Vienna, 1914. The city of the Habsburgs, where the Hofburg, a maze-like complexity of administrative buildings, reached out to peer into streets, invade gardens and overlook parks. Through its ancient arch in the Michaeler Platz bowled the carriages of those privileged to attend its glittering social functions. If one did not have the entry through that arch, then in the eyes of Vienna one had so little standing socially that one was a nobody.
Vienna, which the waltz kings had made eternally gay and haunting, was in 1914 at the peak of its splendour, its colour, its culture. Its Ringstrasse captured imagination, its women were the most elegant in Europe, its officers the most dazzling and its emperor the most incorruptible. It was the city of the imperishable Merry Widow, of Lehar, Strauss and Mozart, of writers, poets, love and scandal. For the rich there was everything, for the people there were the dance halls and the Vienna Woods.
Baroness Teresa von Korvacs adored Vienna and thought the family residence could not have been better situated. It was on the nicer side of the Salesianergasse and within easy reach of elegant shops and fashionable restaurants. And not far away was the Hofburg, where the dear old emperor still kept his eye on everything, including the Hungarian Magyars, the most acquisitive people in the empire. They were always after more than they knew they were entitled to. Her husband Ernst said that was how they always got as much as they actually wanted. And Ernst should know. He had served the emperor in more than one of his ministries. He was in the Foreign Ministry now.
Their house, with its domed vestibule leading to a baroque-style staircase and a chandeliered ballroom the envy of the exalted, was fronted by a paved forecourt, high iron railings and a gilded, ornamental gate bearing their coat of arms. Nearly ninety years old, the house had the appearance of being graciously mellowed by time while remaining impervious to change.
The bright morning room overlooked the Salesianergasse. When she was in a busybody mood the baroness liked to observe who was driving by with whom. Open carriages and trotting horses gave the thoroughfare an air of dash and elegance. It was a pity motor cars had been allowed to intrude. The baroness did not think automobiles suited a city like Vienna. Berlin, yes, because that city was all boisterous bustle, the noisy upstart of Europe. Vienna was the established, cultured Queen.
Motor cars were only a fad, of course. They would never last. Carl, their only son, wanted one simply because other young men did. Ernst had said he would see. Carl had smiled and said he would see that his father saw. The baroness hoped that whatever was seen would not be allowed.
The drawing room was her favourite. It was wallpapered in old gold on which clusters of roses danced. The printed chintzes were softly subtle, the deeply upholstered armchairs designed for comfort. Tall windows looked out on to gardens stretching as far as the boundary of the Modena Palace. Through the windows one could watch the four seasons come and go. In the spring the blossom hung fragrant in the sun or scattered sensitively before the wind. In summer the lawns were a green canvas for every other colour.
The gardens were lovely today. She mused on them from the quiet of the room, then turned her attention to new fashion plates. Heavens, ostrich feathers were in again. Ridiculous. And impossibly expensive, besides leaving the poor ostriches bald and bereft. Baroness von Korvacs, forty-four, was fair, aristocratic and still a handsome dresser. But she could do without ostrich feathers.
Life was very agreeable. Other mothers worried about their children. She did not. Well, very rarely. She was blessed with perfect offspring. Well, almost perfect. Carl at twenty-four was the most good-natured of young men. Anne, eighteen, was a delightful girl. A little impulsive, perhaps. And Sophie, just twenty, was so elegant and intelligent. But it was just a little disconcerting that she was not yet engaged. She could have been. A charming and infatuated French diplomat had enquired after her hand. The baroness received the enquiry cordially. Sophie did not. Neither did her father.
‘I’m sorry, Mama, but really, he’s too fat,’ said Sophie.
‘Darling, his figure is robust, that’s all,’ said her mother.
‘He’s not only too fat, he’s too old,’ said her father.
‘He’s mature,’ said the baroness.
‘Then let him marry Elizabeth Schaeffer,’ said the baron, ‘she’s as mature as he is.’
‘Elizabeth Schaeffer is all of forty,’ protested the baroness.
‘So is he,’ said the baron.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ smiled the baroness.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ said Sophie in her winning way.
Sophie supposed she would fall in love one day. But she was less worried about it than her mother. She did not want to marry simply for the sake of it. Life was lovely, exciting, and there must be a man somewhere in this colourful world waiting for her. She was quite happy to wait for him. There was so much poetry to write until destiny brought them together.
The baroness looked up from her fashion plates as her daughters came in. As usual, Anne entered all animation and colour. As usual, Sophie followed unhurriedly. Anne was as fair as her mother, her hair the colour of harvest gold, her eyes a warm green. Life for her was an exuberance. She adored shops, weddings, men, Strauss, Lehar and Austria. She was kind to everyone, even cab drivers, and considered the ageing, aloof emperor a monarch of benign fatherliness.
Sophie was vividly brunette, with richly dark chestnut hair, taking after her father. An inch taller than Anne, she carried herself with superb elegance, dressing her hair in Edwardian crown style and enhancing her height. Her face was classically oval, her brilliant brown eyes and beautifully white teeth giving her looks a striking quality, particularly when she was amused.
