Spring: -I- -II- -III-
The Stamp Album: -IV- -V- -VI- -VII- -VIII- -IX- -X- -XI- -XII-
In the Municipal Park: -XIII- -XIV- -XV- -XVI-
Springtime Twilight: -XVII-
The Villa: -XVIII- -XIX- -XX- -XXI- -XXII- -XXIII- -XXIV- -XXV- -XXVI- -XXVII-
Bianka’s Lineage: -XXVIII- -XXIX- -XXX- -XXXI- -XXXII- -XXXIII-
Hiatus: -XXXIV- -XXXV- -XXXVI- -XXXVII-
Finale: -XXXVIII- -XXXIX- (XL)
XL
I AM AFRAID to reveal my last trump card too soon. I am playing for too high a stake to risk it. I have long ago ceased to inform Rodolf of the events that are unfolding. In any case, since a certain time, his demeanour has altered. The jealousy that was once the dominant feature of his character has given place to a certain magnanimity. On the occasions when we meet by chance, a willing kindliness mixed with embarrassment manifests itself in his gestures and clumsy words. Previously, beneath his expectant reserve and his taciturn air of a man of few words, there had nonetheless been a hidden curiousity, which devoured him, hungry for every new detail concerning the affair. He is now strangely serene; he no longer has any interest in anything I have to impart to him. As a matter of fact, this suits me very well, at this juncture, as I conduct those exceedingly important meetings, night after night in the Waxworks Museum, which must remain cloaked in the deepest secrecy until their moment. The wardens, overwhelmed by the vodka I have lavished on them, are sleeping the sleep of the just in their booths, while I, by the light of a few smoking candles, confer with that venerable circle. After all, there are even crowned heads there among them, and it is no straightforward matter to negotiate with them. Since ancient times, they have maintained that aimless heroism, now empty and unscripted, that flame, that burning — in the fire of some conceit — staking their whole life on a single card. The causes for which they lived have been compromised, one after the other, in the prose of the everyday; their fuses are burnt out; they stand empty and full of unspent energy, and they await the final cue of their role, their eyes shining obliviously. It would be so easy at this moment to counterfeit that word, to impute to them their first, greatest cause, while they are so credulous and defenceless! This facilitates my task superbly. On the other hand, it is exceedingly difficult to reach their minds, to strike the light of any thought in them, there is such a breeze in their souls, so empty a wind blows straight through them. Waking them from their slumber alone has cost me a great deal of effort. They all lay in their beds, deathly pale and not breathing. I leaned over them, pronouncing in a whisper the words most essential to them, the words necessary to penetrate them like a jolt of electricity. They opened one eye. They were afraid of the wardens; they pretended either to be dead or deaf. Only when they were sure we were alone did they raise themselves up on their beds — bandaged, contrived from oddments, clutching their wooden prostheses and their fictitious, spurious lungs and livers. They were extremely sceptical at first, and wanted only to recite the lines they had been taught. They could not comprehend that something further might be demanded of them. And so they sat in their torpor, grunting at intervals, these excellent men, the flower of mankind, Dreyfus and Garibaldi, Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel I, Gambetta and Mazzini, and many others. Archduke Maximillian himself had the greatest difficulty in comprehending. As I repeated Bianka’s name over and over in an eager whisper at his ear, he blinked his eyes obliviously — his face betrayed his stupendous bewilderment, and no flicker of understanding came to his features. Only when I slowly and emphatically pronounced the name of Franz Joseph I did a wild grimace flit across his face — a pure reflex, no longer having any counterpart in his soul. That complex had for a long time been driven out of his consciousness — how could he live with it, that bursting tension of detestation — he, who had been assembled and healed with difficulty after that bloody execution by rifle in Vera Cruz. I had to teach him his life all over again from the beginning. His anamneseis was exceedingly weak — I connected with the subconscious flashes of his emotion. I grafted into it the elements of love and hate. But the following night, he appeared to have forgotten. His colleagues, cleverer than him, came to my aid and suggested to him the responses he was meant to make, and thus his education progressed at a slow pace. He had been very much neglected, simply ravaged inside by the wardens; even so, I provoked him, at the sound of the name of Franz Joseph I, into drawing his sword from its sheath. And in fact he very nearly ran Victor Emmanuel I through, who stepped quickly out of the way, if not quite in time.
