The Vienna Melody (12 page)

 

“Oh, the R's all three were never for me;

Since I was but nine I've lived with swine.

The joy of my life, in lieu of a wife,

Or wearing good togs, was to raise fine hogs!”

 

This well-kdown verse, from the popular new operetta,
The Gypsy Baron
, was being sung, somewhat off key, by one of the family friends. Had Henriette seen the marvellous production?

“Oh, pardon me,” the gentleman excused himself in the same breath. “I quite forgot that it is only today you reach the age for operettas!” And he insisted that she must not miss the pleasure of seeing it when she returned from her “moonlight nights in Venice.” Why, it was only round the corner! He referred to the fact that operetta, which had been enthralling Vienna for weeks, was being played across the way on Seilerstätte in the Stadttheater, and even the lawyer Otto, who had now grown expansive under the influence of all the good things he had enjoyed, confirmed the Minister of Justice's laudatory opinion that the music and production were excellent. Nothing was said, however, of the plot.

Here was a chance to get away from all the winking and grinning!

“How about going over now?” Henriette suggested impulsively. “We can probably see most of it before our train leaves. What do you say, Franz?” For the soup had just been served.

Frau Elsa, the hostess, gave a look that spoke volumes. Otto Eberhard said coolly: “Won't you have plenty of time for that after your return from Venice?”

But he was overruled right in his own house by Drauffer the painter—who was on fire with delight for the suggestion and who had already gone by himself twice to see the play—and also, most emphatically, by Colonel Paskiewicz. Yet Franz, all his life under the influence of his elder brother, would have preferred to say “no.” On the other hand, he did not like to refuse Henriette her first wish on her wedding day. “Do you really mean it?” he asked hesitatingly.

She did mean it, and the party broke up—-an incredible breach of conduct, according to the conventional Otto and his wife and two or three others to whom it would never in the wide world have occurred to get up and leave a supper on the point of being served (not to mention the sentiments of Countess Hegéssy and the colonel's wife!). But the triumphant gentlemen hastily filled their glasses once more, lighted fresh cigars, threw their coats over their shoulders, and, with their top hats set at rakish angles, started off with the bride in the center, like a guard of honor.

“I wonder if there's any sense in our doing this?” Franz asked as he crossed the street in the snow with Henriette on his arm.

“Must everything have sense to it?” she retorted. The later it grew the more frightened she became. Perhaps she could still run away from him? She had taken a glass of Otto Eberhard's Tokay wine. “From the Imperial cellars,” he had told her. But the Imperial cellars had not improved her state of mind.

Soon they were all sitting in two red-and-gold boxes, in the already darkened theater, watching the conductor wield his baton with passionate gestures. It was Johann Strauss, the composer, who was leading his operetta in person. The Overture had just begun, but the curtain, adorned with rose-veiled divinities and naked nymphs, was still down. At the conclusion of the Overture the crowded house broke into a storm of applause. “Bravo, Strauss!” yelled the Viennese until he turned, smiled, acknowledged the applause by laying hand on his heart, and then, suddenly facing the orchestra again, raised both hands to give the signal for the first act to begin.

The curtain rose on a Hungarian village, and the bright lights the stage also dimly illuminated the red, white, and gold auditorium. The faces of the spectators became visible. Henriette saw not only the frivolous stage, forbidden to the sight of young, but also every feature of the man who was her husband. In two hours she would be alone with him. “My God!” Involuntarily the words broke from her.

“Did you want something?” asked her brother-in-law Drauffer, who was sitting directly behind her.

She shook her head. “Girardi is marvellous,” was her reply.

The comedian Girardi was marvellous: He played the gypsy who was called Zsupan on the program; with unique charm he imitated the Hungarian accent, and in every word and gesture he really was the shrewd, illiterate person who would later sing that about the three R's.