Anne dressed with apparently careless rapture and always looked delicious. Sophie rarely departed from long sweeping green or blue velvets in winter and the simplest of silk pastels in summer, and winter or summer she looked elegantly superior to fashion’s frills and flounces. Sophie loved life. Anne found it breathless. Anne asked that men should be gallant, dashing, attentive and amusing. Sophie did not ask anything quite so specific of them, only that they shared her appreciation of the world and its wonders.
Neither sister lacked admirers. Anne was a flirtatious delight, Sophie with her smile was captivating. One young man who admired them both was Ludwig Lundt-Hausen, son of the police superintendent. Sophie assured him that if he preferred Anne she would not take the slightest offence. Ludwig earnestly assured her that if he came to prefer either of them he would press his suit vigorously. Meanwhile he hoped neither of them minded that he considered them equally charming. They did not mind a bit. Ludwig was rather a charmer himself.
The baroness regarded her daughters with a smile. Anne looked as if the sun had kissed her. Sophie looked exquisite. They had been out in the four-wheeler, jaunting gaily with a variety of other carriages along the Hauptallee in the Prater.
‘Did you enjoy yourselves?’ asked the baroness.
‘It was lovely,’ said Anne, to whom the most unimportant of outings was an excursion into the excitements of life. ‘Just everyone was there.’
‘Although riding out in a carriage isn’t quite the last word in cultural bliss,’ said Sophie, ‘it can be very stimulating. Horses are so rhythmic, aren’t they? I was inspired to begin the composition of an adorable poem. I shall finish it in my mind in a moment. Then I shall recite it.’
‘Sometimes, Mama,’ said Anne, ‘do you have the feeling that even in the bosom of our family we’re spared nothing?’
‘Do you also have the feeling, Mama, that my sister is a philistine?’ said Sophie, removing her little white tip-on hat.
There were questions from daughters that wise mothers passed by. The baroness in her wisdom said, ‘Did you meet Ludwig?’ She entertained hopes for Sophie there.
‘Yes, I think we exchanged a word or two with Ludwig,’ said Anne. ‘Oh, and we saw Carl. He wishes you to excuse him lunch.’ Her father came in then. She put her arm through his and he kissed her. He had spent this Saturday morning at his office in the Ballhausplatz. He was tall, thin and had a mass of iron-grey hair. He greeted his wife, who lifted her face for his kiss.
‘How nice you are home in good time, Ernst,’ she said. ‘Anne, what was that about Carl?’
‘Oh, you’ll excuse him lunch, won’t you?’ said Anne. ‘He and Ludwig are looking at motor cars. Ludwig is almost the expert, you know, now that he has one of his own.’
‘You’ll have to buy a motor car for us, Papa,’ said Sophie, walking about in thoughtful pursuit of metre and rhyme, ‘Carl insists we’re incomplete without one.’
‘We are not incomplete,’ said the baroness, ‘but we are certainly quieter.’
‘Hm,’ said the baron non-committally.
‘With a motor car, you know,’ said Sophie, ‘we could drive all the way to Ilidze next month. It would be very adventurous.’
‘Never,’ said her mother, ‘not while there are trains. I should shudder every metre of the way in a motor car. You will not even think about it, Ernst. I beg you will not.’
‘Naturally,’ said the baron, ‘I’d not allow thoughts of the finest motor car to promote disharmony, my dear, nor would I make you ride to Ilidze in one.’
The family owned a house in Ilidze, a small attractive inland resort in Bosnia. The baron was fond of shooting and fishing, and both sports could be enjoyed to the full in the area around Ilidze. The family always spent a few weeks there in June.
‘Mama,’ said Anne, ‘I hope it isn’t disharmonious to tell you Ludwig is taking Sophie and me out in his new car this afternoon.’
‘Oh,’ said the baroness, torn between her dislike of automobiles and her hopes for Sophie.
‘I promise you, Mama,’ smiled Sophie, ‘that if it’s a truly shuddering experience I’ll confess it so. Now, while there’s still time before lunch, I wish you to hear my new poem. Papa, don’t you dare sneak out.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ smiled the baron. He listened, together with his wife and Anne, as Sophie recited.
‘Oh, fragrant Prater’s tree-lined courses
Are daily thronged by trotting horses,
Horses large and horses small
Horses fat and horses tall.
Some trot proudly, four wheels running,
Some trot idly, using cunning,
Saving wind and limb and grace
For tomorrow’s same old race.
Whips flick whistling, hats are dancing,
Single horses run on prancing
Leaving those who came on later
To the windfalls of the Prater.’
‘That is as far as I’ve got with it,’ said Sophie, ‘but it’s my declared intention to have it trip merrily to a finish. Please express your feelings about its possibilities.’
‘Ah,’ said the baron.
‘Ah,’ said Anne.
‘Ah?’ said Sophie. ‘Ah what? Isn’t it just a little bit delicious?’
‘It’s delightful, darling,’ said the baroness.
‘Piquant,’ said the baron, smiling. Both his daughters were an entertainment to him.