Sisi, page 37
And then there was the private, more personal malaise from which Sisi suffered. She now wore black most days; she was in mourning over the recent death of her father, as well as the abrupt and shocking death of Ludwig. Even as time went on, the loss of her cousin remained with her, persisting as a deep and unsettling ache that she found difficult to bear. She, like so many of his bereft and loyal subjects across Bavaria, simply could not accept the public medical ruling that Ludwig had committed suicide. It made no sense, not when witnesses had come forward to say that he had been found in shallow water. Were they really meant to believe that Ludwig, an unusually tall man and an able swimmer, had drowned himself in such a way? Or was she destined to live with this uncertainty—hearing conflicting witness accounts and conspiracy theories that seemed far more plausible than the quick and polished autopsy report—without ever understanding the final days and hours of her tortured cousin’s life?
But the largest cause of Sisi’s anxiety, the most malignant source of the disquiet in her family’s apartments, was Rudolf. The strained relationship between father and son had taken a sharp dive toward even shakier ground when, just recently, Rudolf had nearly shot his father while the two men were out hunting together. All involved had labeled the near-miss as nothing more than an unfortunate accident. Rudolf, despite how often he wielded rifles and pistols, despite the pride he took in his massive collection of firearms, had never been a particularly good shot or successful hunter, lacking both the patience and the steadiness of his skilled father. Even Franz Joseph himself had declared it a meaningless mishap. However, whether it was acquiescence to his ministers’ overly cautious advice or a decision made on his own, Franz Joseph had started having his secret police follow his son from that moment on. How they could be labeled “secret” police, Sisi didn’t understand, for the whole court seemed to know within days that this tail had been put on the crown prince—including the crown prince himself. This did very little to rehabilitate the unraveling trust between father and son.
In response, Rudolf had struck back with his own very thinly veiled insult: he had begun penning “anonymous” editorials in one of Vienna’s newspapers, the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, containing harshly worded critiques of his father. In his articles, he painted “the emperor” as willfully blind to the troubles of his empire. An antiquated, irrelevant old man who stood stubbornly obdurate against progress and liberalism. Rudolf never signed the articles that he wrote—but his close friendship with the newspaper’s editor in chief was enough of a clue to everyone at court. And though no one in the Hofburg ever mentioned these printed attacks, everyone, including Franz, saw them.
Yes, there was no denying it—the imperial family most definitely needed a jolt of merriment. A bit of diversion to mitigate the tensions that simmered under the surface of forced familial cordiality. Perhaps Master Strauss’s music could do the trick. He was, after all, known as the best.
And so, on that early December evening when Master Strauss was to debut his new piece, Sisi was determined to foster an air of lively celebration, both in her own rooms and within her family circle. She took her time dressing, selecting a gown of lush amethyst brocade. She adorned herself with the matching jewels and had her hair woven with peacock feathers, so that she would look sufficiently opulent against the gilded backdrop of the great hall.
The performance was to take place in Vienna’s Musikverein, the capital’s grandest concert hall and home to the philharmonic. As the imperial family entered, the crowded space erupted in applause. The royal guards fanned out around them, forming a protective cocoon. Overhead the chandeliers twinkled with hundreds of candles, their light shimmering off of the gold-gilt walls and balconied boxes. As sumptuous as this setting was, the clothes of the Viennese themselves proved equally arresting; the figures who turned now to survey the imperial family were a fanfare of jewel-colored gowns, glossy pearls, priceless heirloom diamonds, and elaborate coifs.
Sisi flashed a shy, timid smile as she felt the familiar barrage of hundreds of inquisitive, probing eyes turning on her. Tomorrow, every newspaper in Vienna would report on every detail of her dress, her hair, even her facial expressions. Beside her, Valerie seemed less fazed by the crowd, chattering excitedly as she looked around the hall. “This is just lovely! Look at the size of the ensemble. I bet Salvator would love this. Perhaps he shall come next time.”
