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PREFACE

CHARACTERS

IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

THE MASQUE OF KINGS

ACT ONE

ACT  I

Scene 1

Franz Joseph.   Proceed, proceed, man. I can hear you while I work.

Koinoff.   Yes, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Or shall I tell you what you were about to say?

[He slits an envelope.]

A well-known oratorical bastard named the Archduke John of Tuscany—so far right?—

Koinoff.   Yes, Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Will confer tonight with the Archduke Rudolph. In his company will be—let me think—a well-known radical editor named Sceps, a soft-brained family man with a profound conviction that the whole world can be set right by the simple expedient of turning everything upside down, including, I surmise, the imperial navy, the city reservoir and his own gravy boat.—The presence will also be graced by an obscure young expert in military affairs, Koinoff by name, yourself in fact, and the meeting will take place at—shall we say the residence of the Archduke John?

Koinoff.   No, Majesty—the apartments of the Crown Prince Rudolph.

Franz Joseph.   Dear me, in the Hofburg itself.

[There is a knock at the door and a Servant parts the curtain.]

You know, of course, that I am not disturbed here at this hour.

Servant.   Yes, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   There is someone dead—or dying?

Servant.   No, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   There has been a calamity in the kingdom of which I must be apprised instantly?

Servant.   No, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Then henceforth remember your orders.

Servant.   Your Majesty, the Empress wishes to speak with you.

Franz Joseph.   The Empress. Where is the Empress?

Servant.   In the reception room, Your Majesty.

[A pause.]

Franz Joseph.   I will see her at once.

[The Servant goes.]

Go out through my room. I understand then that the three of you will take up the question of modern government?

Koinoff.   That’s the whole story, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   This way.

[He ushers Koinoff out. The servant ushers in the Empress and withdraws.]

I’m more than honored.

You see before you a workman at his labors,

a bit dusty, I fear, and worn.

Elizabeth.   You’ve always worked

while others slept, dear Franz.

Franz Joseph.   You wish to sit?

I’ll stand, myself. It’s all my exercise—

stooping for papers.

[He stoops to retrieve a fallen letter.]

Elizabeth.   Thank you.

[She sits.]

  I’m afraid

I’m quite inopportune.

Franz Joseph.   It’s thirteen years

as I remember it, since you’ve come through

this doorway. At that time you said, if I

recall correctly, you would not see me again,

you would not see me any more alone

till I answered you a question. It’s not answered.

But I should be very busy indeed, dear Cissie,

If I’d no time to give you.

Elizabeth.   Let the question go.

And the quarrel. It’s too late to rescue now

what the flood carried with it to the sea

so many years ago. All our deaths and loves

go down the wash.—No it was something else

I wanted to say now—I’ve passed your door

some thousand nights, and listened, and gone by—

it was never the moment.

Franz Joseph.   Something I could grant you—

something to ask? Among all petitioners

you would stand first.

Elizabeth.   Still?

Franz Joseph.   Yes. You no longer love me,

I know, but I love you still, and will, no doubt,

while the pump goes. This has been our misfortune,

yours more than mine.

Elizabeth.   I’ve been too fortunate

in many things. Or was when I was young.

As we grow older and need our luck it fails.

Perhaps we take it for granted, and the gods,

the non-existent gods, are angry with us,

having spoiled us earlier.

Franz Joseph.   Non-existent?

Elizabeth.   There—

let’s not quarrel about it—let’s believe

what we believe. When you took me and made me Empress,

long ago, that was luck, unbelievable luck

for a younger daughter of the Wittelsbachs,

a footless, scandalous tribe, with nothing to offer

but my footless, scandalous ways, and a little beauty

that faded under the lamps.

Franz Joseph.   It’s not faded, Cissie,

and I think it never will.

Elizabeth.   Well, beauty or not,

you found me out for the ne’er-do-well I was,

and I found you more emperor than mine,

and things have happened that won’t be forgiven

on either side, no matter how you love

or how thick the years mulch over.

Franz Joseph.   Yes. It’s true.—

This was what you wished to say?

Elizabeth.   No. Oh, I’m clear

in my mind, Franz, though I may have given you cause

to wonder these last years. I know how strict

you guard your time, and wouldn’t waste it. Here’s

my business, stated plainly, quite without grief

or a woman’s art. We have two things left to us

out of the wreck of years and youth: the empire,

and Rudolph, our son, who will rule it by and by,

if all goes well. I think we shall lose them both

if things go as they are.

Franz Joseph.   Yes?

Elizabeth.   I gave you an heir—

my one gift to the kingdom, but a noble one;

such a prince as an emperor, dreaming of sons,

could wish no happier issue. Magnanimous, wise,

beyond his years, gentle but manly, eager

to serve, a lover of justice. This was true?

Franz Joseph.   Yes.

Elizabeth.   But now he’s thirty years old, and this last two years

the furies begin to tear at him. Perhaps

my ways and yours at war in his blood. Perhaps

inaction, and the cynicism of courts

corrode more readily when a mind’s been brought

to a delicate perfection. A peasant brain

resists and keeps right on. It’s an evil court,

but it doesn’t touch you—nor me.

Franz Joseph.   Come then—our Rudolph?

Elizabeth.   I’m troubled over the news from Hungary.

It’s a freedom-loving people, never ours

except by conquest. There’s but one way to keep them—

that’s to extend the suffrage, rule them gentler

than they can rule themselves—give without asking

more than they think to ask.

Franz Joseph.   This is like old times.

Elizabeth.   It’s as true now as then.

Franz Joseph.   Proceed. I’ll listen.

Elizabeth.   Partly because he’s my son, and they believe

I’ve been their friend, partly because he speaks

for all their hopes, the Hungarians have loved Rudolph,

and he could hold them in the empire for you.

You were emperor at eighteen. It’s a discipline

that Rudolph needs; power in his hands; we grow

by what we have to do. I’ve thought of this

a long while now. Divide your empire. Set

our Rudolph over Hungary.

Franz Joseph.   As king?

Elizabeth.   As king of Hungary.

Franz Joseph.   I’m growing old then?

Elizabeth.   No, but he’ll have it in the end. You’ll live

for many years, I hope.—Is he to come

to full dominion in a late middle age

when he’s been burned out hollow with idleness

and lusts—all his fine faith soured to mockeries

with waiting—?

Franz Joseph.   Have you spoken with Rudolph?

Elizabeth.   No.

Franz Joseph.   You’ve never told me a lie, and I believe you—

else I should think you must have spoken with him.

When have you seen our son?

Elizabeth.   Why, yesterday.

Franz Joseph.   To talk with him? As a mother might with a son?

I think not within the year.

Elizabeth.   It may be—longer.

Franz Joseph.   Then let me enlighten you concerning Rudolph.

I have a message here from His Holiness

that enlightened me this morning. Our son’s petitioned

the Pope to set him free of his present marriage,

free to marry again. I have no doubt

he has in mind the same Vetsera harlot

who shares his bed at present. Even you should grant

this would make a kingly stench for the new-born court

of a new-born kingdom in Europe.

Elizabeth.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   That’s first.

Second, the state of Hungary’s aflame,

of late, and I think our Rudolph set the fire—

with plots to make him king, blow me aside

like the old dodderer over desks I am,

oh, leave me Austria if I care to keep it,

but Hungary for Rudolph, Rudolph for Hungary,

caps in the air, the old men in their places—

somewhat to the rear, or slightly underground

if they’re in the way—a young man on the throne,

and let the bugles blow! You knew of this?

Elizabeth.   No.

Franz Joseph.   Well, I’ve known—perhaps as much as any,

and more than they know I know. If you’d be kind

to Rudolph, tell him this; that his hot friends

would better cool their heads or they’ll cool their heels;

they’re too hot by half.

Elizabeth.   Rudolph began this?

Franz Joseph.   I don’t know. I can’t swear it. It seems likely,

judging by what he’s written, by the friends he hugs

and the rendezvous he keeps. But to be just

I don’t know how far it’s his.

Elizabeth.   If it were so

that Hungary does wish it—wish him for king—

you would oppose it still?

Franz Joseph.   A state will wish

what it’s told to wish. It has no will of its own.

Elizabeth.   But what I’ve asked—could so easily be done—

without loss, even with gain to you. When we

were young together, you lightened your hand one day

over Hungary for my sake—and in time,

for I think it won them—

Franz Joseph.   I should oppose it still.

Not that it’s treason to me—all these things

are words—faith, treason, honor—behind them lie

realities of government which I face

daily here at my desk. No—let me go back.

When I first saw you you were not seventeen,

and beautiful in some sad crystal fashion

that’s quite beyond the phrasing of an old man

who’s made himself book-keeper to an empire

and sloughed the graces. If I told you then

I came too short in the telling—by some worlds

I came too short. I loved you instantly,

beyond recking costs, must have you; we were married,

the year went by like summer lightning, then

I looked behind the laughter on your face

and found an anarch, a laughing devil, stronger

than I was, quicker of wit, a child in purpose,

a demon in desire. You never once

put out your hand but to tear down the kingdom,

riddle authority, and with that seraph’s face

and seraph’s tongue seduced me to betrayals

that bind me yet. And still I loved you, still

I could not tear you out, and Rudolph came,

his mother’s child, an archangel’s face and tongue

again, with a devil’s will, a Wittelsbach

as they’ve been from the beginning. But I loved him—

as I loved you—almost as I loved you.

He hates me and betrays me—and I love him.

All my life long I tread my own heart down

here in the dust and silence of this room

where no one enters. I shall defend my kingdom

and hold it, and send it on despite you, yes,

despite my love for you and him. Go now.

I have work to do.

Elizabeth.   I shall not ask again.

Franz Joseph.   I have been patient with Rudolph, and shall be patient.

He may be a son to me yet—but as for you

when you loved elsewhere, when you took your body,

the body of the Empress, and laid it down

beside another man, and took him to you—

when I heard this I heard my own death walking

the palace hallways, stepping off my days

and no other step to wait for.

Elizabeth.   You were the first

in that, remember.

Franz Joseph.   A man may be unfaithful,

but not a woman, and not an empress.

Elizabeth.   No?

Well, that has been changed, I think.

Franz Joseph.   It has not been changed.

Elizabeth.   You’ve chewed on your revenge these many years.

Surely it’s been enough, Franz. Where is Imry?

Franz Joseph.   Where you’ll not see him,

where you would hardly care to see him now,

no place for lovers.

[She steps back.]

Elizabeth.   Goodnight.

Franz Joseph.   Goodnight.

Elizabeth.   This step

you hear in the halls, it may not be your death

but only a girl you loved one time, grown old

and sleepless, hurrying now a little toward

a too-long corridor’s end. You’re of tougher grain

than I—or Rudolph. You’ll outlive us; when

you bury us the halls will be quieter.

[She goes out through the curtain. Franz Joseph takes up the paperweight on his desk, as if to resume his work, puts it down and sits, his eyes on the floor. Count Taafe enters.]

Taafe.   Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Yes? Yes, Taafe.

Taafe.   You asked me to come in without announcement

when it was certain the Vetsera girl

had come alone to Rudolph.

Franz Joseph.   She’s with him?

Taafe.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   We must be sure.

Taafe.   There’s a serving-maid who watches

about Prince Rudolph’s door. I’ll wager on it;

so far she’s made no errors.

Franz Joseph.   Then we’ll go.

[He takes a step, then puts out his hand to the table.]

One moment.

Taafe.   Your Majesty’s not well?

Franz Joseph.   It’s nothing.

[He sits]

Nothing, I shall wish you to come with me.

They’ll be alone together?

Taafe.   For a time.

However, I have also information

the Archduke John may visit him tonight,

and it seems reliable.

Franz Joseph.   The Archduke John.

Taafe.   That’s the Hungarian business.

I should have thought the woman was enough,

but when we’re young we take it in our stride,

amours and intrigue after midnight.—Sleep?

Sleep later on, while the alarm rings. Still,

we may find it awkward.

Franz Joseph.   Say nothing of Hungary.

One thing at a time, and the woman first.

Taafe.   Very well.

Franz Joseph.   What do you think of Rudolph, Taafe, frankly,

forgetting I’m his father?

Taafe.   Frankly, sire,

he’s a rebel and a rake.

