B008AITH44 EBOK

by Hamann, Brigitte

  For the present, the only difficulty was how to meet. Every public encounter became a test of nerves. At the Concordia Ball of 1887, for example, the Emperor did not come near Schratt. It was only by letter that he could confess to her his anger because “I did not have the courage to address you at the ball. But I would have had to break through the people surrounding you, while one is observed from all sides through opera glasses, and everywhere stand the press hyenas, snapping up every word one says. I just did not dare, much as everything drew me to you.”11

  Once again, the Empress helped her husband out of his troubles. She repeatedly invited Katharina Schratt to Schönbrunn. It was also Elisabeth’s idea that the couple should meet in Ida Ferenczy’s apartment. For though Ida lived inside the Hofburg complex, her rooms had a private entrance, away from the watchful eyes of servants. Thus, while Schratt officially called on the Empress’s reader and friend, Ida Ferenczy, she met Emperor Franz Joseph, who made his way to her along the winding corridors of the Hofburg. In this way, the trysts remained private. Because of protocol and the many servants, meetings in the Hofburg imperial apartments were hardly possible. On the other hand, a visit from the Emperor to the (still very modest) living quarters of the actress would have caused a scandal.

  In order to see the imperial private rooms, Schratt needed Elisabeth’s intervention. It was the Empress herself who took her “friend” to her husband’s quarters for the first time. Franz Joseph to Schratt: “How happy I am to show you my rooms and show you the inside of that certain window on which you have so often been gracious enough to direct your glance from the outside.”12

  To see each other at all, the couple had agreed on specific times when Schratt was to walk across the Burgplatz. On those occasions, she would always look up at the window behind which the Emperor stood and greeted her politely. For a long time, this was the only opportunity, aside from performances at the Burgtheater, for the Emperor to see his beloved.

  If we recall how jealously, with what deep disappointment, the young Elisabeth greeted the escapades of the young Emperor, how she had let herself be carried away by almost hysterical attacks and precipitately fled the family circle, we will realize how fundamentally the situation had changed. What linked the two had long ago ceased to be love. Elisabeth felt compassion for the lonely man with whom she no longer wished to live or could live. She proved to be a good and generous friend, acting in extremely tactful ways. On Schratt’s name day in November 1887, for example, Franz Joseph wrote to his friend, “This day I dined alone with the Empress and Valerie and was astonished to see champagne glasses on the table, since normally we do not allow ourselves the luxury of this wine. The Empress explained that she had ordered the champagne so that we could drink to your good health, which then occurred most sincerely. This was a successful and charming surprise.”13

  Thus, the love story between the Emperor and the actress could unfold. In February 1888, a mutual declaration was made, and the Emperor issued an assurance to Frau Schatt: “You say that you will control yourself, so will I, though it will not always be easy for me, for I do not wish to do anything that is not right, I love my wife and do not wish to abuse her trust and her friendship for you.”14

  With a clear conscience, Franz Joseph dispelled all Schratt’s fears that the Empress might hold something against her. “The Empress has … repeatedly expressed herself in the most favorable and gracious terms about you, and I can assure you that she is very fond of you. If you knew this wonderful woman better, you would, I am certain, be filled with the same sentiments.”15

  Elisabeth did everything in her power to show her sympathies, as when Schratt suffered from some indisposition. Franz Joseph to Frau Schratt: “The Empress is very worried about you, she even claims more than I am, but that is positively untrue. Whenever I go to her room, she asks me for the latest news of you, and I cannot always oblige her, since I cannot be so brash and importunate as to constantly send for news of you.”16 On another occasion, he wrote, “The Empress, too, was shocked at your ride yesterday, and keeps admonishing me that I alone will have to bear the blame should you fall seriously ill.”17 And again, “The Empress would urge you not to take any cold sea baths at this time of year, instead she recommends baths of warm sea water and then rinsing with cold.”18

  *

  Elisabeth’s strong support of her husband’s love affair did not mean that she found Katharina Schratt as likable and lovable as Franz Joseph assured Schratt. In her poems, Elisabeth struck up a richly complacent tone. If her husband’s infatuation did not rouse her to jealousy, it nevertheless gave rise to mockery. Franz Joseph’s frequent infatuated questions about the whereabouts of his friend at any particular time occasionally strained Elisabeth’s nerves. Franz Joseph to Katharina Schratt: “The Empress thinks that it may be an honor to be my friend, but assomant [sic; immensely boring] because of my constant inquiries about your whereabouts.”19

  When Prince Albert of Thurn und Taxis was visiting the imperial family at the Hermes Villa, he saw, in the Emperor’s apartments, a portrait of Schratt, whom he did not know.

