Loe raamatut: «The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp», lehekülg 6
CHAPTER XII
THE FORTUNE TELLER SEES BERTHA IN A HAZEOF BLOOD
Mother Zara Speaks – Ghosts of Infamy – What the Blackbird Foretold – The Crown Prince Stands Aloof
BERTHA to FRANZ
DEAR FRANZ, – The gipsy Wilhelm and I visited is not at all like the ones that occasionally come to Essen at fair-time or by way of caravans. You know we always thought them impostors and, small doubt, they were, for the same yarn had to do for everybody: the tall, dark man, that would come into one's life, was conjured up even for little Barbara at the rate of ten pfennigs.
Mother Zara is a hundred years old if she is a day; a face the colour of an old green-back American bank-note crumpled up – thousand and one crow's-feet to the inch. Dress: rusty black silk, edged with moth-eaten sable; sugar-loaf hat, filigreed with zodiacal signs; white mice following her wherever she goes.
This much I observed while waiting. She was in an adjoining room and, as I observed through the glass door, in no hurry to meet her visitors, even though the servant had recognised the young master of Bellevue Castle.
Meanwhile the Crown Prince was walking up and down, smacking his high boots with the riding-whip. I believe he was looking for a mirror – vain boy – and was furious at not finding one. Young Wilhelm affects to be as nervous and impatient as Uncle Majesty, and won't sit down a second if there is room to move about.
At last the door opened and the stooping figure of the clairvoyante appeared on the threshold, a blackbird perching on her left shoulder and half a dozen white mice circling round her feet, or riding on the train of her dress.
"Mother Zara," cried Wilhelm advancing, "I brought my cousin – "
She shut him up with an imperious gesture. "Hold your tongue, young braggart, for this is serious business."
She spoke in a high-pitched, authoritative voice, and I tell you, Franz, I was all a-tremble when Zara fixed her eyes upon me – eyes that looked you through, like the eyes of a sorceress you read about in the story books.
"What do I see?" she murmured to herself, drawing figures on the sanded stone floor.
"A deuced pretty girl," remarked the Crown Prince gallantly.
The clairvoyante shook her stick at Wilhelm. "Leave us alone," she cried; "I want no interference."
When the door had closed Zara turned upon me like some wild thing, and I tell you, Franz, I wished myself at our little bower at Villa Huegel, playing dominoes with you or Mamma.
"Who art thou?" she cried. "So young, so gentle, so kind of aspect, yet I see thee in a haze of blood."
She walked around me in a circle, dragging her terrible crutch, the mice capering and vaulting.
"I can't make it out," she kept mumbling; "looks the German, but here men do the ruling, and her power for destruction – Where does it come in?"
Of course I was too frightened to utter a word. I merely gazed upon my tormenter and trembled.
The soothsayer drew her garments around her bones and settled down on a low stool before the hearth. With her crutch she stirred the ashes, separating them from live coals and addressing each heap in turn as if they were human beings. As I perceived with horror, poor me was the subject of her monologue.
"Keep to your hell-hole, Mother Toffana," she muttered, sending a half-dead coal into the corner (I ought to tell you, Franz, that I have been reading Alexandre Dumas of late, otherwise I wouldn't have understood half the things she said). "Toffana, you are not in it with this child," she continued. "And Joanna of Naples, husband-killer and warrior, the number of men and women and children that died by you and for you is nothing compared with the hosts she will send to slaughter."
"Madame la Marquise de Brinvilliers," she said to a live coal, drawing it nearer, "come and feast your eyes on this girl. You did your work all right for undertakers, but were a pitiful slacker just the same."
She rose and bowed ceremoniously.
"Your Majesty," she mumbled, pointing with her crutch to a glowing ember, one of several detached from the rest. "You once waged war for seven years on a stretch, yet the number of Prussians you killed, added to that of your own people that perished in battle and by disease, may be expressed in six noughts. And," turning to other debris, "your record, Catherine of Russia, is quite as inadequate as Maria Theresa's compared with the prospects for manslaughter held out by this young lady!"
