Chapter 3

Act II (Part 1)

Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph (1858-1889)

I dreamt about my cousin Rudolf over the next few nights. Rudolf, six or so years my senior, was certainly my favourite relative. My older brother was a stuffy bully, even when he was six or seven and I was four or five. Rudolf was a cadet when I was learning to read and write. When I rode a pony, he had graduated to a horse. And when I began noticing girls, he was casting women aside.

I was thirteen when he took me to an assignation with a woman called Franzi. She was a large woman in her twenties. We were served drinks and Franzi excused herself to get into something “easier.” Rudolf encouraged me to have some wine. After a few minutes, Franzi reappeared, wearing a pink kimono over nothing more than a bustier and bloomers. She was a big healthy girl with magnificent bosoms and skin like ivory. She slipped me a wink behind Rudolf’s back.

“I can’t find my maid!” she proclaimed dramatically. “I need help from someone.” She turned to Rudolf. “Maybe you can help me,” she said, quite prettily. “I can’t get the strap of my bustier open, and it is cutting into my poor flesh. Would you be a true gentleman and unfasten it for me?”

I was sitting there with my mouth open. Rudolf wore a smile.

“Here,” said Franzi. “I will sit here with my back to you so you can get at it.”

Rudolf knew what to do. He reached up and began to fumble with the closure. Soon he was successful and Franzi’s breasts tumbled out. I know I gasped. She held them up for my inspection.

“Aren’t they nice?” she asked.

Rudolf held them from behind; I recall I leaned forward and kissed each one.

“Take a bite,” she said. “But not too hard.” As I did, I realized she was undoing my trousers. Another woman entered and Rudolf went off with her. Franzi introduced me to her secrets and I entered a world of previously-unknown pleasures.

Rudolf later told me that Franz Josef had tasked an adjutant with procuring a healthy, discreet young woman to shepherd his teen-aged son through his first sexual encounter. “You know,” he said, “Love is certainly one of the most beautiful things in the life of all living things.” But I soon realized that what he meant by “love” was frequent and varied sex. Bertie (now King Edward) had been assigned to entertain Rudolf in London, but he wrote of the 19-year-old that “For a young man of his age, it is surprising how much Rudolf knows about sexual matters. There is nothing I could teach him.”

Rudolf was my idol when I was a teenager. Oh, I was a bit taller than he, but he cut an impressive figure. He had a moustache and a beard where I had peachfuzz. The women of the court (and those of the street) fell before him. And he was both politically and artistically active. In 1876 Carl Menger had begun tutoring Rudolf in political economy and statistics. And for two years Menger accompanied the prince in his travels, first through continental Europe and then later through the British Isles. I think he also assisted my cousin in the composition of the infamous pamphlet, published anonymously in 1878, which was highly critical of the higher Austrian aristocracy.

That was prior to my meeting Franzi. And there were writings that were acknowledged. There was the book about his travels in the Orient in 1881, with appendices about ornithology and zoology. And the volume about Hungary in the Imperial encyclopedia. I don’t write. I sponsor.

This must be tedious. But my family is quite strange. And complex. And to understand, you need to follow just why its so strange. For example, I’ve not gone into the strangeness of Sisi’s family. Her mother was half-sister of Ludwig I of Bavaria, grandfather of Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein and supported Wagner and drowned in Wuerm. I’ll stop there. I was going to return to Rudolf.

He was raised together with his older sister Gisela and the two were very close. But the age of six, Rudolf was separated from his eight-year-old sister to begin his education to become an Emperor; von Hochstetter was his tutor, so Rudolf became very interested in natural sciences, starting a mineral collection when he was quite young. The ‘separation’ did not change their relationship and Gisela and Rudolf remained close until she left Vienna upon her (arranged) marriage to Leopold of Bavaria. My uncle paid a dowry of a half million guilders. Sisi stayed away from the rites. The couple took up residence in Schwabing, in Munich. Anything to stay away from the court. Rudolf was 15 at that time. In Sisi’s absence, my uncle placed his heir’s further education in the hands of Albrecht, whom my uncle had named Commander in Chief after the victory at Custozza (and Benedek’s loss at Koeniggraetz). His residence was in Palais Erzherzog Albrecht, only a few minutes from Demel or the Ring.

God knows what it was like for Rudolf. I was 13 when I was put in Albrecht’s charge. Luckily, outside of an occasional drill or a family dinner en grande tenue, I rarely saw him.

But, prior to that, there was Hungary.

In 1867, the Compromise created the dual monarchy and Andrassy was named first minister of Hungary. That summer, Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were crowned apostolic king and queen of Hungary and given an estate in in Gödöllő, east of Buda-Pesth. Sisi became pregnant again – her reward to my uncle – and spent a year in Gödöllő and Buda-Pesth, where Marie Valerie was born and baptized. It was 1868. I was three. Rudolf was 10.

