Before gathering provisions for his accompanist, or himself for that matter, Vogl fended off several guests voicing their opinions of the evening’s entertainment. He took the fawning praise of his voice and the gentle barbs about false notes and the like with good grace. Whenever anyone praised one of Schubert’s songs, Vogl mentioned the publisher. With this ploy he hoped to help Schubert. The more people who approached Diabelli or Artaria mentioning Schubert, the more likely these men would accept Schubert’s future submissions.
To the several people who praised “Die Sonne und das Veilchen”, Vogl took a different approach. The song was unpublished; Vogl thus suggested that interested parties talk to Schubert directly. He hinted that they could commission their own songs from the little master. No one would, of course; nor would Franz necessarily oblige them if they did.
Vogl recognized the futility of his efforts. The audience came from Vienna’s civil service, not its musical promoters. Members and minions of the State security apparatus showed little concern for musical novelties. Even if someone took Vogl’s advice, Schubert would gain little. Profits from a single sale were negligible. Besides, Franz lacked the diplomatic skill to take advantage of patronage. Nonetheless Vogl adhered to his policy of trying any path to support his friend.
Vogl’s greatest discomfort came from the performance itself. He was urbane enough to hide his dissatisfaction, but he worried. Neither the count nor his son said a word about the music, and Eugénie’s dramatic reaction flummoxed him. She never lost her composure in such a way. The role of helpless female was not part of her repertoire. Of course, Eugénie’s tactics included unpredictability. Perhaps Eugénie feigned her response to signal someone. Still, Vogl was uneasy.
Supper was ending by the time Vogl assembled a plate of cheese, pastry and bits of sausage to carry up the stairs, following his ears to the room whence the ländler emanated. Before he reached his destination, Diederich tapped his shoulder. “Please follow me, mein Herr. The countess wishes a word with you.”
Plate in hand, Vogl followed Diederich to Eugénie’s dressing room. The countess sat alone and, ever conscious of her reputation, ordered Diederich to wait outside the door. Then her eyes flashed. She hissed angrily, “Misha, you’ve ruined everything!” Vogl thought he caught an uncharacteristic note of panic in her voice.
Supposing she referred to his little speech of dedication, Vogl replied, “I attempted to carry out my commission to the best of my ability.”
“Did you? Was it then the eunuch …”
“Leave Schubert out of this! I assume full responsibility for everything.”
“You don’t know what you are saying!”
“You gave me a poem. Franz set it to music. I sang it.”
“Yes, you sang it. I was a fool to trust you.”
“If I have failed to satisfy, I beg your pardon.”
Eugénie did not waste time with recriminations. “I don’t want your apology. Nor did I call you here to chastise you. What’s done is done. You now must make what amends you can.”
“If it is in my power …”
“It’s probably not in your power,” Eugénie sneered, “but you can do this. Leave this”—out of nowhere an envelope appeared in Eugénie’s hand—“on the hall table as you depart. Leave the plate.”
Feeling more than a little foolish, Vogl placed Schubert’s food on the dressing table and took the envelope from the countess. On it was written merely “Die Sonne und Das Veilchen.”
“Put it in your pocket.” Vogl did so. “Stop by tomorrow morning. You have not heard the last of my displeasure for your ineptitude.”
“I have rehearsal,” said Vogl.
“Stop by before. Now we shall go downstairs to speed the parting guests.” Eugénie stood up and clamped herself onto Vogl’s right arm. She propelled him out of the dressing room like his jailer, not his hostess. She then produced a radiant smile, presumably for Diederich’s benefit, marched to the top of the stairs and proclaimed, “Messieursdames, I give you our titan once again.”
Vogl bowed at the ensuing wave of applause, at which point Eugénie released him and floated down the stairs to her husband. The guests understood their cue and began to gather their wraps—all wonderfully correct. Vogl waved them a final farewell and went to fetch Schubert.
Eight people still danced in the upstairs room, Heinrich von Neulinger, paired with Kunegunde, two clerks and their wives, and one clerk’s wife’s sister in the clutches of Schober. Vogl tried to stop Schubert’s playing by placing a hand on his shoulder. Unperturbed, Schubert muscled his way to a full cadence.