After an ominous silence: "Sheba, Elizabeth, Semiramis, aye, ye furies of the White Terror who dined off Lamballe's liver, miserable failures all of you – " She did not finish, but the end of her crutch continued to poke fire and ashes, separating and piling up, moving and sweeping along larger and again smaller quantities like figures on a chessboard.
She seemed dissatisfied, and as the minutes passed, her speech, or rather her mumbling, became more and more disconnected. Suddenly she drew her stick across the piles, levelling the lot. "No use," she cried, turning round and addressing me; "I can't get anything out of them. Are they holding back, or is Zara losing her cunning? But I will know," she added fiercely. "Who art thou, girl?"
I was speechless with fright, and all engrossed with her combinations as Zara was, she scarce noticed my silence and lumbered on regardless. Maybe, too, no reply was expected.
"Not the War Lord's wife," she mused. "Augusta is the mother of many children, they tell me, nor – ." (I didn't catch the rest, it was a jumble of mumblings.)
After she became articulate again, I heard her say: "Oceans of blood have been poured out. But what am I saying? She is only a child."
Then out of her black silk mantle she drew a pack of cards, threw them on the table, and, resting her right hand heavily on the crutch, studied the pasteboards anxiously for a while.
"Cursed mystery," she whispered. Then to the bird: "Jezebel, help!"
The black thing hopped on the table and scattered the cards with his feet. Then he picked up one with his beak and presented it to his mistress.
"A town in flames," said Zara after scrutiny.
More cards offered by the bird!
"A thousand baby-hands raised above the waves!
"A tumbling cathedral!
"Bodies piled mountain high!
"Women, children and old men for breastworks!
"A graveyard-ditch a hundred miles long!
"Death lying in wait on the floor of the ocean!
"Fire from the heavens," read Zara, and again and again her shrill voice rang out, recording horrors even more dreadful.
When the bird of ill-omen had offered the last pasteboard, Zara shook my arms with a fierce gesture. "Fiend incarnate, thy name and station!" she yelled.
Probably Wilhelm had been listening. "How dare you touch Fraulein Krupp," he demanded, as, running in, he stepped between me and the sorceress.
At the mentioning of my name, a look of triumph came into Zara's face.
"My cards never lie, nor do the embers," she proclaimed. "The burning towns, the wails of babies rendered fatherless by your works, the waste of centuries of culture, the smoke, the fire, the calling upon all resources of nature for the wholesale annihilation of life – five letters cover it: K-R-U-P-P."
The feelings setting my head awhirl must have been pictured in my face, for eventually even this fury of wrath was moved to mercy; yet like the spirit that ever denies, Zara's pity took a cruel turn.
"Never fear," she said, with a profound curtsy; "it is written that the oceans of blood you will help spill will not even soil the hem of your dress.
"A world in arms, every mother's son turned upon every other mother's son, shooting, stabbing, bombing, suffocating. Cities laid waste, countrysides desolated, brave men changed to vultures, honest men to thieves – your work, Bertha Krupp! But the War Lady remains scathless!
"Blood's a peculiar liquor – means death to those from whom it flows, and profits to her that forges the bullets!
"Chimborazos of dead bodies: fathers, brothers, nephews and uncles; excellent manure, and your dividends, little girl, going up by leaps and bounds!
"Towns in ruins —your ruins, Bertha, but they will have to be rebuilt. More millions in your coffers!
"Ten thousands of miles of railways destroyed. Look out for big orders, Bertha!
"The world groaning under unheard-of loads of debts – debts created that Essen might flourish. Splendid opportunities for investment, eh?"
She continued a while longer in the same cruel vein, her basilisk eyes glued upon mine – I couldn't get away, try as I might – while Wilhelm, my self-proclaimed cavalier, did naught to help me. Indeed, I had to endure her abuse till Zara herself became tired of hurling invectives, and turned upon the Crown Prince with: "Twenty marks, please. I have wasted enough time."