Franz Joseph.   I’d give these arms

here at the shoulder, I’d step down in a grave

tonight, let them stop my mouth and ears with earth

to have another son. It may be I

won’t live forever. God send me the wit I need

to save my empire from the son I have.

I’m better. We can go.

[They go out.]

CURTAIN

ACT  I

Scene 2

Countess Larisch.   Your question, then, sir. Your question. I am ready for your question.

[She seats herself before one of the men.]

Count Larisch.   My dear, where were you yesterday afternoon?

The Countess.   At home, my love. Proceed.

Larisch.   Be more specific. Where, definitely where?

The Countess.   In my own bedroom, heart’s darling.

Larisch.   Ah, and your occupation?

The Countess.   I was burning—old letters.

1st Lady.   Yes, that’s true, she told me. She was burning old letters.

1st Man.   All afternoon?

The Countess.   My dear Fritzi, all afternoon.

1st Man.   A bale of letters.

The Countess.   Oh, quite a bale. At least.

Larisch.   Ah—ah!—Then how did it happen, my only love—I call you to witness, d’Orsay—how did it happen that Mimi waited for you all afternoon in your bedroom, and saw nothing of you—no wraith of you, no glimpse, from two till six—

1st Man.   What, saw no flame, smelled no smoke, no burning?

Larisch.   There was nobody there—!

The Countess.   The slut lies.

2nd Lady.   Oh, no, darling. I tell the truth.

Larisch.   Rudi—Rudi!

The Countess.   He’s about to complain to royalty.

Larisch.   Complain! I shall have you published, and sent back to your whoring old grandmother, that taught you the whoring trade!

The Countess.   Kindly leave my grandmother out of it, darling! She’s past such pleasures, more’s the pity.

Larisch.   By God, I shall buy a whip! Rudi! Rudi!

Loschek.  

[Entering from the bedroom]

The prince will be with you in a moment, sir.

The Countess.   And now will you answer my questions, sweetest of the sweet?

Larisch.   No.

The Countess.   Come, I give you the witness chair. And to begin, where were you, my lord and master, yesterday afternoon?

2nd Man.   In church. He told me.

3rd Man.   In medias res.

[Rudolph enters in a dressing gown.]

Rudolph.   Why the outcry?

Larisch.   Rudi! She’s been unfaithful to me again! Again!

Rudolph.   She? who, dear baron?

Larisch.   That one there! My wife there!

Rudolph.   Must you take up our time with these physiological details?

Larisch.   But it’s incessant! And this last one’s an Imperial Guardsman—mind you, a commoner, one of these red-trousered swashers, practically anonymous—might be any one of them—might be the one I met outside on the stairs—

Rudolph.   But how fortunate to be able to narrow it down so quickly! Obviously, you have only to call out the Imperial Guard.

Larisch.   And I will! I will! I will not be cuckolded by an entire regiment!

The Countess.   My love, you exaggerate!

Larisch.   I hope so!

2nd Man.   You are coming with us, Your Highness?

Rudolph.   I meant to, but some servant of the state has left a pile of documents on my desk—you see?

1st Man.   They must be signed?

Rudolph.   They must be signed—tonight.

1st Lady.   And you must read them?

Rudolph.   I must read them.

The Countess.   But surely they’ve been carefully prepared—by these same servants of the state—you could sign and let it rain—

Rudolph.   These are military orders, my dear—and the military brain, God knows why, but it breaks loose in the least expected directions. If I were to sign without reading the whole Imperial Guard might appear tomorrow in yellow trousers instead of red. Think how disconcerting.

The Countess.   Come, Your Highness, this is the same pile of papers that lay on your desk a week ago—for I saw it—

1st Man.   Oh, ho!

The Countess.   Isn’t it?

Rudolph.   Similar, but not the same.

Larisch.   Rudi—has my wife been visiting you?

Rudolph.   There, there, Baron—I’m no member of the regiment. There will be none of mine among the bastards you rear.

The Countess.   You boast of it, Highness?

Rudolph.   It appears to be a distinction.

The Countess.   Oh, dear—he insults me, he’s not coming to the Baltazzis, the guardsmen’s breeches are going to be yellow, and my whole evening’s spoiled.

2nd Lady.   Not coming at all?

[The revelers are turning toward the door.]

Rudolph.   Later, later.

2nd Lady.   Because I’ll tell you a secret—the little Vetsera will be there.

Rudolph.   Within an hour—within half an hour—and look, my domino lies ready to hand—you’ll know me by it—

1st Lady.  

[Holding up the domino]

Shall we do him the honor of believing him?

1st Man.  

[Looking up at the portrait of the Empress]

I swear there’s never in the history of the world been a woman as beautiful as the Empress.

2nd Lady.   Isn’t it true? And she’s still beautiful.

2nd Man.   God knows where Rudi got his looks.

The Countess.   There was a certain master of horse much favored of the Empress about our Rudolph’s time. An oaf, but ingratiating. Methinks a resemblance has been traced—

Rudolph.   Trail your slime where else you will, you rout of bitchery, but keep your tongues now and forever from my mother!

[A pause.]

1st Lady.   Come, come, darling, you attack the succession.

The Countess.   Yes,—I’m sorry. After all, a prince’s mother is sacred. Will you forgive my offending?

Rudolph.   Some other time, shall we say? Tonight I find you not so much offending as offensive.

The Countess.   You will make enemies.

Rudolph.   I have made them—many and terrible.

The Countess.   Do you wish to add me to the list?

Rudolph.   There was once a grandam, you may remember, who added water to the sea?

The Countess.   I do remember.

Rudolph.   Ponder it.

The Countess.   I would much rather be friends with you, Your Highness. And you’ll need friends. You are playing a deep and devious game in the Hungarian elections. You are involved far beyond safety with the Baroness Vetsera. You have offended your father on both these counts, and there is a limit to the tolerance even of an emperor.

Larisch.   For God’s sake, darling!

Rudolph.   Not because you are dangerous, but for your honesty, I will be friends with you, my dear Countess, and I will admit that the court of Vienna is a high and slippery place, whence a breath, a reaching out, may send one down the escarpments to oblivion. But for myself I have leaped, I have slid, I have positively dived over the parapets, only to find myself replaced with miraculous celerity upon the topmost point of this distasteful pinnacle, I loathe the court of Vienna, I despise the people who inhabit it, I despise myself for making a part of it, yet here I am and have been, any time this thirty years. What you say of my relations to Hungary and to the Baroness Vetsera, these are lies, rumor, scandal, what you like, but repeat them infinitely, I beg of you—give me what push you can from this glassy eminence, and you will be a friend indeed.

The Countess.   But you’re in earnest, your Highness.

Rudolph.   Is that a capital crime in your circle?

The Countess.   It always makes me a little uncomfortable.

Rudolph.   Oh! that’s beyond pardon!

The Countess.   But do you actually despise the court of Vienna?

Rudolph.   And loathe it.

The Countess.   Then I’m saved from boredom for another fortnight. I too shall despise the court of Vienna. I shall wither it with scorn, I shall drench it with adjectives. Children, we shall make this the latest thing. The Habsburg court! Its incredible morals! Its perfervid asininities! Despise it? I loathe it! It’s—putrid!—Rudi! Rudi! We shall make you the height of fashion!

Rudolph.   Be off with you, all of you. You’re late, and so am I.

The Countess.   Nevertheless I’m more your friend than you guess. I have had the confidence of a certain person, but hush, we say nothing.

2nd Lady.   Are we going?

1st Man.   Come, you rout of bitchery!

1st Lady.   That’s the word.

Larisch.   But we’ll see you, Highness?

Rudolph.   In half an hour.

The Countess.   Come, refuse! Excrescences of a tawdry royalty! Come!

Larisch.   Your word, Rudi!

[They go out, leaving Rudolph alone. He waits for a moment, then calls.]

Rudolph.   Loschek.

Loschek.  

[Entering]

Your Highness?

Rudolph.   Look in the little passage, and bring Bratfisch to me.

[Loschek bows and returns through the inner rooms. Rudolph sits at his desk, lifts a paper from the pile and leafs through it, then thrusts it back. Loschek returns with Bratfisch, and stands waiting.]

Bratfisch.   There was something, sir?

Rudolph.   Yes.

[He draws his hand over his eyes wearily.]

Loschek—there are too many lights.

[Loschek bows and begins to extinguish the candelabra, leaving two candles that burn under the portrait of the Empress.]

What’s the weather tonight?

Bratfisch.   A light snow, Your Highness. It may fall an inch or two.

Rudolph.   You’re to wait at the postern till the lady comes, Bratfisch. Afterward Loschek will take your place. You understand?

Bratfisch.   No, sir.

Rudolph.   He will take your place because you will assume this domino—this—the arms here—the eyes here—

Bratfisch.   Yes, sir—

Rudolph.   And will be driven to the Baltazzi palace, where you will be announced as the Crown Prince Rudolph.

Bratfisch.   Very well, sir.

Rudolph.   Comport yourself accordingly, with grace, with dignity, above all with fitting reserve. Remain not more than a quarter of an hour. I should not suggest any passages with the ladies—beyond a discreet compliment here and there.

Bratfisch.   Yes, sir.

Rudolph.   Go now and take the domino with you.

Bratfisch.   If you’ll pardon me, Highness, there’s a little man at the area-gate offering to sell chestnuts.

Rudolph.   Did you make a purchase?

Bratfisch.   I’m his only customer so far.

Rudolph.   An agent?

Bratfisch.   He’s been posted there by somebody—to see who goes out and in.

Rudolph.   Then he’ll follow my domino. See that my domino makes a night of it, Bratfisch. A little of everything disreputable, and back here at dawn or thereabout.

Bratfisch.   Yes, Highness.

[Bratfisch bows, takes up the domino and goes out with Loschek. Rudolph looks up at the picture of Elizabeth.]

Rudolph.   We live too long—is that what you say, my mother,

with the stars in your hair? A woman outlives her beauty,

a man outlives his dreams. When they painted you

so, with the stars, there was brightness on your earth—

dew on the lawns in spring. But now you walk

the long cold Hofburg corridors at night—

silent—and if you meet me there—your son—

you look at me as if you walked the moon

and men were strange. But then you’re all courtesy:

you murmur “Rudolph, darling” and go on

and it’s the moon again. We’re lost and damned

here in the Hofburg. You know it; you know I’ll find it—

why tell me before my time?—

[The clock strikes twice outside.]

  Count it out, count it,

you bells that turned back Atilla! I’m in

my thirtieth year. There’s half a life left yet

before I’m cold. Would it be something gained

if I’d put roads and water enough between

my corpus and Vienna, before I die,

to evade that damned Capuchin church? It reeks

of Habsburgs and rotted kings. Must you rest there,

dear mother, when you’re dead? You tell me yes—

they have plucked out the stars from your eyes and hair

and made you ready.

[He sits, hidden in the shadow. The place is quiet for a moment, then a Maid tiptoes in gently and goes to the fireplace. She busies herself with the fire, pausing meanwhile to listen. Rudolph moves. She rises quickly.]

The Girl.   I’m sorry—I thought—everyone was gone.

[She starts out.]

Rudolph.   Wait.

The Girl.   Yes, Your Highness. I’m sorry.

Rudolph.   Who sent you here?

The Girl.   No one, sir. It’s—something I’m supposed to do.

Rudolph.   Yes, of course.

The Girl.   I may go, sir?

Rudolph.   Yes.

The Girl.   Thank you.

Rudolph.   Wait again. Wait one moment. I know you.

The Girl.   No, sir.

Rudolph.   From many years ago.

The Girl.   No, sir.

Rudolph.   Oh, yes! I troubled your innocence, I believe,

and gave you money, and let you go. I’m sorry.

But why are you here?

The Girl.   It—happened. I earn my living

here in the palace.

Rudolph.   Who hired you?

The Girl.   The major domo.

Rudolph.   And by what pretense of duty do you prowl

my rooms after midnight?

The Girl.   To see that—there’s no disorder—

and they said you were gone—

Rudolph.   This is the seventh.

One after another I uncover them,

these household spies they set on me. And this,

this they thought was clever—a girl I’d known,

one with a pretty face—I might slip again,

and you’d pick secrets between kisses—yes,

and tattle to the Emperor.

