The Vienna Melody (13 page)

The words had gone into her ears; she had heard them, but they had had no more meaning than the splash of water against the keel of the gondola. Suddenly they acquired such an overwhelming meaning that she roused herself from unreality and tore the newspaper out of his hands. “On the contrary… is said to have taken his own life. The dispatch printed yesterday in these columns, giving the reason for the demise of His Imperial and Royal Highness the Crown Prince, is not in accordance with the facts. On the contrary, his Imperial and Royal Highness our most illustrious Crown Prince … in a moment of sudden mental aberration …” She read it through twice.

‘‘Let's go back!” she said.

“But it's only seven minutes! Don't you think that he was murdered? Why would he take his own life? If there was one person in the world who had no grounds for suicide, it was he. Don't you agree?”

“I'm not so sure,” she said.

“But you knew him. Didn't he give you the impression of enjoying life as few do?”

On my wedding day! she thought to herself. “I'm not so sure,” she repeated.

“Well, I suppose one can never see inside another person,” he said.

They had arrived at the mooring posts rising from the water in front of the Hotel Danieli. The gondolier looked scornfully at the money in his palm, demanded more, was given it, and then, with a “
Grazie tanto
!” helped the signora out of the gondola.

It took some time to choose a table in the dining room, to which she had accompanied her husband without knowing where she was going. As a typical Viennese Franz spurned the proposals of the head-waiter, who recommended two different tables on the shady side, and consequently chose one on the sunny side. With Viennese dislike of a fixed course, he also brushed aside the regular menu and gave the waiter not only precise instructions as to what he wished but also how he wished it prepared. His tone with such people had already irritated her on the journey down. With porters, conductors, drivers, or waiters her father had always been meticulously polite, and Rudolf had treated them as personal friends.

“Don't drink until you've had something to eat!” Franz warned.

If she just pretended to eat but principally drank the cool red Chianti, soon nothing would matter. Her father would have her telegram by now: “Wonderful trip, safe arrival.” He would show it to Theresa, who would say in an injured tone: “That's fine.” She could picture them both and could have cried. For if Franz was a typical Viennese, Henriette was a creature of her time in her complete sense of security, which bred a yearning for danger and even for suffering.
Weltschmerz
was what it was called a century earlier, and although that name no longer existed, the romantic sentimentality of Goethe's Werther still haunted the minds of every young generation living in seclusion and protection from the rough winds of realities. To those who willingly indulged in this romanticism it never occurred that it had grown threadbare, that it overestimated emotions and exaggerated individualism. In Henriette's mind a trivial incident was capable of becoming an event instantaneously and anything romantic reached immense proportions. She felt that her destiny had raised her to dizzy heights and that she had been painfully unequal to it. Her thoughts were laden with self-reproach as they kept turning back to the man who had gone to his death on her wedding day. Did he despise her now that he knew what came afterwards?

“
Signora
Alt?”

“
Si
?”

“
Un telegramma
.”

A page in a red uniform handed her a telegram.

“It is a reply from Papa,” she conjectured. “Do you know that this is the first wire I've ever received?” She laid it on the table beside her.

He laughed. “Did I ever tell you what I like best about you? It's that you're such a child yet. Aren't you going to open it?”

Picking up the narrow gray envelope, he read aloud the address: “‘The Honorable Frau Henriette Alt, née Stein, Hotel Danieli, Venice, Italy.' Your father is indeed polite with you!”

“Is all that really on the envelope?” she asked. Then she read the address herself. It was funny that her father should put all that on his telegram. Then she opened it.

 

YOUR IMMEDIATE RETURN AND EARLIEST POSSIBLE APPEARANCE AT THIS OFFICE REQUESTED.

(
signed
) PRIVY CHANCELLERY OF HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR AND KING.

 

“From your father?”

She nodded.

“Anything new?”

“He thanks me for my wire.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course. Aren't these shrimps delicious? Would you order few more?”

“Waiter!” he called delightedly. “At last I've found something which suits your taste. Waiter! Those people are never here when want them!
Cammeriere
!
Ancora una porzione scampi
.”

“
Pronto
,
signore
!”

With his usual unconcern for public notice, which she detested, Franz laid his hand on hers. She not only did not repulse his gesture but pressed his fingers in return.

“Now see what you've done! One can't read it any more!” she said. The paper she held in her hand was all crumpled. She tore it into bits and gave it to the waiter to take away.

“No great harm done,” he remarked guiltily. “Or did you want keep it as a souvenir?”

“Perhaps.”

Her thoughts were working feverishly. It must, of course, be something connected with Rudolf. She would have to leave that very evening. Franz must not, under any condition, find out the reason. Otherwise she could never make any request of him in the Jarescu matter, and all, all would have been in vain!

“Actually, how could a telegram from your father reach here so quickly? When did you wire him?” Franz inquired.

“Before we went out in the gondola.”

“One hour to go, and one to get back? The Royal Italian Postal and Telegraph Service is certainly improving. Otherwise they run things in a
non plus ultra
filthy way!”

She had to bring him to the point of letting her leave for Vienna that evening without his discovering why. It was an impossible thing to do, and yet she had to make it possible. All during the rest of the meal she racked her brains.

After they had gone up to their rooms and he had sat down beside the chaise longue on which she had thrown herself she asked, “How long did you really intend to be away?”

Although he had eyes only for her, he pretended to look out of the window. “You know as well as I—three weeks. Why?”

“Because we must go back tonight.”

“That's a rather poor joke.”

“But I'm serious. We must go. At least I must. You can, of course, stay here if you choose.”

“Is this some new torment you've invented for me?”

“I'm frightfully sorry. But the telegram said—” She had no notion of what she was going to say.