Henriette tried to fix her attention on the stage, on the music, whose magic she heard but did not enjoy; all that remained was vague, tumultuous, crass jumble.
I've never been afraid
, she told herself.
And I'm not afraid now!
Sitting bolt upright in her red velvet and gilt chair, she forced herself to laugh and appear as gay as the others who watched Girardi with beaming faces. He had sung the couplet about the three R's, and the public was wild with excitement. He had already repeated it once, but they were clamoring to hear it a third time. Applause showered from the orchestra, the boxes, the galleries. Flowers fell near the prompter's box, and Johann Strauss raised his baton to acquiesce to the wishes of the public. With languid grace the actor stepped from the wings, his shoulders bowed, a wry smile on his lips, as much as to say: “Man's wishes make his paradise.” But at the same instant another man, dressed in street clothes, with no make-up on—indeed, he was very pale—emerged from the wings, and he too walked towards the middle of the stage, but with much quicker steps. A few of the audience looked at their programs to see who he might be. With a voice he could not control he began to speak, and in less than a fraction of a minute the general atmosphere of pleasure gave way to complete consternation. People looked at him with horror. For he had announced that His Imperial and Royal Highness Crown Prince Rudolf had died very suddenly of a heart ailment. As a sign of mourning the theater would be closed at once, and the public was asked to withdraw in the quiet manner consonant with the tragic event. The pale man disappeared into the wings, but it was some time before anyone stirred.

The house lights and the lamps in the boxes were turned up; the curtain with its divinities and nymphs was lowered; the musicians put away their instruments; the performance was over. People stood up in front of their seats. Many looked as though they were bereft of sight. Someone in the gallery cried, “Oh, God!” and as though that were a signal, a sound of sobbing swept through the theater. Someone else exclaimed, “It was only the day before yesterday that he was dancing at the German Embassy!” This revived a bit of Viennese optimism. Perhaps it was only a false rumor? But while they were getting their wraps they heard the dull, unceasing toll of the bells of St. Stephen and St. Augustine. It was true.

In front of Number 10 Seilerstätte they said good-bye to their friends and relatives. The brothers-in-law went into the house; the friends drove off in sleighs.

“Shall we go upstairs for a while?” Franz asked when Hen­riette made no move in that direction. “Our luggage is all up there, and perhaps you would like a little coffee before we leave?”

“Then we're leaving?” she asked.

“Why not? You mean on account of the Crown Prince?”

She meant on account of the man she had worshipped. He was dead. “Yes,” she said.

He grew slightly impatient. “Naturally it's a terrible calamity, which every Austrian must deeply deplore—but, after all, it doesn't affect us personally.”

“It affects me!”

“Pardon me,” he said, “I quite forgot that you had a crush on him.”

Her despair was so great that it overshadowed everything else, even this remark. “Do you think this is the time to undertake a pleasure trip?” she asked.

He stepped backward. “Do you mean by that that we should postpone our wedding journey?”

“I should like to go to the funeral. Don't you want to go too?”

“Never mind what I want or don't want! I refuse to make myself ridiculous. I'm no archduke and you're no archduchess. We have nothing to do with that funeral!”

The snow fell without ceasing.

“I shall go to the funeral,” she said. “I shall go to the funeral.”

“You're not going to the funeral, but with me to Venice tonight! Do you understand me?” The bells tolled in muffled tones. Those of St. Michael were now added to the bells of St. Stephen and St. Augustine.

The young wife turned suddenly and fled. She had no realization of what she was doing. Something impelled her, and she gave way to it. In her temples pounded a refrain: He is dead. The only human being for whom there was any reason to live or to die was dead.

In Annagasse, in front of the door with the angel and the the trumpet, he caught up with her. “Are you out of your mind?” he said breathlessly.

She pushed him away and ran on.

Then she lost her footing in the slippery snow and fell. He helped her up. There was devastation in his face as he leaned over her. “So you want to get away?” he asked.

She looked into his face. “Forgive me,” she said. “I think I mst have had too much Tokay.”

“Of course!” His voice echoed his relief. “That was it!”

The gondola slipped along without a sound. Only the gondolier's oar made a rhythmic gurgling noise. How cloudless the sky! Had it really snowed yesterday? In the Public Gardens the wistaria hung in lavender clusters. The water smelled of fish. The soft blue air quivered.

