Death And The Maiden

7

Franz-Josef — Emperor ofAustria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Jerusalem, King of Bohemia, King of Dalmatia, King of Transylvania, King of Croatia and Slovenia, King of Galicia and Illyria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Margrave of Moravia, Duke of Salzburg, Duke of Bukovina, Duke of Modena, Parma and Piacenza and Guastalla, Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, Prince of Trient and Brixen, Count of Hohenembs, Grand Voyvoce of Serbia and Duke of Auschwitz — woke from a nightmare. It had taken the form of a hellish vision: mobs in the street, gunfire, and improvised incendiary weapons spilling fire across the cobblestones outside the palace. Field Marshal Radetzky, in reality dead for over half a century, had burst into the chancellery wing. All is lost, he had cried. It is over. Undone. These lamentations had been appropriated from a play that the emperor had attended at the court theatre only the previous evening. In the strange permissive world of dreams there was nothing contradictory about Radetzky quoting a line from a tragedy written decades after his own death. Similarly, the emperor had not troubled to question why a large orchestra had been playing a Strauss waltz while Vienna burned.

The awful vision had left him with a sense of foreboding, a portentous dread that sent shivers of unease down his spine.

It was still dark.

After reaching out for some matches, the emperor lit a candle. The clock face showed that it was three-thirty. Franz-Josef doubted that he would be able to get to sleep again. And anyway, there was little to be gained by trying because he rose every morning, without fail, at four, and was never at his desk later than five. It was a custom that he broke with only under exceptional circumstances, and nightmares could no longer be classified as exceptional.

Throwing the eiderdown off, he swung his legs out of bed and his feet made contact with the cold parquet. The bed itself was low and made of iron, a simple truckle bed and an absurdly modest piece of furniture in so large a room. Taking a deep breath, the emperor stood up and pulled the bell cord.

Within moments, a team of servants arrived carrying a rubber bath, which was subsequently filled with lukewarm water. The emperor was relieved of his nightshirt and one of the retainers, an ancient gentleman with a pronounced tremor, remained to perform such essential functions as passing the soap and scrubbing the emperor’s back. When His Majesty’s ablutions were finished, Ketterl, the valet de chambre, emerged silently from the shadows, ready to dress Franz-Josef, as he did every morning, in a military uniform. As soon as the emperor was fully accoutred, Ketterl withdrew, walking backwards through the double doors, leaving his monarch alone to say his prayers.

Franz-Josef knelt, made the sign of the cross, joined his hands, and prayed for the late Empress Elisabeth, his immediate family, his ‘friend’ — the actress Katharina Schratt — his ministers, and the peoples of his vast empire, united, by a miracle as magnificent as the transubstantiation of the eucharist, in the flesh of his own person.

Rising from his prayer stool, he expanded his chest and, defying the aches and pains of age, marched with a spring in his step to the study. Sitting at his desk, he lit an oil lamp and paused to consider the oval portrait of the late empress. Electric lighting gave him headaches.

The emperor’s study was hung with red silk damask decorated with a stylised pineapple motif, and the ceiling was embellished with raised gold tracery. For a royal and imperial apartment, however, the room was unimposing. The rosewood and walnut furniture, sober and practical, might have graced the home of a successful businessman.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in, Ketterl.’

The valet de chambre entered, carrying a tray of coffee, rolls and butter.

‘Your Majesty.’

‘Thank you.’

Ketterl placed the tray on the emperor’s desk, bowed, and backed away through the doors which were shut by unseen hands as soon as he was beyond the threshold. The emperor ate his simple breakfast and watched the sky brighten as he smoked a trabuco.

Resting on a chair adjacent to his desk was a large leather portfolio. He opened it up and took out a wad of documents requiring his signature. Getting through them all would take several hours and like the punishment of Sisyphus his labours were never concluded. Every morning the contents of the portfolio were refreshed. Yet Emperor Franz-Josef refused to deputise. This work was his sacred duty, solemnly performed in his capacity as the first official (his wife had mischievously called him the first bureaucrat) of the empire. Even so, after only a short period of time the monotony of the work caused his concentration to falter. An image from the nightmare came back to him: fire, broken glass, angry voices.

The emperor circled his fingertips against his temples.

So many peoples, united by my person — as ordained by God …

He was a devout man. But over the course of the last fourteen years fate had dealt him blows that might have tested the faith of any saint.

It could all unravel, so very easily.

No, one can no longer trust in divine ordinance alone …

The emperor put his pen down, lit another trabuco and, looking out of the window, allowed the violet lucidity of the dawn to cleanse his mind.