The Girl.   No, no!

Rudolph.   Why not? He pays preposterously. When you’re used

and full of secrets you’ll be silenced with

a pension and well guarded! Who set you here

and what were your instructions?

The Girl.   But it’s not—true—

Rudolph.   You have a brain! You know what happens when

they hang a spy on the ramparts! Tell me who’s

your master, where you give your reports, who pays

at the end of the week, or you’ll go back in a basket

to this same major domo!

The Girl.   Your Highness—

Rudolph.   No lies—

for I tell you I’m sick of this spying; they crawl in the walls

like typhus-lice at plague-time! By God, I’ll hang you

in sheets from a bedpost!

The Girl.   No, my lord—no, truly.

I’m only here in the palace to earn my way—

I’ve said nothing about you.

Rudolph.   But I’m not wrong.

The Girl.   Oh, you are. Please let me go. You’ve hurt my hand—

please, will I lose my place?

Rudolph.   No. I was wrong.

Forgive me. It gets under the skin and into

the blood, the business of being a prince. In the end

you fancy yourself a god, and all other flesh

an offering to you.

The Girl.   I know.

Rudolph.   How do you know it?

The Girl.   It was so before.

Rudolph.   Was it so even then,

when I was twenty-three? Perhaps it was—

I took you, and paid you off. But it grows with the years,

even though you know your flesh is grass like the rest,

even though you swear it daily, still when they bring you

food on gold, and armies tread the night

to ensure your sleep, and when you stretch out your arm

they run to make a garden—it taints the mind,

this mindless service, till what you wish you must have,

no matter how many bleed for it. I’m unjust,

and violent, and revengeful—they’ve made me so—

they’d make you so in my place. And so, forgive me.

The Girl.   I—forgive you?

Rudolph.   Yes.

The Girl.   Yes, if you wish, Your Highness.

Rudolph.   I say this for myself—

not for you, my dear. I’ve schooled myself

to live my birth down, make apology

where apologies are due, though I writhe within

to say the words. I thank you for your forgiveness.

We’ll let it end there.

The Girl.  

[Falling on her knees, taking his hand.]

My lord, let me thank you—

Rudolph.   No!

Keep off your knees!

[Loschek enters from within.]

Yes?

Loschek.   You’re not at liberty,

Your Highness?

Rudolph.   What is it? Yes.

Loschek.   There’s someone waiting.

Rudolph.   Go now.

[The Girl bows and slips out.]

Loschek.   The Baroness Vetsera’s here.

Rudolph.   Let her in quickly.

Loschek.   If I may mention it,

we suspect this girl—this that was on her knees.

Rudolph.   I know—I think you’re wrong. But follow her,

look through the hall.

[Loschek goes out after the Girl. Rudolph goes to the inner door.]

Marie!

Mary Vetsera.  

[At the door]

May I come in?

Rudolph.   How did you come?

Mary.   Does it matter? It’s snowing, sweet,

and I walked through the snow. I wasn’t followed.

I’m sure I wasn’t.

Rudolph.   It doesn’t matter now—

now that I have you. Here’s a whole snowflake yet

caught in your hair. Your cheeks are cool. Good God,

how you transform a room!

Mary.   Don’t you want to kiss me?

Rudolph.   Does one make love with an angel, darling? Wait—

surely one should worship a little first,

light a fire on an altar, or burn incense,

and kneel in prayer.

Mary.   But not to me.

Rudolph.   Yes, sweet,

to you.

Mary.   Then all the gods grant all your prayers,

as suddenly.

[She lifts her lips and he kisses her.]

Have you been well?

Rudolph.   Well enough.

I saw you once in the Prater.

Mary.   I know. I saw you.

[Loschek comes back unobtrusively through the room.]

God in heaven, these two weeks! Oh, Rudi,

have you been lonely?

Rudolph.   I’ve been miserable,

creeping about on trains, listening to welcomes,

fat mayors of fat towns making fat speeches

unto eternity, no word from you—

Mary.   I couldn’t manage. Verily, I’d have died

only for your black blessed raven Loschek

and the little note he dropped like manna in

my prayer book. Then I took up heart and lived

to see you.

Rudolph.   Do you love me so much?

Mary.   And more,

more than I tell you.

Rudolph.   How long will it keep on?

Mary.   Oh, easily till I die.—And afterward—

I doubt that it will be much different then.

Rudolph.   Oh, child, child.

Mary.   Oh, truly, Rudi! I’ll die

when you die—even if you should be away

I’d know if you were dead, and I’d die too,

yes, where your earth was mine would find yours out

and lie there with you.

Rudolph.   Pretty.

Mary.   And keep you warm—

for there’d be such a burning in the dust

that used to be my heart, I’d keep you warm

deep under ground. You’ll know me by the fire

there in the dust, and then we can make up

for never having spent a whole night together—

lying quite still, a long while.

Rudolph.   You speak too well.

Mary.   Well, but I’ve never spoken well before,

and never will again. It’s now, for you.

And then that’s all.

Rudolph.   Surely you know, dear Mary,

this is a profitless passion for a girl

whose family looks to her to marry the Indies

and make her face their fortune.

Mary.   Have I asked for money?

Rudolph.   No. God knows I’ve none to give.

Mary.   But then—

my family does well enough.

Rudolph.   Some time

there will be reasons of state why I can’t see you.

My wife will rattle the gates of the Vatican,

and bring the emperor down on us. Somehow

they’ll ship me off to the east and you to the west

and no amount of loving will help. You’ll find

you have to wed a banker. Then your price

will have gone down, after the scandal here,

and I’ll have spoiled your name.

Mary.   If it must be,

it must. But if I marry, still I’ll love you—

even if you go back to the Fleming—even—

if—you should want to.

Rudolph.   Would you love me then?

Mary.   Yes.—This is a bitter welcome—after

so long away.—Do you wish me to go now?

Rudolph.   No.

Mary.   Will it be soon?

Rudolph.   I don’t know.

Mary.   Yes.

I won’t ask for more than I can have.

Only—let me see you while I can.—

It can end—when it ends.

Rudolph.   May I be eaten

of worms before my time for this! Look, sweet,

this is a letter I wrote two weeks ago

to the sacred nose in Rome—and here’s a ring

I’ve carried in my pocket this two weeks

to give you when you came! But my damned soul

has been so cursed and crawled upon with punks

and serving men and women I feel the itch

in every palm I touch, and taste the greed

in every kiss!

Mary.   But I’m greedy, too. Too greedy.

Rudolph.   Look at the letter.

Mary.   What is it?

Rudolph.   A petition,

drawn up formally, wherewithals and flourish,

requesting that the Pope annul my marriage

with the Princess Stephanie, on sufficient grounds,

that I may marry again.

Mary.   Must you marry again?

Rudolph.   This ring’s to be yours.

Mary.   But it’s a wedding ring.

Rudolph.   Perhaps if you should study it a little

and look inside the circlet you might find

a date graved. Now the dark blood climbs in your throat

remembering.

Mary.   This is worse than mockery;

it’s torment, Rudi. Were you free as fire

we could never marry.

Rudolph.   No?

Mary.   With an empire waiting?

Marry a Baltazzi out of the east,

a daughter of peddlers?

Rudolph.   Why then goodbye to the empire!

They may keep it. And luck to them who get it.

It’s been no luck to me.

Mary.   Goodbye to the empire?—

Now I know you mock me. I’m a girl,

foolish, and easily gulled, but this I know—

no prince throws up an empire for a woman

who’s been his for the asking.

Rudolph.   Oh, Vienna!

The wisdom of Vienna! All her daughters

have eaten it with their porridge! But it’s true

that I’m no jingling poet, to sell a crown

for love and a pair of shoes. If I wanted empire,

I’d have the empire, and you, and Stephanie,

and anything I whistled for! But when

I say the Habsburg crown’s an ancestral curse

and I won’t wear it, then the bars go up

around me, and I feel my father’s hand

closing on what I do and where I go,

till the Hofburg’s a prison, the street’s a prison

where I ride, with yielding walls, but iron

and not to be broken through. Crown Prince I am,

Crown Prince I must be. This is my answer to them:

either I take the road free as a beggar,

or from now on my life’s my own. I’ve played

their game, kept my intrigues hidden, held my tongue

from comment on injustice, let myself

be dangled like a golden calf on strings

till I’m at the end of my tether. I married once

to barricade the throne, a Habsburg stallion

led to a Leopoldine filly for

the act of royal generation. That’s

accomplished. Generation’s possible

between whichever two of opposite sex

they lock in a room together, young enough

to have more appetite than brain. But now

I shall marry where I please, say what I please

in private or in public, and the storm

I rouse may drive me either up or down,

but I shall have my way.

Mary.   And this ring’s for me?

Rudolph.   This ring’s for you.

Mary.   How have I earned it, Rudi?

Rudolph.   I don’t know. There have been other women

here in this room, a handsome company,

I give my word, and where they went afterward

concerned me only mildly. When you’ve gone

I hear your laughter dying down the hall

and think you’re gone, but then you run in my veins

like sun on Danube water, and your hair

comes down between me and the book I write,

and I curse you for a witch. This is for boys,

this spring-sap madness, this magic in a feather,

the one red feather in one girl’s dark hair,

this dreaming at windows, memory of a perfume,

this is for boys and girls, and not for me,

but with you it’s mine again. And so we’ll keep it.

Let them try to take it from us.

Mary.   It’s what I’ve wanted

too much to dare to wish, but now I’m trembling—

I don’t know why. What will come of us, Rudi?

What will they do?

Rudolph.   Why, for a time you’ll hear

such a concaterwauling of horrid shrieks

you’ll think Walpurgis night has broken out

in all the embassies. Little men will trot

through palace doors with black brief-cases packed

with facts and papers. Hands will be upraised,

friends estranged, lips bitten, beards gone white,

hair turned gray on diplomatic heads,

and a long growl will stem from the father walrus

to crack like thunder down the Hofburg stairs

and maybe split that curtain. Unseen hands

will write on walls—prophetic cries will rend

the midnight—vendors, likely, calling the news—

but we can’t listen to stuff like that forever,

so we’ll go to sleep.

Mary.   I hope it comes to no more.

Rudolph.   Would you be happy?

Mary.   You know that.

Rudolph.   And not frightened

when the wind comes up and the sacred elder statesmen

begin to rake the clinkers out of hell

to roast the two of us?

Mary.   If you still want me

I won’t blench at hell.

Rudolph.   Then they can’t hurt us.

They need me. I don’t need them. But I need you—

and Q.E.D., it follows. Make your peace

at home, as best you can, for I’m not content

with these stolen interviews. We shall appear

as often as we like together.

Mary.   Then—

I must tell you—there’s an arrangement made—

lawyers and seals and signatures—I’m not

quite sure what all—it’s covert yet, but I’m

supposed to marry—

Rudolph.   Yes?

Mary.   You see, I thought

you’d tire of me. They put me up for sale,

no doubt, for so much cash. And I said yes,

sometime—next year, perhaps. But now I’ll break it.

Rudolph.   Yes, break it.

Mary.   I had to tell you. You might have heard.

Will you forgive me?

Rudolph.   Who was the man?

Mary.   Braganza.

Rudolph.   Oh, the Duke. Well, tell the charming Duke—

what will you tell him?

Mary.   That I was passing a palace

when a prince came out who asked me to marry him,

and suddenly, there in the midst of winter,

it was spring, and so I’m very sorry

but—Rudi, Rudi, you’re angry!

Rudolph.   No. It’s just

the ancient masculine aversion to

the fact of other males in the world. But break it,

tomorrow.

Mary.   Yes.—And it’s true about the spring.

I feel it like a trembling in the earth,

this spring in winter. If I die of it

I die of too much miracle.

Rudolph.   It’s not death

to love me.

Mary.   There’ll be a storm—worse than you say.

The birds’ nests will come down.

Rudolph.   I’ve never yet

stood up before the emperor and said:

this I intend to have! but when I do

it may rain birds’ nests in the Wienerwald

but I shall have it.

[The Archduke John of Tuscany comes in from the rear, Loschek following, Koinoff and Sceps behind them both.]

