B008AITH44 EBOK (63 page)

 

I
t was at a gala performance of the Vienna municipal theater on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Franz Joseph’s assumption of the throne, in December 1873, that the Emperor Franz Joseph, with the Empress by his side, first saw Katharina Schratt, at that time twenty years old; she was playing the popular part of Katherina in
The
Taming
of
the
Shrew.

He did not see the actress again for ten years. In that time, she worked in Berlin and St. Petersburg. In 1879, she married Nikolaus von Kiss von Ittebe, a Hungarian estate owner and subsequent consul; she had a son, Anton (Toni); and eventually she separated from her husband, who was never out of debt, but did not divorce him.

In 1883, Schratt, the daughter of a baker in Baden near Vienna, had
reached the high point of her acting career: She was engaged for the Imperial and Royal Hofburgtheater. Even her debut was a huge success. She played the ingenue, Lorle, in the play
Dorf
und
Stadt
(Village and Town) by Birch-Pfeiffer, now lost. Valerie, on November 27, 1883: “A new one by the name of Schratt played Lorle, she is very beautiful but not as charming as Wessely.”

It was the custom for a new actress to thank the Emperor personally for her engagement. The Burgtheater, after all, was part of
the court and was subsidized by private imperial funds. Several anecdotes are told about this first meeting between the fifty-three-year-old Emperor and the
thirty-year-
old Katharina Schratt. According to Heinrich Benedikt, Katharina Schratt had been extremely shy and unsure of herself; before the audience with the Emperor, she had asked one of her friends, Paul Schulz, for advice on how to comport herself. In the patent office, of which Paul Schulz was president, she painstakingly rehearsed her performance. She sat down in an armchair and recited the words she had memorized. “Your Majesty is so gracious….”

Schulz interrupted. “You must not cross your legs, you may not even sit down. You must stand and say your piece after you make your court courtsey.”

Thus prepared, Schratt set off for her imperial audience.

Katharina: “Your Majesty is so gracious—”

The Emperor: “My dear lady, won’t you have a seat?”

Katharina: “I thank Your Majesty. Your Majesty is so gracious—”

The Emperor: “But why won’t you be seated?”

Katharina: “Paul Schulz won’t let me.”

The Emperor’s laughter is said to have rung out all the way to the antechamber, to the utter astonishment of the adjutants, footmen, and many of those waiting for their audiences, all of whom were totally
unaccustomed
to such sounds from their Emperor.
¹

This anecdote may or may not be absolutely truthful; whatever the case, Schratt made an impression on Franz Joseph. She lost her shyness and a short time later reported for another audience. This time she came as her husband’s emissary, on a financial matter. It was the first of many, many requests for money in the decades that followed—but probably the only one that was refused. Frau von Kiss, née Schratt, came to beg the Emperor for indemnification for the Hungarian estates of the Kiss family. After the Revolution of 1848, the estates had been confiscated and not returned until 1867. Now the family wished the income lost during the years of
confiscation
to be restored. Franz Joseph was unable to grant this request, like
others of the same sort. Instead, he referred Frau von Kiss to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Count Koloman Tisza.
²

It was soon noticed that the Emperor attended the Burgtheater more frequently than had been his habit—more particularly, that he did not miss a single play in which Schratt appeared. She became something like his favorite actress. Visits to the Burgtheater had always been one of the few pleasures the Emperor allowed himself—often attending several times a week. He did not have to use a carriage, for the old Burgtheater was connected to the Hofburg. (It stood on what is today St. Michael’s Square.) Whenever he felt the need for entertainment, he simply walked the short distance. Nor did he have to keep to a rigid timetable, for he could enter the imperial box at any time, without being seen by the audience, and leave again the same way.

A further personal encounter between the Emperor and his favorite actress did not take place for a long time. At the Industrialists’ Ball of 1885 the Emperor first engaged Schratt in conversation at some length. He therefore said more to her than his usual brief courtesies—a situation that was immediately noted and provided food for gossip.

In August 1885, Schratt was one of four performers summoned to entertain at the highly political meeting at Kremsier with the Czar and Czarina of Russia (
see here
). Defying all court customs, after their performance the artists were invited to an intimate dinner with the
Emperor,
the Empress, the Czar, the Czarina, both crown princes, and all ministers present. On this occasion, Katharina Schratt was presented to the Empress for the first time. It is quite possible that it was Elisabeth who instigated this highly unorthodox invitation in order to meet Schratt. Crown Prince Rudolf, in any case, found the situation unusual enough to write to his wife about it in somewhat circumspect and cautious tones: “at eight o’clock the theater, then supper with Wolter, Schratt, and Fräulein Wessely; it was strange.”
³

One thing was certain: The Emperor had fallen in love. The Empress, far from being jealous, promoted the potential relationship. It is even probable that the Emperor’s infatuation, so far quite innocent, with the married woman more than twenty years his junior might never have grown into anything more without Elisabeth’s very active support.

The Emperor’s constant solitude, even isolation, was evident. As we know from her poems, Elisabeth suffered pangs of guilt on this account. On the other hand, the marriage was shattered. The Emperor and Empress no longer had anything to say to each other. The embarrassing tedium of
family meetings was confirmed by all witnesses, including Countess
Festetics
and Countess Fürstenburg as well as Marie Valerie.

Elisabeth was determined to live for her own interests. But first she wanted to make certain that the two people she cared about—her husband and her favorite daughter—were safe and to know that they were not alone. During this time, she looked hard for a husband for Valerie, and she sought a companion or friend for Emperor Franz Joseph.

