From The Adorations (Continued)

            They left the riverbank, crossed the nearby Hofgasse, and made their way to the Hauptplatz, the bustling heart of Linz. It was a little before eleven, and preparations were underway for the great day ahead. Banners stirred feebly in the muggy riverine air. Standing about were groups of soldiers from different regiments, Austrian mostly, with a sprinkling of Serbs and Moravians, and German-speakers from the marches of Bessarabia, and Slovenes from Capo d’Istria, and the already-noted Magyars; most were laughing coarsely and smoking, ogling the women and not-so-gently mocking their escorts. One such escort, a student to judge by his general dress and demeanour (plumed hat, lace shirt, swagger) turned on them and screamed obscenities. Adolf, too, screamed briefly, then fell silent, intimidated by the sight of a regiment of strapping lancers strolling in his general direction.

      “You got something you want to discuss?” one of them shouted. “Herr Wandervogel?”

            “Careful,” said another. “Maybe that’s a swordstick Herr Doktor Professor Artist is carrying.”

            Stefanie was nervous, but elated. There was something of the larger world in it all: the soldiers, the bantering, the undercurrent of male rivalry, the pervasiveness of sex. Almost, she thought, as if they weren’t in Linz at all. Her breath caught in her throat; her heart skipped a beat, as if in fear, or great excitement. She had a familiar swooning sensation of elevation, a passing giddiness, and a mist floated before her eyes, then yielded to an equally abnormal, almost painful, clarity, limning distant things. A moment later she felt calm, lucid, ready for anything.

            “There must be scenes like this in Vienna all the time,” she said, as they walked away from the defenders of the Empire.

            But Adolf seemed to have no further interest in Vienna. He rankled yet, over Goethe. Thoughts of stark Germanness had taken over. There was a faint throbbing in his temples. He felt thwarted, pent-up, unmanned.

            “Let’s go over here,” he said, and abruptly changed course. They were just behind the reviewing stand, which faced a famous old drinking establishment, the Alte Welt. Grandees had fought duels in the Alte Welt; artists had cried over spilt wine in its cavernous cellars. In 1889 a Triestine count had, a la Prince Rudolf, shot himself and his mistress in a discreet room upstairs, and Anton Bruckner’s ghost had been seen draping itself humbly around a beer. Today the Alte Welt was filling up with soldiers and members of the archducal entourage: hussars, grenadiers, dragoons. Adolf, suddenly self-conscious, had no desire to engage in an exchange of witticisms or abuse with men twice his size. He might get beaten up. Also, he was in the (for him) unusual position of having a lady’s feelings, and impressions, to consider. Momentarily, he was at a loss; his hands kneaded the air; he was sweating. His hat was askew, revealing the pink line made by the hatband.

            “Shall we?” he began, interrupted (again) by a sudden flurry of activity. Soldiers stopped lounging and assumed the rigid pose of review. Mounted units cantered in. An open carriage appeared in the distance. “Shall we,” mumbled Adolf again; then he cleared his throat and fell silent, yielding reluctantly to external events utterly indifferent to him. . . and Stefanie had eyes only for the arriving palanquins of the archducal parade. (And anyway, there were people about, pushing and shoving. Adolf’s walking stick, intended as an adornment, was rapidly becoming a liability.)

            “Oh, look!” Stefanie exclaimed. Two soldiers of the Leibregiment, the royal guard, mounted on chestnut bays; Hussars in leopardskin and bandoliers, riding sturdy Andalusians; two Dragoons, plumes nodding, breastplates afire, atop solid Lippizaners; a brace of Arab-mounted Bukovinans (red, green, and gold uniforms, shakos shaking, swords shining) from the Archduke’s favorite hunting grounds in the Empire’s easternmost marches; a couple of Linz policemen in uniforms so disproportionately extravagant—silver piping, polished jackboots, braided epaulettes—that they nearly outshone their charge, His Imperial Highness himself, the archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the twin thrones of the Dual Monarchy, seated ramrod-straight in the rear of the carriage next to his morganatic wife the poor Duchess Sophie, both unsmiling, neither waving, His Imperial Highness rather acknowledging the existence of the crowd by giving a series of curt nods beneath the lowering plumes of his archducal helmet, he and his Sophie fading adornments on the frothy Sachertorte that was the Austrian Empire.

            “Anybody could shoot him, with him sitting there like that,” said Adolf, momentarily restored at the thought. A veteran of the Cowboy-and-Indian wars of Old Shatterhand, fought in the sagebrush and chaparral of Braunau and environs, he mimed a gun, pointed, fired. “Pow!”  As if in synchronism (or premonition) the Archduke glanced around. His eyes met Adolf’s for a fraction of a second; he frowned, and was borne away. Stefanie nudged Adolf impatiently.

            “Show some respect,” she said, herself showing (he thought) none for him. “The Archduke! He’s your future Emperor.”