John.   It will rain birds’ nest soup

in Pesth before you rule if you can’t keep

your women out of conference!

Rudolph.   Loschek!

John.   Christ,

don’t blame Loschek! I walked in. We have

an appointment here tonight—

Rudolph.   No doubt you’ve met

the Baroness Vetsera—the Archduke John

of Tuscany—a man who hides his brain

under his lack of manners.

[Loschek lights the candelabra and goes out.]

John.   I’ve heard of her.

[He bows.]

Rudolph.   Behind him Captain Koinoff, behind him

Herr Sceps of the Tageblatt.

[Koinoff and Sceps bow. She acknowledges the salute.]

Mary.   Shall I leave you?

Rudolph.   No. You can hear this.

John.   Then we go back again.

Pick up your boots, my friends, and set them down

outside. Whatever it was we had to say

can’t wait, and we can’t either.

[He starts out.]

Rudolph.   I think you can.

Sit down, my Salvator. The Baroness

is in my confidence.

John.   But not in mine,

if I can help it. I’ve stuck my precious neck

into a noose some dozen times this fortnight,

all for your damn fool Highness, and got it out

by some fool luck each time. There’s such a thing

as tempting the old lady with the shears

just once too often.

Rudolph.   The Baroness Vetsera

will be my wife when it can be arranged.

If you trust me, trust her.

[The men bow. John returns.]

John.  

[To Mary]

I beg your pardon.

[To Rudolph]

This will take some doing, though. Your current wife

has a king to her father.

Rudolph.   Yes. That’s occurred to me.

She can go home to her father.

John.   Give me your hand.

I like you better.

[He takes Rudolph’s hand. To Mary]

  I was burdened once

with one of these royal frumps. She’s back with mama

and I’ve gone human with a chorus girl.

But you might have helped yourself to a sweeter portion

than you’ll share with the prince, my dear.

Mary.   I’ll chance it.

John.   Oh,

I don’t doubt it. Where there’s purple blood

a woman’s apt to chance it. Come, kiss her hand,

captains and editors, before it’s royal—

She’ll be more distant then.

[Sceps and Koinoff come forward.]

Koinoff.  

[Kissing Vetsera’s hand]

May you be happy,

Baroness.

Mary.   I thank you, Captain.

Sceps.  

[Bending over the hand]

May

you make him happy. For he hasn’t been.

Mary.   Thank you, too.

John.   I have this one half-hour,

and things have happened since you galloped off

on your trumpery progress. We’ve talked a lot this year

of liberties, rights, broken pledges to the people,

what pressure we could bring on your father. Well,

while we talked, there were rather more forthright fellows

up and doing. It seems the Hungarians

were eighteen jumps ahead of us—they’re on

the verge of a revolution.—It’s not wild talk—

I don’t exaggerate—the train’s been laid

for such a major explosion as might lift

our sister state right out of Franz Joseph’s precinct

and lay it in your lap.

Rudolph.   Were these the lads

called on the carpet for circulating pamphlets

bearing my name?

John.   No, no—that’s another thing

though they meant business. That article you wrote

for the Tageblatt, the authorship leaked out

and several universities went berserk

in Hungary—you know, boys yelling for blood,

French style, the Marseillaise, and organizing

under the Rudolph banner. The pedagogues

were scandalized, but their innocents ran wild,

got out of hand.

Rudolph.   And so they were expelled?

John.   Right.

Rudolph.   And that ends it.

John.   For the children, yes—

but not for some others. Sceps, relate.

Sceps.   Your Highness,

you know how carefully I’ve preserved my head,

believing, as I do, that a head’s essential

even to a journalist. Your father’s way

with traitors is a mild decapitation,

minus publicity. And I want to live

and raise my family and use my voice

on the side of justice, so I’ve walked warily

and I’m alive. But after this upheaval

in the universities, when it had all died down,

a young Hungarian noble came to see me

here in Vienna, and questioned me point blank

about your writings and yourself. I told him

what I thought safe, and when he thought it safe

he talked to me. He told me what we knew,

that Hungary’s sick of the Empire, sick of your father,

ready for fireworks.—He is himself the head

of a band of young aristocrats, all sworn

to separate from Vienna or die trying,

and they don’t expect to die. They mean to win;

they’ve organized by cities, laid their plans—

they’re ready to strike now—and what he wanted

was to get word to you. They’ve set themselves

to make you king of Hungary. Oh, yes.

Koinoff and I went off to Buda-Pesth

to look them over, and it’s true—the town’s

like a hive ready to swarm—with a royal word

to lead them they’d be on the wing tonight—

tomorrow—when you say.

Rudolph.   And your advice, Sceps?

Sceps.   This is one time, Your Highness,

when I would risk my head. I’ve fought oppression

all my lifelong, and got nowhere, your father

being the man he is. We might at least

see an enlightened and liberal Hungary

break off from Austria.

Rudolph.   Tell me the name

of this young noble.

Sceps.   Szogyeny. You know him.

Rudolph.   Yes.

And Captain Koinoff?

Koinoff.   I’m somewhat less dismayed

by the word treason, Highness, than Herr Sceps,

who has a family and a paper. I

have nothing but a life that I’d exchange

for, say, a thought more freedom in the world—

and we won’t get it while the emperor

sits where he sits in comfort.

Rudolph.   As for the Archduke,

I know his mind.

John.   God knows I’ve nothing to lose

but a starveling dukedom and a gangling neck,

whereas you have imperial prospects, likewise

an imperial rack of bones on which to hang

a crown if you should get one. But your crown

won’t be worth having if you wait long for it,

in my opinion. Five or six more years

as things go now and the Habsburg coronets

will rate with barrel-hoops on the market.—This

is not our plot, this blaze in Hungary;

it burst out ready made; it’s real, it’s hot,

it’s simple; it began when your mother took

her first trip to their capitol, and begged

some mitigation of the penalties

your father laid on independent speech

when he was young and brash. She got her way

because he was in love, and since that time

the Magyars worship her and you because

they think you’re two of a kind. No doubt you are,

and you could give them the government they want

and they’d follow you through brass. But take it now

or never; a revolution grows like fruit

and you pluck it when it’s ripe or not at all.

It won’t keep on the tree.

Rudolph.   You think it’s ripe?

John.   I know it is.

Rudolph.   What would you have me do?

John.   Talk with Szogyeny.

Rudolph.   And then I’d be committed.

John.   No. Not at all.

Rudolph.   How does your word go, Mary?

Mary.   You shouldn’t ask me.

Rudolph.   Why?

Mary.   I know too little.

John.   It’s pretty plain if you two want to break loose

and live together, this is your chance for it.

They won’t allow it here.

Rudolph.   But you flatter me,

you lads, when you assume that if I ruled

the Magyars they’d be compensated for

a war, a bloody war—yes, and a lost one—

with a loss of liberties, and the fees imposed

by victors on the vanquished. I don’t list

my set of bones and necessary features

among the major risks—but as a fact

I fancy them as they grow, all in one piece,

and I’d fain, fain keep them so.

John.   Then I’m off for Rome

and a boat, and the South Seas! Save your fat neck

and I’ll save mine!

Rudolph.   If your nobility

implies that what you’ve told me will go further

you hardly do me justice. I’ll be silent.

Yes, if the project smelled a little less

of the moon and more of the earth, I might be tempted

to listen further.

Koinoff.   It’s not lunacy,

Your Highness, truly. As a student of tactics

I should say, with the disposition of troops

as it was three days ago, when I left Buda,

there’s little room for doubt that we could snatch

control of Hungary. It just so happens

that three of this pledged band we told you of

are generals—two of them in command

of two main key positions. A sudden movement

made by night and both the capital cities

would be ours, the approaches under our guns,

and all Austria couldn’t budge us.

John.   You will write,

you will talk, you will singe the old man’s beard

with words, but when we need an eagle dropping

like thunder on the Iambs, you perch on your eyrie,

in other words your rump, and gaze at the sun

and make snide comments on the smell of the moon

around our enterprise! You talk to soldiers,

and it’s you that’s moonstruck! Back through recorded time

no prince was ever offered such a kingdom

on such a platter—they had to fight for theirs,

the Alexanders and the rest!

Rudolph.   I’m not

an Alexander. What he stood for slipped

down the black hills in a very bloody sunset

when the first Napoleon died. There are two reasons

why I might wish to rule in Hungary;

let us look at them calmly. First, if the empire

drifts as it’s drifting now, it will smash up

and I’ll be left nothing to rule. Second, if I

were king I might inaugurate reforms

which I’ve worked all my life for, and which might

be in time to stave off ruin. Well, they’re both

fallacious, both these reasons. If I seize

on Hungary, there’ll be a war, and all reform

wiped out for a decade, what advance we’ve planned

toward tolerant government will be ridden down

not only in Austria, but by my orders

in Hungary, and the empire will break up

for the same sweet reasons we have now—dragoons

on every peasant’s back—the forms of law

with absolutism behind them. Add to that

that I, on whom you pin your hopes of freedom

would go the way of all the Habsburgs, lose

my liberal principles one by one, be driven

to give them up to hold a realm together,

and once committed to the adventure, doomed

to be my father over again, I’d catch

at desperate expedients, fill the gaps

in the falling walls with more and more lives of men;

acts of oppression, made to stiffen the line,

would harden into policies, we’d mix

our mortar out of the shambles of the dead

to build new bastions where more men might die

defending me, and my throne! If you’re a soldier

you should know this.

John.   Have you read in history

of any age when men have not been forced

to fight for freedom?

Sceps.   There are times, Your Highness,

when the means are rendered gracious by the end,

though the means be evil. No war lasts forever,

nor would you change so much.

Rudolph.   And that’s fallacy!

A government will end as it begins,

and if it builds on slaughter it will stand

on slaughter till it falls!

Sceps.   But they all begin so!

Rudolph.   And they all end so! But I’ll not begin

with murder that breeds murder to the end,

and whip my conscience into a corner with

“But this was needed for the ultimate good

of my dear subjects.” When this same ultimate good

is but to die in a corner with my conscience

to make me a dull king! For no other purpose,

for nothing would be gained!

John.   Why, then you mean

that men should sit and bleat because the butchers

have sharp knives, like a batch of calves and lambs

in the slaughter-yard! Bleat and then run away

to get their throats slit later!

Rudolph.   It sounds to you

like cowardice, and it may be all thinking

has the effect of making us less apt

to spit at danger. Insofar as he thinks

a man is much more cowardly than a lion,

but he may live longer, may even get his way

more surely. Something a soldier wouldn’t know,

but I offer it.

John.   You have a plan?

Rudolph.   Why only

this—that I know a bad plan when I see it,

and I’d rather wait. There have been instances

of men who stalked the forces of the dark

and caught them napping, men in whom indirection

and a long patience stood them in better stead

than force of arms. I’m not a patient man,

but I’m trying to learn patience.

John.   By God, you’ve learned it!

Rudolph.   Not yet I haven’t—but you give me practice,

with your half cock schemes! I tell you I’ve looked beyond you

and caught a vision of what a man might do

if he were king. And having that vision in me

I’ve set myself to make myself a man

and unlearn kingliness, shed it like the rag

it is, till a king stands up a man, but a man

with power to make men free!

Mary.   May I speak now,

now that I’ve listened, Rudolph?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Mary.   I’ve heard

you talk of danger, all of you, but it seems

you don’t know what the word means. It means dying—

cruelly—dungeons without air.—For Rudolph,

if one least whisper of this goes beyond

the room, who could answer for it, who could guess

how long he’d live? You say we might be happy

in Hungary. It’s not true. The emperor

watches these things, and knows them before they happen,

and hears them in the walls!

[There is a knock at the door.]

Rudolph.   Loschek!

[Loschek enters, crosses to the right, opens the door and steps out for a moment. He returns somewhat shaken.]

Loschek.   Your Highness,

the emperor is here and wishes to see you.

Rudolph.   Very well.

[He dismisses his guests with a gesture.]

Loschek.   And asks, particularly

that your friends remain here with you. For he wishes

to see them also.

Rudolph.   Good. My friends remain.

Will you open the door for the emperor?

[Loschek opens the door, bowing. Franz Joseph enters, dusty and humble. Taafe follows.]

