The Vienna Melody (14 page)

“I have an appointment,” Henriette reminded the man with the official cap. He made a backward gesture with his thumb and on reading. On the wall behind him hung a printed sign:
Office
hours 10-12
.

Henriette said: “Would you be good enough to announce that Frau Alt is here? I was sent for from Venice.” As she spoke she laid a coin on the table. The man picked up the coin, looked her suspiciously, but ushered her immediately through the door labelled “Dr. Karl Zsismar,
Assistant Chief of the Imperial and Royal Privy Chancellery
.”

The gentleman of this name rose behind his desk. “I am infinitely sorry that you should be kept waiting. The chief should be any moment,” he said.

“Can't you attend to the matter yourself?” Henriette asked. She had promised to stop for Franz at his office at eleven, and she began to fear that he would get in touch with her father if she were delayed.

“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” was the official's negative reaction. “Did you have a good journey up?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Is it warm down there now?”

“Rather.”

“Magnificent city, Venice.”

“Magnificent,”

From outside came sounds of obsequious greetings coupled with the name of the departmental chief, and immediately afterwards Henriette was ushered into another room and introduced to an extremely small-statured, gray-haired gentleman who appeared to be chilled, for he stood warming his back and hands in front of a white-tiled stove.

“Please be seated,” he said briefly, gave Henriette an unmistakable look, then asked, “You were the mistress of the Crown Prince?”

She jumped up.

“Please remain seated. Well?”

“I knew the Crown Prince. But I was not his mistress!'' she said indignantly.

“No? But you had secret meetings with him? You went to Baden, Voeslau, Alland, and Mayerling with him?”

She admitted this.

“How long did you know him?”

“For about a year and a half.”

“You married recently?”

“Yes.”

“Is your husband aware of your—well, your relationship to the Crown Prince?”

“He knows that I was acquainted with him.”

“He knows nothing of the more intimate circumstances? Nothing about the night drives, the rendezvous in more or less secret places?”

“No.”

“Why not, if it was all so innocent?”

“He never asked. If he does I shall tell him.” Henriette had never hated anyone so much before.

The small gentleman left the stove and sat down at his desk. “Frau Alt, you had a meeting with His Imperial Highness here in the palace. When?”

“In May.”

“Why did he insist on seeing you here rather than at some other place where you usually met?”

“That I don't know.”

“You don't know. Do you recall the subject of your conversation on that occasion?”

“Definitely.”

“What was it?” the Privy Chancellery chief asked after a second's pause. Her tone had made him hesitate.

“He told me he had requested the Pope to annul his marriage.”

“Continue. Did he relate that request to you?”

Thinking with the speed she could command in decisive moments, she gave the negative reply.

“That's not altogether logical. If he really sent for you to tell that, he must have had some purpose in mind. Try to remember, Frau Alt! Your deposition may be of the highest significance in exploring the question of whether or not His Imperial Highness had any motive for suicide.”

“Since he did commit suicide he must have had such a motive,” was her hostile reply.

Her questioner blew into the palms of his hands. “Have you some definite conjecture in this regard?”

“The marriage of His Imperial Highness was very unhappy. Moreover, there was deep opposition between him and His Majesty,” she said.

“Did he mention this explicitly to you?”

“Yes, explicitly.”

“Also this latter—I mean the opposition which you mentioned?”

“Yes. That especially.”

“Can you recall his words?”

“Exactly.”

The small gentleman appeared to be so chilled that he went back the stove and, leaning against it, continued, “You said a moment ago that the Crown Prince committed suicide. Do you exclude any other possibility?”

“Such as?”

“You knew Baroness Mary Vetsera?”

“Yes. Why?”

“What impression did you have of her?”

“I met her only three or four times. She's very attractive.”

“You don't know that Baroness Vetsera is no longer alive?”

“No!” she screamed.

“What excites you so? You said you knew her only casually.”

The Greek girl was dead! “How did she die?” Henriette asked in a voice scarcely audible.

Exuding his own chilliness until everything in the room seemed to freeze, the small gentleman countered with another question, “What do you think, Frau Alt?”

“Did she die with him?”

Abandoning his fruitless efforts to warm himself, the chief of His Majesty's Privy Chancellery came over to the chair where Henriette was sitting, her eyes staring blankly. He studied her for a moment before he asked, “What put that thought into your mind?”

“Please, Excellency, tell me—did Mary Vetsera die with him?”

“That appears to be the case.”

Not she. She was not so cowardly as I
, thought Henriette. She trembled so that he said to her, “Aren't you well? Is there anything you wish?”

She did not wish anything.

Without transition he put the next question, “Would you like to be involved in a criminal case, Frau Alt?”

Terrified, she shook her head.

“Then tell me the truth. Beyond me no one shall hear it. That much I promise you.”

“I've told you all I know.”

The small gentleman began to jot down notes. “Kindly recapitulate. You believe the Crown Prince committed suicide?” She did believe in the Crown Prince's suicide.

“And you believe the motive was—What did you believe the motive to be?”

She believed it was his marriage and—

“His marriage,” he interrupted.

“And his breach with his father,” she went on.

“Quite so. In this regard you're able to recall certain of his expressions.”

“Yes. He said—”

“That's sufficient. For your consideration I may add that we're in possession of valid reasons for casting doubt on the theory of suicide. It's indeed all but certain that His Imperial Highness was the victim of Baroness Vetsera.”

Incapable of speech, she stared at him.

“A glass containing suspect substances was found on the night table. It's almost positively a case of murder, Frau Alt. Not suicide.”

