Florian (28 page)

They handled Gruber with silk gloves. The councilors and the stable personnel had worked in conjunction with him for many years, had shown him esteem; and now they adhered to their attitude. No longer was the situation as in time of peace, when Franz Ferdinand still lived and it was expected that the sick Franz Joseph at Schönbrunn would not rise again. Then Konrad Gruber had undergone all the humiliations of a fallen star, only to triumph a few days later over the envious and the hostile. He girded himself for similar barbs, only sharper, cruder than then. He alone in these stables would grieve for Franz Joseph, he thought.

But no, all were intimidated and humbled by the prolonged war; they could no more be sure of their future than Gruber could; they themselves felt like fallen stars. Konrad Gruber noticed their depressed spirits, their commiseration, their tact. It did him good to be spared pointed remarks and malevolent digs. He maintained silence, and in his hopelessness welcomed the forbidding harmony of universal hopelessness.

As the eight heavy, ebon horses were made ready, he stood by, his weather-bronzed face as pale as it could ever be. He wore the black livery of mourning, the black coat with the enormous black fur collar, wore the white allonge-peruke and the black-bordered tricorne. Not a word did he speak. He climbed up on the coachman's seat and took up the multiple reins.

He thought: “This is my last ride.” All the while the carriage rolled along through the dreary evening toward Schönbrunn leading the train of old-fashioned, cumbersome calashes, he thought only this: “My last ride.”

In the meantime a small gathering had formed in the courtyard, nobles, diplomats, functionaries of Franz Joseph. A feeling of fidelity, an obligation of reverence, and an inner recognition of their also being
passé
compelled them to do honor to the dead Emperor on his last ride to the Chapel.

Prince Buchowsky strolled with Elizabeth around the statue of Emperor Franz. “Your husband has been appointed a general,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Elizabeth, whose face was hidden by a veil, answered bitterly: “A fit occasion to be congratulated.”

“Oh, that.” The prince seemed slightly taken aback. “Excuse me. . . . You are right. But it was your husband's highest wish. And I . . . I just heard of it. . . .”

Elizabeth did not reply.

After a short while she whispered half-hysterically: “Oh, I wish I were dead!”

The prince took her arm. “Good God, what is it?”

She straightened up. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Only, I have had enough. More than enough.”

“Don't you want to tell me,” he urged her.

She shook her head.

“Has anything serious happened?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” she replied. “Hardly worth mentioning. We have been at war for more than two years now.”

“Elizabeth!” he exclaimed.

But she went on as if she hadn't heard. “We shall have war for God knows how long.”

Buchowsky was upset. “I don't understand, Elizabeth. . . . I don't understand.”

“Quite so,” she laughed tragically. “Nobody understands anyone else. That's just it. That's what causes this awful misery.”

He stopped walking. “What's the matter with you? Speak, I implore you. . . .”

She kept on walking, so he had to follow. “Speak? I am speaking all the time. I am speaking because my heart is bursting. I speak—and know all the while that it is useless. You don't understand. Nobody understands. And I . . . don't understand, either.”

The prince countered.

“These are accusations—” He checked himself.

Her agitation grew. “If it were possible to accuse anybody, oh, then it would be easy. I'd feel much easier then. It is pleasant to make accusations, to make solemn, fiery, challenging accusations. You see yourself as just, you take yourself to be good and the others for sinners.”

“Well?” Buchowsky demanded. “What am I supposed to answer?”

She protested. “Nothing! Nothing! Does anybody in this world, in this bleeding, mutilated world, know an answer? They are all good, decent people—my husband, too. He is a general—and therefore at his goal.”

“Present—arms—”

From the outer gate the order drifted across, melancholy, funereal. Three times it was repeated in the semi-darkness of the wide square. Muffled drums followed.

“He is coming,” the prince said, his voice choked.

Hastily the two walked over toward the gate, took up their position close to the first arch, and gazed toward the Schweizerhof. Few people were there. They greeted each other mutely.

Behind them the sentry called out three times: “Present arms!”

The drum, covered with black cloth, sounded harsh and bony.

The
clop-clop
of the horses' hooves, slow, rhythmical, echoed in the darkness, a darkness made the more ghastly by the fitful gleam of the lanterns. Two lamp-carriers on black horses emerged through the middle arch and turned right toward the Schweizerhof.

Now the eight black horses, at the head of the solemn
cortège,
appeared, moving slowly over the ground. The loud rumble of the heavy, richly carved wooden hearse sounded like a series of groans, sobs and unearthly wails—not to be stilled, without end.

His hands motionless in his lap, Konrad Gruber guided the eight blacks as carefully, as intently, as if this Franz Joseph who lay stretched out behind him in his coffin were still alive, still a monarch, able and ready to praise his efficient servant. Masterfully Gruber executed the sharp turn of the eight horses, from gate to gate, from the inner court to the Schweizerhof.

Reddened by the cold, his face bore the same self-contained expression as usual, with the lips pressed into a thin gash. But two liquid lines glistened downward from his eyes to the corners of his mouth. Incessantly, tears purled down his cheeks. Konrad Gruber could not dry them.

“Now,” Elizabeth said, “a new epoch begins.”

“I liked the old one better,” Prince Buchowsky answered. He donned his top-hat again.

T
WO MORE YEARS.

Not: two short years. Nobody would have the courage to describe them as short. Just the opposite; they were two interminable, torturous, chaotic years, strewn with hate and misery, with blood and destruction. And then, in one convulsion, everything broke down. The realm. The throne. The war.

Florian learned to know the hateful drudgery of existence. During these two years it was quiet and bare in the stables. The supply of oats diminished, and at last there was none left. The high-born horses began to show their undernourishment.

