Geli Raubal, August 1931
Geli Raubal considered herself an adventurous, somewhat headstrong young woman, aware of how much she could manipulate and be manipulated in return. To her it was a game, until she saw how her uncle was buying her piece by piece. Everyone gossiped, sometimes with her, with lots of swearing to secrecy, stories about his dark desires and the stupid shopgirl who tried to kill herself over him, and the besotted photographer’s assistant, and the gigantic widow Wagner who wanted to marry him. When she asked about the prospect of a Wagner engagement, he had lost all the devoted chivalry with which he usually treated her and cursed like a sailor and locked her in the house.
*
In the long, empty hours when time hung heaviest, she studied herself in the mirror, his blackness infecting her as she dared to imagine tempting him into revealing himself. Perhaps through submission she could free him, by showing him the impossibility of his desires within the greater reckoning.
The reflection in the mirror told her the risk she ran: if he refused to release her, she would be destroyed, or destroy herself, fulfilling a tragic destiny that would allow him to progress.
Too late did she understand the deadly game of brinksmanship that had been embarked on. She made the mistake of sharing her secret with others, in the mistaken belief that the situation was somehow negotiable. Her uncle in turn confessed that she drove him to despair. He implied that she had defiled herself by succumbing to his wishes and was unworthy of his love. The psychological mechanisms became a series of hair-triggers.
Until she talked to Anton Schlegel, in the dog days of high summer, unaware that she had only a few weeks to live.