Sisi turned to her daughter now, momentarily forgetting the crowds in her surprise at the remark. It was surprising in that it was so wholly uncharacteristic for Valerie to say such a thing. Salvator? Their distant Habsburg relative? The young Italian army officer who had spent the past summer visiting them in Bad Ischl? Sisi hadn’t noticed any particular attraction on the part of her daughter to the dark-haired, reserved archduke. Then again, Sisi hadn’t really looked, had she? It had never really crossed her mind to look, had never seemed plausible that Valerie would take note of a young man, since she never had before. But then, she was twenty. It was natural that Valerie would have begun to notice men. And Salvator was handsome, Sisi supposed. But had Valerie really been taken with her shy, quiet cousin? The realization seeped through Sisi now that there might actually be much about her favorite daughter that she, the mother, didn’t know. All of this and more raced through her mind in several moments of surprised, confused, slightly panicky reflection. But when she answered her daughter, she managed to keep her tone calm. “Salvator, my darling girl?”
Valerie nodded, a highly atypical flush coloring her pale cheeks. “Yes, Cousin Franz Salvator. I told him that we were attending Master Strauss’s debut tonight. He said that he’d very much enjoy something like this. Perhaps he will come next time.”
“You write to your cousin Salvator, my darling?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since the summer. Mamma, why do you look at me like that? Am I not allowed to write to…?”
“It’s just that…well, I never knew, that’s all.”
And then, sensible Valerie shrugged, answering: “You never asked.”
It was true. Sisi hadn’t ever asked. Had barely ever even raised the topic of courtship or love with her daughter. Perhaps a part of her—a very selfish part, she conceded—had been hoping that Valerie would never want those things, would never leave her mother’s side for the home of a husband. And then, as if skimming the thoughts directly from her mother’s mind, Valerie said, an edge of defiance to her voice, “I’m not fifteen, Mamma. I am nearly twenty-one. And I am not being sold. I would be willingly entering into matrimony. Surely you might modulate your feelings on the institution if you saw how different the circumstances were?”
Sisi fell speechless now. Her daughter was responding to something that Sisi had said, recently, about her own marriage. Perhaps it had been the only time she had really discussed the topic with her daughter, but Valerie had clearly listened, for her words now echoed Sisi’s own previous confession: Marriage is a ridiculous institution. Why, when I think of myself, sold as a child of fifteen, and taking an oath I did not understand…
Valerie’s features softened now, and she offered a gentle smile as she and Sisi took their seats beside each other. “Mamma, you’ll be all right. I won’t be dead; I’ll just be married.”
Sisi swallowed, a cold lump of understanding settling in her belly. Her daughter—her wise, practical, sensible daughter—was preparing her. She was telling Sisi that it would happen, that it was inevitable. She, Valerie, the only true, constant love of Sisi’s life, had fallen in love with a man and would be leaving home eventually. Confusion and surprise shifted into outright panic.
“Mamma?”
Sisi blinked. “Yes, dear?”
“You’re as pale as a ghost. Are you going to faint?”
Sisi shook her head, feeling as though the amethysts that lined her throat might choke her.
“Mamma?” Valerie put her hand on her mother’s. “You will be all right, won’t you? You knew that this would happen someday, surely?”
Sisi shut her eyes for a moment, fending off dizziness. If only she could remove this corset, this too-heavy necklace around her neck. Oh, what must all of the spectators be thinking, watching her swoon like this?
“Mother, I’m terribly frightened—you look ill.”
“Sisi, are you ill?” Franz interjected now, lowering himself into the seat on Sisi’s other side.
Sisi drew in a long, slow inhale, forcing herself to master this tempest of emotions. “I’m fine.” She opened her eyes, waving a hand to dismiss Franz’s concern as she turned to face her daughter. “Of course. I shall be so delighted if you tell me that…if you wish to be married.” A fragile, noncommittal smile, but she managed one just the same. “Of course, my darling.”
Valerie cocked her head to the side, like a dubious elder eyeing a fibbing child. “Are you telling me the truth, Mamma?”