            “Pah,” said Adolf. “Emperor? Yours, maybe. Not mine.” He said this sotto voce, aware of most of the crowd’s adulation of Habsburgs (the fools). Not everyone was charmed, not in pro-German Linz. Cries of “Heil,” the Germanists’ salutation, vied with the pro-Habsburg “Hoch!” Cheers and jeers and comments adulatory and scornful were made. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie appeared oblivious to them all.

      “Oh look! She’s so pretty.”

      “If only he’d smile more.”

      “Yes, but they say he’s quite nice.”

      “They didn’t bring the children.”    

      “How many do they have? Three?”

      “Four, I think.”

            “Get rid of the lot, I say.”

      “God save the Archduke!”

      “Ach, piss on them.”    

     “Germany forever!”

            “Heil!”

           “Hoch!”

      The imperial procession had passed, slowed, and had come to a halt at the Rathaus, farther up the Hauptplatz. The burgermeister and other notables bustled forth and proceeded to fawn over His Imperially Bored Highness in their best professional manner. Fortunately for Franz Ferdinand, at the end of the speeches there was lunch and a gallop around the stables and a cruise down the Danube, just His Imperial Self and his Sophie (and a retainer or two, or ten)...Stefanie was excited, even thrilled, and deemed the day a success, if only for this. And Adolf—well, Adolf was an artist, and you’d expect an artist to be grumpy and cynical, in this kind of situation. Still, there was artistry in the pomp and circumstance, and Stefanie, for all her longing for a vie de Bohème, had a deep reverence within her for the settled order, and family, and God; and she was Austrian enough to love it all. Momentarily, she waxed patriotic.

      “God save the Archduke!”

      “I’m hungry. Why don’t we, um.”

            Plaintively, Adolf pleaded. He was hungry, and tired, and fed up. It was getting on for noon, and he wasn’t used to this kind of excitement and attention to another person not his mother. He was also sweating, and found himself almost (but not quite) longing for his quiet room in the flat in Urfahr (that attic window, those rooftops, the forested Pöstlingberg beyond). Not that Stefanie was any less alluring—somewhat more so, even, with a high color in her cheek and her blue eyes glistening with the emotion of having seen a genuine Imperial; and yet there were moments, and they were becoming more frequent, when he found himself damning all this man-woman rigmarole, the niceties of social life, the insincerity.

      “Monchskeller,” said Stefanie.

      “Begging your pardon, what?”

            “The Monchskeller, on the Badgasse. It shouldn’t be too crowded, and they do a wonderful Linzer torte.”

            Now, this appealed to Adolf. He perked up, even gave his cane a swing. Things were better now, with Linzer torte on the menu! An excellent idea. Few things got his juices flowing like a slice of pie in a restaurant and the concomitant opportunity to sit across from someone and expound on subjects of his choice. Inspired in advance, he offered Stefanie his elbow. She accepted, and arm-in-arm like Biedermeiers they crossed the square again against the melodious background of bells tolling twelve. The crowd was breaking up, with clumps of people gravitating mindlessly toward the Rathaus entrance from which, in an hour or so, the Archduke must emerge. The archducal phaeton sat outside, manned by the postern who had periodically to rouse himself and swat away curious boys. Adolf glanced back.

            “What a fine carriage,” he said. “Someday I would like to ride in a carriage like that.”

            The expression of this desire was in itself sufficient token of his improving mood; but when they arrived in the Monchskeller, and discovered an astonishing dearth of customers, with plenty of room next to the tall garden windows, Adolf was nearly euphoric. The long tables gleamed in the leafy green light from outside. Flags adorned the low ceiling beams, and in the corner behind the bar counter stood a souvenir of past campaigns, the military standard of the owner’s old regiment, the Styrian Jaegers. The owner himself, Herr Herzl, met them with a toothy grin and “Esteemed lady”s and “Fine gentleman”s galore. Adolf, responding in kind—good Austrian lad that he was—bowed and heel-clicked; masterfully, he selected the middle table of the row nearest the back, adjacent to the trellises of the as-yet empty wine garden; swashbucklingly, he tossed his cane, with a clatter, into the corner. His hat landed on the table. Stefanie settled herself, smoothed her skirts, and gazed into the garden, beyond which a blue patch of the blue Danube was visible between the neighboring houses and a spreading elm tree.

      “Look,” she said. “The river.”

      “Ah yes?”

            Stefanie watched her companion as he finger-combed his hair, rapidly and nervously, adjusted his collar, cracked his knuckles, and arranged himself in what for him was an informal pose: torso forward, arms folded, a hearty scoutmaster on the verge of laughter, or anecdote. Both: he chuckled, then waxed expansive.

