Sisi, page 16
“Kind, perhaps. But I’m only stating the truth,” Prince Esterházy said.
“I, too, am telling you the truth, Nicky. Gisela is to be married to that Leopold of hers. And I must make my peace with the fact that I’m getting old.”
“Hardly. You look as youthful as a bride yourself.”
“And yet…when I insisted that they have a long engagement,” Sisi continued, “do you know what the court response was?”
“No, what was it?”
“That I was postponing my daughter’s happiness to appease my own vanity. That I am terrified of becoming a grandmamma and thus won’t allow Gisela to marry.”
“And is that the truth?”
Sisi cocked her head. “I confess I don’t wish to be a grandmother! But no, that was hardly my reasoning. I’m not that selfish. I arranged for Gisela to have a long engagement so that she would not be married while still a girl, as I was.”
Esterházy fidgeted in his saddle, uncertain how to reply.
“But let’s leave all of that in Vienna, shall we?” Sisi sighed. “For here I am, far away from all the gossips.”
They rode slowly toward her stables in Gödöllő, the sun sinking low over the fields to the west. Sisi felt spent and more relaxed than she had in weeks, her skin salty with the remains of hard-earned perspiration. The day had been a clear one, and the evening air felt crisp, tinged with the scent of log-burning fires and dry leaves. She and Prince Esterházy had been riding since dawn, while Franz and Rudolf had taken half a day off of their work to hike in the surrounding woodlands. Gisela had been preoccupied with planning her bridal trousseau and writing love letters to her soon-to-be husband.
Sisi pulled the reins in tighter to slow the horse as they approached the stables. The grooms rushed out to meet their arrival, with Shadow joining them as the happiest member of their welcome party. Sisi leaned her head to the side as she pulled her horse to a standstill and looked up at the house, where Gisela’s bedroom windows were aglow. “I cannot understand how people can look forward to marriage so much and expect so much good to come from it.”
Esterházy hopped down and extended his hand to help Sisi out of her own saddle. She continued, speaking perhaps more to herself than to her riding companion: “When I think of myself, sold as a child of fifteen and taking an oath which I did not understand…”
Esterházy kept his tone light, not sensing the depth of Sisi’s thoughts. He shrugged and answered: “Probably why I prefer to remain a bachelor.” Esterházy offered his arm, and Sisi looped her own through his to be escorted back to the house. The massive maidenhair gingko tree in the yard had shed its bright leaves, carpeting the ground in yellow, and Shadow now rolled in the colorful pile as they passed. “Besides,” Esterházy continued, “I have not yet found anyone who could pull my fidelity from you, Queen Elisabeth.”
She laughed off the comment, knowing that this dashing rogue would eventually make himself into a husband, as soon as his appetite for hunting and flirting had been sated. And he’d have no shortage of willing partners when the time came. But he was a wealthy man, and thus, the freedom of choice was his prerogative. Sisi sighed and recited one of her favorite verses: “Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle.”
“Pardon?” Esterházy glanced sideways at her.
“It’s a Heine quote,” Sisi answered.
“Who?”
“My favorite poet.” Andrássy would have known that, she thought, a stab of anguish piercing her. With that, she slid her arm out of Esterházy’s and picked up her pace, marching toward the house. “I must hurry if I wish to visit my Valerie. Thank you for the ride, Nicky. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Sisi hadn’t known—neither Franz nor Andrássy had told her—that Andrássy would be joining them that evening in Gödöllő. She barely concealed her pleasure at beholding him when she entered the dining room with Marie and Ida.
“Good evening, Empress.” Andrássy was pristine in a dinner coat and tails even after his journey.
“Count Andrássy, hello.”
“You look well.”
“Thank you,” she answered, her heart leaping in her breast. When she looked into his eyes, she felt her cheeks flushing warm. Your face always betrays your emotions…That was what Andrássy had once told her, and she recalled it now. Oh, well, she thought; no one here would gossip and send word to Bellegarde that the empress had smiled too broadly throughout dinner.