“Of course, Valerie, my darling one. I shall be happy…as long as you are happy.” Sisi supposed that, in the end, that would be the truth. She loved Valerie so much that, at the core of everything, the girl’s happiness trumped anything else. Even if it would break her own heart to lose her daughter’s daily company. She forced another smile, this one more determined. “And, well, it will be good.”
Valerie pressed her lips together, still suspicious.
“It will be, Valerie dear. It will give me time to pour my heart into my new building project.”
“Oh, Mamma.” Valerie widened her eyes now. “You’re not really going to move to a new villa in Corfu, are you? I thought that your Greek building project was just another one of your fantastical daydreams. You don’t really want to move that far away?”
Sisi considered the question but was quickly distracted, as just then Master Strauss strode out before the orchestra, and the crowded hall erupted into uproarious applause. The composer bowed his tall frame several times toward the imperial family before acknowledging the rest of the audience, and the assembly fell silent. Though she’d seen him hundreds of times before, Sisi studied the musician now with great interest. He appeared windswept and feral, his hair disheveled, his mustache even more unruly than Sisi had ever seen it. As if laboring over this piece had, in some ways, been a divine struggle, like Jacob wrestling in the arms of God.
Turning back to the orchestra now, Master Strauss lifted his violin bow, his favorite tool for conducting. One last moment of anticipatory silence pulsed throughout the hall, and then, the “Emperor Waltz” began.
Sisi shut her eyes to listen, allowing herself to be pulled in by the swell of music. It began gently, the opening measures of violin and flute unfurling in a soft, delicate melody in triple meter. That was right, Sisi thought, remembering back to so many years ago, to the garden in Bad Ischl. Franz, for her, had begun as delicate and gentle, his eyes holding her in a pale glow of Alpine moonlight. As tender a young lover as there had ever been, as soft a supplicant as any young girl could have hoped for.
As Strauss led the orchestra onward, the brass and drums became more prominent. The volume mounted and so, too, did the potency behind the music, a latent energy giving way to a full eruption of loud, beautiful, overwhelming sound. The winds yielded their warbles and trills, their whimsy swallowed up into a steady, stately march. Sisi was overcome. She felt goosebumps rise to the surface of her flesh, recognizing that Master Strauss, truly the genius they all declared him to be, had succeeded in doing something she never would have thought possible; she felt Franz in every note.
The music built and crescendoed with a triumphant swell of brass and drums and violins, all the divergent threads coming together to form a perfect whole. Strauss united them all, making a rich harmony, just as Franz had woven all of his lands and people into his improbable empire. And then, unexpectedly, the proud, stately melody modulated back to the soft, languid sweep of violins and winds. Strauss, his bow keeping the three-quarter time with feverish energy, his hair flying away from his face, led the musicians back and forth between these different threads of lovely and delicate, strong and regal. It happened seamlessly. The mood of the audience rose and fell as the notes carried them along on this unexpected journey, its course so surprising and delightful that Sisi felt she might laugh and weep simultaneously.
She marveled at how Strauss said so much with these notes and these instruments. It was Franz. It was his empire. This waltz was the music of the softly falling snow on the regal new buildings of the Ringstrasse. It was the spring tulips covering the lawns and arcades in front of Schönbrunn Palace. It was the indomitable, majestic peaks of the Alps, the red-cheeked goatherds plucking wild edelweiss from the summits. It was the spirited laughter of the Viennese students, wooing and debating in the beer gardens and cafés. It was the stately blue Danube, it was the cathedrals, it was the mountain chalets, and it was the ancient villages sprung up around church bell towers and brooks and streams. It was all of it, and it was all Franz Joseph.
At the end, after a final, exultant burst of brass and drums and strings, Strauss returned to softness. The waltz became so slow and quiet that it felt almost fragile, and Sisi leaned forward to make sure that she did not miss a single note.