“That's madness!” she cried. “I never liked Mary Vetsera, but you're doing her a monstrous injustice! She simply went with him because no one else would go with him!”

“I thought you knew more. What is it that you know, Frau Alt?”

She was trembling so violently that she had to hold fast to the armchair in which she was seated. “Nothing.”

“Pray calm yourself,” the small man said, and gave her a look different from the first one he had given her. “You are very much upset.”

“May I go now?”

“I have one more thing to say to you, and I recommend it to your particular attention. Up to now you have seen these matters in the light put on them by the deceased and perhaps by your father, who also affects extremely liberal views. It's not my office to express any judgment of the qualities of statesmanship possessed by His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince. But one thing is sure: What he strove to bring about, under the influence of his Anglophile tendency and of certain circles—he called it democratic progress—was a Utopia not only not reconcilable with the best understanding of the interest of our country but even fatal to it. There is only one authoritative judge of what is necessary and beneficial to this land, which differs so from every other land and therefore must be handled differently, and that judge is His Majesty the Emperor. In a reign of over forty years he has determined on the course he must steer if this land is to continue to exist. How superhumanly difficult this has been, what unspeakable sacrifices of personal welfare it has entailed, is known to him and the very few who have had the privilege of accompanying him along this hard path. It may be that the deceased, in a moment of depression or regrettable nervous disorder and lack of self-control, to which he was subject, misunderstood some action or expression on the part of His Majesty. But not one of these actions or expressions—not one!—was dictated by anything except a deep-rooted, irreproachable sense of duty and responsibility. Of this I can say that I, an old man and one rather experienced, know of no comparable example in the history of the world.” Red spots burned on the cheeks of the small gentleman. “Frau Alt,” he went on in a lowered voice, “these are catastrophic days for every loyal Austrian, and I appeal to your loyalty. The rumors to the effect that what you mentioned earlier as a breach between father and son might have driven the Crown Prince to his death have reached even His Majesty's ears. And they have cut deeper than anything else. If he is obliged to admit that that was actually the case it would be a blow which even his iron constitution could not withstand. We must prevent that. At all costs! Do you understand me?”

“Not entirely, Excellency. You did say that you don't believe he committed suicide?”

“Certainly. But it would be much more decisive if His Majesty believed it. And you can be of material assistance in this.”

“I?”

“Yes, you. His Majesty has expressed a wish to see you. You will render him and your country an extremely important service if on that occasion you leave certain things unsaid.”

“But what am I to say?”

“You have a ready tongue. You'll know what to say. But in order that you know what you're not to say, I must ask you to sign this declaration.” He took a prepared statement from his desk and handed it to her.

The elaborately lettered text danced for a while in front of her eyes before she could distinguish any words and before those words took on any meaning:

 

I, the undersigned, hereby solemnly do swear that I shall maintain under all circumstances an absolutely unbroken silence on everything said to me by his late Imperial and Royal Highness, the august Crown Prince Rudolf, concerning any personages of the supreme Imperial and Royal House. I have been instructed to the effect that any breach of this oath would constitute an act of high treason.

Vienna,

February 1, 1889

 

“I shan't sign that,” she said, and laid the paper back on the desk. The little man stared at her as though he had misheard. “I beg your pardon?”

“No,” she repeated.

“And why not, if I may inquire?”

She looked off into space. “I've been cowardly enough.”

He coughed. “This heroic attitude in which you fancy yourself is not only stupid, but dangerous. Do you grasp that?”

“I've been cowardly enough,” she said again, more to herself than to him.

“In any case, you'll never be in a position to assert that you were not warned. Good morning, Frau Alt.”

“Good morning, Excellency.”

Black flags. Black draperies. Everywhere his picture swathed in black. “When is the funeral?'' she asked a policeman in the Michael Square. It had taken place the day before, she learned. Yesterday she had ridden in a gondola, while he rode in a hearse. “You were the mistress of the Crown Prince?” “I knew him, but I was not his mistress.” What was I to him really? she asked herself in the storm of thoughts driving her without her knowing where she was going or what she was doing.
If I were say to anyone, “I have lost the Crown Prince,” I should be considered crazy
. “His Majesty has expressed a wish to see you. You will render him and your country an extremely important service…” Can one go crazy without ever having been ill before? “What did you believe the motive to be?”
You will think me crazy, Excellency, but perhaps I was the motive! Perhaps he wanted to send word to me: Come, I need you. And then did not dare because I sent him a marriage announcement. It was to Mary Vetsera he said it. On my wedding day. On my wedding day he did it. Do you realize what that means, Your Excellency?

She was seized with a fit of crying in the middle of Augustiner Street. She went into the church where two days earlier she had been married and sat down in the last row of pews. She was so racked with sobs that a woman saying her beads laid her hand gently on her shoulder and said, “Have you lost someone?”

She nodded.

“Then you mustn't cry,” the woman said. “It hurts the dead.”

She nodded again and went out. For she could not tell anyone that she had promised to die with the man who was now dead, and that her still being alive was a betrayal. What could she say, anyway? Nothing!

Everything around her seemed to swim. Strange, all that is a matter of course takes its toll. If you do not eat your breakfast you are punished. If you are called Henriette Stein and fall in love with the Crown Prince you are punished. There are no miracles, Papa used to say. Yet she was so irrevocably convinced of the opposite! There were miracles. You had only to wish for them! You could love the Crown Prince. You could become Empress. You could buy off Jarescu. If that was all untrue life would not be worth living.

Jarescu forced her confused thoughts to focus themselves on him for an instant. She must give him an answer. But if Franz discovered anything …? Why was it suddenly so hard to think? Every single thought caused pain.