The Vienna Melody (11 page)

As they walked through the seven rooms, some of which were already papered and furnished and had pictures on the walls, and where stoves were humming day and night, he watched her in suspense.

“Magnificent!” was her comment.

“Isn't it?” he asked proudly. ‘‘And did you notice your triple pier glass? I sent especially to Paris for it.”

“Wonderful! It really is.”

“Now you must look at the books. I can't be sure of having suited your taste. Goethe, Schiller, Lessing—Wait a second; what's this? This is Grillparzer. And that other red book is Lenau, whom I have never read, but probably you have. These are the poems of your beloved Heine, and this is Stifter. And down there is an encyclopedia, complete with three supplements. You'll have enough to read?”

“Of course.”

He was standing in front of the glass doors of the ebony bookcase just a step from her. Yet he seemed so far away that she could not imagine if possible ever to call this stranger “husband.” It unimaginable, too, that she should ever speak of these rooms as “home.”

“Which room do you like best?”

“Perhaps the sitting room?” she suggested.

“Let's look at your room once more.”

They went back again to the room designated as hers. He stood at the foot of the narrow bed and said, “I didn't for­get it!”

“That was sweet of you.”

“Is that all?” he asked, coming closer. There was a smell of wine.

“May I use the new mirror?” she asked quickly. She had long since taken off her trailing veil, yet she still felt the pressure on her temples which had hurt her so in church, and now her own face seemed strange to her as she looked in the Paris mirror. She loosened her hair, which was dressed in heavy braids low on the nape of her neck.

Perhaps she would like to see the view? He led her to the corner window in the sitting room. But outside all they could see was snow. It was falling in thick flakes. The carriages in the streets must have been replaced by sleighs, for they heard the jingle of bells.

“Funny. I hadn't even noticed it was snowing,” she said.

“When one is happy one doesn't notice such things,” he replied, then corrected himself by saying: “I mean when one's head is full of a thousand things.”

I'm being horrid to him
, she thought.
I should say something nice
. What she said was: “If we are to have time to see Papa mustn't we go soon?” Home! Only to go home!

“Why you have to go there I don't see. In any case, don't forget that we're having supper at Otto Eberhard's at half-past seven.”

“Aren't you coming with me?” She tried to add “Franz.”

“I'd rather not. Honestly, your father always makes me feel as though he were examining me. And I've always failed! So now you go down to Pauline's and change your clothes and then drive to Karolinengasse. I shall be waiting for you promptly at seven. Our train leaves at eight forty-five, which means we must leave here at eight-fifteen at the latest.” As he went through the rooms, turning out the lamps everywhere, he said: “Tell me, when Otto Eberhard was reading the telegrams aloud why did you ask, ‘Is that all?' There was such a pile of them!”

“What ideas you get!”

It was several minutes before he came back to her. “I don't want to get any ideas about you,” he said. His tone had changed. “Do you hear me?” It did not sound like a threat; it was more like a plea.

“You won't,” she answered.

“I'm counting on that,” he said slowly. “It's confoundedly dark in here. Be careful!

They walked downstairs, first the new flight and then the old ones with their worn treads.

“I kiss your hand, madam.”

“Poldi spoke to you! Why don't you answer her?”

“Excuse me, Poldi; it's the first time anyone has called me madam. I'm not used to it yet.”

“Of course, madam. Madam will soon get used to it.”

 

Father and daughter sat opposite each other in the library, just as they always had done. She was in her going-away clothes now. “I feel like a caller,” she said, looking down at the bunch of violets pinned on her gray muff.

Except for a few summer trips she had spent the whole of her twenty-two years here. She was part of every piece of furniture, of every shadow on the wall. Here she had experienced the light of morning and the falling of darkness at night. Here she had learned that words exist and also people to whom you speak them. When people smiled you liked them. Her father had nearly always smiled when he came to her; she could not remember any other expression on his face, from the time when he leaned down to her and was thrilled because she had already learned to talk, to walk, to read. But when he looked as he did now it was hard to bear. It was like the time when Mama lay over there on the sofa and they had told her she must say good-bye because Mama was going on a little journey. She had refused to say good-bye to her, and Mama had complained: “You are a wicked girl.” Now she too was going on a little journey and would not return. Probably that was what Papa had on his mind.