Franz Joseph.   I intrude

at a ghoulish hour, my son. This end of the night’s

for revelling when we’re young. I too kept revel

late, in my day, and understand it—yes,

and grieve to interrupt you. When your years

begin to dwindle like the coins a child

takes in his hand to carnival, you’ll know

why days are precious to me, till I work

long in the night, and break in on your game

with what seems deadly urgent.

Rudolph.   You’re quite welcome,

Your Majesty. And we’re not, as you call it,

revelling. A listener might have guessed

that we were serious.

Franz Joseph.   A symposium!

Well, I can’t add to that. My thinking’s done.

We get that over early, we of the Habsburgs,

I’m afraid, and then we settle down

to take things as they come. They come so fast

there’s little time for thinking.

Rudolph.   Am I in error

or did you ask that these my guests remain

to hear our conference?

Franz Joseph.   It’s no conference!

I merely wished to see you and your guests—

these guests you have. No blenching, gentlemen!

Be easy! I don’t ask you why you’re here

nor what’s been said! God’s love, we talk a lot

back in our twenties when our heads are light

with such a lack of birthdays!

Rudolph.   Do you wish

to make the acquaintance of those present?

Franz Joseph.   No—

I know them. We won’t spend our time in greetings

but say what we came to say. I have in hand

a copy of your missive to the Pope,

sent without consultation. May I ask

the meaning of it?

Rudolph.   I thought the meaning plain.

Franz Joseph.   You wish to marry again?

Rudolph.   I do.

Franz Joseph.   Your friends

have heard of this from you?

Rudolph.   They have.

Franz Joseph.   But I—

I have not. You are aware, of course,

that marriages within the Habsburg line

are subject to imperial control

without exception?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   It should be apparent

that you have made your prayers to the wrong throne.

This is a temporal matter. One in which

I take an interest. One that concerns the state

which I have undertaken, under God,

to lead and guide, while I have strength to do it,

and which I must not suffer to be torn

by minor loves and whims.

Rudolph.   This is no whim,

sir, and no minor love.

Franz Joseph.   I thought it was.

Your pardon. Where has your fancy fallen then,

in its latest phase?

Rudolph.   Outside the conventions, sir.

I’ve chosen the Baroness Vetsera.

[The Emperor bows to Mary.]

Franz Joseph.   Yes.—

And so I had supposed. And I must still

be blunter than I like. It’s known that you’ve

received the lady’s favors in advance

of bell and candle. Or at least your wife

has so informed the cardinal. These things

are winked at. You will tire of her, and she,

I hope, will tire of you. Play out your play.

As for divorce and marriage to her, that

I utterly refuse. A child in arms

should have more foresight.

Rudolph.   If Your Majesty

will fix it in your mind that we are not

quite children here, it may be possible

to find some common ground on which our wills

can meet! I am not sorry for this visit.

For I have wished to tell you for some time

what I have in mind to do.

Franz Joseph.   You’d have been wiser.

Rudolph.   Not only in regard to my divorce,

but in a graver matter. For my wife,

I was too much a child when I allowed

your word to bed me with a well-intentioned

but very dull young princess. Being grown,

and somewhat more, I shall arrange details

of this sort for myself.

Franz Joseph.   Forgive me.—And

as to the graver matter you speak of?

Rudolph.   Why,

this Austria, this kingdom of the east,

the Oestereich, you govern it, you bred

this son of yours, myself, to govern it,

set me to some five hundred tutors, one

behind another, till I’d crammed my skull

with usage and prerogatives and law,

till I was read blind on usages and trash

and like a fool I turned to drink, or women—

the easy women you presented me

to cut my man’s teeth on, and keep me quiet

when I was less than docile. Now I’m sick

of this your training, and I’ve spewed it up,

and it’s not pretty what was stored inside

my carcass. What have I found instilled in me

to make me king—to fit me to be king—?

the morals of a wolf in a court of wolves

and bitches, such a pride in decorations

as might become an ape, no truth, no honor,

no faith in a man’s word or a woman’s, stealth

and craft in brigandage, hyena’s appetites

for flattery that smells, resentment of

all honesty lest it should cut too deep

and show me what I am, the tongue of a bootblack

licking out coins, but underneath a cold

analytical fury, a knowledge that all friends

are dangerous, all men enemies—

Franz Joseph.   But thus—

thus is mankind, at heart.

Rudolph.   This is myself

and you—no other man in the world excepting

those who are trained like you and me to rule

this outpost of disaster, Europe!

Franz Joseph.   Well,

kings do not grow on bushes. They are made

as well as born, like poets. In the process

if they must pass through fire, like steel the blade

is sharper for it. And harder.

Rudolph.   Sharp and hard,

and withered at the entrails, like a headsman

bred up to deal out death, and never flick

an eyelid with his shoes awash in blood

from crying children!

Franz Joseph.   What child have I sent to death?

Rudolph.   Too many!

[A pause.]

Franz Joseph.   May I ask that you state briefly

what meaning you may wish me to attach

to these hot cries from your heart? For you do mean them—

but I have not understood.

Rudolph.   If it were quite plain

to me, I might make it so to you. But I wish

to leave the court, live like a commoner, choose

some obscure village where I’ll touch the earth

from time to time without these damnable footmen

to spread rugs on it, I want no guards round me,

no authority, no rank; I want to sink

my roots outside this hot-house, where I’m kept

at even temperatures and if I joke

all men laugh like madmen. Because I had

a brain one time, but under this contagion

of flattery and power and sycophance

a brain can’t live. I break down cell by cell,

day by day, toward that quick ulcerous growth

men call a king, a tumor on the lives of men,

with no other function than to spread, grow and eat,

rot into the body politic, spraddle out,

a witless fungus, a running sore, an evil

on what men have and are!

Franz Joseph.   And you would take

this lady with you to the obscure village

for contact with the soil?

Rudolph.   I would.

Franz Joseph.   But then—

you would return?

Rudolph.   If ever I were needed

I would return.

Franz Joseph.   Do you not comprehend

that knowledge, skill and use are necessary

in managing a realm? An untried horseman

on an unbroken colt might yet stick on,

but Austria, where we ride wild horses tandem,

Austria would trample down an unpracticed rider

before he was well mounted.

Rudolph.   And is this practice

that I get now?

Franz Joseph.   Count Taafe and I are here

tonight to ask that, from tonight, you take

a place on one of those hard stools that face

his desk, and share our councils. We’re not young,

the Count and I. We need you as apprentice

to take the business over when an old king

says goodnight to an old kingdom.

Rudolph.   Then—

I shall seem most ungrateful, but it’s true

that I would rather never reign at all

than reign as you have reigned.

Franz Joseph.   We need new blood,

a fresh voice, modern ways. What you have to say,

we’ll listen to it.

Rudolph.   My first advice would be

to grant autonomy to Hungary,

open the franchise to all men of age

to vote, rescind restrictions on free speech

and press throughout the empire, wipe out clean

all laws that make political crime, swing open

the gates of political prisons. Sign away

to parliament the power to make and change

all laws, keep for yourself executive

and advisory functions.

Franz Joseph.   You have read too much.

This is an empire, not a democracy.

No king has ever given till he must

what you ask me to toss away.

Rudolph.   Our Habsburg house

has been a cancer on mankind, a fluke

that eats till the host dies! Its power’s cancerous,

destroying what it lives on, yes, and itself,

as it’s destroyed your brain and eats at mine

to make me also what all emperors

have been, blind parasitic poisonous mouths

sucking at arteries. When you came to the throne,

the day you came to power, you signed and sealed

four hundred warrants of execution, death

to four hundred men, your enemies. Since then

you have continued as that day began,

feeding your strength on blood, your tentacles

sinking in deeper, spreading out further, till

no man dare whisper in an empty room

lest you should reach and touch him. And what for?

To build for you an arrogant machine

in middle Europe that will feel its way,

crushing and grinding men, to a larger greed,

more tributary lands, extensions of

degenerating tissue and disease

of which you make the center! This machine

is under way, and moves colossally

inch by inch, and every inch it crawls

it nears a precipice over which we’ll go

and all of Europe with us!

Franz Joseph.   And now indeed

I understand you, though your flux of figures

takes some unravelling. Still my dull old head

asks further enlightenment. How would one rule better

if one ruled better?

Rudolph.   As if the lives of men

were precious things, as if men’s happiness

was precious as your own. Under your hand

men tend toward maggots, with like mouths and brains

as grow in their masters—such cheese-loving souls

that one could curse the high permitting stars

that give them leave to crawl! For your machine

has but one purpose, to iron and discipline

till men and lives are so much mud and death

in a game in which the stakes are mud and death

for enemies and friends!

Franz Joseph.   And under your rule

there would be no national rivalries, no wars,

no enmities?

Rudolph.   Who gains by wars but the kings?

Let the people choose war or peace.

Franz Joseph.   But there’s no choice.

There was a time when plagues and famines kept

the populations down, but in our wisdom

we have dispensed with famines and with plagues,

and nations press against their boundaries

incontinent, spawning more children on both sides,

till they knock the chips from one another’s shoulders

and snatch the food from one another’s mouths

and fight for standing room. Those who fight best

will live, and those who will not fight will die.

Shall we choose to die? Will you choose it when you’re king?

The kaiser of Germany is just your age,

or nearly, William the Second, a crafty boy

but not your equal. What he dreams there in Prussia

is dominating Europe. His machine

is building up like ours. The time will come

when he will set his foot down on your lines

and two great empires, equal in wealth and men,

will lock in one mortal year. Your destiny

is war, not peace, our Rudolph against their William,

our Habsburg against their Hohenzollern. Then

the outcome hangs on who’s the better man,

and there the Habsburgs have it. Not in my time

has any prince in Europe shown a promise,

a quickness, a grace, an aptness in all arts

of war and peace, such as in you, my son,

recalls an ancient glory. It rests with you

whether Austria shall live.

[A pause. There is a clatter of rifle-butts on the floor outside.]

A Voice.  

[Outside]

Halt!

Another Voice.  

[Outside]

You must wait here, madame.

A Third Voice.  

[Outside]

The emperor is here, and you must wait.

Elizabeth.  

[Outside]

The emperor is here—and I must wait?

I am the Empress Elizabeth, if you please,

and I will not wait.

The Third Voice.  

[Outside]

Let her pass.

[Loschek has slipped in from the inner rooms. At a nod from Rudolph he opens the door. Elizabeth enters. The men bow. Rudolph goes to her, bending over her hand.]

Rudolph.   You are welcome, mother.

Elizabeth.   Thank you.

[To Franz Joseph]

I came to bring a word from you to Rudolph,

but you’re here before me.

[Loschek goes within.]

Franz Joseph.   I’ve little more to say,

and I’ll be gone.—When a man’s old as I am,

suddenly all he wagered on his youth,

his dreams, what he tried to do, transfer themselves

to the person of his son. You may not love me;

whether I love you I don’t know, it may

mean much or little, this clutching at the throat

where you’re concerned. But surely what I’ve dreamed

and hoped, and poured my passion and my days

to serve and rescue, these are holy things:

the honor of the Habsburgs’ thousand years,

which now devolves on you, the circle of ground

which we call Austria, held toward east and west

through many bloody, endless, desperate wars

down to this hour. These you must help me keep.

And you must take my word that keeping them

requires you keep your name quite clear and free

of slander, such as would come of this divorce

and contemplated marriage. You must not

impugn your place. You must not leave the court

for mad al fresco venturing. It’s fatal

ten thousand different ways. And so I ask

your word on both these matters.

Rudolph.   You ask my word

that I’ll not leave Vienna, will not divorce

my wife, will not remarry?

Franz Joseph.   Yes.

Rudolph.   It’s easy

to say that for the honor of our race,

and to preserve our fatherland, men’s blood

must be poured down the old dynastic rat-hole

as in the past. I say if that were true

I’d have no interest in the government,

nor in our fatherland, nor the tapestry

of wars and madness our mad ancestors

the Habsburgs wove, and in which their acts and features

are doubtful decorations. What’s the way out,

how men are to save themselves from repetitions

of that same tapestry in still more wars

and blood down the same damned rat-hole, I don’t know;

but I might find out, in some other atmosphere

than this. I shall leave the court. The Baroness

goes with me where I go. And I shall ask,

publicly, for a divorce.

