Vienna Blood

38

IT WAS EARLY MORNING. A few flakes of snow floated down from the monotonous sky, frosting the square with a fine white powder.

Andreas Olbricht paused in front of the Academy of Fine Arts and tilted his head back to take in the impressive neo-Renaissance facade. A wide staircase led to three sets of double doors, and on either side of the stairs, on large blocks of gray stone, stood two centaurs. The one on the left had his hand raised, as if commanding the onlooker to stop. The entrance was made yet more imposing by six Doric columns on top of which stood a line of male and female classical figures. Above these were several floors of round arched windows, between which were interposed individual niches housing yet more deities. To Olbricht these were not indifferent gods but gods who stood in judgment. This building was a fortress, jealously protected by its troop of sacred guardians.

Many years ago Olbricht had applied to study at the academy. He had passed the entrance exam, but his portfolio had been rejected. The professors had considered his work “unoriginal.”

You will see. The words sounded in Olbricht's head like a Russian bell.

An exhibition of his oil paintings had been arranged in a gallery near the Opera House. It had been made possible with the aid of a generous donation from his patron, the baroness, but Von Triebenbach had also been kind enough to make a small contribution to the costs.

Soon they would be having the posters printed.

Olbricht-Our Heroes and Legends.

Black and white lithograph-the figure of Wotan, spear held aloft.

The artist proudly inflated his chest and ascended the stairs. As he entered the vestibule, the porter nodded a greeting. He recognized Olbricht, who was well known for his early-morning visits to the study collection. If Olbricht arrived any later, he would have to mingle with the students-all of whom he found insufferable. Their very existence annoyed him.

Unoriginal.

The word fell into his consciousness like a drop of acid. He could feel it eating into him, converting his very substance into smoke and air. This always happened in the academy. But he could never resist these visits because the collection included a particular painting that he found utterly fascinating. He needed to see it-to peer into its depths-and examine its myriad dramas in minute detail. It was a painting that merited continual examination because it always yielded something new.

Olbricht walked down the barrel-vaulted corridor. Although the windows were high, they admitted only a feeble, exhausted light. He ascended a grand staircase, allowing his hand to strum the thick stone balustrades. His gloomy journey ended outside the study collection, where an emaciated custodian, whose face was half-concealed by the abundant windings of a scarf, sat shivering by a small stove. Like the porter, the man nodded in recognition and Olbricht pressed a coin into his hand as he passed.

There were many works in the study collection: Murillo's Boys Dicing, Rubens's The Three Graces, and Rembrandt's Young Dutchwoman. But Olbricht was blind to them all, except one: The Last Judgment, a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch.

Olbricht approached the three panels, not with excitement, pleasure, or veneration, but rather with intense curiosity, expectation, and a strange combination of darker emotions such as prurience, horror, and disgust.

Bosch's triptych depicted three fantastic landscapes: Paradise, The Last Judgment, and Hell. The central panel, from which the triptych took its name, was the largest and most intricate piece. The upper quarter was occupied by a clear blue firmament, at the center of which sat a regal red-gowned ruler of the universe. Exiguous angels with diaphanous wings floated at the highest altitudes of heaven, blowing into long trumpets, heralding the end of time. Below the celestial canopy was a blasted landscape of burned-out buildings and apocalyptic fire-a terrible place of shadows, over which antlike humans crawled in almost total darkness. The rest of The Last Judgment was crowded with naked men and women, all being subjected to varieties of torment and torture. Their bodies were bent, stretched, skewered, and lacerated, subjected to the most horrible depredations by a host of demons. Enormous contraptions dominated the scene- diabolical machines whose sole function seemed to be the infliction of unimaginable pain. A bare, unadorned building housed the carcasses of destroyed humanity, their barely visible forms hanging on hooks like those of animals in an abattoir. It was a scene of extermination conducted on an industrial scale, like a nightmare vision of the great factories on the fringes of the city, whose chimneys endlessly belched clouds of black smoke.

The more Olbricht looked, the more he saw. Little details: a woman, her vulnerability exposed, about to be ravished by a monster; another, mounted by an enormous beetle; so many people, crammed into beer kegs, hung on trees, prepared on spits for roasting-each private agony represented with indifferent precision.

Herr Bolle had been pleased with Olbricht's Rheingold and had requested that the artist consider accepting another commission for a companion piece, Gotterdammerung. Thus, he would possess both the very beginning and the very end of Wagner's epic cycle. Herr Bolle found such symmetries deeply satisfying. Olbricht had accepted the commission, but was not sure how he would represent the twilight of the gods. Now, looking at Bosch's The Last Judgment, he had an inkling of how it might be achieved.

Fire spreading across the sky, flames invading the halls of Valhalla, tiny gods-rendered with a miniaturist's fine brushstrokes-engulfed by a mighty holocaust “Excuse me, sir.”

The speaker's German was slightly accented.

Olbricht turned around sharply.

It was a young student, no more than twenty years of age, preparing to make a copy. A slim, faunlike fellow, wearing a short black cape and cap.

“If I could just… If you wouldn't mind.” The student bobbed his head to indicate that Olbricht was obstructing his view.

“What?” said Olbricht, irritated. “Am I not allowed to stand here?”

The student made an appeasing gesture with his hands. “I must prepare a sketch for this morning's class. Professor Munchmeyer…”

Olbricht felt a wave of anger rush through his body. “To hell with you,” he said, and stormed out of the gallery.