The Vienna Melody (29 page)

“Look!” she said, pointing the incident out to Franz. It was too bad that Otto Eberhard and his narrow-minded wife could not be there; at least they would have seen that Vienna no longer held any prejudices and no one took seriously such epithets as Jew or Christian. No one but a blind person could escape the fact that they had merged to a degree which made them indistinguishable. There stood the knighted actor from the Court Theater, Adolf von Sonnenthal, a Jewish tailor by origin, surrounded by an adoring throng of countesses and counts whom he, from the stage of the Burgtheater, instructed in model manners. And yonder the tyrant of the stamping foot, which he exercised even in leading the orchestra, the director of the Court Opera, Gustav Mahler, was evading the efforts of Countess Kinsky to speak to him.

“Do you see? Anton Dreher is greeting us from below,” said Franz, bowing to the tall, thin brewer who was also the owner of a stable and represented the solid middle class in the racing world.

Henriette acknowledged the greeting briefly. Everything that Franz did rubbed her the wrong way. He had not even noticed her dress. For whom had she ever put it on! They never went out anywhere, except in the house. Tea at Elsa's, supper at the Drauffers', a supper for Franz's friends from the chess club, a box party at the An der Wien Theater or Ronacher's, together with the Drauffers or the Otto Eberhards—that was the extent of their sociability. With a sense of bitterness she took up her mother-of-pearl opera glasses. Almost to a man the owners of the grandstand boxes were now in their customary places. When old Princess Metternich looked up in her direction Henriette turned aside. In the old days, after the Metternich ball, she could easily have played the same kind of role in Vienna society as the young Baroness Rothschild. But no, Franz would not hear of it. Her world was and would remain 10 Seilerstätte.

The introductory races had gone by almost unnoticed. The trials the Derby were now due.

In the glass-shielded stand of the Jockey Club the gentlemen rose their feet. Word was passed that the Emperor had come. But it turned out that it was the heir to the throne, Francis Ferdinand and his consort. They were led to the gilt chairs in the center of the stand, where they sat down. Then the heir to the throne spoke to Prince Montenuovo, Imperial Chief Steward. This was the signal for a hum of conversation in the grandstand, because every one knew that it was Montenuovo who had made an intransigent fight against Francis Ferdinand's marriage with a simple court lady, Countess Chotek, and had finally agreed not to a ceremony implying equal birth but to a “morganatic” one. Neither in the face of the white-bearded old prince nor in that of the heir to the throne was there the slightest trace of amiability. To look at them one could forget that such a thing as a smile existed in the world. The present “Duchess of Hohenberg” turned red, then pale. Henriette's eyes did not leave the morganatic couple. They were sitting in a place which should have been filled by another.

Her thoughts did not soar quite so high that she said to herself: “That might have been my place.” Nevertheless she felt deep down that it was only because of her own will that she was not now sitting there. Probably Prince Montenuovo would have been even harder on her. But she too would have achieved in the end what that woman down there had achieved, she who was appearing for the first time in public and before whom, despite all, the court people had to bow their heads.

That she alone in all the world knew this fact caused her an almost unbearable sensation. “If you but knew!” she thought, and the mother-of-pearl opera glasses trembled in her gloved hands.

“I kiss your hand, dear lady! How are you? But it's an age since we met!” said someone who had come up the grandstand and was now in front of her box. “Do you still remember me? Hoyos is my name.”

“I sent Pepi Hoyos to Rome,” Rudolf had said. In the meantime Pepi Hoyos had become an old man.

“Of course! A thousand thanks for coming up!” she answered, and grew as pale as a debutante. When she spoke with aristocrats she involuntarily imitated their speech. “My husband—Count Hoyos.” She performed the introduction. Of the four men with whom she had had that
déjeuner
in Mayerling only two were still alive. One had committed suicide; the other had been killed by Franz.

“Your servant, sir,” Franz said.

“I recognized you the minute you arrived, and I thought to myself, I'll go over and say how do you do. You're looking splendid, dear lady!
Hors concours
!” declared the man who on her account had journeyed to the Pope. On the tunic of his Uhlan major's uniform glinted two small buttons bound in silver cord, the symbol of his rank as Imperial Chamberlain. “Well, now! How shall we bet?” He turned to Franz, stuck his monocle in his eye, fingered the green program, began to mark with his pencil the starters just posted, and showed every sign of watching the Derby from the box of Mr. Alt.