Then, like an imprisoned wild thing, seeing the open gate, I fled.
Oh, Franz, what does it all mean?
BERTHA.
CHAPTER XIII
"WE WILL DIVIDE THE WORLD BETWEEN US"
Dazzling the War Lord – Bartering Kingdoms – Juggling with the Church
Franz Este, masquerading for incognito purposes as Duc de Lorraine, was a tall, closely-knit man, no more at home in mufti than a gorilla in pyjamas. A bronzed face, disfigured by the Habsburg lip and an air of disdain, one would have picked him out of thousands as a person to avoid!
His speech was a cross between a military command and the snarl of an angry dog when addressed to persons beneath his rank, and against such the physical advantages he boasted were ruthlessly exploited. Franz was impervious to heat or cold, hence the officers of his household and his servants had to endure both in the extreme without proper protection.
"If the master can do without an overcoat, or wear a close-fitting uniform when it is a hundred in the shade, why not you, menials?"
He had a passion for drill and for slaughter. A day on the parade ground, meddling with the mere outer film of things, seemed to him the pinnacle of military achievements. He never stalked, or took risks in the chase; the proud deer and the miserable hare alike were driven before his gun in vast numbers that he might pump lead into them, turning forest or plain into shambles.
He went to visit their Prussian Majesties with the fixed intention of dazzling the War Lord with a programme of petty regulations about military customs and appearances to be introduced at his enthronement. A slanting row of buttons was to be set in a straight line; another was to be lopped off altogether. Yes, indeed, he was considering, too, a new movement in the goose-step. And those Hungarians! They had little respect for the essentials of military obedience; but, with His Majesty's advisory help, he would pound it into them – yes, pound it!
Gentle methods might do for women when they are decidedly pretty, but not for the people as a whole, etc.
Music to the War Lord, who feeds on regulations and petty tyrannies as a boa constrictor – if the whole can't be masticated at a gulp, why, leave the rest for another "try."
Brothers in spirit and in arms!
"Franz," said the War Lord after luncheon, enlivened by French champagne with a German label – the Court Marshal's way of encouraging home industry to the naked eye: German products only for German Imperial palates, but beware lest a certain august taste be displeased! A bit of unpatriotic deception, rather than face such an eventuality!
"Franz," said the War Lord, after that fruitful and thought-quickening luncheon, "some day we will divide the world between us – pope-kaisers both of us."
"Pope?" gasped Franz, his mind tugging at the Jesuit swaddling clothes that he never really outgrew.
"You know," insinuated the War Lord-tempter, "there is but one way to re-establish rulership by divine right as on a rock of bronze: impregnate it with sacerdotal authority. I am already Chief Bishop of Prussia; the Lutheran popeship of the world is my game, as yours should be the Roman Catholic popeship."
"What about the Holy Father?" suggested the Jesuits, using Franz as a speaking-tube.
"Holy fiddlesticks," laughed the War Lord. "As one of the English Henrys put it: 'I will be damned ere an Italian parson dictates to me in my own realms.'"
The War Lord bowed ceremoniously. "Hail thee, spiritual and mundane lord – true Emperor of Slavs, Czechs, Magyars, Poles, Russians, Servians, Bulgarians and Montenegrins."
"But Italy – you promised me Italy," muttered Franz.
"Correct, in exchange for German Austria!" said the War Lord.
"Do I have to give up Vienna?"
"Rome is a more celebrated place, and if it gets too hot in August, Petersburg will make a splendid summer resort. There is Prague and Budapest besides. I thought you liked the Hradschin?" he added gaily.
When Franz still refrained from entering into the spirit of the proposals, the War Lord opened a miniature safe on the top of his desk.
"Have a 'genuine,' same as Edward smokes. Have to keep them in a burglar-proof safe – those thieving lackeys, you know. You have the same trouble at Bellevue" (the Austrian heir's Vienna town house) "I suppose."