If one lay back on the black cushions of the black gondola the hot sun shone in one's face. Could it be that there was only a single night between winter and all this warmth? Henriette revelled in it. Everything had changed. Nothing was as she had imagined it. She did not like the fishy smell, but she was fascinated by the colors A the splashing of the water against the palazzo walls. This was her first big journey.

“Eh'' came the warning cry from the gondolier as he turned once more into the Grand Canal. “
Guardi
,
signora
?” There again was the church she had admired so enthusiastically, Santa Maria della Salute, much more beautiful than Vienna's somewhat similar

Karlskirche. And over there the Campanile, San Marco, and the Doge's Palace, from where they had started. And farther on the Bridge of Sighs. “
Guardi
?”

Franz told her the story of the Bridge of Sighs. She would have preferred to hear the gondolier go on talking, although she understood very little Italian. Everything the man said enraptured her. He spoke so melodiously and with such an abundance of persuasive gestures.

“We are almost back at the Hotel Danieli,” Franz explained.

“Already?” There was regret in her voice.

“Already? We've been riding in this gondola for at least two hours! Aren't you hungry? I must say I'm looking forward to some
scampi
and a
risotto
!”

“Can't we ride a few minutes more?” she begged. “It's so beautiful!”

He looked at her lovingly. “All right then. Ten minutes longer!” And to the gondolier he said in the frightful Italian he mustered for her edification: “
Allora
,
diece minuti
.
Capisce
?”

“
Va bene
,
signore
,” the gondolier replied, suppressing a smile as he turned his boat towards the lagoon.

Franz moved nearer to her along the black upholstered seat and laid his arm across her shoulders. She did not move. With injured feelings he reached for the
Neues Wiener Tagblatt
he had bought earlier on the San Marco Square. “I might as well read the newspaper!”

A deep lassitude had come over her. Just to close her eyes, feel the sun, listen to the splash of water. Nothing mattered. Nothing was real. She was not the wife of Franz Alt. Rudolf was not dead. Her conviction that life will give you what you want from it came back to her.

“I declare!” Franz exclaimed. “What do you say to this?”

The water gurgled softly around the keel of the gondola. The cupolas of San Marco gleamed like purest gold. If one closed one's eyes one could imagine being way out there where the red sails tacked back and forth.

“What do you say to this, Hetti? It was suicide!”

She blinked, leaning back in her black seat, and went on listening to the wonderful, soothing sound of the water. What had he said? No matter! Nothing mattered. “Eh!” cried the gondolier to another gondola which should have yielded the right of way to them and didn't. What a remarkably provocative cry! And to think that the gondoliers always stand as they row! They glided on. Was it over the Bridge of Sighs they took prisoners condemned to death?

She had never been good at history. Fortunately the only task her father had set her was the Palazzo Vendramin.

“… that he died as a result of a heart attack in his hunting lodge Mayerling near Baden is not in accordance with the facts. On the contrary, His Imperial and Royal Highness our most illustrious Crown Prince, so we learn on highest authority, is said to have taken his own life in a moment of sudden mental aberration.' Are you listening? And I can tell you that's not the whole truth either! All you have to do is compare the telegrams sent by our Emperor to Kaiser Wilhelm and the Pope. To Kaiser Wilhelm he wired: ‘In deepest sorrow I beg to inform you that while on a hunting trip in Mayerling the Crown Prince suddenly passed away. Presumably heart failure.' And that of the Pope—my French is not so good as yours: ‘
C
'
est avec la plus profonde douleur que je viens annoncer à Votre Sainteté la mort subite de mon fils Rodolphe
.
Je suis sûr de la part sincère qu'elle prendra à cette perte cruelle
;
j'en fais ce sacrifice à Dieu
,
auquel je rends sans murmure ce que j'ai reçu de Lui
.
J'implore pour moi et ma famille la bénédiction apostolique
.' No mention of heart failure! Evidently you cannot deceive the Pope!”