As it turned out, the enthusiasm of the others of that magnificent academy grew, and they seized the cause a great deal more quickly than the unhappy archduke, who coped with difficulty. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds. It took all my strength to restrain them. It cannot be said whether they had understood to the letter the cause for which they were to fight. They had no concern for its meritorious aspect. Predisposed to glorious immolation in the fire of some cause, they were only filled with rapture that they had received a call to arms — thanks to myself — in whose name they would gladly die in battle, in a gale of exultation. I calmed them with hypnosis; I drilled into them, with some effort, a demeanour of mystery. I was proud of them. What leader ever had such a magnificent staff under his command, a body of generals composed of such fiery spirits — admittedly only a guard of disabled ex-service men, but how brilliant!
Finally, that night arrived, enormous and boundless, stormy and swelling with a coming gale, shaken to its depths, to the very bottom by what was being prepared in it. Flashes of lightning tore open the darkness again and again; the world was opened up, torn apart to its deepest entrails, and it exhibited its bright interior, dreadful and out of breath, then slammed shut again. And it flowed on, from the roar of the parks, from a precession of forests, from a pageant of revolving horizons. We left the museum under the cover of darkness. I strode at the head of that inspired cohort, advancing among the vehement stuffing, the thrashes and clattering of crutches and wood. Flashes of lightning raced over the bared blades of our sabres. Thus, in the darkness, we made our way to the villa’s gate. We found it open. Cautious, sensing a ruse, I ordered torches to be lit. The air turned red in their resinous flames; startled birds on high ascended in the red glare; in that Bengal light we distinctly caught sight of the villa, its terraces and balconies as if standing in the glow of a blaze. A white flag was fluttering from the roof. Seized by ill foreboding, I entered the courtyard at the head of my warriors. A major-domo appeared on the terrace. Bowing, he descended the monumental staircase and approached us hestitantly, pale and making uncertain gestures, only becoming distinct as he came into the light of our torches. I thrust my pointed blade toward his chest. My partisans stood motionless, raising high their smoking torches, whose flames hissed audibly in the silence, blown by the wind into ragged, horizontal streaks.
‘Where is M. de V?’ I asked.
He spread his hands with an uncertain motion.
‘Sir, he has left,’ he said.
‘We shall establish the truth of that in good time. And where is the Infanta?’
‘Her Highness has also left. They’re all gone, all gone…’
I had no reason to doubt this. Someone had surely betrayed me. There was no time to lose.
‘To horse!’ I cried. ‘We must cut them off.’
We broke in the stable door; in the darkness it exhaled the warmth and smell of the horses over us. A moment later we were all mounted on steeds, rearing up underneath us and neighing. Borne by their gallop, we emerged on the pavement among a clattering of hooves, and into the nocturnal street in a long cavalcade. ‘Through the forest to the river!’ I called over my shoulder, and steered my horse onto the forest avenue. The depths of the woods grew wild around us. Landsacpes of cascades and torrents opened as if heaped up in the darkness. We flew among waterfalls of sound, among churned up forest massifs; the flames from our torches fell away in large patches in the wake of our galloping line. A hurricane of thought was raging in my mind. Had Bianka been abducted, or had her father’s lowly heritage triumphed in her, over her mother’s blood and the duty I had vainly tried to instil in her? The avenue grew narrower and became a ravine, at the end of which a great forest clearing opened. There we finally caught up with them. They had already seen us in the distance and halted their coach. M. de V disembarked and stood with his arms crossed. He walked slowly toward us, gloomy, his spectacles shining, crimson in the glare of our torches. Twelve gleaming blades were pointed at his chest. We approached in silence in a large semicircle, the horses advancing at a walking pace; I shaded my eyes with my hand in order to see him more clearly. The glare of the torches fell on the coach, and there inside it I caught a glimpse of Bianka, deathly pale, and beside her — Rudolf. He was holding her hand, pressing it to his breast. I slowly dismounted and approached the coach, walking unsteadily. Rudolf slowly got up, as if he wanted to meet me half way.