They sat there and did not speak. It occurred to her how often she had pictured to herself what her wedding would be like. Her wedding dress, the church, the breakfast, the going away. Would she be married in the summertime? Her bridegroom would look like her Professor of the History of Art. No, like the actor Emmerich Robert. No, like the Crown Prince. There was scarcely a room in the apartment that had not been associated for a long time with these happy thoughts.

“It was a pretty wedding, wasn't it, Papa?” she asked. Professor Stein nodded vigorously. It was more than that: it was beautiful and dignified; it was quite an exceptional wedding.

The discourse of the priest in the cathedral, Otto Eberhard's speech at the wedding breakfast, Alfred Grünfeld's playing. He almost overpraised it all.

“And now,” she said, “how will you get along, Papa?”

“Oh,” he replied, and the smile reminiscent of sad days grew deeper around his lips, “I'll find ways of entertaining myself! I have my lecture before the Academy on February sixth—”

“On the fifth!”

“On the fifth, and on the sixteenth the half-year ends, and I shan't know what I'm doing during the examination period.”

“Pass them all, won't you?”

“I can't promise.”

“Who was elected at the meeting about the candidacy for the chair of criminal law?”

“Julius Glaser.”

“That was what you wanted, wasn't it?”

“Of course—that was the only possible solution. Won't you take a little, tea?”

In the old days he would have said: “Drink your tea!”

He is treating me like a guest
, she thought, and the tea stuck in her throat.

The clock on the wall ticked on. What an untold number of times she had sat in that very chair watching it and wishing: Tick faster! First, because she did not want to be a baby any longer. Then because she did not want to go to school any more. Then because morning or evening or any other time didn't arrive quickly enough. The pendulum had always swung too slowly. Today it was going too fast.

“So you've decided on the Hotel Danieli?”

“Yes.”

“A splendid hotel. You'll send me a wire when you get there?”

“Of course.”

“And you won't be too stingy about writing?”

“Every day!”

“Ridiculous. At most every three or four days.”

“No, every day.”

He saw that the saucer in her hand trembled and went on: “Don't forget the Palazzo Vendramin! You remember who lived there?”

Now she had to smile. “Candidate Stein, please tell me who lived in the Palazzo Vendramin?”

“Well, who?”

“Richard Wagner, Professor.”

“Very good. Sit down.”

The pendulum rushed madly to and fro. In ten minutes she would have to leave.

“Papa?”

“Yes?”

“I should like—”

“Don't make any new discoveries! A few people before us have been in this same situation. Why, it's even in the Bible.”

Teresa had come into the room. “Oh, Miss Hetti looks very smart! Oh, excuse me—Mrs. Hetti. May I clear the tea-things away, Professor?”

“Will you keep a good eye on Papa, Theresa?”

“I'll do my best, Miss Hetti—excuse me, Mrs. Hetti,” said their factotum, and walked stiffly out with the tray.

“Papa, you know I'm no speechmaker. So all I can say now is thank you. For everything. It was so wonderful here with you.” That was all she could bring out. She felt for her gloves inside her muff, although they were lying in plain sight on her lap.

“Now, now Hetti, please. Let's talk of something more senisible. When will you be back—approximately, I mean?”

“In exactly three weeks.”

Professor Stein took out his pocket calendar and ran through the leaves. “Today is Tuesday, January 29, so that would make it Tuesday, February 19. But perhaps you can persuade that husband of yours to take you on down to Rome?”

