Sisi, page 13
And now Sophie faced the joint blows of Prussian supremacy in Europe and the appointment of her Hungarian nemesis, Andrássy, who sat at her family’s dinner table, the newly minted foreign minister and the most powerful man in the empire after her son. It was too much for the old and ailing matriarch to bear. Sophie cleared her throat loud enough for her son to hear.
Franz looked up. “Yes, Mother? Is there something you’d like to say?”
The old woman nodded.
“Yes?”
“To think,” Sophie leaned forward, her voice shaky, her entire demeanor somehow depleted as she slouched in her chair. “To think that I, as a young bride, came to Vienna under such different circumstances. Why, when Prince Metternich sat in the foreign minister’s seat”—she threw a distrustful look at Andrássy—“the whole world slept soundly at night. With Austria at the helm of Europe, it was the age of the great monarchs. Dynasties were assured; all was in its proper order. People knew who their leaders were. There was none of this bickering over constitutions and revolutions and laissez-faire governments. There was peace. There was order!” Sophie uttered the last word with the sacred reverence it was due, looking down at her dinner plate, seemingly exhausted by her outrage. “I fear…oh, my Franzi, I fear for the age of the great monarchs….”
“There, now, Mother…” Franz Joseph said, his words tapering out as he perhaps found no reply with which to comfort his stricken mother. Perhaps she was right.
Andrássy leaned forward, and Franz turned to him. It was remarkable, Sisi thought; these two men, once sworn enemies, now sitting together at a small dinner table in Vienna. Franz turning his attention from his mother to hear the counsel of a onetime Hungarian rebel and exile. And she, Sisi, the one who had brought them together, silently looking on.
“Yes, Count Andrássy, would you like to speak?” Franz asked.
“If I may, Your Majesty.”
Franz nodded, and Andrássy sat up a bit taller, pushing his plate away, apparently done with his stewed beef. “Prussia seeks our friendship once more,” Andrássy said, clearing his throat. “Bismarck knows that—given a choice among France, England, and Austria-Hungary—it is our friendship he most needs.”
“The Prussians—our friends?” Sophie’s tone was biting.
“It’s a new world, Archduchess Sophie,” Andrássy said, turning slowly to Sophie before looking back to Franz. “Prussia’s…or, shall I say, Germany’s…victory over France has made it so. We must adapt, or perish. Your Majesty.”
“We are the Habsburgs. We don’t change,” said Sophie, repeating the family motto, but her son did not nod his usual agreement.
“I tell you,” Franz replied to Andrássy, not to his mother, “I worry less about the Prussians— No, I am being serious. Hear me on this: it’s not going to be the Prussians who bring about our undoing, and it’s not going to be the Hungarians.” Franz bowed his head to Andrássy as if to credit him. Sisi bristled at this. Hadn’t she, too, been critical in brokering peace between the Austrians and Hungarians?
Franz continued, looking neither at his wife nor at his mother but only at his foreign minister. “After all of this, it won’t be the Prussians or the Hungarians or the Italians who ruin us. I swear it: if this empire crumbles”—he raised a hand, waving his finger at the table—“it will be the threat coming from the Balkans. The Serbs could be the end of the Habsburgs.”
Andrássy, Sisi, and Sophie considered this silently. The Serbs who lived within Habsburg lands were volatile and constantly clamoring for independence, yes, but they were a disorganized band of anarchists, fascists, and communists; lone gunmen, each man out for his own glory. No Serbian could pose a serious threat to unified and resolute Austro-Hungarian might.
Franz Joseph lifted his napkin to his lips, wiping his whiskers before placing it down on the table before him. “I’ve finished,” he said, rising, and with that, custom dictated that all the other diners, too, had finished eating, whether in fact they had or not.
Sisi had barely touched her food. She had come to dinner hoping to voice some of her own concerns to her husband and Andrássy. Her own sister Marie had been driven from her husband’s palace in Rome and had fled like a refugee to Possenhofen, where she was now living in exile, a disgraced queen without a crown or kingdom. Wasn’t there anything Austria could do to help Sisi’s sister drive that revolutionary criminal Victor Emmanuel from Rome so that Marie and her husband might win back their Italian thrones?