  Elisabeth, lightly: “How do you like this one?”

  Taxis: “She looks horribly common.”

  Bright laughter from the Empress greeted this declaration, and even the Emperor could not help joining in, whether he felt like it or not.20

  From this time on, Elisabeth’s poems no longer referred to Emperor Franz Joseph only by the name of Oberon (the counterpart to her Titania; she also called him King Visvamitra. This was the name of a legendary Indian king who loved a cow (Sabala), and as such the name also occurs in Heine.

  As early as August 1888, Katharina Schratt came to Bad Ischl to join the Emperor and Empress. Twenty-year-old Archduchess Marie Valerie recorded her disapproval in her diary. “In the afternoon, Mama, Papa, and I showed Frau Schratt the garden … she is truly simple and likable, nevertheless I bear her a kind of grudge, although it is not her fault that Papa has this friendship with her, but wicked people talk about it and cannot believe the childlike view Papa takes of the matter, how touching he is even in this. But he is someone one should never talk about—I feel bad about it, and I think for this reason, Mama should not have encouraged this acquaintance so much.”21

  But even Marie Valerie clearly saw how much good the friendship with Katharina Schratt did the Emperor. “She is so easygoing that finally one cannot help feeling comfortable—I understand that her calm, very natural ways are attractive to Papa.”22

  After the tragedy at Mayerling, Franz Joseph’s friendship with Katharina Schratt proved to be a true blessing, especially for Elisabeth, who now attempted to get away from Vienna entirely. Schratt relieved the Empress of her feelings of guilt and her worry about the deeply afflicted Emperor. Schratt had become the only bright spot in his sad life. Elisabeth to her sister-in-law Marie José: “I must get away. But to leave Franz alone—impossible. And yet—he has Schratt—she looks after him as no one else does and watches over him.” And: “With Schratt he can relax.”23

  Harmless chatter in Schratt’s increasingly elegant parlor, a little warmth and human feeling, of which the Emperor had had so little until then; no philosophical discourses, no spiritualism and no poetry; instead, extremely worldly, uncomplicated, and undemanding topics, over breakfast with coffee and croissants. These are what gave the Emperor comfort and provided him with distraction during the next few years.

  In 1889, Schratt settled in Vienna in a house next to the park at Schönbrunn, and she bought a villa in Bad Ischl adjacent to the imperial summer residence. According to Franz Joseph, this had “the advantage of nearness, which makes it possible, with your permission, for me to visit you much more often, the Empress also wishes to give to you the key to the little door through which you can arrive in our garden without having to go through the streets of Ischl.”24

  By this time, Marie Valerie understood the true situation. She held it very much against her mother that the Empress promote
d the relationship. “Oh, why did Mama herself go so far! … but of course, now one cannot and may not change anything, I must, although it embarrasses Franz [her fiancé], meet with her [Schratt] again and not give away my feelings.”25 The very religious and puritanical young Archduchess looked on with disapproval as her own mother over and over invited the actress to visit and appeared in public with her—with and without the Emperor’s company—in order to present the relationship as innocent and honorable.

  Katharina Schratt was even granted the great privilege of dining rather frequently at the Hofburg with the most immediate family—that is, with only the Emperor, the Empress, and Archduchess Marie Valerie. The Empress, who refused more than ever to take part in the official court dinners, and who, above all, contemptuously ignored the court nobility, thus left herself wide open to criticism. An actress at a Habsburg family table—such a thing had never before been seen. The fact that Katharina Schratt was not a single woman but was married further fed the gossip at this Catholic court.