Franz Joseph.   I’m very sorry.

Rudolph.   I’m sorry that we must differ.

Franz Joseph.   I’m very sorry

that to maintain much more than discipline

I must interfere with your wishes. I know this lady

better than you do. She must be shut away.

Oh, in her mother’s house, where she’ll feel at home;

and to put her more at ease, perhaps her jailor

should be the man she’s pledged to marry.

Rudolph.   Sir,

you grow childish.

Franz Joseph.   When we deal with children,

with wilful children, we must sometimes adopt

a childish method. I have known your mother

to glance off at these tangents in her time,

and thank me later for restraints.

Elizabeth.   A woman’s

easily broken. Take care how you anger Rudolph.

You won’t break him so easily.

Franz Joseph.   My dear,

where our treasure is—you’ve read it in Holy Writ.

Rudolph will stay in Vienna.

Rudolph.   From this hour

I do and say and go as I please.

Franz Joseph.   Why then—

it’s as I said. Taafe, the guard was needed,

and you were right after all.

Taafe.   Shall I call them?

Franz Joseph.   Yes.

[Taafe steps to the door and opens it.]

Rudolph.   The royal guard!

Franz Joseph.   I do regret it, Rudolph.

Rudolph.   You will regret it.

Taafe.   Come in. You’re to make an arrest.

[Two or Three Soldiers enter, an Officer following.]

Franz Joseph.   This lady goes with us.

Rudolph.   Your Majesty,

this is opera bouffe! To arrest her in my rooms!

Franz Joseph.   It will not be printed. You may trust our discretion,

Herr Sceps and me. Even the Archduke John

will curb his tongue. You were lately in Buda-Pesth,

were you not, sir?

John.   No, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Good. We’ll say nothing

of that, nor of this either.

[To Mary]

Will you come?

Rudolph.   She’ll stay where she is.

Franz Joseph.   Oh, now I beg of you,

no words, no violence!

[To Mary]

  My guest for the evening

only, and then your mother’s. As I’ve said

I know you better than Rudolph.

Mary.   Yes. I’ll go.

[She looks once at Rudolph, then walks out through the soldiers. The Officer and the soldiers go with her.]

Rudolph.   You count on your gray hair

and greasy words too much! You’ve never seen me

angry—but by your own everlasting God

you may find such a change in me as we’ll

regret—both of us—if you let her walk between soldiers

three steps farther—!

Franz Joseph.   I should think less of you

and the metal in you if you showed no temper

at such a moment. Be angry. It will pass,

and you’ll think better of it. There are matters

much more important than the boiling-point

of turbulent princes. You spat out your defiance

lightly, across my face. No man, since I

was crowned, has spoken so to me, nor will

and go unpunished.

Rudolph.   But I have, and will,

and will again! What do you gain by this?

Franz Joseph.   Time—and your presence

here in Vienna—on which we set a value.

But mainly time—the only cure I know

for adolescent ills. I wish you well.

I’m cruel to be kind. But when to be kind

I must be cruel, I use no half-measures.

Reflect on that. And when you’re cooler try

if there’s a way to my clemency.

[He bows and goes out with Count Taafe.]

Rudolph.   This is the ultimate in degradation—

to come here ready with a squad of soldiers

and take her like a criminal! It’s second childhood,

and empty posturing.

Elizabeth.   It wasn’t empty

once when a squad of soldiers visited

my lodging in Madiera. Oh, it’s known

that I was then a rebel, rebel enough

to fall very much in love. The man was Imry.

We thought we’d kept it secret, but this rank

of guardsmen came—in their comic opera fashion—

without warrant or warning, and what was done with him

I never knew. Perhaps the Baroness

will not be seen again.

Rudolph.   But that’s not possible!

Elizabeth.   It’s happened. Oh, to make a hole in the earth

and lay an unwanted body in it, that’s

quite possible. What we call civilization

is built on dead men’s silence.

Rudolph.   What can be done?

Elizabeth.   Nothing. He has his way.

Rudolph.   But not with me!

Elizabeth.   I hope not.

John.   Now will you take this Hungary

we offer you, and pay him back in his coin,

or will you sit here still in your fine detachment,

contemplating destiny?

Rudolph.   What in God’s name

do I want with Hungary?

John.   Make her queen of it,

make yourself king. Look, Rudolph, if you strike

before he’s warned we’ll have the Baltazzi palace

and Mary out of it and be off across

the border, to a new kingdom, while he’s still

awaiting your apology!

Rudolph.   We have

no arms, no plans, no men—

John.   I’ll find you fifty

within six hours!

Elizabeth.   And now I could almost hope.

Rudolph.   For what?

Elizabeth.   That he’ll be broken.

Sceps.   He has information.

He knew we’d been in Buda.

Elizabeth.   He has little.

He sent me here with a bit of cold advice

for Rudolph’s ear, that some of his hot-head friends

might find their heads in danger.

Sceps.   That’s enough.

Elizabeth.   No, no! It only means he plays for time

and isn’t ready for you.

Rudolph.   It’s a madman’s scheme,

incredible as a nightmare. No sane man

would believe it might be tried, or might succeed,

unless doors open of themselves and walls

come down on hinges. Yet it may be they do

after this nightmare we’ve lived through, his guards

set in the halls, and an emperor at large

with paranoia. Find your fifty men,

and we’ll raid the Baltazzi palace.

John.   There’s fire in the man!

Rudolph.   Do you think I’m tame?

Sceps.   I’ll drop out. I’ve given

too many hostages.

John.   Save yourself and your paper.

You say we’ll raid the palace—and after that

what happens?

Rudolph.   What else could happen—then we’ll try

for Hungary.

[John takes Rudolph’s hand.]

John.   Koinoff, come in. Your hand on this.

Koinoff.   Oh, count on me.

John.   The devil drink his eyes

that breaks this pact.

Sceps.   Put me in too. Good God,

we die sometime.

John.   That’s better. That makes our circle.

Rudolph.   And now I set my hand to it I’ll go

as far as your best madmen. If he wants war

he shall have war. Mother, you’re one of us.

[Elizabeth steps toward the circle of men and then pauses.]

Elizabeth.   I wish I might. But my heart’s in your enterprise

too far to touch it with my hand. The lips

and hands I’ve aided in rebellion, they’re

all cold. There’s an old fatality in me

that I outlive all those with whom I league

against him. Make your compact, you who are young

and may be lucky. I am a wraith of things

long dead and buried. I must not burden you

with griefs past sounding.

[She turns to go.]

CURTAIN

THE MASQUE OF KINGS

ACT TWO

ACT  II

Scene 1

The Countess.   My dear, it would hardly do if you were to be found sitting when the Emperor entered, would it, now?

The Girl.   No, madam.

[She rises.]

The Countess.   On the other hand, the Countess Larisch, for ineffable reasons, may be found seated, even by royalty, on condition that she rises immediately to meet such an august occasion.

[She sits.]

The Girl.   Yes, madam.

The Countess.   Pardon me these hornbook lessons in deportment, but as you rise higher in the state you will find them more and more to your advantage, perhaps even obligatory. You have not been summoned previously to this Holy of Holies?

[The Girl is silent.]

There—the fault was mine—you must not violate a confidence.—And yet, I know your business here very well, since it’s the same as my own, perfidious wretch that I am. I sell information for pin money, my husband being sometimes a little to the windward of lavish, and you do the same for bread and butter—therefore your secret’s safe with me and mine with you.

The Girl.   I have no secret, madam.

The Countess.   Excellent! And so dewily, so fragrantly, so honestly said! And so we wait here cheek by jowl, petticoat to petticoat, the above-stairs smothering its knowledge in words, the below-stairs in silence—but still in perfect understanding, countess and parlor-maid, for next to death there is no leveller of classes like espionage.—But what levels us is that we find it a rather despicable business, and despise ourselves and each other in our hearts.

The Girl.   Despise ourselves?

The Countess.   Don’t you?

The Girl.   No.

The Countess.   No? Come, come, my dear, there are a half-dozen of us waiting to clear up some minor doubt that balks the imperial will in respect to Rudolph. A very nasty occupation; and we take money for it.

The Girl.   I hate him.

The Countess.  

[Rising]

Truly? But then you have a reason. No doubt he has given reasons, though none to me. No, my interest is purely mercenary, and I sink below you in my estimation. Occupy the chair, my dear, and I shall stand.

The Girl.   Thank you, madam.

[She remains standing.]

The Countess.   Strange, strange, how a woman will love a man for robbing her of youth and filling her with innumerable children, while she will hate him forever if he gives her back to herself with her good looks intact and only a memory of pleasure to remind her of him! There, there—I meant nothing by it. My remarks, as usual, are for the ambient air, and by no stretch treasonous.

[The inner door opens, and Count Taafe enters.]

Taafe.   You will oblige me by waiting in the anteroom for a moment, Countess Larisch. I have a word to say to this young woman.

The Countess.   Surely, Taafe, surely. Ah, my child, you will go far. You already take precedence.

[She goes out right.]

Taafe.   What was she saying to you?

The Girl.   Only, sir, that she knew my business very well, because it was the same as her own.

Taafe.   Very true, and quite democratic of her, though indiscreet. However, she’s a mistress of indiscretion, and makes it serve her ends. Whatever you do don’t attempt to emulate her in that direction.

The Girl.   No, sir.

Taafe.   So far, and so far as I know, you’ve been close-mouthed under strong temptation. Remain so, and we shall continue to be pleased.

The Girl.   Yes, sir.

Taafe.   Your instructions this evening are very simple. There is, or is likely to be, somewhere in the Prince Rudolph’s apartments, a list of Hungarian officers and noblemen. If you can lay your hand on it, copy what you can without risk, or memorize as much of it as you have time for. The list may not be there at all, as I say. Someone else may have it, or he may carry it upon his person. But we need it quickly and desperately, and you may happen on it if you try.

The Girl.   Yes, sir.

Taafe.   That’s all.

The Girl.   Thank you, sir.

[She goes out. A Little Man in a Cap enters.]

Taafe.   I suppose you know, Rauscher, that the Crown Prince was in his apartments last night while you were amusing yourself at the Tzigan dancer’s?

Rauscher.   I followed his domino, sir, and it was a man of just his build. What’s more, he must have been imitating the prince’s walk. You’d have sworn to it yourself.

Taafe.   I hope you know who it was?

Rauscher.   I know now. It was Bratfisch, the coachman.

Taafe.   As it happens it doesn’t matter this time, because we had other information. But for the future, you have your instructions. Don’t be misled again.

Rauscher.   No, sir.

Taafe.   That’s all.

[Rauscher bows and goes out. The Countess reenters.]

The Countess.   Your most humble servant.

Taafe.   My dear countess, your extremely agile and provocative tongue may sometime dig you a bear-pit so deep and wide that God and man will not be able to extricate you from it.

The Countess.   Ah, luckless that I am, what have I said now?

Taafe.   You’ll find it just as well to avoid communication with others of our—shall I say our under-cover staff? As you must be aware, ideas are poisonous to the unsophisticated mind, and you are unfortunately not devoid of certain helter-skelter philosophic concepts—

The Countess.   Oh, you do me too much honor!

Taafe.   Concepts of a corrupting character which pervade your very charming conversation, and which do you no harm, but might well pervert a simple faith or taint an untutored devotion.

The Countess.   I love that.

Taafe.   Curb yourself, my dear countess. No further remarks of any kind to the little serving-maid. It may not have occurred to you, but there are only two ways out of the ranks you entered when you consented to employ yourself on our little missions. One of them is an honorable discharge after years of undeviating and scrupulous fidelity. The other we shall not speak of, but it would entail the loss of many things which at present make life endurable to you—first and least among them your freedom to go and come.

The Countess.   And I may not resign?

Taafe.   There is no third alternative. And let me say that the mere suspicion that you wish to resign is enough to place you in a most precarious position.

The Countess.   I have no wish to do so. I merely asked.

Taafe.   Good.—The rest is business. You have seen the Baroness Vetsera?

The Countess.   Yes.

Taafe.   She is still rather disconsolate, no doubt?

The Countess.   I should guess so, though you will agree that she has her reasons for being fairly monosyllabic toward me—knowing me as she does.