When I was standing by the coach, I turned around to face the cavalcade, slowly following in a broad front, their swords ready to plunge, and I said: ‘Gentlemen, I have put you to unnecessary trouble. These ladies and gentlemen are free, and shall proceed unmolested, accosted by no one. Let not one hair on their heads be touched. You have done your duty. Sheathe your sabres. To what degree you have comprehended the cause in whose service I have engaged you, to what degree it has possessed you and become the blood of your blood, I do not know. But that cause has failed, as you can see — failed all along the line. For your part, I assume that you will survive this failure without further injury, since you have already survived the failures of your own causes. You are already indestructible. As for me… but no more of that. All I ask,’ I here addressed myself to the occupants of the coach, ‘is that you do not suppose that what has happened finds me entirely unprepared. It is by no means the case. I foresaw all of this long ago. If I have, to all appearances, persisted for so long in my error, and not admitted to myself my better judgement, it is only because I was not entitled to know certain things which exceeded my scope — I was not entitled to forestall these events. I merely sought to persevere in the post that fate had bestowed on me; I wanted to fulfil my program to the limit, to remain faithful to the role I had usurped. For I have been — I confess it with remorse now — a mere usurper in the face of the promptings of my ambition. In my fanaticism, I took to heart the lesson of the writing; I wanted to be the translator of the divine will; in false inspiration, I seized upon the blind circumstantial evidence and outlines flashing past through the stamp album. Tragic to relate, I merely combined them into a figure of my own invention. I have imposed my own direction upon this spring; I rooted my own program in her unrestrained blooming and sought to bend her, to direct her in accordance with my own designs. For a time, barely aware of me, it bore me along on its patient and indifferent blossoming. I mistook its insensibility for tolerance — nay, for solidarity, for compliance. I imagined I could discern its deepest intentions in its features, better than it could itself, that I could read its soul in them, that I, seduced by its very immeasurableness, could anticipate what it could not itself express. I ignored every indication of its wild and uncontrollable independence; I overlooked the vehement and unpredictable perturbations that profoundly disturb it. In my megalomania, I pressed on so far as to dare to impede upon dynastic affairs of the Highest Power — I have mobilised you, sirs, against the Demiurge; I abused your susceptibility to a cause, your noble imprudence, in order to instil a spurious and world-shaking doctrine in you, to appropriate your ardent idealism for my insane deeds. I seek not to determine whether the most high concerns for which my ambition reached were truly my calling. It seems I was only destined for initiation; I was commenced with, and then finished with. I have transgressed my own limits — but even this was foreseen. As a matter of fact, I have known my fate from the outset. Like the fate of this unhappy Maximillian, mine was the fate of Abel. There was a moment when my sacrifice was fragrant and pleasing to God, while your star was falling, Rudolf. But Cain always triumphs. That game has been played out in advance.’
Just then, a distant detonation shook the air and a column of fire rose up above the forest. We all turned our heads. ‘Remain calm,’ I said. ‘The Waxworks Museum is on fire. I left a powder-keg there, with a lighted fuse. You no longer have a home, noble sirs; you are homeless now. I hope this doesn’t concern you too much?’
But those powerful individuals, that choice of mankind, remained silent, their eyes sparkling with bemusement, standing oblivious in their battle-kit in the glow of the distant fire. They looked at each other in utter disbelief, fluttering their eyelids. ‘You, sire,’ I here addressed myself to the archduke, ‘have been mistaken. The megalomania was also perhaps on your side. Unjustly, in your name, I wanted to reform the world. But then, perhaps even this was not entirely your intention. Red is only a clour, like all the others, and only in combination can they create together the plenitude of light. Forgive me for misusing your name for objectives alien to you. Long live Franz Joseph I!’
The archduke winced at that name, and reached for his sabre, but seemed to return to his senses a moment later; a more livid redness colouerd his rouged cheeks; the corners of his mouth raised up as if in a smile; his eyes began to roll in their orbits; he deliberately and venerably held his cercle, shifted his radiant smile from one to the next. They shrank away from him, scandalised. This imperious recidivism in such inappropriate circumstances made the worst of impressions.
‘Desist, sire,’ I said. ‘I have no doubt that you know the ceremony of your manor house in all of its particulars, but this is no time for it.
‘I would now like to read, if I may, honoured sirs and Infanta, the deed of my abdication. I hereby abdicate unconditionally. I dissolve the triumvirate. I place the regency into Rudolf’s hands. And you, noble sirs,’ I here addressed myself to my staff, ‘are now free. You had the best of intentions, and I warmly thank you in the name of the cause, our dethroned cause,’ tears were welling up in my eyes, ‘which despite everything...’
At that moment a gunshot resounded somewhere close by. We all turned our heads in that direction. Pan de V stood with a smoking pistol in his hand, strangely stiff and obliquely elongated. He twisted hideously. And he suddenly reeled and fell face down. ‘Father! Father!’ cried Bianka, and ran to the supine figure. Confusion ensued. Garibaldi, who was conversant with wounds, being an old hand, looked on despondently. The bullet had pierced his heart. Mazzini and the King of Piedmont lifted him carefully by the arms and laid him on a stretcher. Bianka sobbed, supported by Rudolf. The Negroes, who only just now were assembling under the trees, stood in a circle around their master. ‘Massa, massa, our good massa,’ they wailed in chorus.