“We must go,” said Vogl.
“Surely we have time for one more Ländler,” Schober said, laughing.
His partner supported him, but Vogl responded, “The other guests have gone.”
The clerks hurriedly ushered their wives from the room. For government employees, even those attached to Hager’s ministry, no personal gratification was worth breaching etiquette.
“I must join my parents,” said Heinrich. “Thanks to you, I’ve enjoyed this evening, Herr Schubert and Fraülein Schikaneder.” Then, with a small bow, he left.
“Now I may dance with you at last, shoene Juliet,” said Schober smiling at Kunegunde. “Franz, play something really good.”
“No more dancing for me,” said Kunegunde.
Vogl was not unhappy to see her disengage herself from Schober.
“Then Franz, play something else. Perhaps one of Mr. Field’s nocturnes?” Schober said, rescuing a glass of wine left unfinished on a windowsill.
“Oh, play something of your own,” said Kunegunde, seating herself on the piano bench. Schubert stiffened.
“Only one movement, Franz,” Vogl warned, “then come downstairs.”
“Only one, Misha?”
“It’s late, and we must get Fraülein Schikaneder home.”
“Thy will be done,” said Schubert.
After a moment’s thought, he launched into the allegretto movement of his sixth piano sonata. To these charming strains, Vogl watched the last von Neulinger guests vanish into the night. His upstairs entourage provided him the perfect excuse to leave last. The calming strains of the allegretto provided him reasonable assurance that Schober would not again inflict himself upon Kunegunde. When he returned to the upstairs room, he saw Kunegunde’s head resting languidly against Schubert’s shoulder. She did not prevent him from playing.
The von Neulingers retired to their rooms before the movement ended, leaving Diederich to let Vogl’s party out into lightly falling snow. As per instructions, Vogl unobserved, left Eugénie’s letter on the table by the door. On his way out, Vogl received a parting shock—from Diederich. “Shall we see you tomorrow morning, Herr Vogl?”
The remark had its probably calculated effect. Vogl was shaken. The innocuous sounding question confirmed Vogl’s fear that, while waiting outside the Countess’s door, Diederich heard every word of what passed between him and Eugénie. Whose desire was that? Potentially crushing wheels were clearly in motion, all too probably with Vogl directly in their path.
Chapter Eleven
Though midnight approached, the day was not finished for everyone. Vogl shepherded his little band to their lodgings without incident. As he escorted Kunegunde to her door and saw her safely inside, Schober left the group on the same street and vanished into the night. Schubert, exhausted from his hours at the keyboard, dozed all the way to his lodgings at von Schwind’s, where he was hustled inside and presumably up to bed. Vogl arrived at his own home twenty minutes later and read himself to sleep with a few lines of Epictetus.
At Count von Merlinbeck’s home, life was as quiet, though not as contented. On his arrival, the count ordered himself a nightcap delivered directly to his room. In the boudoir adjacent, the countess paced restlessly, reviewing her fortunes. She suffered, although not from her husband’s diminishing interest in her. That was almost a relief. She had not expected marriage to close all doors to
romance, and it had not. Count Merlinbeck gave her prestige, and in the past her marriage offered her access to power, but after the birth and early death of their first child, Merlinbeck lost interest, first in the outside world, then in his family. Zdenka seethed in frustration.
Tonight her gall boiled because of Eugénie von Neulinger, who lived the life Zdenka desired. As far as Zdenka was concerned, Eugénie stole it from her. Eugénie’s tentacles reached everywhere. Her favor remained in constant demand. Recollection of how Eugénie outpaced her still inspired Zdenka to fury. What a dolt she’d been to believe that she had stolen shoene Moritz from the green-eyed guttersnipe. Eugénie planned it all along. She exploited the man’s interior weakness at the same time she polished him up as one of the city’s elite leaders. Zdenka’s greatest coup, persuading an aristocrat to abandon his mistress in order to marry a “little gypsy girl with no family,” thus became her greatest disaster. Sooner or later Eugénie would pay.