“I thought right away it wasn't from your father,” he declared reproachfully.

“But it was from him. I mean—it concerned him.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's on Papa's account that I have to go back at once,” she decided to say.

His expression, which until now had wavered between unbelief and amusement, grew serious. “Something unpleasant?”

“Rather.”

“Is he ill?”

“No, thank goodness.”

“Well, then? Have you so little confidence in me?”

“You saw that I wanted to show you the telegram! It said that I must be in Vienna early tomorrow.”

“What!” He started. “How do you know it's on account of your father?”

“Because he told me yesterday, when I went home, that I might receive such a telegram.”

“I don't understand anything! What did the telegram say?”

“Look, there's no use in cross-questioning me. It's something which concerns only my father, and for that reason I can't tell you what it is. But it's nothing so serious. Let me go this evening and I'll be back here with you the day after tomorrow. Will you?” Once the lie was invented it fell from her lips with such naturalness that she was amazed herself.

“You must be crazy! Do you think I'd let you make two such long trips alone? You were travelling yesterday; you want to do it again today, and then the day after?”

“All right. Then I'll come on Saturday.”

“All I see is how little you care about me! Everything else counts. But not I!”

She had to risk all or nothing. “You know that's not true,” she said, and kissed him.

Immediately disarmed by her first spontaneous kiss, he replied, “I know nothing. Are you trying to bribe me?” he added promptly, with a touch of suspicion. “Unfortunately I belong to those who let themselves be bribed!” With clumsy tenderness he took her in his arms, fearing all the while that she would again show how little he meant to her.

In tarvis they bought the Vienna evening papers, were they found twelve lines printed in small type, in an obscure column, under the heading “A Letter from the Crown Prince”:

 

In the following letter, the late Crown Prince Rudolf named Count Ladislaus von Szoegyényi-Marich, Chief of Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the executor of his will:

Dear Szoegyényi! Enclosed you will find a codicil to the will I made two years ago. The most important of my papers are in my study in the palace, and I, leave it to you to decide which ones you think should be made available for publication. I enclose the key to the small table by the sofa. When you receive these lines I shall no longer be alive. Take care of my dogs. Black, my hunting partner, goes to Latour, who is to treat him well in memory of me. Let Bombelles have Kastor and Schlieferl; the former is a good and loyal beast, while the latter laughs beautifully. I send my warmest greetings to all my friends. God bless our land.

RUDOLF

 

“That looks more like suicide,” was Franz's opinion after he had read it aloud to Henriette from his upper berth. “But I wonder why he didn't make his father his executor?”

“What was the date of the letter?” she inquired.

“It doesn't say. Why?”

“The train joggles frightfully!”

“And you wanted to take it again tomorrow! … Shall I put out the light?”

No, she did not want him to put out the light.

“Try to sleep. You've been awake so long.”

“Yes. And thank you again for coming with me. It was awfully sweet of you.”

“You baby! Did you think I'd let you go alone? … Hadn't I better turn out the light?”

Since the train had crossed into Austria its speed had doubled. An occasional flash from a passing light came through the blue curtains. She lay there with closed eyes. Everything was so strange: the narrow compartment, travelling at night, being with someone at night. Marriage was really a kind of imprisonment.

“Are you still awake?” he asked.

She was still awake.

“Tell me, do you still feel so badly over his death?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—the day before yesterday you were ready to run away from me. Do you still want to run away from me?”

“No.”

“That doesn't sound very enthusiastic.”

“Then don't ask me such questions.”

The train rattled on. When she was a little girl she always said a rhyme to herself in the train that seemed to fit the throb of the engine:
I am gay, all the way. I am gay, all the way.

“Hetti?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Nothing. Good night.”

The sound of snoring was now added to the rattle of the train. “When you marry, your husband must neither smoke cigars nor snore,” her father had often said jokingly. But tomorrow he would ask her whether she was happy. “Take care of my dogs.” “Immediate return and earliest possible appearance at this office requested.” “Take care of my dogs.” Should she go directly froth the station? Yet the Chancellery would probably not be open at eight o'clock. Perhaps Franz would take less notice if she went straight home from the South Station. She would get out in Karolinengasse and wait downstairs until he had driven on, and then she could take a sleigh herself. If she were lucky she would not meet anyone …

She was lucky. It was not yet eight o'clock as she sat in a closed carriage. The snow of two days earlier had disappeared, and a black flag fluttered from every house in all the streets through which she drove. At eight o'clock she was at her destination.

In the vestibule into which she was ushered a charwoman with pail, duster, and broom was busy with the morning cleaning.

“Calling on the chief or the assistant chief?'' the woman inquired. Henriette did not know on whom she was calling. On the Privy Chancellery of His Majesty the Emperor and King. Until now she had not taken into consideration whether it was a chief or assistant chief. “I don't know,” she said. “I have an appointment.”

“But you're too early! The assistant to the chief does not come until nine. And the chief much later,” the charwoman explained.

Henriette said she would wait. On each of the two high doors coved with green felt she saw a plate with a printed name. Prepared with her replies to the questions which would be put to her behind those doors, she once more went over the answers she had repeated to herself in the sleeping car until she knew them by heart.

At the same time she recalled some other words which she thought sadder than any she had ever heard: “While the latter laughs beautifully.”

At nine a man appeared, hung his coat and hat in a wardrobe in the waiting-room, put on a gold-braided official cap, took out his paper and a buttered bun, and sat down behind a table. “Have you an appointment?” he inquired of the waiting Henriette, and began once to munch his bun and read. A quarter of an hour later a gentleman in an astrakhan fur coat, whom he greeted obsequiously, came in. Then for half an hour nothing at all happened.