B008AITH44 EBOK (74 page)

Even today we do not know what Elisabeth’s face looked like in age—there are no pictures. In the memories of her contemporaries as well as for posterity, she remains the woman the pictures show: beautiful and young. This legend, which she herself encouraged, cast a shadow over her last years. For now she had one more reason to fear other people: They might see her real face.

Only very, very few still knew the Empress during her final years. To accidental observers, encounters with her during this time were deeply disappointing. For example, the actress Rosa Albach-Retty saw the Empress and her lady-in-waiting, Countess Sztaray, in 1898 in a small country inn in Bad Ischl. Since Elisabeth’s true appearance was nowhere pictured, Retty did not recognize the ladies at once. One was “clearly in mourning, for with her black, high-necked dress she wore black laced boots and a black hat, its thick veil turned back over a broad brim.” It was the Empress. The other lady, younger and in light clothing, Countess Sztaray, briefly went into the inn, leaving Elisabeth alone at the table. Rosa Albach-Retty: “For seconds Elisabeth stared downward, then with her left hand she took out her dentures, held them sideways over the edge of the table, and rinsed them off by pouring a glass of water over them. Then she put them back in her mouth. All this was done with such graceful nonchalance, but most particularly at such lightning speed, that at first I could not believe my eyes.”
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*

Of all the gossip about Elisabeth’s restlessness, which seems pathological, only one example need be
cited here, recorded by Bertha von Suttner.
Countess Ernestine Crenneville, she stated, had told her, “I still remember our sitting together one day after a small dinner at the Empress’s, a very few of us. Archduchess Valerie, the Duke of Cumberland, and I. A few ladies-in-waiting to one side. The Empress was very silent and sad.
Suddenly
she calls out, ‘Oh, out! Out into the country, far away….’ Archduchess Valerie jumps to her feet: ‘For heaven’s sake, Mama….’ The Duke of Cumberland interrupts in an attempt to mollify. ‘You are right, Your Majesty!’ and quietly to the daughter, ‘But never leave her alone, never alone!’”
³⁵

As early as three months after Rudolf’s death, the news made its way through the European press that the Austrian Empress had succumbed to madness. In a surprisingly well-informed article, the Berlin
Tageblatt
described
the course of this disease honorably (and probably correctly, in contrast to the other reports, which simply indicated insanity) as an “
extreme
nervous disorder.”

Of course, these reports of the Empress’s illness, circulated by all the major European papers, were countered with energetic denials in the Austrian press: The Empress was merely suffering from painful neuralgia. The neurologist Professor Richard Krafft-Ebing (the same doctor who had treated and committed Elisabeth’s sister Sophie Alençon) had not—as the Austrian papers emphasized—been called.
³⁷

Over and over, during the 1890s, the international press brought up the subject of Elisabeth’s supposed insanity. In 1893, the Milan newspaper
Il
Secolo
wrote, “Empress and Queen Elisabeth is suffering from the onset of insanity. Every night, she is plagued by hallucinations. Her obsession is touching. She believes that Crown Prince Rudolf is still a child and is with her. To calm her, it was necessary to have a wax doll made, and this she incessantly covers with kisses and tears.”
³⁸

These lurid reports, however, were highly exaggerated. Quite the
contrary:
At the very time when these stories appeared and when Emperor Franz Joseph was visiting his allegedly mad wife in Territet, Elisabeth’s frame of mind was good. Writing about this meeting between the
Emperor
and the Empress, Marie Festetics noted, “Her Majesty is in
particularly
good humor, and he too glows with happiness. Her Majesty has really been looking forward to his visit and [I] can say only that she has the master entirely in her pocket.”
³⁹

The Emperor and Empress relaxed with long walks and shopping, constantly besieged by journalists. The Swiss paper
Der
Bund
gave a detailed list of the purchases they made in Territet. “The Emperor ordered a considerable quantity of Villeneuve wine, which he particularly enjoys, and 10,000 Grandson and Vevey cigars; the Empress put in an order for cookies from Viviser and Villeneuve.”
⁴⁰

Elisabeth’s letters to Bavaria from this period also attest to an untroubled frame of mind. “I am glad that the Emperor can take a little vacation at last, and nowhere could he enjoy it more than in a republic. He is in good humor, enjoys his freedom, the beautiful surroundings, and the excellent cuisine.”
⁴¹
Valerie, for her part, found her father’s stay “in a republic” by no means worth the risk. After Franz Joseph’s departure, she noted in her diary, “It was not without worry that we saw him set out without any entourage or almost any security measures to the country notorious as the residence of nihilists and socialists.”
⁴²

But the continuing news reports about the Empress’s supposed madness were not pure speculation. For on her travels she behaved so oddly, her shyness had taken on such proportions, that innocent observers who
encountered
her on her constant escape routes or who tried to follow her (which invariably prompted Elisabeth to extremely odd responses) could easily think they were dealing with a lunatic. Countess Festetics: “With us, everything is extraordinary. Her Majesty is simple, it is only that she begins from the back what others begin from the front, begins from the left what others begin from the right. It is from this that the difficulties arise.”
⁴³

Her Bavarian family also noted Elisabeth’s idiosyncrasies, but they rejected the rumors of mental illness. Marie von Redwitz, one of the Bavarian ladies-in-waiting, summed up the family’s opinion when she wrote that Elisabeth “has always been strange and has followed only her whims and wishes, and now shyness and melancholia have been added. Who among gifted people who enjoy unlimited freedom is entirely
normal?
The Empress is, as we all are, the product of conditions.”
⁴⁴

