Sisi, page 35
Sisi supposed that part of Franz’s frustration arose from the fact that he would have loved an invitation back into her bed. He’d return to her this very night if she gave the signal that it was an option. But that would not happen. Not when he, years ago, had invited so many others into their marriage. No, it had been more than a decade since she had even been able to think of him in that way. That flame in her heart, that spark warming her body with desire for him, had long ago foundered and extinguished. Especially as she knew so well that he continued to seek his pleasure elsewhere.
The best she could give him now was companionship—but even that was proving excruciatingly tedious and tiresome. What she wanted was to take another trip. To have another adventure. But how could she convince Valerie to come with her, and Franz to let her go, without a terrible quarrel?
The sky overhead pinkened and then darkened as the birds fell quiet and the fireflies emerged, reflecting the flickering of the freshly lit candles. But though the night was balmy and the breeze glided pleasantly through the lush greenery all around them, the conversation at the table sputtered to a halt. Alexander, finding no willing partner in his wine-soaked jesting, retreated into his cup, and an uneasy silence settled over the group. At last, the actresses were announced, to the visible relief of the small gathering.
“Now we’ll have some fun, shall we?” Tsar Alexander watched appreciatively as two young women were ushered in by palace attendants. It had been Franz’s idea: the actresses had come from Vienna’s Court Theater to perform a series of scenes for the imperial assembly. Sisi, who hadn’t been to the theater in the past season, didn’t know the ladies, but they were introduced as Josephine Wessely and Katharina Schratt.
“Ah, yes, Miss Schratt.” Franz nodded approvingly from his seat beside Sisi. “She’s quite good. She made a splendid Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. I try never to miss a show at the Burgtheater when she’s the lead.”
Franz tipped his glass for a refill of champagne. His whole countenance brightened as he kept his eyes on the pretty young actress, whose dark hair framed a plump face before falling loosely down her back. Sisi noticed this, slightly amused at Franz’s sudden mood shift, at how quickly her surly husband had turned chipper, even as giddy as a young student.
Sisi found her own attention continually drawn to Katharina Schratt as the two ladies performed—she agreed with her husband that, yes, the actress did have a certain charisma in her bearing. Katharina Schratt was not a great beauty, but her round figure and ivory skin enhanced a very feminine, very alluring performing style. It was Miss Schratt’s eyes that struck Sisi most—they were big and bright and guileless, and when she smiled, they seemed to overflow with her youthful energy.
The champagne was refilled as the garden darkened, and the ladies performed several scenes from the show Town and State. Bismarck, though decidedly less chatty than the tsar, nevertheless proved able to keep apace with his drinking. But unlike his Russian drinking companion, whose tongue loosened with each glass, Bismarck seemed to retreat further into ever more determined silence as the evening progressed.
The fountains babbled in the darkness, echoing the laughter of the imperial assembly as they enjoyed the performance. By the end of the show, the tsar seemed thoroughly drunk, and Franz, it seemed, was completely intoxicated by the charming performance of Miss Schratt. Franz then did something shocking, and entirely unprecedented: he invited Miss Wessely and Miss Schratt—both commoners, both actresses—to sit at dinner with three of Europe’s most powerful rulers. The young ladies, stunned to speechlessness, humbly accepted, and two additional places were set.
It was a mild, star-filled evening, and the pleasant hum of the fountains mixed with the pop of champagne corks and Franz’s lively conversation. Sisi noticed that he seemed, suddenly, as relaxed and happy as the tsar. “I remember you well, Miss Schratt. You played the lead in The Taming of the Shrew,” Franz said, his light eyes smiling on a speechless, blushing Katharina.
Sisi watched this with a mixture of wonder and bemusement. She had never seen her husband so at ease, so irreverent to protocol in addressing a commoner—and inviting her to his dinner table, no less!
Over the course of the dinner, Alexander and Franz drew out Miss Schratt’s story, leaving poor Miss Wessely nearly ignored. Miss Schratt had been an actress for more than ten years. She had tried her luck on the stage in America but had recently returned to Vienna. “And is there…is there a Herr Schratt?” Franz asked, his stare suddenly fixed on the folds of his napkin. The woman lowered her eyes and answered that she was estranged from her husband, her cheeks coloring scarlet at the admission.