"God punish the scoundrels – yes," replied the pious Franz, and, accustomed to the cheap and nasty output of the Austrian tobacco monopoly with its endless stogies, helped himself eagerly.
"A mark apiece," boasted Wilhelm, like a Jew commenting on early strawberries.
"Italy being a sort of apanage to the Emperor of the Slavs" – more bowing and scraping – "you wouldn't care to have a rival court on your hands, would you? And that's what the Vatican will always be so long as it is allowed to exist."
"You would abolish it?" cried Franz, alarmed.
"Not completely; I would retain the Holy Father as a sort of Christian Sheikh-ul-Islam, yourself to be the real responsible head of the Church."
"The Pope is not a married man."
"Alexander VI. was, and also some others. Besides, the Tsar whom you are to succeed as orthodox pope never was a stickler for celibacy."
"Orthodox pope?" echoed Franz, his Jesuit blood a-tingle.
To his pietist understanding the mere mention of a rival Church was as a red rag to a bull, and no one realised that condition of his mind more fully than the War Lord. But would he allow the even tenor of these pourparlers to be disturbed by the conscientious scruples of the surly individual smoking his echte? Not he!
Conscientious scruples, indeed, and in world politics too! He had not previously given the subject any thought, but on his desk lay a letter marked: "On the Service of the Holy See" – a happy coincidence and a suggestion.
The papal breve dealt with nothing more momentous than the shifting of the protectorate over the Christians in Turkey, but the mysterious word State-secret covers a multitude of lies.
"My dear Franz," said the War Lord, weighing the Pope's letter in his hand, "the problems you seem to approach with fears and trepidation are fully treated in this document. However, without the Holy Father's consent, I dare not reveal his intentions. But this much I can say on my own responsibility: after we get through with Russia, there will be no orthodox question. The orthodox Church will have to unite with the Catholic – "
The late Whistler would have loved to draw Franz's face while the future Emperor of the Slavs listened with covetousness and fanaticism, the zealot's ardour and the brute's vindictiveness written large in his usually stony face.
"Will have to make submission to Rome," he interrupted, pounding the table.
"As you like, King of Rome." To offset the Duke's holy fervour, the War Lord affected a tone of calmness utterly at variance with his ideas.
"The coming union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches – " he continued.
"The absorption of the schismatic Church by the only true Church," insisted Franz.
"Will make it particularly important for you to have the office of Pontifex Maximus in addition to that of Emperor and King," said the War Lord. "I'll let Bülow talk details."
"After consultation with my father confessor?" asked Franz anxiously.
"Why not unfold our plans to a council of Archduchesses and the whole priest-ridden pest?" cried the War Lord, momentarily forgetful of his rôle. "I beg your pardon," he added quickly; "I was quoting Bismarck. What I meant to say is: that our pourparlers are strictly confidential – not a word to any one, confessor, Francis Joseph, or the Princess herself. I have your word as an officer?"
Never was a word of honour more reluctantly forthcoming than that of the prospective Emperor of the Slavs.
CHAPTER XIV
GETTING EVEN WITH THE WAR LORD
The Hungarian Nero – The Episode of the Mouse
Emperor of the Slavs, King of Rome, Avenging Angel of the Schism and its Grand Lord Destroyer – Pope even – though he had misgivings as to the propriety of the latter title – what prospects for the son of the degenerate Karl Ludwig – and the War Lord footing the bill! A Protestant, true enough, but his friends, the Jesuits, held that the purpose sanctifies means, whatever their character.
How they would rejoice at the news!
But his word as an officer! Pshaw! The War Lord calling himself "all-wise," "all-seeing," etc., had been fooled for once by the simple-minded Bohemian, for Franz's left hand was on his back when parole d'honneur was demanded, and he lost no time gripping his thumb with the other fingers and pressing it hard.
Mental reservation! That little matter was settled, and in most approved style. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
A while later Franz asked to be confessed.
"Not while your soul is in the state of disgrace," pronounced Father Bauer with impressive solemnity.