Taafe.   There is no possible manner in which she might correspond with Rudolph?

The Countess.   There’s but one door to her room, dear count. It’s locked, and the Duke of Braganza keeps the key. No servants are allowed to enter, her mother being thoroughly on your side in this business.

Taafe.   The Duke, I hope, is a jealous man?

The Countess.   Jealous, tyrannical and exacting. He will make her an excellent husband. He is, for the moment, an excellent jailor.

Taafe.   It was he who admitted you to see her?

The Countess.   At your request, yes.

Taafe.   It would be annoying if she hanged herself, or threw herself from the window.

The Countess.   Oh, but she’s young, passionate and full of hope. She will be quite as passionate in another direction once she’s married to the Duke.

Taafe.   These women are cynical about each other.

The Countess.   We have reason to be.

[Franz Joseph enters from the left. Taafe turns to him deferentially, the Countess bows.]

Franz Joseph.   Have you heard from Koinoff?

Taafe.   No, Your Majesty. I’ve expected him since three o’clock.

Franz Joseph.   Will you ask the countess whether she knows of any faint suspicion that Captain Koinoff may be less than wholehearted in our cause?

Taafe.   You know, my dear countess, that Koinoff has been entrusted with a delicate commission in connection with Rudolph. He has appeared admirably diligent and we had a report from him this morning, but now, just when we stand in dire need of further information, he has failed an appointment to meet us, and is all of six or seven hours behind-hand—with no word from him.

The Countess.   Oh, but he may be entangled in such a fashion that it would give his hand away to leave—

Taafe.   True, but for seven hours, and when we depend on him utterly.—How much did you know of him when he was first recommended to us?

The Countess.   Only that he was clever, needed money, and looked honest.

Taafe.   But now we find that he was employed in Berlin under Prince Bismarck before coming to Vienna—in some quasi-secretarial capacity. He left Berlin under a fairly noxious cloud. In fact, it’s probable that he’s had a startlingly wide experience in double-tonguing and quick exits. That his schooling was with the Jesuits has not added to our confidence.

The Countess.   I had no notion of all this.

Taafe.   When it’s added that the Vetsera girl was also your recommendation you will comprehend why we grow slightly uneasy about the character of your friends.

The Countess.   But that—nobody could foresee. She fell in love.

[There is a knock at the door, and a Servant enters.]

The Servant. Captain Koinoff is here, Count Taafe.

Taafe.   Ah, that alters matters. Send him in at once.

[The Servant goes out.]

We excuse the countess, thoroughly re-instated in our good opinion.

The Countess.   Exonerated by accident, Your Majesty—in the casual manner of this world we live in.

Franz Joseph.   My dear, the appalling amount of accident in the best-governed dominions is hardly flattering to a king.

[The Countess bows and goes out.]

And yet we must get rid of this woman. Her tongue is like an open razor in the hands of a child.

[Koinoff enters and bows.]

Koinoff.   Your Majesty—Count Taafe—

Taafe.   You are late, sir.

Koinoff.   Indeed I am, and I’ve been bleeding inwardly over it ever since the clock went past the hour.

Taafe.   You have the list?

Koinoff.   No. I expect to get it this evening.

Taafe.   But you have gathered the most important names?

Koinoff.   Only Szogyeny.

Taafe.   Come, come, Captain Koinoff, you have Rudolph’s entire confidence, you are acting as military advisor to the leaders, there is an all-important list of rebelling Hungarians on the table before you, and you fail to memorize one additional name.

Koinoff.   But the list has not been displayed, it has not been discussed in my presence, and I can’t ask for it, as you must realize.

Taafe.   You could angle for it, and if you were adroit you would have got it long ago. In your capacity of tactical expert you can express doubt of their strength in the west—they will answer by identifying their allies in that region. You can demand specific information as to their support from ranking officers in Buda-Pesth—they will reply by enumerating certain members of the clique—

Koinoff.   They have given that information in a general way. But there seems to be a tacit understanding among them that their confederates are to remain anonymous till they’re ready to strike—

Taafe.   And when will that be?

Koinoff.  

[Smiling]

We plan to rescue the Baroness Vetsera from the Baltazzi palace and leave for Hungary tonight.

Taafe.   A sufficiently hair-brained project.

Koinoff.   And easily prevented.

Franz Joseph.   But it must be apparent to you, Captain Koinoff, that before we move openly to prevent it we must have in our hands the names of my sworn enemies in Hungary. Otherwise I may never know them. And until I know them I can take no steps to forestall a much more serious thing, a major and well-planned revolution in Hungary, with or without Rudolph.

Koinoff.   Yes, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Then I shall expect you here with at least a portion of that list before midnight. If we have some of them we can get the rest. No doubt your heroic little band is even now in a fever of preparation?

Koinoff.   Yes, it is, Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Then go and we shall wait for you.

[Koinoff bows and goes out.]

Taafe.   The movement of troops into Hungary has been taken care of. Several trains left at seven this evening and others will follow during the night. I was obliged to entrain the Seventh Corps, because no other could be got ready on short notice. It leaves Vienna almost entirely unprotected, but I felt that the emergency required it, and we run no risk here.

Franz Joseph.   It may be all these things come home to roost,

sometime, what we’ve been and done. I see them camp

round us tonight. There’s a shadow of black wings

between me and the candles. Well, my ways

have not been pretty always.

Taafe.   That’s the voice

of a man who needs his sleep.

Franz Joseph.   I could use some sleep

if I could sleep. But that’s not what it is.

It’s that this ruling as I’ve ruled is like

a child’s sand castle by the sea. It stands

with flags and soldiers till the sea licks at it

gently, a little at a time, and then

in one great wash it’s gone. Perhaps the tide

is due now. We’ve both seen it on the flats

in Hungary, and it’s not turned yet.

Taafe.   My king,

this is a morbid strain, and baseless. There’s

no danger in these youngsters.

Franz Joseph.   It’s their world,

and we’re old men, hanging on by our last half-hours,

alive by a legal fiction. There’s something forgotten,

something we’ve overlooked that makes it fatal,

and I don’t know what it is.

CURTAIN

ACT  II

Scene 2

Rudolph.  

[Reading a note]

“She will escape. Wait for her.” And you found this on your desk?

Sceps.   With no envelope, just the sheet

of plain note paper.

Rudolph.   Every move one makes

recorded and transmitted under ground

as if by seismograph. But it’s from a friend.

It may come from her. We’ll wait till midnight—

no longer.

Sceps.   Shall I draw the proclamation?

Rudolph.   It was Napoleon Bonaparte, the runt,

who first worked out the formula still used

for consolidating conquest. Caesar, before him,

cut him a crop of kings, and then went on,

more or less bored to discover that new kings

sprang up behind him. But the young scrub Napoleon,

with a heart like that of a cheap Swiss watch, and the brain

of a coffin salesman, set out to sell his wares

by getting one foot indoors, and then proclaiming

his stuff was free, guaranteed, and a hundred years

to pay. He tried it first in Italy,

offering liberty, also fraternity,

equality gratis, and all they had to do

was let him buckle their shoulders into a collar

and the world was theirs. Our aim is not the same,

but the formula’s still good. Our first six words

in Hungary tomorrow must be these:

We come to set you free.

Sceps.   But is this model

apt for your purpose, Highness?

Rudolph.   If it works

when it’s but a trick, it should be more effective

when we mean to carry it out. We must weld the nation

in one day, in one hour. Is policy

the peculiar possession of thieves?

Sceps.   It’s so considered.

But it may be superstition. I’ll try a draft

and show it to you.

Rudolph.   Make it brief and simple.

Brief as a boy’s prayer, simple as its answer.

Sceps.   I’ll try it.

Rudolph.   Yet at the very best, not all

will follow us. There are men in Hungary

who have no interest in our freedom. Some

who’d rather die than see their revenues

reduced three groschen. Some of them will die,

no doubt.

Sceps.   My lord, I hope—

Rudolph.   I know your hope.

You hope this revolution won’t come down

to what the history of revolutions

predicts too clearly: a struggle for what’s there

on the part of those who want it. That’s my hope, too.

And yet I fear that certain men must die

if we’re to win. And we must win.

[Loschek enters.]

Loschek.   Your Highness.

Rudolph.   Yes.

Loschek.   The Archduke is here with Count Joseph Hoyos.

Rudolph.   Cover these papers. We’ll see him at once.

[Loschek goes out. Sceps lays a newspaper over the confusion of maps. John of Tuscany comes in with Count Hoyos.]

John.   I beg your pardon, Rudolph, a visitor,

if you have a moment’s time.

Rudolph.  

[Giving his hand to Hoyos.]

I’m glad to see you,

never more so.

Hoyos.   God and the Archduke John

know why I’m here. We had some talk in a corner,

and he told me you were up. That is, the Archduke;

so far God’s said nothing.

Rudolph.   Don’t wait for him.

He hasn’t spoken since Moses.

Hoyos.   Well, my lord,

I don’t know what’s in the wind. John spoke in riddles,

very darkly, of some black inner ring

fed up with tyranny.

Rudolph.   No doubt there are

such groups. I’m not acquainted with them.

John.   Oh,

but Hoyos made an answer.

Rudolph.   Yes?

Hoyos.   I said

that my digestion was somewhat impaired

by the same diet. So we chatted on

still quite obscurely, led from one thing to another,

till I found myself led here.

Rudolph.   This Salvator

will swear to a good deal more than he’ll live up to,

and nobody minds. He’s not serious.

Hoyos.   I see.

We’ll wipe it out. Let’s talk about the hunting.

I shall try Mayerling this year.

John.   Good God,

I took my soundings! You can back my word

Count Hoyos is as safe a man to talk with

as any of us!

Rudolph.   Keep your head, my cousin.

The count is trusted by the emperor

for excellent reasons. Likewise he commands

the imperial troops in Vienna. I know him loyal

as I am. If you’re meditating treason

try somewhere else.

Hoyos.   This is the truth, Prince Rudolph;

there’s been but little said, but it’s enough

so that if I were colored all the way through

like this imperial uniform, I’d buzz

a bee in the emperor’s ear, but as it is

my insides are my own when I take my clothes off

and probably much like yours. Whether I’m with you

or not, no man shall hear of you from me,

either now or later. We’re mutually aware

of a singular danger in frankness. Drop pretence,

and I’ll drop it too.

Rudolph.   I’ve known you a long time.

I’ll take your word for bond on any subject.

This is a graver matter than you think,

not to be entered lightly.

Hoyos.   I’m grave enough.

And I have my grievances, Rudolph.

Rudolph.   And could you

afford to lose royal favor?

Hoyos.   I have lost it. I’m to lose my command.

I might get it back again, from you.

Rudolph.   Our plans

don’t touch Vienna.

Hoyos.   Aye—aye, Buda-Pesth.

Yes, I’d be useless there. That leaves me out.

Rudolph.   I thought it would.

Hoyos.   But you have my good wishes, boy.

Go on and take it from him, if you can.

Only why not make a real revolution of it,

go after all or nothing?

Rudolph.   We’re not ready.

Hungary’s organized. And add to that,

I want no more than comes to me of itself:

I make no bid for Austria.

Hoyos.   That’s a pity,

because you could certainly have it.

Rudolph.   You think so, Hoyos?

Hoyos.   Hell, I could almost give it to you myself!

Your father has no friends he doesn’t pay for,

and there are installments overdue among

some folk I know.

[Loschek enters.]

Loschek.   Your Highness was expecting the Baroness Vetsera?

Rudolph.   Can she be here?

Loschek.   She is here, sir.

Rudolph.   Then at once—

Loschek.   Yes, Highness.

[He goes out. Mary enters.]

Rudolph.   Mary—

Mary.   Don’t touch me—don’t touch me till I’ve told you—is

Koinoff here?

Rudolph.   Not yet.

Mary.   Then when he comes

put a knife in him! He’s in the Emperor’s pay,

and has been all along!

Rudolph.   Koinoff?

John.   Oh, no.

We went to Koinoff first. We picked him out

because he was our kind.

Mary.   But I know! I know!

It wasn’t easy to come and tell you this;

don’t question it, and don’t wait! Whatever’s said

to him goes straight to the Emperor!

Rudolph.   How have you learned this?