As the night wore on, while Franz asked respectful questions of Frau Schratt about her acting and her life in Vienna, Tsar Alexander became visibly more forward, his entire frame stooping toward Frau Schratt. The actress, flushed from the wine and the warmth of the evening, seemed overwhelmed by the heaps of imperial attention she was receiving.
Late that night, once they had eaten and drunk to fullness, there was a fireworks display. Through the flickering candlelight and the pops of color overhead, Sisi saw how the Russian ruler inched his massive body closer to Frau Schratt’s. As an explosion of orange light burst above them, Sisi noticed that the man’s giant hand had wandered to the actress’s lower backside. She saw the horrified, pale face of Katharina Schratt a moment later, and might have heard the actress’s squeal of shocked protest if not for the next firework explosion that ripped across the night.
And then Sisi turned and saw for the first time the expression of her husband beside her—he was looking at Katharina Schratt and the hovering tsar, and his features were tight in silent, jealous fury.
The next morning Franz was in a sulky mood when he sat down opposite his wife at breakfast.
“Good morning, Franz.”
“Good morning. How did you sleep?”
“Fine, thank you, and you?”
Franz ignored the question as he pressed his hands together, tenting his fingers in front of his plate. “You know what I heard? You know what my guards told me this morning? Most troubling.”
Sisi arched an eyebrow as she nibbled on a small square of toast. She noted the uncharacteristic tightness in Franz’s usually calm features. “What did you hear?”
“That Alexander…” Franz said the name as he would the name of a vile sickness. “He tried to get himself into Frau Katharina Schratt’s rooms last night. Can you imagine? It’s unpardonable.”
Sisi put her toast down, stunned by her husband’s revelation.
Franz continued: “Good thing I had the sense to dispatch a small unit of guards to the ladies’ quarters last night; otherwise, I shudder to think…” Franz cut into a link of sausage before saying, “I invite that poor woman here to perform, and then she is treated so rudely by my other guest. I’m mortified—it’s really indefensible.”
Sisi nodded, clearing her throat as Franz went on. “And then, when he couldn’t gain entry into Frau Schratt’s bedroom, you know what he did? He stood outside and declared that he was in love with her. And then, shameless man that he is, he had his valet deliver one hundred roses and an emerald necklace to her. And this is all while his wife sleeps in a bed nearby!”
Was it outrage on Frau Schratt’s behalf that so angered Franz? Sisi wondered. Or something else entirely? She saw plainly how jealous Franz was. She imagined how jealous Tsarina Maria would be, too. And then she noticed, to her considerable surprise, that she, upon seeing her own husband’s clear infatuation with another woman, felt nothing akin to jealousy.
Back in Vienna, as autumn turned the sycamore and chestnut trees into a medley of rich burgundy and orange and gold, the Imperial Court decamped to the Hofburg for the coming cold season. The New Year passed with a hum of familial tension, as Rudolf had recently taken a harrowing spill from a horse while riding. Though his life had never been in danger, the crown prince was now being treated by the court physicians with morphine and other potent drugs, a prescription that Franz considered excessive.
As Vienna fell headlong into winter’s icy clutches, Sisi noticed that her husband went regularly to the Burgtheater, almost once a week. It seemed to be the one bright spot for him after his otherwise tedious and dark days. Sisi noticed his mood worsening as the months passed—her usually stoic husband grew more and more surly in response to Rudolf’s addled behavior, Germany’s rude treatment of its allies, and instability in the Balkan states.
Seeing this, Sisi made a decision. She wrote to Katharina Schratt, telling the woman how much she had enjoyed meeting her in Moravia and how much she and the emperor admired her acting. She concluded her friendly note by asking if the woman would be kind enough to pay the empress a visit in the palace.