            “Ah yes, the river. The beautiful blue Danube, ja? Haha? Our glorious Austrian heritage. Do you like the music of Strauss? I too, but a genius, our beloved Herr Johann? Well, frankly, no. Too much the musical patissier, too many fancy confections—not that I have anything against fancy confections, quite the contrary! I’m looking forward to this torte, you can believe that! But I’m sure you know what I mean. The Austrian character? The soul of old Vienna? All cosmetics, no substance! Now, as to the Habsburgs, the Archduke, ja, I was less than enthusiastic, earlier. Should I apologize? Not at all! Of course, I understand your need for some kind of higher power to adulate,” he said, chortling. “Many people feel that way, hence religion, not so? And of course when one’s gods are also one’s leaders, and gaily caparisoned they are in fancy uniforms and plumed helmets, with a thousand years of aristocracy behind them—well! It’s appealing, I don’t deny it! Like a permanent fancy-dress ball. But their day is done, their time has come, it’s all over with, they should be booted out. No more kings and emperors and queens and archdukes. Ousted, I say!”

      Stefanie reclaimed a small corner of the conversation.

            “Altogether, I don’t entirely disagree with you, Adolf, but I wanted to express my admiration for His Imperial Highness. I think he’s the best of the lot. And he has handsome mustaches.” She smiled, signifying flippancy, but Adolf had the unfortunate habit, born of literal-mindedness, of marrying high spirits and magisterial contempt for others. He waved a dismissive hand, as if to a servant.

            “Handsome mustaches? Best of the lot? That bunch of syphilitic fops? Pah. Look at ‘em. Half Jewish, half Hungarian, and entirely Habsburg.”

            “Jewish? The Archduke?”

            “Oh yes, yes. Jewish! Well, you know. Not literally. In the way they use the term Jewish in Vienna, the way Herr Lueger uses it, it’s more of an idea than a fact...” 

            “However Herr Lueger uses it, it’s a fact in my family. We have Jewish cousins by marriage. In Vienna.”

            Adolf was nonplussed. Herr Lueger, the Mayor of Vienna, was one of his heroes—a lesser presence in his personal empyrean than, say, Wagner, or Karl May, but a beacon in the ambient darkness, nonetheless. (And once again Stefanie had shown spirit, forthrightness, even insolence: contradicting him, dethroning Herr Lueger, enshrining Goethe, revealing Jewish links by marriage...where was it going to end?)

            “Ah! So? Jewish in Vienna, eh? Well, of course. There are, I know, many Jews there. But your, ah connection is by marriage, you say?”

            “By marriage, yes. A wealthy industrialist, knighted by the Emperor. Ernst von Kahane, Baron Ottoheinz. He married let me see my aunt Liesl, so. Yes. Cousins, but not by blood. I’ve heard their house is something grand indeed. You should visit them when you’re next in Vienna.”

            “Ah. I don’t think so. Well, who knows. Perhaps, although I was planning to stay with my godparents, Herr und Frau Prinz. Distinguished folk, you know. Tell me, are these Jewish relatives of yours wealthy patrons of the arts? Or artists?”

            “No. Well, they’re wealthy, of course. And they go to concerts and the opera and they have chamber music recitals at home, yes, and chess tournaments, Baron Ernst is a keen chessplayer. But art? No, I don’t think so.”

      “Jews are very good at chamber music and chess.”

      “Well, that’s very Austrian also, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t….”

            Adolf narrowed his eyes.  Their torte arrived. Initially courteous to the publican to the point of obsequiousness, Adolf now ignored him, so intense was his concentration within himself on topics dear to his heart. He stuffed his mouth with torte, chewed vigorously, swallowed, laid aside his fork. His eyes darted; his mouth worked; he blurted his thoughts.

            “My mother is not well, you know. She has a cancer. She has a new doctor, a certain Bloch. He is Jewish, by the way. I would prefer she found someone else. I have no faith in his competence. Not because he is Jewish, incidentally, but because I have heard so-so reports from others. Well, I even looked here in Linz for another doctor, but nobody wants to make the trip out to Leonding, and they didn’t take to me, I could tell that straightaway, they thought I was too much the artist, or the outsider, or something, snobs, petty bourgeois in such a typical Austrian way...anyway, to get back to our subject, why am I using the term Austrian in the first place? What does Austrian really mean? Austrian, Austrian. I ask you to consider what that means. Germans of the Eastern Empire. Actually, it means nothing. The only distinction between the Germans of the Eastern Empire—Austrians—us—and the others, the Germans of the Greater Empire, is that conferred by us being ruled by that gang of overdressed syphilitic gypsy barons you seem to admire so much. Their fine mustaches, ha! I’d clip their fine mustaches, I can tell you! Not that I have much more use for the ruling clique of Prussia, I hasten to add. The Kaiser and his crowd, no, thank you very much! Red-faced Junkers with the brains of insects. They’re even worse than our lot, if that’s possible. Now. Allow me to describe to you my ideal form of government.”