Read Online The Vienna Melody by Ernst Lothar, Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood - Free Book Online Page B

man there if only you were a little less conceited. Tell me, what are you conceited of, anyway? You can’t help being pretty or being clever either. And one may only be conceited about things one can do something about. Take, for instance, the things one denies oneself. Come here. Give me a kiss.”
    Henriette had listened to her in a state of wounded feelings and confusion which increased with every word the old lady said. Yet she obeyed and went over and kissed her on her thin cheek. She also received the ghost of a kiss.
    â€œWill you promise me something?” Sophie asked. “With you young people one can never tell when it will occur to you to call again on us old people. Did you go to school at the Sacré Coeur?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œStand over there under that picture. Don’t look so idiotic, Franz. By the time you have built your fourth story—one of your most foolish ideas; you would have had plenty of room on the third floor—it may well be that I shall have left this apartment. Consequently I now want her to promise me something. Does she know that I stand in the place of a parent to you?” Then, turning to Henriette: “He has, of course, never taken advantage of that and has always followed his own pig-headed way. But never mind that. Will you promise me something, my dear?”
    On either side of the ikon over the private altar under which Henriette was standing two small oil lamps of ruby-colored glass were burning. The image was one of St. Jude. The whole proceeding suddenly struck her as so unbearably absurd that she would rather have run away.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    The old lady rose, took her ivory-headed cane, and walked across the room. When she stood before her prayer stool she towered over Henriette. “That is right,” she declared, laying her cool thin hand on Henriette’s. “Now repeat after me: I shall be a good wife to Franz!”
    â€œI shall be a good wife to Franz.”
    â€œI shall make sacrifices if need be.”
    â€œI shall make sacrifices if need be.”
    Sophie nodded. “Thank you, my child. I feel much easier in my mind now.”
    A moment later the engaged couple stepped out of the Annagasse entrance into the open. Outside it was warm and bright.
    â€œNow at least you know about the house,” Franz said as though pleading for forgiveness. “You can see why we need a fourth story?”
    She looked at the angel with the trumpet without seeing him. “Yes, now I know the house,” she answered mechanically.
Absurd! Absurd! Absurd!
The word kept running through her head.

CHAPTER 3
Audience in Broad Daylight
    â€œHis Imperial Highness requests your presence.”
    The doorman had let her in through the iron door on the Albrecht terrace of the palace and then had led her through the so-called ‘kitchen wing’ to the adjutant’s apartment. There she was taken in charge by an Imperial groom of the chambers, who brought her as far as the high gold-and-white double doors.
    From the very instant when she had received the note with these words: “I must speak to you and beg you to give me five minutes. You cannot refuse! All depends on these five minutes!” everything had happened in feverish haste. By a stroke of luck Papa was still at the University, and Theresa, the factotum who as a rule accompanied her on most occasions, was going to have a birthday in four days; so she had been able to say to her: “I cannot take you with me today. I must go and buy you a birthday present.” She had not had time even to change her clothes.
    It was the afternoon of the Flower Parade, an occasion when those Viennese who had money drove in flower-decked carriages down the main avenue of the Prater. Those who had none lined the sidewalks and watched them. Consequently the city was empty.
    â€œWhat has happened, Bratfisch?” she asked in her excitement. But the coachman said he knew