Several hours later, Sisi perched on the armrest of her husband’s chair. The evening meal was over, and the group had moved through to the drawing room. Nicky sat across from them sipping on sweet tokaji wine. Marie and Ida were enveloped in a game of cards with Gisela and Rudolf. At the far end of the room, Andrássy stood alone, smoking in the corner as he looked out the window at the dark, chilly night that had fallen over Gödöllő.
“Franz, there’s something we must speak about,” said Sisi.
“Yes?” Franz turned toward his wife. “Will you have a drink, Elisabeth?”
“No, thank you,” she said, shaking her head. “But you must speak to Nicky—Prince Esterházy…about his stable full of thoroughbreds. My birthday is approaching, as is Christmas, and I’d quite like a new horse. I think I’ve completely worn my poor old creatures out.”
“Is that so?” Franz looked at his wife as a footman filled his wineglass. There always seemed to be so many more footmen present in every room whenever Franz was around, Sisi thought. “Nikolaus, have you already exhausted my wife’s fine Hungarian thoroughbreds?”
“Please don’t be angry with me, Your Majesty. Besides, with a petitioner such as she is, my guess is that you obey the empress as willingly as the rest of us do.” Esterházy glowed from wine and food and the imperial companionship.
“Not only willingly, but quickly, too.” Franz looked to the Hungarian prince as if to indicate that he had learned his lesson, had learned of the consequences of choosing not to obey. “Tell me about your horses, Prince. Elisabeth has praised your stables to no end.”
Sisi seized her moment, seeing that Franz would now be drawn into a long, wine-filled conversation with Esterházy—the nobleman couldn’t resist any opportunity to boast about his superbly stocked horse stalls. She rose from the chair and glided quietly to the far side of the room. She nodded at Ida as she passed.
“Ida, some music?”
Her attendant obeyed, rising from the game of cards to take a seat at the piano. Now, between the piano, the laughter erupting from around the card table, and Esterházy’s booming monologue on horses, there was plenty of noise to fill the room. “Hello, Andrássy.” Sisi stopped at his side.
He glanced sideways at her, as if emerging from deep thought and only now noticing that he was not alone in the room. “Good evening, Empress Elisabeth.” He stood tall, throwing a look toward Franz and Esterházy on the far side of the salon. They were nearly concealed behind the piano and a nearby bookshelf, but nevertheless, his body language was perfectly formal, suitably reserved.
“How are you?” she asked, angling her body so that it appeared as if she was looking out the window, though in fact she was looking at him.
“I’m fine,” he said. His face sagged with fatigue, and his tone carried no hint of cheer. “And you?”
“I’m very well, thank you.” She paused, drawing in a long breath, and then she added: “I’m happy to see you.” And she was; it was the truth.
“You look as if you have been restored to your former splendor.” He turned and admired her appearance—her brocade gown the color of silvery charcoal, with bows on the sleeves and glass beading on the skirt and collar. It was almost time for them to be out of mourning attire, and this charcoal dress had just the appropriate amount of modest decoration. Andrássy turned back toward the dark gardens once more.
“Thank you,” she said, then paused. “I suppose it is because I am back where I belong.”
He nodded, not looking at her.
“And you are back where you belong,” she added quietly as she studied his profile. “Here. In Hungary.”
“It is a relief to find both you and the emperor looking and feeling so well, Empress.”
She wished he would stop calling her that, but she knew he never would. Not in front of Franz Joseph or anyone else. “Have things been very busy for you with the parliament in Budapest? We have barely seen you.”
He nodded.
She attempted a light tone as she continued. “I suppose you’ve heard our joyous news? You know that I am to be the mother of the bride?”
“Indeed,” he said. They both looked toward Gisela, whose plump face shone a rosy pink as she laughed with her brother at the card table. “My best wishes for the Archduchess Gisela.”
“And I am feeling very old,” Sisi said, sighing.
He looked at her, his features indicating—what was it? Terrible fatigue, or else sadness?