Frau Schratt, flattered, promptly did so, and Sisi made sure to invite Franz to join them in her sitting room on the afternoon the visit occurred. Seeing how tongue-tied and flushed her husband was throughout the forty-five-minute encounter, Sisi declared that the three of them would have to meet more often. Sisi returned the favor of Katharina’s visit several weeks later by paying a call to the actress at her own home just outside of the capital.
“Why would you visit Katharina Schratt, when she’s the emperor’s favorite actress?” Larisch asked on the evening of that visit, her bloodhound-like ability to sniff out gossip unnerving Sisi anew. They were back in Sisi’s bedroom, and Sisi was changing into her dressing gown, having declared her intention to dine in private and decline Franz’s invitation to that night’s state dinner. She looked at Larisch now, making certain to mask the distaste she felt toward the attendant.
“Oh, my husband only admires Frau Schratt’s acting because I admire her so. I’ve told him that I want to make her my friend, and he, like an agreeable husband, will do the same.” In truth, what Sisi was up to was far more complicated, but Larisch was the last person in whom she would ever have confided.
Yes, Sisi did want to make Katharina Schratt her friend. She, Sisi, could not be Franz’s lover or daily companion. As many times as she had considered it, she simply could not bring herself around to the idea of being intimate with him—or being his daily comfort, as a wife was supposed to be. He didn’t make her happy, and even more, she knew that she couldn’t make him happy.
But she knew that Franz’s patience with being alone had reached its expiry. His were thankless days, and he craved some sort of domestic normalcy at the end of each one. He longed for female intimacy, for a feminine touch in his life; he needed more than what quick trysts arranged for him by his ministers could provide. He was lonely; he wanted to give and receive affection, even if it was in his own puerile, stilted sort of way. But Sisi could not give him that. She couldn’t stand the thought of staying, always, in Vienna. Living this tedious life and giving over her body like a broodmare with no purpose other than to produce more royal offspring. No, those days were over. She wanted to travel and explore the world and meet interesting people.
And yet, she knew what her absence and neglect meant. She knew that Franz, in not receiving love from his wife, couldn’t help but to look elsewhere. He was lonely and vulnerable, and that filled Sisi with pity—and anxiety—if not anything akin to jealousy. She couldn’t allow him to fall in love with another noblewoman at court. That was far too dangerous. If he fell in love with a powerful, aristocratic, rich woman, the lady would set herself up as Sisi’s rival. She might even put dangerous ideas into his head about an annulment and a second marriage. More heirs, a son to replace the unstable Rudolf. Some of Franz’s ministers, hostile as they were toward Sisi, might even take the other lady’s side. There were plenty of courtiers who would prefer to have a more malleable and present empress—and plenty of willing, highborn ladies to step forward for the role. And the press, well, the Viennese press might very well take sides against Sisi, calling for her dismissal if another option was presented. Then what would happen to Sisi—and to Valerie?
No, if Franz was not getting what he needed from his wife, and if it was inevitable that he would seek to fill her absence in some other way, Sisi knew that he needed to find himself in love with a woman who would pose no threat to her or her daughter. A woman who would give Franz some domestic comfort, allowing Sisi to retain her freedom, while not supplanting her at court.
And that was why Katharina Schratt was perfect. She was in every way Sisi’s opposite. Where Sisi was statuesque and regal, Frau Schratt was plump and soft, even a bit homely. Where Sisi was noble, Frau Schratt was common born, an actress—she could never be queen. Sisi was complicated and sensitive and restless; Frau Schratt was simple and gregarious and easygoing. And the fact that Frau Schratt was still married, even if estranged, was yet another boon. Never would Franz and Katharina allow themselves to entertain the idea of marrying when it would mean the severance of two previous marriage vows.
The months passed. Sisi invited Katharina Schratt for ever more frequent visits to the palace. Often, Sisi would find herself pulled from her rooms on some absolutely urgent errand, leaving her husband behind with the unaccompanied lady visitor. She’d exit with a kind word: “Please, Kathi, make yourself comfortable. Help yourself to anything of mine that you’d like. Stay, stay as long as you wish; I won’t be back for hours.”