But Franz did not invite him to stay, and as Henriette made a move to do so he anticipated her words with the remark, “The race will start immediately! I think you will reach the Jockey Club stand more easily down the center aisle.”

Then Henriette said, “Won't you join us, Count Hoyos? We are
à deux.”
Quite naturally she fell back into a way of speech she had had for only such a short time.

“A thousand thanks,” said the count, and took a seat behind her. Henriette noticed with satisfaction that this had already struck the attention of the lower rows in the grandstand. “Perhaps you will exchanges places with the count?” she suggested to Franz. Countess Goluchowski glared at her, as did Countess Wydenbruck through her pince-nez.

“A thousand thanks. This seat is excellent!” answered their guest, and drew his chair a shade nearer to Henriette's. “It looks as though things were beginning to break loose again in Prague, doesn't it?” he said, turning again to Franz. And again Franz did not say anything.

“How have you bet, Count Pepi?” asked Henriette, who had quite blossomed out since his arrival. How fortunate that she had sprinkled some Violette de Parme on her handkerchief just before she left home.

“Heracles and Vilja, to win and to place. As a matter of fact, I have more faith in good old Vilja. She ran marvellously in Alag. Just a moment ago I said to Alphonse [he meant the owner of the horse, Baron Rothschild], ‘Your Vilja is so chic that even you bet on her!' You know, don't you, that the Rothschilds never bet their own horses?”

“Of course,” Henriette told him, although she did not know. She too was strongly in favor of Vilja's winning. Or Heracles. She was for the Rothschild and Springer stables. She was for martial law. She was for anything and everything except Franz. Prince Festetics' son, Georgie, had bowed to her. Life could still be beautiful.

The starting bell rang; the starting tape was lifted. “They all got away to a good start,” Count Hoyos said approvingly. Who had used those same words? As the horses began to run she racked her brains. But she could not recall.

In the lead from the start was a wiry brown whose jockey wore black and red colors. “Heracles!” yelled the betters from the public stands. Heracles was a full three lengths ahead. The two Barons Springer, down in the wicker armchairs, puffed furiously at their cigars.

On the turn at the 1600-metre line (they were to go round the course twice) Vilja moved up. The blue and yellow colors of the Rothschild stable gleamed in the sun. “I told you!” cried Count Hoyos. Princess Lubomirska, to the right below in Box 2, was hard of hearing and yelled at the Lord Chief Chamberlain, Count Lanckoronski, who sat as close behind her as Count Hoyos behind Henriette, “What horse is that?” (She said “hoss” in the affectedly slipshod way of all aristocrats.) The Lord Chief Chamberlain, who had the most penetrating voice of anyone at court, answered in an equally loud tone, into the ear-trumpet she held out to him: “Vilja.” “Just like in the operetta—is that her name?” screamed the elderly princess. “
Exactement
, just as in
The Merry Widow
,” trumpeted Lanckoronski. And over the three intervening boxes, with complete disregard of whether he was disturbing anyone, he called in his shrill voice to Clarice Rothschild: “Vilja is in marvellous form, Baroness!”

From then on the people in the grandstand crossed their fingers for Vilja.

“I trust you've laid a bet, dear lady?” the guest asked.

“Alas, no,” she answered.

“What a shame!” the count said. Franz had not yet uttered a word, but he had listened with irritation to every word spoken by his wife and his guest. Now, to every one's surprise, he exclaimed, looking out over the track, “Anna!”

When the field, in a compact group, reached the starting posts on the first round, Heracles and Vilja fell back. The blue-and-white-dotted colors of the Uechtritz stable pulled ahead, and Madame des Renaudes, a lady in the second tier of boxes, was overcome with excitement.

Vilja was now in the lead. Suddenly, quite from the outside, under the lashing and spurring of a jockey who rose in his stirrups, leaned over, lashed again, there emerged a horse which until now had escaped all notice. It had not been in the running at all, but by long strides it gained the lead. One heard the deaf princess screaming: “Why, what's that?” It was some time before she received the answer: “Number 9, Erzébet.” Meanwhile the whole grandstand had followed the Lord High Chamberlain's example and hunted up the outsider's name in the program. “Count Elemer Hegéssy's three-year-old mare, Erzébet. Up, Jockey G. Janek,” said the program.