Franz's bold front melted away like butter before a blast furnace. "Pray confess me, your reverence!" he cried, terror all over his face.
"After due reflection," was Bauer's niggardly consent. "Your Highness will retire to the oratory now."
And like a schoolboy ordered to bare his skin for a birching, the Emperor of the Slavs – so proud, so adamant, so haughty before the War-Lord – went into his bedroom, where his prie-Dieustood in front of the miniature travelling altar that accompanied His Highness wherever he went.
In respect to absolute submission to the clergy, Franz rivalled Charles and Ferdinand of Spain; he retained, too, the utmost respect for the persons of the reverend gentlemen who dominated him by virtue of their priestly office.
On his part, Franz came from the oratory a much chastened Prince. Bauer was waiting to hear Franz's report of his interview with the War Lord – or as much of it as the heir thought well to divulge at the time being, for the breach of faith he had been absolved beforehand. After all, while Bauer had full charge of Franz's personal conscience, so to speak, the real powers behind the proposed Slav throne was the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, the Papal Legate and the Czech black aristocracy.
The latter, indissolubly wedded to Franz's interest by his marriage with the Chotek, was his chief support in the Dual Monarchy. Hungary had labelled him Nero, the Germans regarded him as a renegade, while Trieste and the Trentino suspected him of harbouring treachery against the Motherland.
That he was wedded to the idea of the restoration of the States of the Church was a foregone conclusion, and the re-establishment of the Austrian Archdukes – who forfeited their Italian thronelets under Victor Emmanuel II. – would be the logical sequence.
"Of course, there is the Triple Alliance," faltered Franz.
"Not at all binding," decided Bauer, "since one of the signatories is under the ban of the Church, and the other" (with a mock bow before a painting of the War Lord) "a heretic."
Franz reverently kissed the Jesuit's hand. "A relief, a priceless relief of grave conscientious scruples," he said warmly. "Thank you, Father Bauer." Then, giving his voice quite an Olympian intonation: "We have no further commands for you to-night."
Franz Este swore lustily when he discovered a red silk nightgown under his pillow. After a Vienna haberdasher had told him that Alexander of Servia had worn a night garment of this colour, he had banished them from his wardrobe, intending to use the supply on hand for presents.
Franz tugged viciously at the crystal knobs of the rococo chest of drawers, pulling one to the ground and dislocating the handles of others. "Confound it! All red, Alexander-red – red as blood!"
An ill omen? A thorough fanatic, Franz was the most superstitious of men. However, as subsequent events showed, in this case superstition was the mother of horrors unparalleled. Alexander's fate had been sealed eight months before, when the red-nightgowned King and his Queen were slaughtered in their bedchamber; but somewhere among the Balkan principalities the plot that eventually did away with Franz and his Duchess might have been hatching even then – who knows?
The taciturn, soured, cruel Franz forgot about the Alexander-hued nightgown when he prepared to report the day's events to his wife, for he loved Sophie. He used a small table at the foot of the big rococo couch for a writing-desk, and as he sat there, facing the silvered canopy with China silk curtains falling from a crown held aloft by cupids, his face recalled the features of a French soldier who had been condemned to death for a series of crimes, and who, to his judges and fellow-men, had boasted of his utter lack of feelings.
The soldier had never loved anyone, neither parents nor friends, neither woman nor man, neither animal, nor money, nor precious things. He hated them all, and his only aim in life was destruction. But when he lay in the sands, bleeding from a dozen wounds, as ordered by the court martial, a little mouse was seen to emerge from the sleeve of his tunic, went capering up the prostrate form, and glued his nozzle to the man's mouth. And with his last breath the apostle of hate kissed the tiny rodent.
Like the trooper, so Franz, the man who spurned a nation's love, was not entirely barren of sentiment. He had a tender spot in his heart for Sophie, even as Sophie, mouse-like, loved the man who made a point of being hated. Human nature: even Nero loved Poppæa once.
