The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth Read Free Book Online Page B

march, only picking up the baton for the second item on the program, but Nechwal viewed that slovenly practice as a clear symptom of the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By the time the band had stationed itself in the prescribed round and the dainty little feet of the frail music desks had dug into the black soil of the cracks between the wide paving stones on the square, the bandmaster was already standing at the center of his musicians, discreetly holding up his ebony baton with the silver pommel.
    Every one of these outdoor concerts—they took place under the Herr District Captain’s balcony—began with “The Radetzky March.” Though all the band members were so thoroughly familiar with it that they could have played it without a conductor, in the dead of night, and in their sleep, the kapellmeisternevertheless required them to read every single note from the sheets. And every Sunday, as if rehearsing “The Radetzky March” for the first time with his musicians, he would raise his head, his baton, and his eyes in military and musical zeal and concentrate all four on any segments that seemed needful of his orders in the round at whose midpoint he was standing. The rugged drums rolled, the sweet flutes piped, and the lovely cymbals shattered. The faces of all the spectators lit up with pleasant and pensive smiles, and the blood tingled in their legs. Though standing, they thought they were already marching. The younger girls held their breath and opened their lips. The more mature men hung their heads and recalled their maneuvers. The elderly ladies sat in the neighboring park, their small gray heads trembling. And it was summer.
    Yes, it was summer. The old chestnut trees opposite the district captain’s house moved their dark-green crowns with rich, broad foliage only mornings and evenings. During the day they remained motionless, exhaling a pungent breath and sending their wide cool shadows all the way to the middle of the road. The sky was a steady blue. Invisible larks warbled incessantly over the silent town. Sometimes a fiacre rolled across the bumpy cobblestones, transporting a stranger from the railroad station to the hotel. Sometimes the hooves of the two horses taking Lord von Winternigg for a ride clopped along the broad road from north to south, from the landowner’s castle to his immense hunting preserve. Small, ancient, and pitiful, a little yellow oldster with a tiny wizened face in a huge yellow blanket, Lord von Winternigg sat in his barouche. He drove through the brimming summer like a wretched bit of winter. On high, soundless, resilient rubber wheels whose delicate brown spokes mirrored the sunshine, he rolled straight from his bed to his rural wealth. The big dark woods and the blond green gamekeepers were already waiting for him. The townsfolk greeted him. He did not respond. Unmoved, he drove through a sea of greetings. His dark coachman loomed steeply aloft, his top hat almost grazing the boughs of the chestnut trees, the supple whip caressing the brown backs of the horses, and at very definite, regular intervals the coachman’s firm-set mouth emitted asnappy clicking, louder than the clopping of the hooves and similar to a melodious rifle shot.
    Summer vacation began around this time. Carl Joseph von Trotta, the fifteen-year-old son of the district captain, a pupil at the Cavalry Military School in Hranice, Moravia, regarded his native town as a summery place; it was as much the summer’s home as his own. Christmas and Easter he spent at his uncle’s. He came home only during summer holidays. He always arrived on a Sunday. This accorded with the wishes of his father, Herr District Captain Franz, Baron von Trotta und Sipolje. At home, summer vacation, no matter when it commenced at school, had to begin on a Saturday. On Sundays, Herr von Trotta was off duty. He reserved the entire morning, from nine to twelve, for his son. Punctually at ten minutes to nine, a quarter hour after