But among the people the hunger was far worse. Children died of exhaustion although they were fundamentally healthy, were able and destined by God to bloom and to grow. Therefore, there was scant pity left for beasts. Hearing of lions, of panthers, of elephants, of giraffes that died in the drawn-out agony of starvation in their cages in the zoological gardens, people shrugged their shoulders. How many human beings lay in their beds in the throes of death, and dragged on, emaciated, wracked by suffering, to the bitter end?

That was but part of the cruel conduct of war: the blockade of all the wells of life; an empty trough while the wide world without had an overabundance of food and wealth.

Horrible tragedies took place quietly, unnoticed, like ordinary events. Terror became the content of every-day existence. Men gave way to a stupefaction of horror, despair and deprivation. Yet at the root of their torpor lay pitilessness. Few there were who felt pity for the animals, for the innocence of the dumb suffering creatures.

“They don't need horses anymore,” Konrad Gruber told himself as he wandered aimlessly through the Mews.

He stopped to see Florian and touched his protruding ribs.

“My dear Florian,” he whispered, “they don't need me anymore either.”

Gruber had become talkative, but he talked only to himself and to the favorite horses of the late Emperor.

Florian turned his drooping head. Gruber held him by the forehead, by the locks of hair hanging down between his ears. To the questioning dark eyes which stirred him to the depths, he said: “No, no. Waiting is of no avail. He'll never come back. He is better off than you and I. It's all over for him.”

He meant Anton.

Florian pushed his nose against the man's breast, softly, intimately, in a show of friendship. Only there was in this gesture no longer any playfulness and mirth, but a fervent plea for help.

Gruber stared into Florian's grief-stricken eyes, breathed hard, and whispered: “Yes, yes, we're through, you and I. Quite through.”

The new Emperor used an automobile and special trains wherever he went. No horses for him. He lived at Laxenburg, and in a simple house at Baden. He shunned the Imperial Palace, and the Viennese saw him but rarely.

When the catastrophe came he retired, with his wife and children, to the hunting castle, Eckartsau. Thence the Imperial family went abroad under the protection of foreign officials who had but yesterday been foemen.

The horses in the Mews were sold at auction, all of them. There was no Emperor anymore. No Court. No Imperial Stables.

So!

From his tiny room far out in the suburbs, where he now lived, Konrad Gruber came to attend the auction. He had grown old, had lost his erect bearing; a used-up, broken man who would not admit he was used-up and broken.

The dealers and cabmen who had collected showed him deference and esteem. For more than thirty years the personal coachman of the Emperor Franz Joseph! They still revered the memory of the old Emperor, even if they did not say so aloud.

Gruber joined the cabman, Lorenz Schleinzer, pointed at Florian and whispered: “Take my advice and buy that white horse. There is no better.”

Schleinzer listened to the description Gruber gave him of Florian: Favorite horse of Franz Joseph whose carriage he had always drawn; incomparable trotter; soft of mouth; followed the slightest command.

Later, as Lorenz Schleinzer was leading Florian away, Gruber cautioned him: “One thing I must tell you. . . . No whip. Florian does not need it. He isn't used to it and won't stand for it.”

Schleinzer protested, as if this were an accusation: “Why, Herr von Gruber! What do you think of me? I ain't beating my horses, never!”

Gruber nodded, pulled his hat far down over his forehead, pursed his lips, and went.

Lorenz Schleinzer was a kind-hearted man of fifty, a man who bore good-will toward his fellow men and also toward his horses, who loved well being and for whom well being meant an occasional bottle of wine. Whenever he was on the border-line between sobriety and inebriacy, and had to hide his condition from his fare by all kinds of ruses, he invariably fell into a wild senseless rage. And at such times he turned into an insensate tormentor of his horses.

At first everything went well enough with Florian. The new milieu was somewhat distasteful, of course. The narrow, dingy, fetid stable, where the dank stagnant air made breathing difficult, was by no means a pleasant change from the magnificent stable he was accustomed to. There was too little straw to soften the cold hard flags under him when he lay down to rest. He sorely missed the marble trough always full of fresh water. He had to wait until the stableman, a grouchy old boozer smelling of liquor, brought him a pail of water. Often he did not quench his thirst because the man simply pulled the pail away whenever he thought Florian had had enough.

Two other horses occupied the stable which could hold five; a jaded iron-gray, purblind and stupid, who forever dozed and took no interest in his companions; and a foxy mare, a mischievous, sickly creature, obviously a spinster.

When Florian greeted the iron-gray, he didn't get an answer. That was Hansl's way. The mare, who bore the ill-fitting name of Lovely, snapped at him in salutation.

The work Florian had to do was extremely arduous. In harness for hours at a stretch, with the bit between his teeth, he stood at the hack stands. Hour after hour. In rain, in cold, in the scorching sun. His thin blanket offered scanty protection against inclement weather. When rain or snow fell heavily, his head and neck became wringing wet. His legs grew painfully stiff. It was especially bad when Schleinzer tore the covers off and Florian's naked body, suddenly exposed, began to shiver. Florian would warm up while running. But when he had to stop, abruptly, with panting sides and steaming back, he began to freeze, and kept on shivering even after the blanket again covered his wet back.

Worse troubles arose when he was hitched up with the iron-gray; for Hansl loved to amble, or, at most, weakly simulated a half-trot. The whip, cracking about Hansl's ears, occasionally nicked Florian also.

But matters became really critical when he was in the company of Lovely. She behaved as if it were impossible to keep step with him. She was forever changing the pace. She plunged and tugged and at length fell into an execrable gallop. Schleinzer then proceeded to whack her, which caused her to snap at Florian. Often, while standing absolutely still, she broke out as if intent upon running away. But she never succeeded in carrying Florian along. On these occasions, too, she had to be subdued by Schleinzer—sometimes with words, often with a heavy beating.