When at last the instruments fell silent, the final notes rippling across the stunned assembly, Sisi glanced to her side to see how the man embodied by this masterpiece responded. There sat the emperor, as still as stone. Entranced. Sisi stared at him in wonder. She never saw Franz moved like this, not since the death of his mother. Before that, the only other times had been when they had lost their darling first baby and when he had waited for her, a nervous bridegroom, at the front of the church aisle. Johann Strauss truly was a genius, a master who had achieved the impossible—he had drawn tears to Emperor Franz Joseph’s eyes.
Back at the Hofburg, the members of the royal family climbed the private marble Emperor’s Stairway and bid one another good night as they scattered, yawning, toward their respective apartments. At the top of the stairs, Franz, however, lingered a moment longer than usual. Sisi paused, looking at him. Clearly still moved, he puffed up his cheeks and let out a long, audible exhale. She watched him recover the equanimity that had fractured in the concert hall. And then, with his features rearranged and pressed smooth once more, he spoke to her: “Well, Sisi, now that that is over, we look to our next celebration. Christmas. And your birthday.”
Sisi sighed, slipping her hands out of her gloves. Her head ached from the weight of her upswept hair pulling against her scalp, and she longed for her bedchamber. It had been a night fraught with emotions—first with Valerie’s revelation, then with the moving ode to a husband for whom she felt so many warring feelings. She longed for privacy in which to ponder and sort through it all.
“We will celebrate with a family dinner on Christmas Eve,” Franz said now, completely poised once more.
“Must we celebrate my birthday?”
“Why should we not?”
Sisi thought about this. “Another year older? I don’t celebrate the fact that time is tightening its grip on me.” Pulling Valerie away from me, she thought. Draining me of my vigor and my beauty. But she didn’t voice these last thoughts.
“But another year wiser, too,” Franz offered good-naturedly.
Sisi smiled at him. “Come now, my husband, we both know that that is not true.” They began walking toward the family apartments on the Hofburg’s Amalia wing now, side by side, the others far enough ahead that they remained in private conversation. “So tell me, did you enjoy your waltz, Emperor?”
“I did. Immensely.”
“I thought it set you to music so very accurately.”
“Did you? How so?”
“It was all that you are, Franz. Stately. Dignified. Balanced. Inspiring.”
Franz thought about this, speaking only after a long pause. “Thank you.”
Sisi recalled the melody, humming to herself. She looked forward to hearing it again.
“You know, if you were a song, Sisi…” Franz paused his steps.
Sisi turned to face him. “Yes?”
Candlelight flickered overhead and from the gilded sconces all around them, giving his light eyes a brilliant, almost sad sort of glow. “You wouldn’t be brass or drums or the fanfare of trumpets.”
Sisi lowered her gaze. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t be.” What would her song sound like? she wondered. Franz took up that unspoken question, his voice gentler than she’d heard it in years. “You, Sisi, would be…” He tossed his head back, thinking a moment before he looked at her once more. “The soft trill of the flute, mingling with lark and morning birdsong.” He swallowed, continuing: “The gentle pluck of the harp beside a stone-lapping brook.”
Sisi noticed with surprise how her face flushed with warmth, how her eyes began to sting with the threat of tears. For Franz, sensible Franz, to be moved to poetry…Johann Strauss must have truly stirred something deep within him. Franz went on now: “You would be the most delicate of violins in a garden, bathed in moonlight, the sweet scent of jasmine perfuming the evening air.”
“Franz—” She looked down as she noticed how he took her hand in his, giving her fingers a quick squeeze.
“You, to me, Sisi, are the most perfect piece of art I have ever beheld.”
The family gathered on Christmas Eve, the night of Sisi’s birthday, in her personal drawing room. A hearty fire warmed the space as Marie Festetics and Ida put the final trimming on a stately fir tree, its fragrant boughs hanging heavy with candles and garlands. Sisi stood in a rich gown of midnight blue, her long waves pulled loosely back, greeting her family members with a smile. “Come in, come in. Don’t you see how cozy Marie and Ida…and Larisch…have made my rooms?”
