B000FBJF64 EBOK by Sándor Marai Read Free Book Online Page A

riders and their Lippizaners going through their paces. Riders and horses shared a nobility and distinction, an almost guilty ease and rhythm inborn in soul and body. Then, because he was young, he went walking. As he sauntered past the shops in the center of the city in the company of other strollers, he would occasionally be greeted by a waiter or the driver of a hansom cab because he looked so like his father. Vienna and the monarchy made up one enormous family of Hungarians, Germans, Moravians, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, and Italians, all of whom secretly understood that the only person who could keep order among this fantastical welter of longings, impulses, and emotions was the Emperor, in his capacity of Sergeant Major and Imperial Majesty, government clerk in sleeve protectors and Grand Seigneur, unmannerly clod and absolute ruler. Vienna was in high, good mood. The stuffy high-vaulted taverns in the old city served the best beer in the world, and as the bells chimed midday the streets filled with the rich smells of goulash, spreading friendliness and goodwill as if there were eternal peace on earth. Women carried fur muffs and wore hats with feathers, and veils that they pulled down over their faces against the snow, leaving a glimpse of nose and flashing eyes. At four in the afternoon the gaslights were lit in the cafés and coffee with whipped cream was served to the generals and officials at their regular tables while, outside, blushing women shrank into the corners of hired carriages as they raced toward bachelor apartments where the log fires were already lit, for it was carnival and there was an uprising of love throughout the city, as if the agents of some giant conspiracy were goading and inflaming hearts across all levels of society.
    In the hour before curtain time in the theaters, vinophiles met discreetly in the cellars of Prince Esterhazy’s palace, tables were being laid for archdukes in the private rooms at the Sacher, and in the hot, smoky rooms of the wine cellar next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, restless, unhappy Polish gentlemen drank schnapps, for things in their country were not going well. But there were hours that winter in Vienna when it seemed that everyone was happy, which was what the son of the Officer of the Guards was thinking as he contentedly whistled his half-stifled tune. In the vestibule the warmth from the tiled stove reached out to welcome him like a handshake from a trusted friend. Everything in this city was laid out so generously, and everything was in its perfect place. If the archdukes for their part were a trifle uncouth, the caretakers were the secret beneficiaries in this all-inclusive hierarchy. The servant jumped up from his place next to the stove to take his master’s coat, shako, and gloves even as his other hand was reaching for the bottle of burgundy in its warming place; the son of the Officer of the Guards was in the habit of slowly sipping a glass every night before he went to bed, as if each swallow were a weighty word that distanced him from the frivolous memories of the day and the evening. The man was already following him into Konrad’s dimly lit room, bearing the bottle on a silver tray.
    Sometimes they sat talking there until dawn, while the stove cooled and the son of the Officer of the Guards worked his way to the end of the bottle. Konrad talked about his reading; Henrik talked about life. Konrad couldn’t afford life, for him military service was a career involving a rank, a uniform, and a wide range of the most intricate and subtle consequences. The son of the Officer of the Guards sensed that their bond of friendship, fragile and complex in the way of all significant relationships between people, must be protected from the influence of money and any slightest hint of envy or tactlessness. It was not easy. The sonof the Officer of the Guards begged Konrad to accept some portion of his fortune, since he truly had no idea what to do with it. Konrad told