The Vienna Melody (8 page)

I shan't go! Henriette said to herself. The words, however, meant nothing. She might just as well have said, “Today is the Flower Parade.” It would have made more sense, for Franz had wanted to drive her in the Flower Parade and they had even settled how their carriage would be trimmed: with pink La France roses. But an unexpected meeting of the Chamber of Commerce had interfered. “You understand,” Franz had said. She had understood. Franz was a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce.

She wanted to think about him as she sat in the closed carriage, about how attentive he had been all these last weeks, how touching his efforts had been; but she was unable even to recall his looks. The face of another she could recall with terrifying clarity, every feature: this was how he looked when he laughed, and this how he looked when he was serious, but he laughed more often. That all was over between them—a more ridiculous lie could not be imagined! On the contrary, since she had held those few scribbled lines in her hand it was all as overwhelming as it had been on that first day. She tried to pray, but she could not do that either.

Kruger Street. He need not think that time had made her more pliant. He probably had thought to himself:
Keep her waiting long enough and she will give in
. Error! What she had always said to him she would say again today.
I am not Mitzi Kasper who will go off on overnight trips. I am not the little Greek Baroness Vetsera who throws herself on your neck because you are the Crown Prince. Nor am I the Countess Larisch, who hates your wife and wants to see you divorced at all costs because she wants to become empress herself. They all want that. But I want you, and since I cannot have you, you cannot have me. Yes, I know that I am what you call “afraid of conventions'' and have the “morals of a middle-class girl.” I'm sorry, but I am a middle-class girl!

Kaerntner Street.
What if I cannot keep up my resistance?
She thought to herself, and hurriedly reached for the rubber tube to call to the coachman to stop.
Why do I fool myself? Franz is nothing to me, nothing at all. He is all that counts. A thousand times since it all ended I have wished: If only he would send me word again! And now he has sent word! Dear Lord in heaven, I'm going to see him!

She spoke into the tube.

“Your Grace wishes…?” the coachman asked, half turning his head.

“I wish to get out!”

“One moment, Your Grace. We shall be there immediately.”

“But I'm not going there, Bratfisch!”

The man on the box seemed to hear nothing. The Opera Cross Drive. To the left Café Scheidl. To the right Hotel Sacher. The gentleman who is staring into the carriage so rudely is called Armbruster.
If you knew where I am going you would stare even more impudently, Herr Armbruster!

What is the matter with me? Am I so far gone that after months of silence he can suddenly send me a command, just because he is in the mood, and say: “Now you are to come to the palace because promptly at three o'clock His Imperial Highness wants you for his mistress”?

“Let me get out, Bratfisch!” she almost screamed.

“We are already there,” the coachman replied, pulling up the horses. He let her get out, cracked his whip, and with the customary “I kiss your hand” drove rapidly away. She stood there bewildered and watched him go.

On the other side of Augustiner Street someone was waving. It was Kitty, with that horrid friend of hers. What was her name, anyhow? They crossed over to her. And Bratfisch had said no one would see her!

“How is it you're not at the Flower Parade?” Kitty asked. Could anyone be more tactless? Rosie Blum was her friend's name.

“You aren't there either!” Henriette retorted.

“I'm not engaged either!” Kitty said.

Then the little Blum girl asked, “When is it you're getting married?”

“Not until the fourth story is built. You know we're adding on a fourth story. You must excuse me. I have to go to the Graben,” Henriette explained. She could not stand either of them. Neverthetless, it was an extraordinary piece of luck that she had met them. They were the two people to whom she was to be eternally grateful.

She went down Augustiner Street, past the Augustiner Church, in the direction of the Joseph Square. Grateful for what? Because she was going to marry Franz? Kitty was having a flirtation with that awfully handsome young Baron Stoeger, and the other girl was crazy about young Waldstetter, who was a lieutenant in a Uhlan regiment. But she would marry a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce.

She looked back. The two girls had disappeared. No one would open the gate to her now anyway. It was already eight minutes past three by the Augustiner Church clock.

She retraced her steps. There was the little iron gate. She would neither knock nor ring but simply stand in front of it for a moment. In the first place it was too late, and in the second place no one could see through an iron door. Consequently no one would open it and she would immediately go away again and yet have done what was requested of her.