“But we shall send one girl off and pull another one in,” Sisi said. “I’ve invited a relative of mine, a young Bavarian girl by the name of Marie Larisch, to attend to me in my household. I told Ida and Marie that we’re getting too old and that the only way to keep us young is to get some fresh blood into my rooms.”
“Marie Larisch…” Andrássy repeated. “I don’t know the young lady.”
“No, you wouldn’t. She’s the child of an actress.”
“She’s your relative?”
“Oh, well, her mother’s an actress; her father is one of my relatives in the Bavarian ducal line. So, she’s half noble. Not enough to count by Viennese standards. All the better: she shall never be embraced by the court. And so I shall never have to fear her turning on me.”
A massive eruption of laughter signaled the end of the nearby card game, with Marie Festetics throwing her hands up in triumph. Across the room Franz and Esterházy were still speaking while Ida plunked away on the piano. Gisela began prattling on to Marie at the card table about her plans for the upcoming wedding, explaining that she had decided on a pattern for her new porcelain, and marveling that the pieces of her bridal trousseau had already begun to arrive from as far away as London and Paris.
Rudolf sank into a brooding silence as the two women chatted about Gisela’s wedding. He wore the military uniform now, and though that forced him to sit up erect and stiff, his facial expression undid his otherwise arresting appearance. He looked glum, even on the verge of tears. Sisi guessed at the source of Rudolf’s melancholy: the boy dreaded his sister’s upcoming departure. The crown prince and his father were not close, their dispositions being so entirely opposite. With his grandmother deceased and his mother so often out of reach, Gisela was Rudolf’s closest family member and only confidante.
“Come now, how can you keep the empress all to yourself over there, Andrássy?” Nicky called from his seat near the emperor. “That’s not very gallant!”
Both Sisi and Andrássy turned, an instinctive response, and walked back toward the others, their private interlude over.
“We are over here plotting your birthday present, Empress,” Esterházy said.
Franz looked sleepy in the chair opposite him. “Rudy.” The emperor turned now to his son. “What are you doing over there, listening to talk of wedding gowns with a pair of women?”
Sisi nearly winced at the insensitivity of the remark. “I was playing cards with them,” Rudy answered, his voice quiet.
“Even worse, losing at cards to a pair of women. Come now, son, you should be over here. Drinking with the men.”
“I’m tired,” Rudy said, rising from his chair. “If you don’t mind, I shall excuse myself and retire for the evening.” With that, Sisi watched her son exit the room, his uniformed frame moving in tight, brittle motions.
An uneasy silence hung suspended in the air for several minutes before Esterházy filled it. “It’s a shame you won’t ever come out riding with us, Andrássy.” Esterházy lit a cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke around his face. “You deny yourself all fun.”
“You have no idea,” Andrássy replied, his voice so low that even Sisi, who was standing beside him, barely heard. But then, speaking more loudly so that the others might hear, Andrássy said, “I can’t divert my energy and time with child’s play and sport when I have the important work of running the kingdom on my desk each morning.”
Sisi should have been insulted—the remark was, after all, just as pertinent to her manner of spending time as it was to Esterházy’s. But she wasn’t mad. No, in fact, she was delighted because, as he said it, Sisi saw the jealousy plainly across Andrássy’s face.
Andrássy was not jealous of Franz; she understood that much. Andrássy knew that Sisi and Franz’s bed had gone cold years earlier and that Sisi felt no desire to return to her husband in that capacity. But Nicky Esterházy was bold and virile and could potentially grab her eye. He did grab her eye, in fact, and Andrássy saw it. The way he himself had first grabbed her eye all those years ago as the dangerous and dashing young Hungarian patriot who had asked her to dance. Seeing that drove Andrássy mad with jealousy, and this kindled in Sisi some small, stubborn flame of hope.
—
Later that night while the entire household slept, Sisi walked to the spot under the leafless dogwood trees, her cloak wrapped tight around her shivering frame. They hadn’t planned it, hadn’t discussed it at all. And yet, there they both stood, their shapes illuminated by the soft glow of the half-moon overhead. “Andrássy.”