The soirée fueled her bitterness. The two Germans on their tiresome diplomatic mission and their military concerns dealt Zdenka a fresh hand, albeit a weak one. Who cared about the rights to mine platinum, whatever that was? Still Zdenka resolved to stay in the game as long as it lasted. If Eugénie’s husband were somehow involved in these arcane negotiations, a nice, direct avenue for revenge might emerge. If not …
Zdenka continued her pacing.
At the English ambassador’s residence, the entourage retired quietly to separate rooms. The ambassador detained Thomas Bellingham, inducing him to stay with a welcome snifter of brandy. The ambassador’s informal briefing on the state of political affairs was decidedly less welcome. “Why can I not impress upon you, Thomas, the seriousness of our mission? We cannot let access to such quantities of platinum escape our control.”
“Surely there must be other sources of the mineral,” Bellingham muttered in feeble defiance.
“No doubt, but they haven’t been discovered. Control of platinum in abundance might undo the current world order in a matter of months. If Bonaparte had such an abundance before Waterloo, we’d be singing La Marseillaise now.”
Bellingham shuddered, possibly at the thought of mastering so much French.
“I’m glad you now appreciate what’s at stake. I expect you, therefore, to review your slipshod behavior this evening as part of your report on what you gleaned—or failed to glean from this evening’s proceedings. Your long-standing acquaintance with some of our major adversaries could be of inestimable value to His Majesty’s government, but you must maintain proper vigilance. I shall expect your full report by eleven tomorrow morning. Good night, Thomas.”
Bellingham shuddered again. He was useless before noon, so he saw a long night before him. Pleasant dreams would have to be postponed.
Similarly, two floors above him Pyotr Dmitrovitch Tagili, wasted no time in dreams. “K’chortu,” he swore under his breath in Russian, the only language he clearly understood. Something had gone wrong. Tagili lacked the communication skills to figure out what. All he knew was that his British hosts had whisked him away as soon as conveniently possible, and the countess had not given the agreed-upon code word when she bade him her formal farewell.
He reviewed his options. He could try to leave Vienna immediately, but even if his escape went as planned, he’d be a pauper. How long dared he stay before word came out of the Urals that he had no authority? Tagili knew and loathed the life of poverty, but a life in Siberia or in an Austrian prison would be far worse.
He had to communicate with Eugénie one more time. Only she could tell him if any chance for profit remained. But with the English growing ever more vigilant, the Germans growing more restless, and the French more interested in the situation, arranging a meeting was, to say the least, challenging. Nervously, Tagili stared out the window with its defective latch. He noticed a few falling snowflakes. His gaze continued in their direction for quite a long time. He saw a tremendous storm taking shape.
Not everyone went straight home. At least three of Eugénie’s guests ended up at an unregistered weinstube. Actually it was the cellar of a building occupied by a clothing merchant during the day. The authorities allowed establishments like these to operate after eleven. Occasionally, they helped the government unearth or observe potential trouble makers, or when it served the ruling powers’ interest, to prepare trouble of their own. Many regulars came, most of them subsidized in one manner or another by Baron Hager.
This particular hornets nest, in order to function as a spider’s web, maintained a veneer of gemütlichkeit, complete with the all the trimmings: a large array of bottles, a larder stocked with cheese and pastries, and, of course musicians, a violinist and a pianist. The place was presentable enough to entice unwary souls such as now entered, men who felt that sneaking an illicit drink or two under the authorities’ noses made them heroes.
Count von Neulinger’s son Heinrich, first of Eugénie’s guests to arrive at the rathskeller that night, was not a regular, but was known on these premises, the nightspot nearest his home. Anticipating the need to release tensions after “playing his father’s game” at the soirée, he had asked a couple of friends to wait for him there. Heinrich drained his first brandy in one theatrical gulp, for his friends’ benefit. His second drink arrived simultaneously with the two Germans, Himmelfarb and Barenberg.
The Germans presented studies of mixed emotions, observed carefully by the suddenly alerted regulars. They shared the satisfaction of finding the place without involving the von Merlinbecks. Barenberg had discovered it during one of his many nocturnal head-clearing rambles, rambles made necessary by the difficulties of his mission, not the least of which was keeping his more volatile colleague in line. After the soirée, Barenberg bluntly declined the Merlinbecks’ offer of a ride back to the inn where they resided. It was out of the Merlinbecks’ way, and Zdenka’s husband obviously was eager to get home.