Ladies of the aristocracy were out of the question. First, any of these might eventually pose a serious danger to the Empress; second, most of them were related to so many members of the court that political
insinuation
and influence might easily result, an outcome no one—the Emperor least of all—could want.

Katharina Schratt was selected after long and careful consideration—by none other than the Empress herself. In the past, Franz Joseph had become involved with a number of other women without the Empress’s coming to his aid and smoothing the path. Whatever her reasons, in May 1886, Elisabeth took the initiative and decided to give the Emperor a portrait of Katharina Schratt—a fairly straightforward gesture. Heinrich von
Angeli
was commissioned to do the painting, and the Empress arranged a meeting in his studio.

The Emperor wrote to Angeli, “With the permission of the Empress, I should like to come to your studio tomorrow at one o’clock to see the painting of Frau Schratt, which you are painting for me on her commission.”
⁴

Elisabeth did one thing more: She, who always shied away from all meetings with strangers, accompanied the Emperor to the studio. There they came upon the unsuspecting Schratt posing for Angeli.

Elisabeth’s presence robbed this crucial meeting of any embarrassment. In this way, she made herself into the guardian of her husband’s love.

Two days later, the Emperor sent Schratt an emerald ring to thank her “for having gone to the trouble of posing for Angeli. Once again, I must assure you that I would not have allowed myself to request this sacrifice from you and that my joy at this dear gift is therefore all the greater. Your devoted admirer.”
⁵

Franz Joseph was a very shy, somewhat helpless suitor, always finding reasons to apologize for some trifle. Schratt, for her part, was a woman of experience who knew her way around men, especially men in high places, and who learned in an astonishingly short time how to treat the Emperor: with respect, but quite without formality. Franz Joseph to
Katharina Schratt: “If one has so much work, so many cares, so much heartache as I do, a casual, frank, and cheerful talk is a true joy, and that is why the moments I am allowed to spend with you are so infinitely precious to me.”
⁶

In July 1886, the Emperor called on Schratt for the first time in her home, Villa Frauenstein near St. Wolfgang. Elisabeth knew of the visit. Scarcely a week later, she herself drove out to Lake Wolfgang. She took along Archduchess Marie Valerie, who knew nothing of the circumstances. Valerie captured this visit in her diary, writing about the actress, “she showed us the pretty house she has rented … darling and natural, and spoke very untheatrically, awfully Viennese. We came back by steamboat with money we borrowed from Frau Schratt.”
⁷

Obviously, Elisabeth’s discretion was such that she did not take a lady-in-waiting on this visit. This highly unusual situation left her in the difficult position of suddenly finding herself without the fare for the steamer. The ladies-in-waiting always did all the paying, and Elisabeth never carried money.

Katharina Schratt received a few more imperial visits that summer, some paid by the Emperor and Empress jointly. In this way, Schratt officially advanced to the position of “friend of the Empress.”

Small courtesies followed: Marie Valerie gave her father photographs of Katharina Schratt to put in the villa in Lainz. Elisabeth commissioned another portrait of Schratt; Franz Matsch painted the actress in Franz Joseph’s favorite role, Frau Wahrheit, in a very light, popular comedy.
⁸
It became a Christmas gift to the Emperor, intended for his rooms in Elisabeth’s Hermes Villa. In one of her poems, Elisabeth lightly mocked her husband’s—“Oberon’s”—besotted eagerness because he looked at this portrait as often as possible.

Schratt gave the Emperor a four-leaf clover, and on March 1, 1887, she brought violets to Schönbrunn for the Empress and Marie Valerie, meant to bring good luck. She repeated the gesture every subsequent year. Marie Valerie wrote in her diary, “1st act of the
Hüttenbesitzer
[The Hut Owner], and from our bench we winked at the beautiful Claire [the role played by Schratt].”
⁹
(“From our bench” indicates that Elisabeth had chosen to sit on a bench in the furthermost corner of the imperial box in the Burgtheater, where she could follow the performance without being seen by the audience. This was Elisabeth’s usual manner of visiting the
Burgtheater,
generally only for one act.

The Emperor thanked Schratt for the violets in his own way: On every possible occasion, no matter how trivial, he sent his idol jewels that formed
the basis for one of the richest jewelry collections in the Old Monarchy. Very cautiously he begged her for the favor of allowing him again and again to give her money—for new dresses, for her household expenses, strained by the imperial friendship. Franz Joseph: “I can reassure you further that the birthday and name-day presents I give my children are in the form of money.”
¹⁰

For the present, the only difficulty was how to meet. Every public encounter became a test of nerves. At the Concordia Ball of 1887, for example, the Emperor did not come near Schratt. It was only by letter that he could confess to her his anger because “I did not have the courage to address you at the ball. But I would have had to break through the people surrounding you, while one is observed from all sides through opera glasses, and everywhere stand the press hyenas, snapping up every word one says. I just did not dare, much as everything drew me to you.”
¹¹

Once again, the Empress helped her husband out of his troubles. She repeatedly invited Katharina Schratt to Schönbrunn. It was also Elisabeth’s idea that the couple should meet in Ida Ferenczy’s apartment. For though Ida lived inside the Hofburg complex, her rooms had a private entrance, away from the watchful eyes of servants. Thus, while Schratt officially called on the Empress’s reader and friend, Ida Ferenczy, she met Emperor Franz Joseph, who made his way to her along the winding corridors of the Hofburg. In this way, the trysts remained private. Because of protocol and the many servants, meetings in the Hofburg imperial apartments were hardly possible. On the other hand, a visit from the Emperor to the (still very modest) living quarters of the actress would have caused a scandal.