But Sisi saw that she would not have the occasion to plead for her sister the former Queen of Naples, as Franz cleared his throat, standing tall at the head of the table. “I shall go through to the other room for a smoke. Andrássy, would you join me?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
The two men left the room, and Sisi remained behind. Her mother-in-law coughed beside her. Gisela and Rudolf whispered a small joke between them, instantly more relaxed now that the emperor and foreign minister had gone. Sisi looked down at her lap, adjusting the folds of scarlet silk and beadwork of her gown. How curious, she thought. She had once been Andrássy’s closest ally, his only champion in the Habsburg Court. He had needed her to get even a word to Franz’s ears. But lately those two men spent nearly every evening together, locked in Franz’s study, drinking and smoking cigars and discussing the endless list of international crises that battered and beleaguered them, like an unceasing assault of ocean tempests. Andrássy seemed to have forgotten entirely about Sisi, replacing her with her husband and his bottomless workload. Franz’s personal work philosophy, “One must work until one is thoroughly exhausted,” seemed to be Andrássy’s new motto, as well. The two men had become inseparable, bound together by the shared cares of the imperial ship they steered.
She looked down once more at her elaborate gown, feeling foolish. She had dressed magnificently for dinner—wearing a high-necked gown of beaded scarlet. She had had her hair woven into a coronet of braids. She had covered her skin in rose water and diamonds and rubies. She had come to dinner looking her best. And yet, Andrássy had barely noticed her.
Fool! she thought. It was a lesson she had learned long ago, as a young bride—she could never compete with the cares of running the empire.
“I ought to be so terribly mad at you, Andrássy, the way you have neglected me.”
It was the first moment Sisi had had alone with Andrássy since his return to court. She had been inviting him to luncheon in her formal staterooms for weeks, and he had only just accepted the invitation.
Outside the palace the air was crisp and snow flecked, sweetened with the scent of the roasted chestnuts and fried dough peddled by the vendors beyond the gates in Michaelerplatz—St. Michael’s Square. The opera house had opened its doors, dazzling Vienna’s upper classes with its gold-gilt chandeliers and walls covered in violet silk, a setting as resplendent and glittering on the interior as the stone exterior was imposing and grand. The tinkling sound of bells pierced the air as sleighs glided along the icy Ringstrasse, while all along the boulevards, bundled pedestrians dashed about to purchase sweets and gingerbread cakes and holiday gifts. Master Strauss was hard at work on a waltz dedicated specifically to the city of Vienna, and the emperor had just announced a glorious new alliance with the powerful German Empire. It promised to be a peaceful Christmas. The Austrians, their emperor declared, had much to toast as the year’s end approached.
And yet, there was an underlying current of tension that pulsed within the palace. The alliance with Germany had been forged out of necessity, out of the need to appease Austria’s more powerful neighbor, more than any true affection between the two states. The emperor was overburdened and harassed by simmering discontent from the Balkans in the south up to Bohemia in the north. And the Archduchess Sophie’s health continued to deteriorate. Count Bellegarde, meanwhile, hated Andrássy almost as much as he hated the empress, and he viewed the Hungarian patriot’s presence at court, at Franz’s side, as an affirmation of the empress’s toxic influence on the emperor. The general had redoubled his efforts to discredit and defame Sisi at court to anyone who would listen—and there were many receptive ears.
Sisi, for all of these reasons, dreaded the thought of a long winter in Vienna. The busiest season came after New Year’s Day and before Lent, during which time she would be expected to make merry alongside the rest of the courtiers, waltzing and gossiping and dining late into the evenings. She longed for the peace and freedom of Gödöllő, and even more, she longed to understand and somehow fix the distance that seemed to keep spreading between herself and Andrássy.
“I think you’ve forgotten all about me,” she said now, sitting down to lunch in her formal state dining room. It was just the two of them, as she had dismissed her secretary, Baron Nopcsa, as well as her ladies. She attempted to keep her tone light, but her words spoke of a much deeper hurt.
