Sometimes Alma felt as though she had two separate selves. On the evening of Berta Zuckerkandl’s party, when she glided into her hostess’s salon in her white crepe-de-chine gown, Alma became another person. The lonely, cerebral girl brimming with self-doubt was left behind and a vibrant young lady took her place. This Alma sparkled in her confidence that she could win every heart in that room.
Men danced around her, moths drawn to her flame, and she breathed in their attention as if it were oxygen. Koloman Moser hailed her. The architects Joseph Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann, who had designed the brand-new Secession Museum, enveloped her in a flurry of pleasantries. The Belgian painter Fernand Khnopff kissed her cheeks, and the smolderingly handsome diplomat Alfred Rappaport kissed her hand. If only Klimt was here to witness her triumph.
Each man was like a different door she might open, through which she might enter into a whole new world. What future life would be most enchanting—to follow Khnopff back to Brussels or go against Carl’s wishes and marry Rappaport, a Jew, and be a diplomat’s wife whose home was the great world itself?
Alma turned to Joseph Maria Olbrich, that dear earnest fellow, who had just accepted a lucrative new post in Darmstadt, Germany. “Of course, I shall miss all my friends in Vienna,” he said, taking her hand. “But more than anything, I shall miss you, Alma.”
He gazed at her with such devotion. Unlike Klimt, this was a man she could trust, as solid and honest as an oak tree. Mama’s voice seemed to trumpet in her head. All he needs is a little nudge and he’ll ask you to marry him! Don’t miss your chance. But did she really want to live in Darmstadt, in the most industrial region in Germany, with its countless factories spewing smoke into the air?
Her thoughts were diverted when Fernand Khnopff appeared at her elbow and trotted out a poem in his native French about Viviane, the enchantress in the Forest of Brocéliande. He asked her to set it to music for him.
“The Viviane in the poem is actually you, Fräulein,” Khnopff said. “For you are the most bewitching flirt I ever met.”
“Nonsense!” she cried. “If I so much as smile at a man, he has the nerve to call me a coquette.” Alma pretended to be offended when, in fact, she was exulting. How delicious to be the one they all wanted. But while she claimed center stage, she couldn’t help noticing how Gretl and Wilhelm seemed happy to just sit together, hardly leaving each other’s side.
“Come play for us, my dear.” Berta Zuckerkandl drew Alma to the grand piano.
Electricity shot through Alma as soon as her fingers touched the ivory. At moments like these, her two selves were united at last—Alma, who dreamed of being a composer, and Alma, the belle of the ball. Suddenly, she was whole.
She played Wagner’s “Liebestod.” When Alma finished to euphoric applause, Berta Zuckerkandl took her hand and raised her to her feet. Frau Zuckerkandl looked every inch the New Woman in her reform dress—a flowing uncorseted gown of cherry-red Japanese silk covered in floral embroideries over which she wore a trailing open kimono. The effect was at once exotic and breathtakingly modern. She wasn’t just a society lady, after all, but a professional journalist and art critic—you were nobody in Viennese artistic circles until Berta Zuckerkandl noticed you. Her intelligent gray eyes were riveted on Alma.
“Let’s raise our glasses to Alma Maria Schindler,” Frau Zuckerkandl said, “who has turned the rest of us poor women emerald with envy. Not only is she the most beautiful girl in Vienna, and that’s quite bad enough, she’s also a brilliant pianist. That’s infuriating. But on top of it all, she composes! That makes you sick.” Her eyes full of warmth and good humor, Frau Zuckerkandl kissed Alma’s cheek and handed her a glass of champagne.
A hired pianist took over and the dancing began. Olbrich was the first to claim Alma, his eyes so soft and tender, and she trembled in the certainty that this evening would end with his proposal. Even though Mama and Carl would consider him a prize catch, she had to admit she felt no passion for him, nothing to set her pulse racing. Just a quiet affection. Was that enough? Perhaps she misunderstood what love was meant to be. Looking over at Gretl and Wilhelm, she witnessed their contentment, their enviable peace. But no fireworks, no frisson.
Alma took a break from the dancing to listen to one of Berta Zuckerkandl’s delectable gossipy tales.
“Only last week Auguste Rodin visited Vienna on his way back from Prague,” she began. Frau Zuckerkandl was intimately familiar with the Parisian art world. Her sister was married to Paul Clemenceau, the younger brother of the great French statesman Georges Clemenceau. “And who should show Monsieur Rodin the sights but our own Gustav Klimt?”
The mere mention of Klimt’s name was enough to make Alma drop her eyes to contemplate the parquet floor. As for Rodin, she understood he was notorious for his sculpture of nude lovers sharing a kiss—she had seen a photograph of this piece in Ver Sacrum. It’s not just about a kiss, she had overheard Klimt telling Carl. It’s about sex itself. The thought was enough to make her tremble, bringing back the memory of how close she had come to succumbing to Klimt in Venice.
“It being a fine day,” Frau Zuckerkandl continued, “Klimt took Rodin to a café in the Prater Garden. Accompanying the two gentlemen were two of Klimt’s models—slim red-haired vamps, whom Rodin found most enthralling.”
So Mama was right after all—Klimt is a womanizer. Frau Zuckerkandl’s story almost made him sound like a pimp. Alma felt a sickening lurch.
“Utterly enchanted by it all, Rodin leaned forward, and said to Klimt, ‘I’ve never before experienced such an ambience—your unforgettable templelike Secession Museum filled with startling modern art, and now this garden, these women, this music. What’s the reason for it all?’” With a complicit smile, Frau Zuckerkandl paused to look around at her circle of listeners before continuing. “Klimt answered with only one word. ‘Austria.’”
At that, everyone lifted their glasses with a rousing cheer, washing Alma of all her gloom. Austria, she thought. Not the stolid and regimented homeland she loathed, so far behind the rest of the world. Not the rigidly conservative empire that had opened its universities to women only four years ago. Not Austria, but the new Vienna rising from this fountain of modern art, music, and writing.
No, she wasn’t tempted to follow Olbrich to Darmstadt. Instead, she danced with one man after the next. For one night, let her live, surrendering to the elation, the laughter, and the champagne. Of just being present in this room where, apart from Klimt, the finest artists and minds of Vienna were gathered, and she was a part of the sheer effervescence of it all. Here she belonged. She was nineteen and beautiful. She still had time.