Now I am 40 and it is 1905. It has turned chilly. At the beginning of November there was a Gala for Alfonso XIII. A royal visitor from Spain! He’d just been on a shopping trip to London, looking over the available princesses. It turned out he’d found one. The performance was the customary melange: the first act of Lohengrin, parts of acts one and two of Lakme and some ballet. He looked as bored as I felt.

It had been no surprise when I received a card inviting me “and Herr Schnitzler” to tea on the Kaerntnerring for Saturday the 24^th. I relayed it on my next visit to the Central. Schnitzler was overwhelmed; Altenberg (of course) mocked him. The tea was interesting in a way. The Baroness and Schnitzler spent a great deal of the visit talking about Irish dramatists called Wilde, who died a few years ago, and Shaw. The Baroness repeatedly spoke about social comedy.

“But Zwischenspiel wasn’t a comedy!” I protested.

“You are fixed in the past. We are not talking about Shakespeare, where a hero dies at the end of a tragedy or gets married at the end of a comedy,” the Baroness said. “Nor the bourgeois comedy of Minna von Barnhelm. For the past decades, the role of comedy has been to point out the contradictions and absurdities of society.”

“Precisely, your grace,” Schnitzler said. “Neither deaths nor laughs are necessary. Even in my Anatol, the final scene, the morning of the wedding, is comic irony.”

I didn’t really follow. I enjoyed the plays, but I’m not a litterateur.

Frau Schratt also spoke of her career: she had made her debut here when but 17. A few years later, she was offered a post in Berlin, but returned to Vienna when offered a post at the old theater on Michaelerplatz. Her great success came as Katharina in ‘Taming of the Shrew,’ when she was just 20. She traveled and was a success in New York, returning to Vienna and the Hofburg, where she caught the eye of my uncle.

But recalling that made me think about my aunt, Sisi, who introduced her husband to the actress.

Sisi, the Empress Elisabeth, was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She had been but 15 when she accompanied her elder sister, Helena, and their mother, Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, to Bad Ischl to meet the Emperor and his mother. Helena had been promised to Franz Joseph at Sophie’s, my grandmother’s, direction. My uncle and Helena didn’t get along; but he was smitten with the younger sister. Finally, at 23, Franz Joseph stood up to his mother: he told her that if it were not Sisi, he would remain single, to be succeeded by one of his brothers or their offspring.

They were married at the Augustinerkirche eight months later. Sisi was 16 and would be Empress for 44 years, outliving one of her daughters and her son, Rudolf. My cousin Sophie (named by her grandmother sans consultation) had died of typhus at two.

But a few weeks later Mahler conducted a new production of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte. It was wonderful! The Despina was perfect, disguised as Miraculo she made the entire audience laugh. And she had nice ankles.

Less than a fortnight after that I escorted my mistress Louise to the Musikverein for the premiere of Mahler’s revised Fifth Symphony. From the horns at the beginning to the end over an hour later, I found it quite thrilling. Oh, yes. Louise Robinson was a singer in operettas at the Volksoper and the Theater an der Wien. Occasionally, she gave song recitals. Now she rarely does. She lives in Doebling. We have a daughter. We walked to the Imperial Cafe for post-concert refreshment. We both ordered sausages and white wine. Louise reminded me that it was but two weeks til Christmas and that children deserved gifts. At that point the head waiter came over.

“Excuse me, your grace, gracious lady.”

“Yes?”

“We are quite crowded, yet Maestro Mahler and his wife have arrived...”

I looked at Louise. “Please invite the Maestro and madame to join us,” she said. “On my account,” I added.

He scurried off. “You are truly generous,” I said.

“Otto, it costs nothing. This is Mahler and his wife, Alma. Think of the pleasure we had tonight. Think of my performances of his songs.”

“As usual, you are right, dear.”

I rose as the couple were usher to our table. “Maestro. Madame. We are honored.”

“Thank you, your grace. Louise, you look lovely.”

“Louise Robinson, Madame Mahler,” I said. We all sat, they ordered.

“I must know,” the composer said. “How was the program?”

“It was very impressive,” Louise responded. “The horns in the first movement and the development of those fragments at the end were impressive. But the Adagietto had me in tears. This is a breathtaking revision.”

“You noticed. Then, perhaps others will. And your grace?”

“I found it important. I am not the musician Louise is. But it is incredible that the man who can produce the sublime, was directing Cosi. An opera I love, but which is mere froth next to this.”

“You flatter me. A man must earn his living.”

“You want gold? I can give you gold! Leave the Court Opera, retire to Maiernigg and compose!”

“Someday, perhaps.”

“What do you think, Madame?”

“I was a musician. Now I am a mother and housekeeper. Gustav is the musician in the family.”

We ate. Chatted a bit. Louise and I made our adieux and I gave the waiter some coins as we left.

“Would you really give him gold, Otto?” Louise asked.

“Without hesitation! I have no ability, not talent in any of the arts. But I can encourage, I can sponsor. And as we still know Mozart and Haydn and Beethoven, so our contemporaries will be known in coming centuries. I won’t be.”