She stepped up to the door, and it opened.

“Follow me, please,” said the voice of the doorman, Loschek. A few minutes later the voice of the groom of the chambers, Puechel, said: “His Imperial Highness requests your presence.”

The gold-and-white double doors had opened, and now she was standing before him. Her heart pounded so that she could neither speak nor see.

His voice said: “Thank you for coming. Sit down. Have you a few minutes to spare?”

He looked so changed, or was that due to a mist before her eyes which disappeared when she sat down? Yes, he was changed. There were deep shadows under his eyes which had not been there before. He was very pale, and his mouth twitched slighdy even when he was not speaking. There was no sign of that ironic smile which she had found so captivating and he moved his lower lip in the manner of someone who is trying not to cry.

“How are you?” he asked. His tone was the same. His voice was the same, an irresistible voice. How wonderful it was to see him again after all this time!

“Thank you, very well,” she answered. “And you?”

“Thank you, not well.” He was sitting at his desk, and she was in an armchair facing him.

It was not until later that she became aware that the gold-and-white room had an extraordinarily high ceiling and gigantic windows, or that she saw the antlers, the stuffed animals, the arms on the walls and in glass cases, the mass of papers and manuscripts strewn over the desk, and a table in the background.

“You do look a bit tired,” she said. She loved him so much she could hardly speak. “I hope you're not sick.”

He leaned back, crossed his arms, and looked at her. In addition to his shooting jacket he wore the green necktie that she had given him.

“The last news I had of you I read in the
Fremdenblatt
,”
 
he said. “You became engaged?”

“Yes.”

“Are you happy?”

She nodded.

“Forgive my wretched memory: I've forgotten who your fiancé is.”

“Franz Alt. Of the piano firm.”

“Right. Hasn't he a brother who's a lawyer?”

“Yes, that's his brother.”

“And he's young and handsome? Of course!” he answered his own question.

The original of the Adam portrait of the Empress Elizabeth on horseback, of which Franz had a copy, hung opposite Hentiette. With her eyes on his mother's perfectly lovely features, which danced up and down and then blurred, she said, “Neither young nor handsome.”

“But in love?”

“He likes me.”

“And you?” He hunted for something among his papers, could not find it, and threw them all into a basket on his right.

She could not say any more, so was silent.

Jumping up, he began to stride around the room without coming near her chair. On the contrary, he paced up and down in a diagonal between a stuffed bear which bore the inscription “Munkács. September 17, 1883,” and a collection of tropical birds.

“How much time have you?” His excitement was so obvious that did not dare remind him of the five minutes for which he had asked.

“A little while longer,” she replied. He had grown much thinner. He looked younger, fascinating.

He checked his nervous pacing and stood by one of the two windows facing on the Francis Court. On the opposite wall was an old sundial, on which the shadow fell at twenty minutes past three.

“I've something to ask of you,” he said with his face turned away from her. “It's a lot. A frightful lot!”

She did not move, for she knew what was coming. “This is no love,” he would tell her again. “This isn't anything. If you really love me you must prove it to me!”

Looking across to the sundial and to the bronze monument of Emperor Francis, whom the Viennese nicknamed “Good Emperor Franz”, he spoke quickly, in snatches, and very softly: “The point is that I—But you're not angry with me? We spoke of it once. Do you remember? That I foresaw the day when I should have enough. You said then that you didn't care either. Don't say anything. For God's sake, listen to me! The point is—I shall try to explain it to you. If it's cowardice, all right. Cowardice, terrible egotism, irresponsibility—what you will. But I am afraid. Not of doing it—in our family only my mother is perhaps a better shot. But you can never tell how it will turn out. Ferdie Pállfy will be a cripple all his life. I don't want that. Besides, I know it's idiotic, but can't help thinking all the time—what happens afterwards? The churchmen say there's nothing but purgatory for suicides. Idiotic! There's nothing afterwards. Absolutely nothing! Nevertheless, it might happen that at the decisive moment I might be taken in by this Church fraud. Recently I haven't been sure of myself. ‘It's nerves,' says Dr. Widerhofer. My hand might be unsteady—that's what I fear. And—if one—I mean—-if the two of us—I mean if one isn't alone—it's easier. What comes first—and what comes afterwards—if anything comes—”

He turned round. Beads of perspiration were on his brow, and he was so exhausted that he supported himself on the windowsill. “You're the only one who understands me,” he added.