The shy, thin man with the delicately formed, nervous face rose paced up and down in front of the bookshelves which filled the walls almost to the ceiling. As he walked he said: “Don't forget your mother. Think of her in everything you do.” While he spoke his eyes turned to the gold-framed portrait of a strikingly pretty, somewhat overdressed and slightly coarse-looking woman. “You didn't have a chance to know her. But whatever good qualities you possess come from her. Your heritage from the Steins, on the other hand, you must take only
cum beneficio inventarii
, as the Roman jurists put it, which means only after you have made up your mind what you don't want out of it. You know, I sometimes think that talent—yes, and even genius—means less than we think. They exist for the supreme moments, but life is made up of everyday hours. Comradeship—we need that—and then there is a great art I have not yet acquired: to measure up to life—I mean to meet it with readiness, optimism, and capability. Your mother was mistress of that art.” He broke off and walked to the opposite end of the library with his eyes on the floor.

The time was up. “Good-bye, Papa,” she said. “We shall see each other soon!”

“Bless you, child. Have you your warm clothes? It can be disgustingly cold in Italy at this time of year.”

“I have my fur jacket.” An embrace, a kiss, and already the horses were carrying her off in a sleigh. It was still snowing, but she noticed neither the snow nor the cold. She sat bolt upright in the small two-seated open sleigh and repeated to herself: “Think of your mother!” It was because she had thought of her mother that her name was now Frau Franz Alt. What things you can make men believe during your lifetime and even after death! Papa was so convinced that Mama was a splendid wife that it would take all of Herr Jarescu's proofs to force him to believe the contrary. It almost eased her heart to think of that man Jarescu. Were it not for him, and had it not been necessary that she at all costs prevent her father from learning how ridiculous his blind faith in his wife was, she would not have been obliged to take this journey now ahead of her. But Herr Jarescu did exist; he even had the audacity to send them a congratulatory telegram, and brother-in-law Otto Eberhard had read it aloud.

With a vehement gesture she shook the snow off her cheeks and hair.
He
had sent no telegram to the wedding!

If it were a question of an outing, or a plan for them to die together, then he could send her messages! To die together! To this day she blushed and felt ashamed when she thought of the scene he had staged for her, which she was silly enough to believe. Obviously you can hoodwink women as well as men; you can make them believe all sorts of things, as, for example, that one is a charming, tactful, devastating person. But he was only a heartless, ambitious poseur, who craved either the Kasper girl's lack of restraint or Mary Vetsera's blind infatuation. Wrong. He needed both! That was why no one but the little Greek existed for him now. The day before yesterday, at the ball of the German Ambassador, Prince Reuss, she had behaved so outrageously that the whole city was talking about it!

They drove past the flower shop in front of which his coachman Bratfisch had so often picked her up. In those days there had always been a bunch of violets in the carriage for her. Now that other girl had them. At the ball in the German Embassy she had worn violets in her hair and on her low-cut evening dress, the newspaper said. I am glad of it, Henriette thought. There are things you think are impossible, but when they happen they help. It is easier for me that he did not send me any violets today.

The snow blanketed all sounds of traffic in the street. How wonderful to be going to Venice! When I come back I shall have my clothes made in me Spitzer Salon and my hats at Passecker's. I shall have a box at the opera. I shall send out nicely printed cards: Mrs. Franz Alt.
At home—Tuesdays and Fridays, from
5
to
7. Wonderful, wasn't it? she persuaded herself. And now in her thoughts she saw the husband who was a part of all this wonderful life, and suddenly she was more frightened than she had ever been.

When she stepped into the house at 10 Seilerstätte, she felt as though she were opening the door to a prison.
I must be crazy
, she said to herself.
For I am really very lucky. Most people would envy me. Tomorrow morning I shall be in Venice. I have never been to Italy
.

“Three cheers for the bride—hip, hip, hooray!” came a chorus voices to greet her as she entered the vestibule of Otto Eberhard's appartment. With raised glasses in their hands seven or eight gentlemen, with Colonel Paskiewicz as their commander, came out to meet her: “Private Franz! Rightabout turn!” And Private Franz, obeying the colonel's order, took his place beside his bride. Through an archway formed by these enthusiastic friends of the family the couple made their entry into the living room. The apartment was filled with cigar smoke and a great deal of noise. The wedding guests who had remained after the wedding breakfast appeared to have used the time during Henriette's absence to advantage; they were flushed, talkative, and inclined to rather racy remarks. One saw a wink here or a knowing grin there.