feelings.”
²⁵
The very religious and puritanical young Archduchess looked on with disapproval as her own mother over and over invited the actress to visit and appeared in public with her—with and without the Emperor’s
company
—in order to present the relationship as innocent and honorable.

Katharina Schratt was even granted the great privilege of dining rather frequently at the Hofburg with the most immediate family—that is, with only the Emperor, the Empress, and Archduchess Marie Valerie. The Empress, who refused more than ever to take part in the official court dinners, and who, above all, contemptuously ignored the court nobility, thus left herself wide open to criticism. An actress at a Habsburg family table—such a thing had never before been seen. The fact that Katharina Schratt was not a single woman but was married further fed the gossip at this Catholic court.

Archduchess Marie Valerie suffered true torments during these dinners. “Frau Schratt dined with us (we were four), took a walk with us, and remained until evening. I cannot say how embarrassing such afternoons are for me, how incomprehensible that Mama finds them rather cozy.”
²⁶

Singular as it may sound, to Elisabeth, her husband’s love for Katharina Schratt was a reassurance—even, on occasion, a pleasure. In late 1890, for example, she wrote to Valerie, “One must not look forward to anything nor expect anything good. Life has enough bitter pain. But Poka [the Hungarian word for “turkey,” a code name for Franz Joseph] is happy tonight, I have invited his friend for 6:30 to Ida’s to tell her a few travel memories. And today we went for a walk in Schönbrunn. It is so good
finally to see a happy face in this dark, sad, and abandoned castle, and tonight Poka is truly merry as a lark.”
²⁷

Then, too, the couple had something to talk about with one another at last, and Elisabeth could reassure her daughter on the subject of marital harmony. “It works, since almost always we talk only about the friend or the theater.”
²⁸

On the other hand, Franz Joseph and Frau Schratt also found much to say to each other about Elisabeth. The Emperor was constantly concerned and often did not even know where his wife, away on one of her
far-ranging
travels, happened to be. Franz Joseph to Katharina Schratt in 1890: “How happy I would be if I could talk over my fears for the Empress with you and find comfort with you.”
²⁹
Elisabeth regularly sent her regards to Schratt, as she did, for example, from Arcachon. Franz Joseph wrote to Frau Schratt that the Empress “desires me to send you the enclosed card, since she thinks the sight of it might tempt you to go to Arcachon—but not just now, I hasten to add.”
³⁰
The Emperor had noticed how much his friend imitated his wife, and he correctly feared that Katharina Schratt, too, would now want to travel, hardly ever returning to Vienna.

*

The friendship with Schratt created some problems as well. The actress’s huge gambling debts and her other enormous expenses were not the trouble. Franz Joseph paid up gladly, just as he was used to doing for his wife. But Katharina Schratt’s friends kept asking her to intercede for them with the Emperor. And most of the time, she did not wait to be asked. The management of the Burgtheater ran into no end of trouble, too; for unless Schratt was agreeable, few parts could be assigned or plays chosen.

The German ambassador, Prince Eulenburg (who was smart enough to maintain a good, even friendly relationship with Schratt, promptly
arousing
the Emperor’s jealousy), wrote to Emperor Wilhelm II in 1896: “Of course, she is the absolute monarch of the theater, and when she arrives, all of them, not excluding the manager, fall to their knees.” Stella
Hohenfels,
a highly regarded actress, was eager to leave Vienna to escape the constant slights offered by Schratt—as was her husband, Alfred Berger, the Burgtheater’s director. Eulenburg: “It is an extremely odd situation! As I have heard, old friends of Frau Kathi push themselves forward more and more, and this influence makes itself unpleasantly felt among the court administration.” But then he pointed out the principal problem. “Baron Kiss—Kathi’s husband—is a further inconvenience. He was sent to Venezuela, where he is terribly bored. He urgently wishes to return to
Europe, which is all the more understandable as all his debts have been paid up. It would have been smarter to omit that step.”
³¹

In 1892, Toni Kiss, Schratt’s son, who was twelve years old at the time, received an anonymous letter with defamatory statements about his mother and her relations with the Emperor. The police were unable to identify the author. Everyone was upset. Once again, the Empress interceded; she invited little Toni to visit her in the imperial residence in Bad Ischl, walked with him in the garden, and spoke “most lovingly of his mother, how fond she was of her, how well she thought of her, and how he must love and respect her, and that only evil people could think up such lies.” For years, she had the court bakery send pastries and sweets to the boy, in still another effort to prove her affection for mother and son, as a further precaution against gossip.
³²

In spite of extreme caution and good will on the part of the Empress, such a love affair could not go wholly unnoticed. In 1889, Count Hübner wrote: