The Radetzky March (31 page)

And he really felt his life was beginning. He learned how to drink wine, just as he had drunk the 180 Proof in the borderland. He and the woman dined in that renowned restaurant whose proprietress was as dignified as an empress, her establishment as serene and pious as a temple, as elegant as a castle, and as peaceful as a cottage. Here the Excellencies ate at hereditary tables, and the waiters who served them looked almost like their peers, so that diners and waiters appeared to be spelling one another at scheduled intervals. The patrons were on a first-name basis like brothers, yet they greeted one another like princes. They knew the young and the old, the good horsemen and the bad, the gallants and the gamblers, the fops, the strivers, the favorites; the heirs to a time-blessed, proverbial, and ubiquitously honored stupidity; and also the smart ones who would gain power tomorrow. One heard only the delicate tinkles of well-bred forks and spoons and, at each table, that smiling whisper caught only by the companion and guessed all the same by the knowledgeable neighbor. A peaceful glow came from the white tablecloths, a discreet daylight poured in through the high curtained windows, the wine gurgled tenderly from the bottles, and anyone who wished to summon a waiter had only to raise his eyes. For in this well-mannered hush the twitch of an eyelid was like a call anywhere else.

Yes, thus began what he called “life” and what may have been life at that time: driving in a smooth carriage amid the dense perfumes of mellow spring, next to a woman who loved you. Each of her tender glances seemed to justify his youthful conviction that he was an outstanding man of many virtues and even a “swell officer,” in the sense that this term had inside the army. He remembered that most of his life he had been sad, shy, one could say bitter. Yet now, thinking he knew himself, he could not understand why he had been sad, shy, and bitter. The nearness of death had terrified him, but he still drew pleasure from his rueful
thoughts about Katharina and Max Demant. He had, in his opinion, endured harsh things. He deserved the tender glances of a beautiful woman. Yet from time to time, he eyed her a bit anxiously. Wasn’t it just a whim for her, taking him along like a boy and giving him a few good days? That was something he could not stand for. He was, as was already established, a really swell guy, and any woman who loved him had to love him completely, honestly, and unto death, like poor Katharina. And who knew how many men this beautiful woman thought of while she believed she loved only him or pretended to? Was he jealous? Of course he was jealous! And also powerless, as he promptly realized. Jealous and with no way of remaining here or riding farther with the woman, holding on to her as long as he wished, and fathoming her and winning her. Yes, he was a poor little lieutenant with fifty crowns a month from his father, and he had debts….

“Do you men gamble in your garrison?” Frau von Taussig suddenly asked.

“The other officers do,” he said. “Captain Wagner, for instance. He loses tremendous amounts!”

“And you?”

“Not at all!” said the lieutenant. At that moment, he knew how a man could become powerful. He rebelled against his mediocre fate. He wanted a glorious destiny. Had he become a government official, he might have gotten the chance to apply some of his intellectual virtues, which he certainly possessed; he could have had a career. What was an officer in peacetime? What had the Hero of Solferino gained even in war and by his deed?

“Just don’t gamble!” said Frau von Taussig. “You don’t look like a man who’s lucky at cards.”

He was offended. He instantly wanted to prove that he was lucky—everywhere! He began hatching secret plans, for today, now, for tonight. His embraces were virtually provisional, the foretaste of a love he wanted to give tomorrow, as a man who was not only outstanding but also powerful. He wondered what time it was, looked at his watch, and was already thinking up an excuse to avoid getting away too late. Frau Vally sent him off herself.

“It’s getting late, you have to go.”

“Tomorrow morning!”

“Tomorrow morning!”

The hotel clerk gave him the name of a nearby casino. The lieutenant was greeted with bustling cordiality. Spotting a few high-ranking officers, he halted in front of them in the regulation rigidity. They casually waved, staring blankly at him as if unable to grasp that he was observing military rules, as if they had left the army long ago and were merely wearing its uniforms sloppily, and as if this innocent newcomer were stirring their very distant memory of a very distant time when they had been officers. They were now in a different, perhaps a more secret phase of their lives, and only their clothes and stars recalled their normal everyday life, which would recommence tomorrow with the dawning day.

The lieutenant counted his cash: he had one hundred fifty crowns. Imitating Captain Wagner, he put fifty crowns in his pocket, the rest in his cigarette case. For a while, he sat at one of the two roulette tables without betting—he was too unfamiliar with cards and did not dare approach them. He was very calm and astonished at his calm. He saw the red, white, and blue piles of chips grow smaller, grow bigger, shift to and fro. But it never occurred to him that he had come here to see them all wandering in his direction. He finally decided to bet, but merely out of a sense of duty. He won. He staked half his winnings and won again. He did not check the colors or the numbers. He put his chips down anywhere, indifferently. He won. He bet all his winnings. He won a fourth time. A major beckoned to him. Trotta stood up.

The major: “This is your first time here. You’ve won a thousand crowns. You’d be better off leaving right away.”

“Yessir, Herr Major!” said Trotta and left obediently. But when he cashed in his chips, he was sorry he had obeyed. He was angry at himself for being obedient to just about anyone. Why did he let himself be sent away? And why did he not have the courage to return? He left, dissatisfied with himself and unhappy about his first winnings.

It was late and so still that one could hear the footsteps of individual pedestrians in remote streets. In the strip of sky over the narrow street, which was lined with high buildings, the stars
twinkled, alien and peaceful. A dark shape turned the corner and staggered toward the lieutenant. It reeled—a drunkard, no doubt. The lieutenant recognized him immediately: it was Moser the painter, making his usual rounds, with his portfolio and slouch hat, through the nocturnal streets of the inner city. He saluted with one finger and began offering his pictures: “Girl, girls, in all kinds of positions!”

Carl Joseph halted. He felt that destiny itself had sent Moser his way. He had no inkling that for years now he could have run into the professor at the same time on any street in the inner city. He drew out the fifty crowns he had stowed away in his pocket and handed the cash to the old man. He did it as if following soundless orders, the way one carries out a command. Just like him, just like him, he thought, he is quite happy, he is quite right! He was frightened by this thought. He wondered why Moser the painter should be right; he found no reason, was even more frightened, and already felt a thirst for alcohol, the drinker’s thirst, which is a thirst of soul and body. Suddenly you see dimly like a person who’s nearsighted, you hear poorly like a person who’s hard of hearing. You have to have a drink right away, on the spot. The lieutenant turned, stopped Moser the painter, and asked, “Where can we get a drink?”

There was an all-night café not far from Wollzeile. There you could get slivovitz; unfortunately it was twenty-five percent weaker than the 180 Proof. The lieutenant and the painter sat down and drank. Gradually it dawned on Trotta that he had long since stopped being the master of his fate, long since stopped being an outstanding man with all kinds of virtues. He was actually poor and wretched and utterly rueful about his obedience to the major, who had prevented him from winning hundreds of thousands of crowns. No! He was not meant to be lucky or happy! Frau von Taussig and the major in the casino and indeed everyone: they all made fun of him. This man, Moser the painter—one could already call him a friend—was the only person who was honest, loyal, and sincere. The lieutenant should identify himself. This outstanding man was his father’s oldest friend, his only friend. Why should Carl Joseph be embarrassed about him? He had painted Grandfather!

The lieutenant took a deep breath to draw courage from the air and said, “Do you realize we met a long time ago?”

Moser the painter pulled back his head, his eyes flashed under his bushy brows, and he asked, “Long—time—ago? Personally? Of course you know me as a painter. I’m known widely as a painter. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m afraid you’re mistaken! Or”—Moser was distressed—“perhaps you’re confusing me with someone else?”

“My name is Trotta!” said the lieutenant.

Moser the painter gazed at the lieutenant with sightless, glassy eyes and held out his hand. Then a joyous shout thundered out of him. He yanked the lieutenant halfway across the table, bent toward him, and, in the middle of the table, they exchanged a lengthy brotherly kiss.

“And what is your father up to?” asked the professor. “Is he still in office? Is he governor already? I haven’t heard from him! Some time ago I ran into him here, in the park; he gave me some money, he wasn’t alone, he was with his son, that little boy—wait a moment, that was you.”

“Yes, that was me,” said the lieutenant. “It was a long time ago, it was a very, very long time ago.”

He recalled the terror he had felt at the sight of the red, clammy hand on his father’s thigh.

“I must beg your forgiveness, yes, forgiveness!” said the lieutenant. “I treated you miserably back then, I treated you miserably! Please forgive me, dear friend!”

“Yes, miserably,” Moser confirmed. “I forgive you. Not another word about it! Where do you live? I’ll see you home.”