All she understood was that he wanted to die. Perhaps they had spoken of it some time before, between a sip of wine and a joke. But in this instant she had no memory of it, and she was stunned. That he was also asking her to die was swallowed up in the incomprehensibility of the fact that this man, who to her meant life itself, wanted to die.

“So it is no?” he asked in despair.

He must be helped! she thought to herself in her benumbed state. “You mustn't do this!” she said.

He gave her an unbearable look.

You can ask what you like of me and I shall do it!
was the answer in her eyes. She was prepared to break the vow she had given under the ruby oil lamps. What madness it was to be afraid of conventions when his very life was at stake!

“Spare me what you're on the point of saying,” he implored. “That I'm not just any man, that I have a mission in life, et cetera, et cetera. Save yourself the trouble! That this is going to happen is decided, and no one in the world can help me—only you. Do you understand?”

There was a gentle knock on the double doors.

“Good God!” burst from him. “Can't I have ten minutes of peace? Come in!”

Someone announced, “Your Highness's aide-de-camp, Count Bombelles, begs for a moment's audience. It's very important, says the count.”

Henriette had risen.

“Sit still!” he said. “There's only one thing of importance—the answer you're going to give me!” He had started to light a cigarette, but his hand trembled so that he had to strike a second match.

A gentleman in the uniform of a vice-admiral entered the room with a deep bow.

“What's so urgently important now?” he was asked. The aide-de-camp looked at Henriette and hesitated.

“Speak without reserve; the lady is at least as trustworthy as I am.”

“His Majesty's Adjutant-General begs leave to recall to Your Imperial Highness that His Majesty is going to the Burgtheater to the opening performance this evening of
Promise Behind the Hearth
and will await Your Imperial Highness at seven in the incognito box.”

He threw away his cigarette. “And is that so important?” he asked with passion. “Tell Count Paar I regret that I cannot come this evening!”

“Your Imperial Highness will recall that His Majesty already expressed his wishes a week ago, and that Your Imperial Highness at that time accepted. Her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess will also be present.”

He had sat down at the narrow end of his desk, one of his hunting-boots tapping at intervals against the wood.

“I've altered my arrangements! Tonight is impossible! I shall avail myself in the near future of the immense pleasure of seeing the Schratt lady in a new role.”

“At your service, Your Imperial Highness.”

“And something else! Tell Count Paar next time he wants anything he'll have to take the trouble to come down to me himself!”

“At your service, Your Imperial Highness.”

“And invent some excuse why I can't come tonight. Say I have my old neuralgia again. A thousand thanks, Bombelles.”

The gold-and-white door opened and closed again.

“There, he doesn't object! There, he thinks it's quite in order! To the Burgtheater! Tonight!” Again he paced round the room, always faster, lighting one cigarette after another, throwing the half-smoked ones away and stamping them out with the heel of his foot.

“That's the sort of thing he patronizes! Of course—if Miss Schratt is involved—she is sacrosanct! Mediocrity—that's what he worships! Keep in line! Preserve appearances! Have a little friend to chat with, nothing more—of course not! How he adores art! And he gives his approval so impartially to intercourse regardless of rank! And has never, never, never had a mistress. What an irreproachable, God-fearing man! It's laughable! To think that the whole world is still taken in by this play for propriety and popularity on the part of a man no one can bear. His wife can't—she runs away from him—nor his children, for whom he hasn't a vestige of feeling; nor his Ministers, who fear him; nor his subjects, whom he never sees! He is a blind man, a deaf man, and, moreover, proud of lagging behind the times! Those who want to make him see and hear he forbids to speak—not with passion, mind you, but with a kind of scornful arrogance that makes your blood run cold! He's a man from whom everything glances off, like a rock! A terrifying man by the side of whom life is impossible!”