  Archduchess Marie Valerie suffered true torments during these dinners. “Frau Schratt dined with us (we were four), took a walk with us, and remained until evening. I cannot say how embarrassing such afternoons are for me, how incomprehensible that Mama finds them rather cozy.”26

  Singular as it may sound, to Elisabeth, her husband’s love for Katharina Schratt was a reassurance—even, on occasion, a pleasure. In late 1890, for example, she wrote to Valerie, “One must not look forward to anything nor expect anything good. Life has enough bitter pain. But Poka [the Hungarian word for “turkey,” a code name for Franz Joseph] is happy tonight, I have invited his friend for 6:30 to Ida’s to tell her a few travel memories. And today we went for a walk in Schönbrunn. It is so good finally to see a happy face in this dark, sad, and abandoned castle, and tonight Poka is truly merry as a lark.”27

  Then, too, the couple had something to talk about with one another at last, and Elisabeth could reassure her daughter on the subject of marital harmony. “It works, since almost always we talk only about the friend or the theater.”28

  On the other hand, Franz Joseph and Frau Schratt also found much to say to each other about Elisabeth. The Emperor was constantly concerned and often did not even know where his wife, away on one of her far-ranging travels, happened to be. Franz Joseph to Katharina Schratt in 1890: “How happy I would be if I could talk over my fears for the Empress with you and find comfort with you.”29 Elisabeth regularly sent her regards to Schratt, as she did, for example, from Arcachon. Franz Joseph wrote to Frau Schratt that the Empress “desires me to send you the enclosed card, since she thinks the sight of it might tempt you to go to Arcachon—but not just now, I hasten to add.”30 The Emperor had noticed how much his friend imitated his wife, and he correctly feared that Katharina Schratt, too, would now want to travel, hardly ever returning to Vienna.

  *

  The friendship with Schratt created some problems as well. The actress’s huge gambling debts and her other enormous expenses were not the trouble. Franz Joseph paid up gladly, just as he was used to doing for his wife. But Katharina Schratt’s friends kept asking her to intercede for them with the Emperor. And most of the time, she did not wait to be asked. The management of the Burgtheater ran into no end of trouble, too; for unless Schratt was agreeable, few parts could be assigned or plays chosen.

  The German ambassador, Prince Eulenburg (who was smart enough to maintain a good, even friendly relationship with Schratt, promptly arousing the Emperor’s jealousy), wrote to Emperor Wilhelm II in 1896: “Of course, she is the absolute monarch of the theater, and when she arrives, all of them, not excluding the manager, fall to their knees.” Stella Hohenfels, a highly regarded actress, was eager to leave Vienna to escape the constant slights offered by Schratt—as was her husband, Alfred Berger, the Burgtheater’s director. Eulenburg: “It is an extremely odd situation! As I have heard, old friends of Frau Kathi push themselves forward more and more, and this influence makes itself unpleasantly felt among the court administration.” But then he pointed out the principal problem. “Baron Kiss—Kathi’s husband—is a further inconvenience. He was sent to Venezuela, where he is terribly bored. He urgently wishes to return to Europe, which is all the more understandable as all his debts have been paid up. It would have been smarter to omit that step.”31

  In 1892, Toni Kiss, Schratt’s son, who was twelve years old at the time, received an anonymous letter with defamatory statements about his mother and her relations with the Emperor. The police were unable to identify the author. Everyone was upset. Once again, the Empress interceded; she invited little Toni to visit her in the imperial residence in Bad Ischl, walked with him in the garden, and spoke “most lovingly of his mother, how fond she was of her, how well she thought of her, and how he must love and respect her, and that only evil people could think up such lies.” For years, she had the court bakery send pastries and sweets to the boy, in still another effort to prove her affection for mother and son, as a further precaution against gossip.32

  In spite of extreme caution and good will on the part of the Empress, such a love affair could not go wholly unnoticed. In 1889, Count Hübner wrote:

  All the great and small evils seem to converge over the imperial family and to descend on our poor Austria as well. The Emperor continues to be under the spell of an actress at the Burgtheater, Schratt, pretty and stupid, who, as is claimed, lives respectably within the Emperor’s immediate family. The Empress, who, they say, arranged this liaison, which they call platonic but which is by no means so considered by the public, and which in any case is ridiculous—and young Archduchess Valerie. This silly business does the Emperor considerable damage in the opinion the bourgeoisie and the people have of him.33

  Eulenburg: “The local imperial family is admittedly interesting from a psychological point of view. Anyone who does not know the personalities, with all their oddities, will be unable to understand the singular relationship among the Emperor, the Empress, the actress, and the daughter.”34

  Valerie admitted in her diary that she “has a groundless resentment to overcome against Frau Schratt—because she is an actress???” Valerie’s fiancé told her, “No, whether she is an actress, a ballet dancer, or Princess XY makes no difference if she is a decent person—I believe that, too—and there is nothing to it—but—but if they talk to me about it, I cannot say: no!—And one should not talk about the Emperor.”35

  When it was a matter of Franz Joseph’s relationship with Katharina Schratt, the otherwise dutiful daughter dared to be critical, confessing to her diary “how embarrassing to me are Papa’s often rough, contradictory way with Mama, his curt replies…. Though I do know that he means no harm by it, I nevertheless understand that Mama’s view of the future is bleak.” The thought that Franz Joseph might deal less roughly with the actress deeply distressed Marie Valerie. “I wish I need never be with the good woman again and that Papa had never seen her.” Given the circumstances, it was almost a humiliation for the Emperor’s daughter to kiss Schratt on meeting and leave-taking, as was also Elisabeth’s custom: “but I am afraid of offending Papa if I omit it even once.”36

  Valerie’s complaints mounted. “The fact that I can no longer always think Papa right in my innermost heart, as once I did, that is the most bitter thing for me—even though the matter is so innocent. Oh, why did Mama bring about this acquaintance, and how can she say to boot that it is a reassurance to her! … How can it be that two such noble natures as my parents can be so mistaken and can so often make each other unhappy.”37

  And after a desolate Christmas in 1889 in the Hofburg, Marie Valerie wrote, “O dear God, how sad is our family life, which seems so wonderful to outsiders, so that Mama and I are glad when we can be peacefully alone. I do not know why, but this has increased to a frightening extent this year.—Papa has such few interests anymore and has—shall I say it—grown so much more dull and petty…. Encounters with my parents made up of small but unbelievably irritati
ng embarrassments—Mama constantly tells me her troubles. And I no longer look at Papa with eyes of fervent admiration.”38

  Prince Leopold of Bavaria, Gisela’s husband, tried to reassure his sister-in-law. He thought the Schratt affair “very natural,” he explained to the overwrought Valerie, adding, “It’s just that Franz [Archduke Franz Salvator, Valerie’s fiancé] is still so very innocent.”39

  The closer the Emperor’s relationship with the actress became, the less the Empress felt obliged to spend time in Vienna. Marie Valerie: “Mama more and more in low spirits. Her lot is hardest when she is with Papa. The sacrifice of being with him diminishes in necessity to the degree that the unfortunate friendship with Schratt increases.”40

  We can easily imagine Valerie’s deep embarrassment when, in 1890, the Empress asked her, “should she die … to encourage Papa to marry Schratt.”41

  Elisabeth pleaded for circumspection only abroad—for example, when the Emperor, the Empress, and Schratt were all staying at Cap Martin simultaneously in 1894. Franz Joseph to Frau Schratt: “When the Empress wrote you of her wish to see you here, that was not an empty phrase or an expression of pity, as you thought, but a genuine longing for you, which she felt throughout the journey.” Nevertheless, Elisabeth did not think that a meeting in Cap Martin would be advisable. “Of course, there can be no thought of an incognito here, one is constantly under observation by a crowd of people, the place teems with the curious and the highly placed, and we fear that our relationship with you could be subject to malicious criticism. At home, almost everyone has learned to understand the manner of our friendship, here abroad, and in this place, which, unfortunately, is not quiet but very trafficked and busy, it is different. The Empress, whose judgment is always right, thinks that none of this would harm us old people, but she is thinking first of all about you and Toni.”42