The café was closing. Arm in arm they staggered through the silent streets. “I’m getting off here,” the painter murmured. “This is my address. Visit me tomorrow, my boy!” And he gave the lieutenant one of his overdone business cards, which he was in the habit of distributing in cafés.

T
HE DAY ON
which the lieutenant had to return to his garrison was a saddening day and also a sad day. He once more walked along the streets where the pageant had drawn by two days earlier. For a brief hour, the lieutenant thought, he had been proud of himself and his profession. But today the thought of his return strode alongside him like a guard next to a prisoner.

For once, Lieutenant Trotta was rebelling against the military laws that ruled his life. He had obeyed since earliest boyhood. And he wanted to stop obeying. He had no idea what freedom meant, but he sensed that it was as different from a furlough as a war is from maneuvers. This comparison flashed into his mind because he was a soldier—and because war is the soldier’s freedom. It struck him that the ammunition you need for freedom is money. But the cash in his pockets somewhat resembled the blank cartridges fired on maneuvers. Did he even own anything? Could he afford freedom? Had his grandfather, the Hero of Solferino, left a fortune? Would he inherit it from his father some day? Never before had he had such thoughts! Now they flew to him like a flock of exotic birds, nesting in his brain and fluttering around him nervously. Now he heard all the confusing calls of the great world. He had learned yesterday that this year Chojnicki would be leaving his homeland earlier than usual, heading south with his lady friend this very week. And Trotta got to know envy, envy of his friend, and he felt doubly ashamed.

He was going to the northeastern border. But the woman and the friend were going south. And the “south,” hitherto a geographic term, now shone in all the bewitching colors of an unknown paradise. The south lay in a foreign country! And lo: there were foreign countries that were not subject to Kaiser
Franz Joseph I, countries with their own armies, with many thousands of lieutenants in small and large garrisons. In those other lands, the name of the Hero of Solferino meant nothing. They too had monarchs. And these monarchs had their own rescuers. Following such trains of thought was highly confusing; for a lieutenant in the monarchy it was as confusing as when people like us imagine that the world is only one heavenly body among millions upon millions, that there are countless suns in the Milky Way, each one with its own planets, and that you yourself are a very worthless individual—if not, to put it quite grossly, a pile of crap.

The lieutenant still had seven hundred crowns left over from his winnings. He had not dared visit another casino. Not only did he fear that unknown major, who may have been sent by city headquarters to keep an eye on young officers; he was also afraid of remembering his woeful flight. Ahh! He knew he would promptly leave any casino another hundred times, at any superior’s beck and call. And like a sick child he lost himself with a certain relish in the painful realization that he was powerless to force his luck. He felt extraordinarily sorry for himself, and at this moment it did him good to feel sorry for himself. He had a few drinks and instantly felt at home in his powerlessness. And like someone entering a prison or a monastery, the lieutenant felt that the money he had on him was oppressive and superfluous. He decided to spend it all at once.

Stepping into the boutique where his father had gotten the silver cigarette case, he bought a string of pearls for his girlfriend. With flowers in his hand, the necklace in his trouser pocket, and a woebegone face, he appeared before Frau von Taussig. “I’ve brought you something,” he confessed, as if to say, I’ve stolen something for you!

He felt he was illegitimately playing a strange role—that of a man of the world. And the moment he held his present, it occurred to him that he was ridiculously overdoing it, that it degraded him and perhaps offended the rich woman.

“Please excuse me!” he said. “I wanted to buy you a little something, but …” And he was tongue-tied. And he turned crimson. And he lowered his eyes.

Ah! Lieutenant Trotta did not understand women who see old age approaching. He did not know that she welcomed every present like a magic gift to make her younger, and that her intelligent and yearning eyes had a very different standard for assessing things! Frau von Taussig loved his helplessness, and the more evident his youth, the younger she herself became. And so, wise and impetuous, she threw her arms around him, kissed him like a child of her own, wept because she was about to lose him, laughed because she still held him, and also a little because the pearls were beautiful, and she said, through an intense and splendid flood of tears, “You’re sweet, very sweet, my boy!” She promptly regretted those words, especially “My boy.” For they made her older than she actually was at that instant. Luckily she noticed right away that he was as proud as if he had been decorated by the Supreme Commander in Chief himself. He’s too young, she thought, to know how old I am!