“Sisi.” His voice sounded hoarse, tortured. “You came.”
She flew the final steps to him.
“I’ve fought so hard,” he said. “And I’ve succeeded—or, at least, I thought I had. I’ve been loyal to my king, and I’ve served him. Oh, but Sisi, it destroys me every day to be away from you.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she gladly folded into him, receiving his embrace as she would an absolution. She could have wept with joy. Their bodies found each other in the dark, after so long apart, weaving willingly together in ravenous treason.
Sisi was actually relieved the next morning when Miss Throckmorton told her at breakfast that Valerie had awoken with a fever. Sisi called the physician into the nursery, ordered her daughter to be put under constant surveillance, and canceled her ride, telling Nicky that she planned to remain in the palace while her child needed her.
But there was something else, too, which she did not share with Nicky. Sisi was relieved to have an excuse to skip the day’s hunting excursion because she had awoken that morning to other news: Andrássy was gone. It was so abrupt that she wondered if the previous night had been nothing more than a glorious dream. But no, Marie announced while Sisi dressed that he had left early that morning. He had returned, Sisi guessed, to parliament in Budapest. With that abrupt departure, the happiness of the previous night was replaced by a bitter sadness, and Sisi was certain that Nicky, solicitous and jealous Nicky, would have seen that something was wrong.
So Sisi spent the morning in her room, dismissing her attendants and brooding in bed. By midday, bored and still unhappy, Sisi decided to take a walk by herself. The afternoon was a chilly one, gray with the promise of rain, so she returned to the palace after only a short outing. Feeling as though she’d go mad with restlessness, she poured herself into the activity of catching up on her letters. She read and responded to the notes from her mother, and Helene, and Sophie-Charlotte. She saved her letter from Ludwig for last. If news from Possi had lifted her spirits some, the news from Ludwig caused her mood to plummet once more.
My dearest Sisi,
I greet you with a crushed and demoralized soul, for just today, I have feuded with Richard, and I fear that the rupture may be beyond repair.
Perhaps you ask yourself how two souls who are knit so closely together as Richard and I are—two people who share such deep understanding, and intimacy, and common dreams and purpose—could find vile discord to exist between them. To such a question, I offer this defense: it is not my fault! It is the fault of that despicable consortium of apes in Munich, that so-called government of mine!
My ministers have recently complained to me of the dire financial state of my kingdom, and they have most brusquely insisted that I curb new spending projects until my situation becomes more solvent. They tell me that I have driven Bavaria deep into debt and that the government in Munich, henceforth, shall need to approve of all new expenditures that would exceed ten thousand marks. Imagine them telling me, their KING, what I may or may not do?
When I tried to explain this to my dear Richard, he did not understand. He is a genius—he does not (and should not) concern himself with matters as filthy and mundane as money! What does money even matter when we are speaking of creating pure and divinely inspired art? Richard urged me to disregard the tyrannical orders being issued from Munich, from my own ministers. Oh, how I wanted to bend to his will!
And yet, fool that I am, I begged him to give me some time to consider it. To see if there might be a way to beseech the apes to come around, to make them understand and acknowledge the supreme significance of our projects. Richard did not like this, and he roared the most unbearable things at me, storming out of the castle and telling me that he would never see me again.
He is, as you know, the god of my life, and I question whether there’s any reason to go on living without him in it.
With a most heavy and burdened heart, I pray that you remember your devoted cousin,
Ludwig
Sisi kept the letter in her hands as she paced across her bedroom, fuming. Soon the space grew too confining, and she burst from the bedroom, crossing the hallway with angry footsteps and descending the stairs. She marched out the back door and into the garden, her mind racing.
Her poor cousin! Her foolish, eccentric, naïve cousin! Ludwig was clearly unhinged, driven mad by his passion and his dreams and their incongruity with the harsh reality of the world. There was no longer any denying his troubles. Though he was not quite mad enough to belong in an asylum, he had no business being king.