“Please don’t be cross with me, Empress.”
“Empress? You’re so formal these days.” Like a seasoned Viennese bureaucrat, she thought.
Andrássy fiddled with his napkin, taking a long time to unfold it. “You know that I have so many masters to serve.”
Sisi looked at him, noticing the way his dark eyes, once so radiant and mischievous, stared seriously ahead. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him smile—an authentic, reckless smile, not the polite and measured expressions he offered to her and her husband in their formal exchanges and conversations.
Sisi wasn’t certain how this gulf had grown so wide between them. It was as if the distance necessitated by the more formal setting of the Viennese Court had now become their accepted way of interacting, as if their aloof and protocol-dictated public style had taken root, becoming a very real coolness and habitual disinterest. Now when they spoke to each other with such stiffness, it was no longer them simply acting their parts; they truly had become little more than formal acquaintances.
“How is your family?” Andrássy asked, tucking into his Rindssuppe, a warm broth with dumplings and onions.
“Rudy is…well, he excels in his studies. He’s intelligent. But he remains…”
Andrássy looked up, spoon poised in hand.
“He’s still so incredibly nervous.”
Andrássy nodded.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever be fully…” Sisi sighed and took a sip of her wine. “Gisela, on the other hand, couldn’t be less sensitive. That girl has the emotional depth of her father in addition to bearing his likeness. The two of them can be…oh, as dull as a pair of bricks.”
“Sisi!” Andrássy looked up at her, and for a moment, his censure of her was so familiar, so casual and authentic, that she could have smiled in relief to see him scolding her. But he quickly recovered himself, clearing his throat. Sisi saw how, as Andrássy looked back down at his soup, the candor on his face from just a moment ago had been reined back in.
When he spoke next, he reassumed his formal tone: “The Archduchess Gisela is a very poised and pious girl. She’s displayed an admirable forbearance in the face of the Archduchess Sophie’s failing health…in preparing to bid farewell to her….” Andrássy’s words sputtered out, and Sisi couldn’t help but bristle. What about me? she thought, her stomach tightening. Who commended me on my admirable forbearance when I lost my own children? Surrendered them and their love to another?
But before she could voice these tormented thoughts, Andrássy continued: “You have much to be proud of. You’ve raised an impressive girl.”
The words pierced Sisi like an arrow, and she snapped her quick reply, her tone biting: “I had little to do with it.”
“You are her mother, Sisi.”
“In name only.”
“The Archduchess Gisela admires you greatly. I am sure of that,” Andrássy replied, his elbows propped on the table.
Sisi didn’t know whether to groan at this reply or to reach across the table to take Andrássy’s hand and plead with him to stop being so stilted and unnatural around her. He knew how difficult it had been for Sisi, how little intimacy and love she felt between herself and Gisela—he knew that the girl didn’t take after her mother in disposition or physicality. Not any more than she seemed to want her mother around. Gisela hardly ever spoke more than three words together to Sisi, and only when they were together in formal group settings.
“And what news from Bavaria? How is your family at Possenhofen?” Andrássy said, sipping his way efficiently through his soup. He was probably eager to finish lunch and get back to his papers…to Franz, Sisi thought bitterly. “I saw that your sister Sophie-Charlotte married the Duke of Alençon.”
“Yes,” Sisi said, her fingers tracing a flower stitched into the tablecloth.
“That’s good,” Andrássy said, nodding at his soup. “I’m glad she did not spend long pining over Ludwig. That was a road to a very unhappy ending.”
Sisi didn’t know why, but she grimaced at the remark. Perhaps it was Andrássy’s veiled jab at Ludwig that irked her. Or perhaps it was the familiar and presumptuous manner in which Andrássy passed judgment over the members of her family—as if he had that right, when he himself had been so removed and aloof to Sisi lately.
“And how about the rest of your family?” Andrássy seemed eager to fill the silence, to direct the conversation to a safe ground that focused on others, not on the two of them. “Your parents? Your other sisters?”