“Do you see Anna?” Franz asked his wife, and grabbed her by the arm. With his other arm he pointed excitedly, “Over there!”

By a white balustrade, at a point where the public and the judges' stands were closest together, stood a woman in black. She had rushed over there from the cheaper seats to a place where no one was supposed to stand because the clods of earth, torn up by the hoofs of the racing horses, fell like hail all around. But this woman stood there clinging to the white balustrade.

“Erzébet!” she screamed, so passionately and so piercingly that the whole race-track heard her. It was Anna, who grew indignant if anyone went to the races. It was Anna, who had never raised her voice.

“Erzébet!” yelled the public stands a moment later.

“Vilja! Vilja! Vilja!” urged the grandstand in competition.

“Erzébet!” screamed the woman in black to Franz's unspeakable surprise.

“Erzébet!” The cry now came from the stand of the Jockey Club, which on this Derby Sunday had made a great exception and allowed a lady in. The man beside the lady, the heir to the throne, Francis Ferdinand, was the one who first took up the cry of “Erzébet!” For Erzébet belonged to a blue-blooded count, and a Vilja belonged only to the house of Rothschild.

Erzébet beat Vilja by half a length, as well as the crack mounts of the Springer and Uechtritz stables, who came in neck and neck. The finish was so close that the results remained in doubt until the numbers were posted: 9, 4, 2. The odds on Number 9 had been 34 to 1. The race-track was in an uproar. The noonday news that irrepressible “Young Czechs” had been fired on in Prague no longer interested anyone. Erzébet's victory for the court and the nobility was the only thing that counted. But the middle class, which had lost, was thinking about its money.

When the owner of the winning horse, an old and bowed gentleman, led it by the reins to the scales, according to custom, an incident occurred which appeared in the paper next day under the heading “Tragedy at the Derby.” According to a brief account, a lady dressed in mourning crossed the path of Count Hegéssy. In the public stands they called her the Baroness of the Turf because she hardly ever missed a race. Beaming with joy over his victory, the count accepted the congratulations of the lady and with true Magyar cordiality embraced and kissed her and then went on to the scales. But the Baroness of the Turf, presumably out of excitement caused by the victory of an outsider, on whom she may have bet, was overcome by an indisposition and succumbed to it on the spot.

“It is incomprehensible that she should have gone to every race!” was the obituary comment of Number 10. How can one lead a double life? was what Franz could not understand. Henriette understood. Moreover, this was the only thing she ever had understood about Anna Hegéssy. One who has lost something goes on seeking everywhere and forever. Human beings are unreasonable, she knew. They do not believe in their loss.

Hans was arranging the testimonials given to the firm of G. Alt in the course of the years, for the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the house was at hand and Papa wished to get out a jubilee publication. Liszt had written, “ …
grâce aux prodigieux pianos à queue que vous avez eu l'extrème amabilité d'envoyer ici
…” and: “
La perfection d'un Alt surpasse l'idéal de mes espérances
.” Richard Wagner's praise took this form: “
Mes répétitions aux fêtes musicales de Bayreuth
,
auxquelles les pianos, sortant de votre éminente fabrique
,
ont grandement aide
…” And Paderewski: “
Le piano était tout à fait merveilleux
,
en beaucoup de choses idéal
,
et c'est pour moi un grand plaisir de vous le faire savoir
.”

Sitting there in the little compartment partitioned off for him between the turners and the cabinet-makers, surrounded by the racket of saws and lathes, he had translated it, for better or for worse, into French. But why the devil into French, when the letters were written in German? Why did Papa insist on getting out his jubilee pamphlet in French?

The translation for Beethoven's words of praises—“A jewel of piano construction”—did not come to his mind, and he stalked angrily around his square little cubbyhole where it reeked of glue and where in broad daylight you had to use artificial light, as everywhere in his father's factory. It faced a court, or rather a blind wall, and stood in the constant shadow of the parish church of the holy Nepomuk. Hans put his fingers in his ears, for the tuning had begun again. Next beyond the turnery was the tuning-room, where tuning ‘by ear' was still held preferable to tuning ‘by sight.' The tuning-forks and wrest-pins tested the same G string for hours on end, until you were nervous enough to jump out of your skin.