As the three of them slipped into this odd yet somehow harmonious trio, Sisi became more convinced than ever that Frau Schratt might very well be the key to Franz’s happiness, and to her own freedom. She’d be able to keep her independence and continue to take adventures, while no longer feeling guilt or fear at the thought of leaving her husband behind. It was not normal or conventional—it was not something she would have ever thought herself capable of condoning—but then, not much about her life with Franz had been normal or conventional. Hadn’t it always been about doing what they needed to do in order for Franz to get his job done?
—
And it worked, Sisi’s plan, because by the following summer, Franz released his wife once more, giving her his wholehearted blessing to escape the city and travel throughout Bavaria for the warmest months of the year. “You’re certain you don’t mind?” Sisi asked several days before her scheduled departure.
“My dear wife, I learned long ago that I might just as soon try to keep a cork from popping out of a champagne bottle as try to keep you at this court.” Franz said it as a joke, and from the merry flicker in his light eyes, Sisi sensed a newfound ease about him. They understood one another and had each, once more, granted the other their freedom.
“Very well, Franz. Thank you. And please give Kathi my regards when you see her this afternoon,” Sisi said, smiling so that her husband knew that she meant it.
Valerie, seeing how much happier her father had grown in the recent months, had even agreed to travel with Sisi, and so June found mother, daughter, and the rest of the empress’s small household in the Bavarian town of Feldafing, in a rented villa near the shores of Lake Starnberg. The location was near enough to both Possi and Neuschwanstein for Sisi to make day trips to them. And yet, as the weeks went on, Sisi found herself reluctant to visit Ludwig, always making some excuse as to why she couldn’t get away just yet. They wrote almost daily—Sisi knew from his notes that Ludwig was feuding via letters and telegrams with his outraged ministers in Munich.
Dearest Sisi,
The abuse continues, my dear cousin! It’s grown so intolerable of late that I’ve threatened to disband the parliament and rule alone from Neuschwantstein. As I told you, I cannot allow them to interfere with my sacred mission, nor can I continue in this charade that those so-called ministers are any more competent than a band of suited apes.
Pray for me, on my mountaintop. Dear cousin, my sea gull, send wishes to your eagle! When we align ourselves with the divine, of course the rest of the ugly world can’t understand, can’t help but be threatened and hostile. They whisper vile things about me, but I hold firm to my sacred purpose. I won’t let them shackle me! I shall not let the apes tell me, the rightful king, how to rule! I need not explain myself! I remain strong of spirit, even if these wearying feuds have driven me to feel feeble in body.
I remain your devoted and faithful servant, your cousin,
Ludwig
Before she could pen a response, Sisi read the day’s news reports, where several columns discussed the king’s quarrel with Munich. Ludwig’s government was now threatening to forcibly depose their monarch and give the crown to a relative of his. The nickname “Mad King Ludwig” was no longer a slander that people whispered in private—it had become an accepted and oft-used alias. Sisi sighed, glancing back and forth between her cousin’s tortured words and the journals’ sensational updates. “Poor Ludwig is besieged,” she said. As much by himself as by his ministers, she thought.
She really ought to visit, Sisi told herself, her feelings toward Ludwig filling her with an indecipherable jumble of guilt and discomfort and anxiety. Perhaps she could be the one to speak reason to her cousin? But then, a voice always cautioned her in reply—was it Franz’s voice? Or Andrássy’s? Or the voice of Marie Festetics’s steady rationalism? Perhaps it was the voice of her own better judgment, exercising caution on her own behalf but also Valerie’s. It’s not our place, the voice said. We cannot save Ludwig, not when he himself sees no need of saving. And so, Sisi put the papers away, hoping that tomorrow’s news might finally cast a ray of hopeful light over the ghastly situation.
Sisi returned to her villa from mass with Valerie on the afternoon of Whitsunday. It was a mild summer day, the Bavarian air as clean and clear as the sparkling waters of Lake Starnberg that spread out before them. Sisi and Valerie had just sat down to dinner when Baron Nopcsa entered the dining room uninvited, his face pulled tight in concern, a telegram visible in his trembling hands.