‘This is indeed a dreadful night!’ I cried. ‘But it will not go down in history as an outright tragedy. I confess that I did not foresee this. I have wronged him. A truly noble heart beat in his breast. I rescind my short-sighted and fanatical judgement of him. He has clearly been a good father and a good master to his slaves. My conceit has come to nothing. But I give it up without remorse. It is for you, Rudolf, to console Bianka for her pain, and to love her with redoubled love, to replace the loss of her father. No doubt you will want to take him on board with you. Let us form ranks and make our way to the harbour. The riverboat’s siren has been calling to us for a long time now.’
Bianka got back into the coach; we mounted our horses; the Negroes carried the stretcher on their shoulders, and we moved toward the harbour. The cavalcade of riders brought up the rear of that gloomy march. The storm had abated during the course of my speech; the torchlight opened deep crevices far into the forest; hundreds of elongated black shadows sped past, to the side and above us, descending in a great semicircle behind our backs. At last we emerged from the forest. In the distance, the riverboat with its wheels now came into sight.
There is little to add now; our story is drawing to a close. Amid the weeping of Bianka and the Negroes, the body of the deceased was carried on board. On the bank we formed ranks for the last time. ‘One last thing, Rudolf,’ I said, taking hold of him by a button of his overcoat. ‘You depart as the heir to a gigantic fortune. I don’t want to impose on you. But it falls to me to provide for the old age of these homeless, the heroes of mankind. Sadly, I am a pauper.’ Rudolf immediately reached for his cheque-book. We briefly conferred aside and quickly reached an agreement.
‘Gentlemen,’ I cried, addressing myself to my guard, ‘my generous friend here has decided to remedy my deed, which has deprived you of bread and the roof over your heads. After what has happened, no waxworks exhibition will take you in, especially as there is such fierce competition. You must relinquish your ambitions to some extent. Instead, you shall be free men, and I know that you are able to appreciate that fact. Since you have unfortunately not been taught any practical trades, having been prepared only for simple representation, my friend here has donated a sum sufficient for you to purchase a dozen Black Forest barrel organs. You will all go your own ways over the earth, playing them to cheer people’s hearts. The choice of melody will be your own. Why mince words — you are not quite the real Dreyfuses, Edisons and Napoleons. You have played their parts, so to speak, only for want of something better. Now you shall expand the circle of your many predecessors, those anonymous, unacknowledged Garibaldis, Bismarcks and MacMahons who wander the earth in their thousands. Deep inside your hearts you will continue in your roles forever. And now, dear friends and honoured sirs, raise a cheer with me: Long live the happy newlyweds, Rudolf and Bianka!’ ‘Long live Rudolf and Bianka!’ they cried in chorus. The Negroes sang a spiritual. When they were silent, I regrouped them with a movement of my hand, and then, standing in the centre, I drew my pistol and shouted: ‘And now, farewell gentlemen, and take warning from what you are about to see, lest anyone else attempt to guess at divine intentions. No one has ever fathomed the thoughts of spring. Ignorabimus, good sirs, ignorabimus!’
I put the gun to my temple and fired, as someone, at that moment, knocked my gun upwards. An officer of the Feldjagers was standing next to me, holding papers in his hand; he asked: ‘Are you Joseph N?’
‘Yes,’ I replied in astonishment.
‘Have you, for some time now,’ the officer asked, ‘been dreaming the standard dream of the biblical Joseph?’
‘Perhaps...’
‘You admit it,’ said the officer, looking at a paper. ‘Are you aware that this dream has been noticed in the highest place, and severely criticised?’
‘I am not answerable for my dreams,’ I said.
‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘I arrest you in the name of His Imperial and Royal Highness!’
I smiled.
‘The machinery of justice is so slow. His Imperial and Royal Highness’s bureaucracy is rather cumbersome. I long ago outdistanced that early dream in actions of a much greater calibre, for which I wanted to mete out to myself my own justice, and behold — that obsolete dream has saved my life. I am at your disposal.’
I saw an approaching column of Feldjagers. I held out my hands for the handcuffs to be put on. Once more, I averted my eyes. I saw Bianka for the last time. She was waving a handkerchief, standing on the deck. The guard of disabled ex-service men saluted me in silence.
> -A July Night- >