The men sought somewhere to confer privately. The soirée delivered “the simple answer” to Himmelfarb’s simple question, and Himmelfarb had a simple response: “Too much!” Barenberg agreed with his colleague, but the two men differed on how to respond.
“Back to Bavaria,” was Himmelfarb’s choice, but Barenberg favored explaining the situation to Countess Zdenka and receiving her advice.
“Women are no good in matters of this kind,” Himmelfarb insisted loudly as they entered the weinstube.
“Perhaps you are right in the main,” professor Barenberg said, “but the countess is an exceptional woman.” He wanted to quiet Himmelfarb so that they could begin more disciplined consideration of their options.
“On that we agree,” said Himmelfarb, still volubly. “To the countesses of Vienna!” he continued, assuring the covert attention of every spy in the cellar.
The exact moment when matters spun out of control may have come as early as the moment Himmelfarb summoned the waiter. “Beer,” he demanded, “Bavarian beer, if you have it, for me and my companion. We need something to purify the air around here.”
The remark echoed throughout the cellar. One of Heinrich’s friends picked it up and quipped, “Imagine, Bavarian beer in a Viennese weinstube!” Himmelfarb didn’t hear this retort, but he noticed three young dandies snickering. He scowled.
“Forget them, Jurgen,” Barenberg said. “We have more important matters to consider.”
Himmelfarb acquiesced and muttered, “They don’t understand us here.” But it was too late.
“I recognize them,” Heinrich von Neulinger told his friends. He went over to further the acquaintance effected by the formal introductions at his stepmother’s soirée. His intentions were friendly; he did not want these two barbarians believing that Vienna lived solely on rigid social conventions. With wine-muddled heartiness, he approached the Germans.
“Grüss Gott, Meine Herren, or perhaps I should say, in deference to the hour, Guten Morgen.” Heinrich prided himself on his ready wit.
In reply, he received only a puzzle
d stare from Barenberg, who faced him, and a grunt from Himmelfarb, behind whom he stood. The Germans didn’t remember him.
Heinrich persisted, “Were you not at my parents’ house earlier this evening?”
The question was purely for politeness’ sake. The Germans stood out like sore thumbs.
“Last night, Passarello,” one of Heinrich’s friends corrected jovially, hoping to establish his own reputation for wit.
How Heinrich received the name of an obscure character from an obscure English play as a nickname need not concern us, but the name had its role in what followed.
Himmelfarb grunted again. Barenberg, recognizing the young man at last, said, “Oh, yes,” and rose as Heinrich offered his hand.
The gesture was unfortunate. In extending his hand to meet Barenberg’s, Heinrich brushed the top of Himmelfarb’s head. The German rose and spun around with unexpected agility. He was several inches taller and quite a bit broader than Heinrich. “That was your mother’s house, eh?’
“Stepmother’s,” Heinrich explained, still pleasantly.
“Tell her something for me.”
The remark took Heinrich aback, but he did not abandon his mission of good will. “Anything.”
At that moment the waiter returned with two mugs of beer, and all the negative forces in the cellar fell into alignment.
“Tell her, ‘Too much’,” Himmelfarb bellowed. “Now leave us—puppy.”
Himmelfarb’s last word might not have been meant for Heinrich’s benefit, but Himmelfarb was no master of the stage-whisper.
“Do you insult my family, sir?” Heinrich asked, more disoriented than angry.
“Passarello, step away from this,” a friend counseled.
The tinder was set. Of all people, the waiter ignited it. He was the brother of the violinist—an Italian. Working after hours in Vienna taught them the value of discretion with rowdy customers, also the power of music to sooth savage breasts. But in Vienna music itself was sometimes combustible. The wrong hymn outside the wrong church or a German march played too close to a Frenchman’s residence occasionally created significant disturbance. Naturally the waiter, his brother, and the pianist knew the dangers. When things became exceptionally tense, they turned to a piece certain not to offend anyone, a set of variations by the German Ludwig van Beethoven, composed in Vienna derived from the aria Nel cor piú non mi sento by the comfortably dead but still highly regarded Italian, Giovonni…
Vienna in Violet Page 9