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 events as they unfold. Some time ago, in any case, his demeanour changed. The jealousy that was once the dominant feature of his character has given place to a peculiar kind of magnanimity. On the occasions when we meet by chance a willing kindliness mixed with embarrassment is manifested in his gestures and clumsy words. Beforehand, beneath his expectant reserve, his sulky, taciturn air, there nonetheless lay concealed a certain curiousity which devoured him, hungry for each new detail concerning the adventure. Now he is strangely serene. He no longer has any interest in anything I have to say to him.
At this juncture, this suits me very well, whilst I am conducting exceedingly important meetings night after night in the Waxworks Museum, which must remain cloaked in the deepest secrecy until their moment arrives.
The wardens, overwhelmed by the vodka I have lavished on them, sleep the sleep of the just in their booths, whilst I, by the light of a few smoking candles, confer with that venerable circle. There are even crowned heads among them, after all, and it is no straightforward matter to negotiate with them. Since ancient times they have maintained their aimless heroism, their flame, their immolation in the fire of some now empty and unscripted conceit, staking their whole life on a single card. One after the other the causes they lived for have been compromised in the prose of the everyday, and now their fuses are burnt out. They stand empty, their eyes shining obliviously, filled only with unspent energy, awaiting the final cue in their roles.
It would be so easy at this point to counterfeit that word, to impute to them their first, greatest cause, as they lie so credulous and defenceless! This facilitates my task superbly. On the other hand, their minds are extremely difficult to reach. It is so difficult to strike the light of any thought in them, such a breeze is there in their souls, so empty a wind blows straight through them. Merely awakening them from their slumber has cost me a great deal of effort.
They lay in their beds, deathly pale and unbreathing. I leaned over them, inunciating in a whisper the words most essential to them, the words necessary to penetrate them, like a jolt of electricity. Each one opened an eye. They were afraid of the wardens. They pretended either to be deaf or dead. Only once they had become assured that we were alone did they get up from their beds. Bandaged, contrived from old oddments, clutching their wooden prostheses and fictitious, spurious lungs and livers, they were extremely sceptical at first, only willing to recite the lines they had learned by heart. They were unable to comprehend that anything more might be demanded of them. And thus they sat in their torpor, grunting sporadically, those excellent men, the flower of mankind — Dreyfus and Garibaldi, Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel I, Gambetta and Mazzini, and so many others.
Of all of these, it was Archduke Maximillian himself who found the greatest difficulty in comprehending. As I repeated Bianka’s name at his ear, over and over again in an eager whisper, he blinked his eyes obliviously — his face displayed only a kind of stupendous bewilderment. No flicker of understanding rose 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 now been driven out of his consciousness. How could he live with it, that bursting tension of detestation — he who had been reassembled and healed with such effort after his bloody execution by rifle fire in Vera Cruz?
It was my task to teach him his life all over again, from the beginning. His anamneseis was exceedingly weak. I made contact with his subconscious flashes of emotion. I grafted into him the elements of love and hate. But the following night, it seemed he had forgotten all. His colleagues, cleverer than he, came to my aid, suggesting to him the responses he was meant to give, and thus his education progressed at a gradual pace. He had been greatly neglected, simply ravaged all through by the wardens. But I managed even so to provoke him into drawing his sword at the very sound of the name Franz Joseph I. And in fact, he very nearly ran Victor Emmanuel I through, who stepped quickly out of the way, if not quite in time.
In this way, the enthusiasm of the others of that magnificent academy grew, and they seized the cause a great deal more readily than the unhappy archduke, who coped with difficulty. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds. It took all my strength to restrain them. No one can say whether they understood to the letter the cause they were to fight for; they had no concern for its meritorious aspects. Predisposed to glorious immolation in the fire of some great cause, they were filled only with rapture that, thanks to me, they had received this call to arms, and in its name they would gladly die in battle, in a gale of exultation. I calmed them by hypnosis. I drilled into them, not without effort, a demeanour of mystery. I took pride in them. What leader ever had such a magnificent staff under his command, any body of generals composed of such fiery spirits? Just a guard of disabled ex-service men, admittedly, but how brilliant!