Sisi sat up in her chair, clearing her throat. “Actually, my sister Marie—”
“Yes, how is she?”
“Not good,” Sisi said.
“Is she still in Bavaria with your parents?”
Sisi nodded. Her sister was still living in exile, while Victor Emmanuel had declared himself the king of Italy. To make matters worse, Marie had lost her only child to illness during the midst of her political crises.
Between Marie’s anguish, her father’s immoderation, reports of Ludwig’s increasing eccentricity, and Helene’s ill health, Sisi didn’t know how her mother managed to keep that household at Possenhofen running. She looked now at Andrássy. “Can’t we do something to support Marie’s claim to the Italian throne? It would mean so much to my family.”
Andrássy sighed, propping his elbows on the table as he broke apart a piece of bread. “You know that your husband lost his own Italian lands just a few years ago, and since then he’s—”
“Yes, but he is still the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Surely his support counts for something?”
“He supports your sister, of course. She is family. But what can he do? Words alone won’t make Victor Emmanuel give up his hard-earned throne.”
“Then, can’t we do something else?” Sisi pushed herself back from the table, rose, and began pacing the room, her appetite nonexistent.
Andrássy watched her walk, thinking for a few moments. “What—declare war? You understand that that is not an option, not with things as they currently are. Not while we are trying to solidify this alliance with Prussia—I mean, the German Empire.”
“Ah, yes, Bismarck, Bismarck, Bismarck. Our onetime enemy, now the belle of the ball, suddenly,” Sisi said, sick of the man’s name. Strange how these leaders swapped foes and bedfellows so often. Was nothing real, nothing authentic in this court?
“Come back to the table, Empress. You’ve barely touched your luncheon. I will explain to you the absolute necessity of our friendship with Bismarck.”
“I have no appetite—either for that rich food or your talk of politics.” She lifted a handkerchief and coughed, her entire chest heaving as she did so. It took her several moments to recover.
“That is quite a cough, Empress.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Sisi grumbled, lifting her handkerchief and coughing once more.
“You really ought to take care of yourself,” Andrássy said, eyeing her from his seat.
“Yes, I know,” she said. Andrássy, she thought, rise and take my hand, won’t you? Where have you gone? Talk to me of something other than politics.
“This whole empire needs a strong and healthy empress.” As he said it, he folded his napkin and placed it on the table, and for a moment she thought that in fact he did plan to rise, to come to her. But instead he stood tall, straightening the folds of his jacket as if preparing to go. “I shall leave you in peace, since you are not feeling well. Thank you for the luncheon, Empress.”
Her heart plummeted to her stomach. So he was going to leave, just like that? When this was the only chance they’d had to speak alone in months? “You…you’ve only just finished your soup. You won’t stay for the rest of the meal?” Her entreaty sounded feeble given that she herself had barely touched her soup. But she didn’t want him to leave, not yet.
“I do not wish to impose on you further. You are unwell. Please, Empress, rest. Take care of that cough. You must recover your strength.” He bowed toward her, and then, before taking his leave, he added: “We all depend upon it.”
It was the way he said it—more so than his choice of words—that shattered her. Her health was a matter of state importance. We all depend upon it. As if she had become, to him, nothing more than a vessel of imperial significance. He, Andrássy, didn’t care about her well-being so much as he, the foreign minister, recognized the need for a strong empress. It made the blood inside of her simmer.
“I plan to recover,” she said, jutting her chin out and standing a bit straighter. This was the first time she had thought of the idea that she now voiced: “Valerie has the same persistent cough. I was thinking I might take her south, somewhere warm for the winter, to take a water cure.”
Andrássy didn’t miss a beat, bowing forward to take his leave as he answered: “If that is what you wish, Empress.”
She stood stunned, deeply hurt by the quickness of the reply, of his acquiescence that she might just go away, far away from him. So, too, was she hurt by the calm, emotionless mask Andrássy wore on his face, revealing no sadness at the thought of her departure.
