Free The Vienna Melody by Ernst Lothar, Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood

nothing except that he had been ordered to fetch the young lady immediately. To her question: “Where to? You know that at least,” he only replied: “To the palace.”
    In broad daylight to the palace?
    He noted her expression. “Shall we wager a bottle of wine that no one will so much as lay eyes on our young lady?” he declared, “Or do you think I am taking you to the Amaliastairs? At the Opera Cross Drive Your Grace will get out. You will go a few steps up towards the Albrecht Palace to a small iron door and wait in front of it. Someone will open it. That will be Herr Loschek.”
    The carriage smelled of his Turkish tobacco. On the back seat lay the black-and-white-checked robe, the same one he had wrapped her in once when they were on their way home from Mayerling. On the coach box sat Bratfisch, in his narrow-brimmed top hat, his brown velvet coat bound in black and his flowing black tie, just as he used to when he fetched her day after day without her ever being quite sure where he was taking her. It all came back.
    Heugasse. Schwarzenberg Square. Schwarzenberg Street. To the right she could see Seilerstätte; a corner house there was surrounded by a high scaffolding; they were adding a fourth story. Was the elderly spinster still there, or had she already gone to the country? If she was still there the little ruby oil lamps were burning on either side of the image of a saint.
    I shan’t go! Henriette said to herself. The words, however, meant nothing. She might just as well have said, “Today is the Flower Parade.” It would have made more sense, for Franz had wanted to drive her in the Flower Parade and they had even settled how their carriage would be trimmed: with pink La France roses. But an unexpected meeting of the Chamber of Commerce had interfered. “You understand,” Franz had said. She had understood. Franz was a member of the board of the Chamber of Commerce.
    She wanted to think about him as she sat in the closed carriage, about how attentive he had been all these last weeks, how touching his efforts had been; but she was unable even to recall his looks. The face of another she could recall with terrifying clarity, every feature: this was how he looked when he laughed, and this how he looked when he was serious, but he laughed more often. That all was over between them—a more ridiculous lie could not be imagined! On the contrary, since she had held those few scribbled lines in her hand it was all as overwhelming as it had been on that first day. She tried to pray, but she could not do that either.
    Kruger Street. He need not think that time had made her more pliant. He probably had thought to himself:
Keep her waiting long enough and she will give in
. Error! What she had always said to him she would say again today.
I am not Mitzi Kasper who will go off on overnight trips. I am not the little Greek Baroness Vetsera who throws herself on your neck because you are the Crown Prince. Nor am I the Countess Larisch, who hates your wife and wants to see you divorced at all costs because she wants to become empress herself. They all want that. But I want you, and since I cannot have you, you cannot have me. Yes, I know that I am what you call “afraid of conventions’’ and have the “morals of a middle-class girl.” I’m sorry, but I am a middle-class girl!
    Kaerntner Street.
What if I cannot keep up my resistance?
She thought to herself, and hurriedly reached for the rubber tube to call to the coachman to stop.
Why do I fool myself? Franz is nothing to me, nothing at all. He is all that counts. A thousand times since it all ended I have wished: If only he would send me word again! And now he has sent word! Dear Lord in heaven, I’m going to see him!
    She spoke into the tube.
    â€œYour Grace wishes…?” the coachman asked, half turning his head.
    â€œI wish to get out!”
    â€œOne moment, Your Grace. We shall be