Finally that night arrived, enormous and boundless, stormy, and suffused with an approaching gale, shaken to its depths, to its very bottom, by the matters being prepared within it. Lightning flashes tore open the darkness over and over again. The world was opened up, torn apart to its deepest entrails, and exhibited its bright interior, dreadful and out of breath. Then it slammed shut again. And on it flowed, from the roar of the parks, from the processions of the forests, from the pageants of the revolving horizons. We left the museum under the cover of darkness. I strode at the head of that inspired cohort — advancing in vehement shuffles, the thrashing and clattering of their crutches and splints. Lightning flashes raced over the blades of our drawn sabres. Thus we made our way in the darkness to the villa gate. It stood open. Cautious, sensing a ruse, I ordered torches to be lit. The air turned red in their spitting, resinous flames. Startled birds ascended above us in the red glare, and in that Bengal light we saw the villa distinctly, its terraces and its balconies, as if it were on fire itself. A white flag fluttered from the roof. Seized by ill foreboding, I entered the courtyard at the head of my warriors. On the terrace, a major-domo appeared. Bowing, he descended the monumental staircase and approached us hestitantly, pale, making uncertain gestures, only becoming distinct when he came into the light of our torches. I thrust my pointed blade at his chest. My partisans stood motionless, raising up their smoking torches. The hissing flames were audible 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. Where is the Infanta?’
‘Her Highness also has left. They are 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, the stable breathed its warm, animal smell over us. A moment later, we were all mounted on steeds, rearing up beneath us and neighing. We emerged onto the pavement at a gallop, the horses’ clattering hooves echoing, and rode into the nocturnal street in a long cavalcade. ‘Through the forest to the river!’ I cried over my shoulder, and steered my horse onto the forest avenue. The depths of the woods grew wild all around us. Landscapes of accumulating catastrophes and deluges seemed to open up in the darkness. We flew on between waterfalls of sound and 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 tried in vain to instil in her? The avenue grew narrower, and became a ravine, at the end of which a great forest clearing opened. There at last, we 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 from our torches. Twelve gleaming blades were pointed at his chest. We approached in silence in a broad semicircle, our 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 with uncertain steps. Rudolf slowly got up, as if he wanted to meet me half way.
Finally standing beside the coach, I turned around to face the cavalcade, advancing in a broad front behind me, their swords ready to plunge, and 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 as you can see, that cause has failed — failed utterly. 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 here finds me entirely unprepared. That is not the case by any means. I foresaw all of this long ago. And if I have, to all appearances, persisted for so long in my error, not admitted to myself my better judgement, it is only because I was not entitled to know certain things, things that 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 now with remorse — a mere usurper in the face of the promptings of my ambition. In my blindness, I took to heart the lesson of the writing. I wanted to be a translator of divine intentions. In false inspiration I seized upon the circumstantial evidence, the contours flashing by in the stamp album. Sadly, I have merely combined them into a figure of my own invention. I have imposed my own purpose on this spring, and rooted my own program in its unrestrained blooming. I sought to bend it, to direct it in accordance with my own designs. And for a while, 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 — and I imagined I could discern in its features, better than it could itself, its deepest intentions, 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 the dynastic affairs of the highest power. I have mobilised you, my good sirs, against the Demiurge. I have abused your susceptibility to a cause, your noble imprudence, in order to instil in you a spurious and world-shaking doctrine, to appropriate in the service of my insane deeds your ardent idealism. I do not seek to determine whether the highest concerns for which my ambition reached were truly my calling. I was, it seems, destined only for initiation. I was commenced with, and then I was dispensed with. I have transgressed my own limits, but even this I foresaw. In 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, when your star, Rudolf, was falling. But Cain always triumphs — the game has been played out in advance.’