When Elisabeth spoke, it was, according to Valerie, about “only the
saddest things.” She complained of her unhappy fate and was so
inconsolable
that religious Valerie feared for her eternal salvation and prayed earnestly for her mother’s “conversion.”
⁴⁵
When Valerie’s deepest wish came true and she became pregnant, the Empress expressed bitterness. Valerie: “She sighed about my condition, it was difficult for her to feel with me the happiness which, strangely, in spite of her motherlove for me, she cannot understand at all.—For the rest, I found Mama in a disconsolate frame of mind, more closed off and embittered than ever…. She told me … that the birth of every new human being seemed to her a misfortune, since one can fulfill one’s destiny only in suffering.” At
Valerie’s
suggestion that she consult a doctor, Elisabeth replied only, “Oh, doctors and priests are such donkeys”—a statement that deeply offended her devout daughter.
⁴⁶

Even the Emperor repeatedly complained. For example, he spoke to his chief of the general staff, Baron Beck, about the Empress’s poor health, “her overstressed nerves, her increasing restlessness, her extravagances, her very sick heart.” But Franz Joseph’s complaints always contained “tones of deep concern.”
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During these final years, Elisabeth’s chief attention was given to her waning health. She still put herself through her starvation diets. She still complained of every little weight gain. Dr. Viktor Eisenmenger examined the Empress in Territet during the 1890s. “In the otherwise healthy woman I found fairly pronounced swelling, especially in the ankles. A condition physicians saw rarely in those days and which did not become regrettably notorious until the war. Edema of hunger!” Elisabeth totally rejected all suggestions pertaining to diet.
⁴⁸

Marie Henike, one of the Empress’s servants, listed the tortures Elisabeth voluntarily underwent, such as “steam baths followed by 7-degree [Celsius = 45 degrees Fahrenheit] full baths, it would put many people into a faint, bring on death. Her Majesty also admits to having had a ringing in her ears after this.” Then there were “sweat cures—every evening dressed very warmly quickly walking up the mountain several times…. This was also to prevent getting fat—Her Majesty always looked so exhausted!!”
Elisabeth’s
weight was given as 93.2 pounds—that is, 46.6 kilos (= 102.7 U.S. pounds): “In Cap Martin two years ago after decongestion of her leg, 87 [pounds = 95 U.S. pounds]!!” It is well to remember her height—172 centimeters (= 5 ft., 7.7 in.).
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The Emperor, too, suffered from Elisabeth’s constant complaints about her weight, and repeatedly he expressed his discontent to Katharina Schratt (who, though she also constantly dieted along the same lines as Elisabeth, never managed to reduce her chubby figure). In 1894, for example, he mentioned that the Empress was “worried that she would grow too heavy again, because, since she has been drinking Karlsbad water and lives only on black coffee, cold meat, and eggs, she has gained quite a bit of weight. But that is pure craziness!”
⁵⁰
His “sweet, beloved soul”—as he still
addressed
his wife in his letters—implored the Emperor not to communicate her dieting whims to Katharina. Around 1897, Elisabeth hatched a plan “to have installed two bathing cubicles in the Hermes Villa, one for you and one for our friend, in which you are to be roasted or burned away. It would be so terrible if, after the sad experiences you had with steam baths, you were to undertake another, similar cure and drag your friend, who goes along with every medical mischief, down with you into ruin!”
⁵¹
And in 1897, before an encounter with Elisabeth, Franz Joseph wrote Frau Schratt, to be on the safe side, “Should you be frightened at her quite bad appearance, I beg you not to let it show, nor to speak very much with the Empress about health, but if that is unavoidable, to cheer her up, but especially not recommend to her any new cure and new system. You will find the Empress very dull, very sickly, and in an especially depressed mood. You can imagine how worried I am.”
⁵²

Though she ate very little now, Elisabeth was extremely fussy about what she did eat. Her daily quota of milk presented a special problem. Even in Vienna, it was difficult to obtain good milk. The Empress therefore repeatedly sent cows to Vienna for the Emperor from her travels. In April 1896, for example, two cows arrived in Vienna at the same time, one from Brittany and the other from Corfu—a further indication as well of
Elisabeth’s
hectic travel schedule.
⁵³
The Empress kept her own dairies, both in Schönbrunn and in the deer park at Lainz, where her favorite cows were kept, and when she traveled—at least when she traveled by ship—she usually took along two milk cows and a goat, to guarantee a steady supply of fresh, healthy milk. Caring for these animals—hardly seasoned sailors—was an additional burden on Elisabeth’s entourage. The Empress’s health depended on the animals’ well-being, since she nourished herself almost entirely on milk and eggs.

It must be remembered that the Empress’s principal destinations, the Greek islands and southern Italy, were not yet organized for tourism, and there were none of the hotels that would have catered to it; and the Empress always preferred the most out-of-the-way places. Stores of food therefore had to be brought along from Vienna. And though the entourage had long since grown much smaller than it was at the time of the English hunts, it still amounted to at least twenty people, not counting the ship’s
crew. All of them had to be provided for. Only in the last two years of her life did the Empress restrict herself to railway travel and to hotels in such regions as Switzerland and the Riviera, which were open to tourism.

*

Only once during these final years of her life did the Empress appear in public in her official role—at Hungary’s Millennial Celebration of 1896. Hardly anyone recognized her, she had changed so much: “a black, female head, a new, an infinitely sorrowing face, with a smile that seemed no more than a shallow reflex. Her greeting is cordial but mechanical…. This face holds itself completely aloof, as it were,” the Hungarian newspaper
Magyar
Hirlap
reported.
⁵⁴
In her usual way, on this occasion, too, Elisabeth kept her face hidden behind a black fan.