Just then, a distant detonation shook the air, and a column of fire rose up over 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 place to live, noble sirs. You are homeless now. I trust this does not trouble you too much?’
But those powerful individuals, the select 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, ‘were mistaken. The megalomania was also perhaps on your side. Unjustly, I wanted to reform the world in your name. But perhaps even this was not entirely your intention. Red is just a clour like any other, and it is only in combination that they create 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 an instant later he seemed to come to his senses — a more livid redness coloured his rouged cheeks; the corners of his mouth raised up as if in a smile; his eyes began to roll in their orbits. He began with deliberation and venerability to hold his cercle, shifting his radiant smile from person to person. All shrank away from him, scandalised. This imperious recidivism in such inappropriate circumstances made the very worst of impressions.
‘Desist, sire,’ I said. ‘I have no doubt that you know in all of its particulars the ceremony of your house, but this is not the time for it.’
‘Now, honoured sirs and Infanta, if I may,’ I continued, ‘I should like to read the deed of my abdication. Hereby do I 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 free. You had the best of intentions, and I warmly thank you in the name of our 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. There stood M. de V., strangely stiff and obliquely elongated, with a smoking pistol in his hand. He twisted hideously; he suddenly reeled and fell face down. ‘Father! Father!’ cried Bianka, running to the fallen figure. Everything was in confusion. Garibaldi, being an old hand and conversant with wounds, looked on despondently. The bullet had pierced the 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 a dreadful night indeed!’ 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. Clearly he was a good father and a good master to his slaves. My conceit has come to nothing. But I relinquish 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.’
Bianka boarded the coach. We mounted our horses. The Negroes carried the stretcher on their shoulders. We moved as one toward the harbour, the cavalcade of riders bringing 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, and hundreds of elongated black shadows sped past, to the side and above us, descending behind our backs in a great semicircle. And at last we emerged from the forest. Now in the distance, the riverboat with wheels on its sides came into sight.
There is little more to be said. My 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 great fortune. I hate to impose on you, but it falls to me to provide for the old age of these homeless, the heroes of mankind. And sadly, I am a pauper.’ Rudolf immediately reached for his cheque-book. We conferred briefly to the side, and quickly came to 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 nowadays. You must relinquish your ambitions to some extent. Instead, you will be free men, and I know that you are able to appreciate that fact. Since you have, unfortunately, been taught no practical trades, and you are qualified only for simple representation, my friend here has donated a sum sufficient to purchase a dozen Black Forest barrel organs for you. All across the land you shall go, 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. You shall now expand the circle of your many predecessors, those anonymous unacknowledged Garibaldis, Bismarcks and MacMahons who wander the land in their thousands. Deep inside your hearts, you will persevere in your roles for ever. And now, dear friends and honoured sirs, raise a cheer with me — long live Rudolf and Bianka, the happy newlyweds!’ ‘Long live Rudolf and Bianka!’ they cried in chorus, and the Negroes sang a spiritual. When they were silent, I regrouped my guard with a movement of my hand. And then, standing in the centre, I drew my pistol and shouted: ‘And now, gentlemen, farewell! 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, just as someone knocked my arm upwards. An officer of the Feldjagers stood beside me, papers in hand.
‘Are you Joseph N?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied in astonishment.
‘Have you, for some time now,’ the officer asked, ‘been dreaming the standard dream of the biblical Joseph?’
‘I may have done...’
‘You admit it,’ said the officer, looking at one of his papers. ‘And are you aware that this dream has been noticed in the highest places, 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 rather slow. His Imperial and Royal Highness’s bureaucracy is somewhat cumbersome. I long ago outdistanced that early dream with actions of a much greater calibre, for which I attempted to inflict a just punishment on myself. And behold — that obsolete dream has saved my life. I am at your service.’
I could make out an approaching column of Feldjagers. I held out my hands for the handcuffs to be put on. I looked around once more, and for the last time I saw Bianka. Standing on the deck, she was waving a handkerchief. The guard of disabled ex-service men saluted me in silence.
> -A July Night- >