Mary.   From the Countess Larisch. She told me to get you word

of that, and remind you that she’d promised once

to be your friend. I couldn’t send, so I came.

Oh, I know it’s true.

Sceps.   That blocks our expedition

before it starts.

John.   She may have lied to you.

She’s not to be trusted on either side.

Mary.   Oh, yes,

in this—she is.

Rudolph.   We heard that you were guarded.

Have they let you go?

Mary.   I found my way round that.

The Duke of Braganza thinks he can trust me now.

He’s been somewhat misled.—You need never touch me,

never, because I can feel his kisses on me,

his fat-toad kisses, till I’ll never be clean,

never; Oh, all I’ll ask of you is haste,

lest you be too late, for he was here, this Koinoff,

and heard the plans!

[Rudolph goes to Mary. She steps back.]

  Oh, Rudi, Rudi, it’s ended,

you and me, too!

Rudolph.   I think not, not you and me,

see, thus we wipe it out, whatever it was.

[He kisses her.]

I’ll take you, and let the world go. I’ll maybe have to,

for this news of yours, it brings our balloon to earth,

so much rag. It may even mean my days

as prince of the blood are over. Gentlemen,

we’re warned in time so that if we’re quick about it

and clever we may save the firing-squads

unnecessary labor.

John.   I doubt the story,

the Koinoff story.

Hoyos.   I think the lady’s right.

Why were they shipping troops to Hungary

this evening?

John.   Were they?

Hoyos.   Yes, train-loads of them.

Nobody knew why.

[A pause.]

Rudolph.   If you wish to leave, Count Hoyos,

we’re not very healthy company.

Hoyos.   No, you’re not.

[He rises.]

If that snake Koinoff crawls in while I’m here

I’m damned with the rest of you.

[He starts out.]

  In case you find

two or three dozen horses would come handy

for any purpose, there’s a cavalry stable

near the Mall. The doors will be unlocked

and no guard set.

Rudolph.   Thanks, Hoyos. We may use

some of your nags.—If any of you should wish

to leave at once, they’ll watch the west roads, so—

we’d best go south for the winter. For myself,

I have an account to settle. I shall wait

a few moments more.

[Hoyos turns away.]

John.   So shall I.

[Koinoff enters through the shadow.]

Koinoff.   I give you greeting,

gentlemen.

Hoyos.   Koinoff?

Koinoff.   Yes, general. It’s Count Hoyos, is it not?

Hoyos.   Right, right.

Koinoff.   I’m unannounced, your Loschek

waved me in, as expected.

[Hoyos returns.]

Rudolph.   Come, sit down,

we need you, Captain. There’s a road here, look,

nobody seems to know.

[He bends over a map.]

Koinoff.   I was not aware

Count Hoyos was one of us.

Hoyos.   You sometimes find

a red-wing among blackbirds.

Koinoff.   All the better.

Why, this road, we talked of it yesterday.

The Baroness Vetsera!

Mary.   Yes.

Koinoff.   Good Lord,

that simplifies our problem.

Rudolph.   We pick things up

as we go along.

Koinoff.   Yes, sir.—There was a question

about this road?

Rudolph.   It shows on this one map

but not on the other three. Are you sure it’s there—

for we’ll need it?

Koinoff.   It’s a military road,

built two years ago, and never used

for commercial traffic. But it’s there.

Rudolph.   You have

these things at your finger tips.

Koinoff.   I’ve studied them.

Rudolph.   Hungary, too—you know it

as well as Austria.

Koinoff.   Yes, sir.

Rudolph.   We were speaking of you

before you came, Captain Koinoff. There’s no man

among us but yourself who knows this maze

of forts and arsenals and guns. Count Hoyos

is out of it. He’s studied Austria

but not the west. The rest of us grew up

with politics and statecraft. We shall want

a general we can trust, one of ourselves,

to lead the Hungarian armies. Would you accept

the commission from me?

Koinoff.   Your Highness, it’s beyond

my hope or my desert.

Rudolph.   But would you take it?

Koinoff.   I’m inexperienced in handling men—

except by companies.

Rudolph.   But you know tactics

and strategy, you’re acquainted with the field,

at least the Hungarian border?

Koinoff.   Yes.

Rudolph.   Would this

make up to you for the small weekly stipend

you draw from the emperor?

Koinoff.   From the emperor? I?

Rudolph.   You. From the emperor.

Koinoff.   Surely, Prince Rudolph,

you know me better. Tell me who’s whispered this

and I’ll refute it.

Rudolph.   It wasn’t whispered, captain.

It’s known. But we’re inclined to say no more

about it, since we need you, and your heart’s

on our side more than his. An old arrangement,

made with Count Taafe for your laundry bills,

it happens with lieutenants. They make out

perfunctory reports for a week or two,

then let it drop. If that was true of you

what of it? It’s gone now.

Koinoff.   It was never true.

Tell me who’s said it!

Rudolph.   It will be evident,

if you reflect, that though we want and need you,

we shall regard you with less confidence

if you’re not open with us. I know quite well

it’s a usual slip with these cadets. I’ve seen

their schoolboy writings. Come, man, make confession

and get your absolution.

Koinoff.   It was years ago.

I’d almost forgotten it.

Rudolph.   That’s more like a man.

Then it was true?

Koinoff.   Yes.

Rudolph.   But you’ve broken it off?

You make no more reports?

Koinoff.   It was as you said,

Your Highness, a schoolboy business. I’m heartily sorry

that it should trouble you now.

Rudolph.   Can you explain

why troop-trains were departing from Vienna

for Hungary this evening?

Koinoff.   No, I can’t.

I didn’t know it.

Rudolph.   Then I’ll tell you why.

Because a hybrid snake named Koinoff truckles

from one suite to another in this palace

conveying news! Stand away from him! We shall end

this custom of wearing swords among ophidians,

at least by one! I’m good with my rapier,

even by candle-light! Try how you are!

Quick, for we’re short of time!

Koinoff.   I won’t fight with you!

John.   I’ll cut your throat, you hound!

Rudolph.   Let me deal with him!—

I have a strain of cruelty in me,

and it comes out when I look at vipers. Yes,

and on you I’ll turn it loose. Sit on that chair!

And now you’re there let me assure you, sir,

you’ll never rise from it.

Mary.   Rudi!

Rudolph.   Let me alone

till I’ve disemboweled the rat!

Koinoff.   I’m innocent!

I’m not to blame!

Hoyos.   There’s often a use for rats,

Rudolph. Don’t waste him.

Rudolph.   What experiment

would you suggest?

Hoyos.   Ask him what regiments

were left here to guard Vienna.

Koinoff.   I can tell you!

Whatever you want to know!

Rudolph.   Our adventure’s done!

We have no further use for information

concerning guards and troops.

Hoyos.   Our choice lies now

between a very chancy dash for the border

and the capture of Vienna. The latter sounds

more likely to succeed.

Koinoff.   As God’s my judge,

there are three regiments left here, and Count Hoyos

commands them!

[He points at Hoyos.]

Rudolph.   Hoyos?

Hoyos.   It’s past all doubt I do

command three regiments. If that’s what’s left,

and it may be, it’s your city, and your kingdom.

I make you a present of it.

John.   Take it then.

You seem to have some question in your mind.

Boy, it’s better than hanging.

Rudolph.   Perhaps it is.

John.   Perhaps! Perhaps! Man, the great wheel goes round—

and we go up, and the emperor goes down!

Seventeen’s our number, and it shows!

Quick, man, quick like a rat, rake in your fortune

before it changes!

Sceps.   We have luck at last!

Rudolph.   I’m sorry they pulled me off. My fingernails

are white to the bone with an itch for murder! I’d give

a kingdom or two to have the carving of you

when I remember how you came and went

and smiled in our faces! Where was the emperor

when you last saw him?

Koinoff.   Waiting in his study.

Rudolph.   For what?

Koinoff.   I’d promised him a list of names,

the Hungarian nobles.

Rudolph.   Must I still let him live?

Hoyos.   These rats are useful. In a war, my God,

there’s nothing like them!

Rudolph.   Then stand up, and put

your wrists behind you. Tie them together, someone.

If I should touch him he might come apart

in my hands, and lose what usefulness a rat

may have.—And so he’s waiting for a list

of our Hungarian friends. We’ll take it to him.

He can eat it for supper.

Hoyos.   One word first! How far

do we go in this? It’s safer yet to run

if we’re not set to smash the whole way through

and come out on the other side!

Rudolph.   What side?

Hoyos.   Beyond

the emperor’s power to touch us! If you leave

one shred of kingship to him, or influence,

he’ll build it up so craftily, we’ll all

make mincemeat for him!

Rudolph.   We shall leave him nothing!

The man has one strength only, and that’s to weave

his webs around you till he binds you down

with one strand after another. Let him weave!

Tonight we pitch his checkerboard in the moat

and all the pieces with it! The game’s over

and we start a new one!—Pull it up till it cuts—

we want no slipping!—Step on ahead. Yes, you,

you with your arms tied.—

[Koinoff goes toward the hall.]

CURTAIN

ACT  II

Scene 3

Franz Joseph.   Mate, then.

Taafe.   What will you play?

Franz Joseph.   Pawn takes knight, sir.

Taafe.   I hadn’t seen it. I thought you beaten.

Franz Joseph.   I was.

Then suddenly it unfolded. The ancient brain’s

not quite dead for sleep. We’ll give our Rudolph

a run for it yet.

Taafe.   It’s midnight, and no news.

What shall we do?

Franz Joseph.   Wait.

[The Servant enters.]

The Servant.   Captain Koinoff’s here,

Your Majesty.

Franz Joseph.   Send him in.

[The Servant goes out.]

Taafe.   I don’t trust Koinoff.

He fancies himself.

[Koinoff enters, his hands behind him. Taafe leaps up.]

  Your hands, sir! Why are your hands

behind you?

[Koinoff shrugs.]

Koinoff.   They’re tied there.

Taafe.   Tied?

Koinoff.   Why, look for yourself.

I don’t care for the fashion. If you’ll undo them

I’ll wear them somewhere else.

[Taafe looks out through the curtains.]

Taafe.   You’re alone?

Koinoff.   Not quite.

Prince Rudolph’s on his way. I’m sent ahead

as avaunt courier.

Franz Joseph.   Sir, explain yourself.

Has Rudolph sent you to ask audience?

Koinoff.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   Then why are your wrists bound?

Koinoff.   Sir, he did it,

or it was done at his order.

Franz Joseph.   Unlace his hands.

You will return to Rudolph and say from me

his audience is granted. You seem to have bungled

your business badly.

Koinoff.   They knew before I came,

and were ready for me.

Franz Joseph.   They knew?

Koinoff.   No doubt of it.

Also there’s little use in sending back

because he’s coming. And will enter when he likes.

And bring whom he pleases.

Taafe.   There’s a guard in the hall.

Koinoff.   It’s gone.

Franz Joseph.  

[Roaring]

The guard?

Koinoff.   Your Majesty, it’s gone.

Franz Joseph.   See what he means.

[Taafe steps out.]

Koinoff.   Your Majesty, I’ll offend,

whatever I do, but somehow between the time

I left them and returned, they’d learned about me,

yet what they sent me here to say I cannot

and dare not say.

Franz Joseph.   Deliver your message, sir.

Koinoff.   I dare not, truly. In this room, where you

are most a king, I dare not.

Franz Joseph.   It’s from Rudolph?

Koinoff.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   He makes demands?

Koinoff.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   Are you more afraid

of Rudolph than of me? For if you’re not

why do you mention it at all? The lad

has frightened you!

[Taafe returns.]

Taafe.   Your Majesty, Prince Rudolph,

accompanied by some two or three, is here

asking admittance.

Franz Joseph.   And the guard?

Taafe.   The guard

may have been changing. But it’s set as usual.

I know the men.

Franz Joseph.   The captain exaggerates.

Who’s with Rudolph?

Taafe.   Herr Sceps, the Archduke John,

and Mary Vetsera.

Franz Joseph.   Vetsera? The boys are quick!

They’ve been bird’s nesting!

Taafe.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   I’ll see Prince Rudolph.

Not the others.

[Rudolph enters.]

Rudolph.   You were not so delicate

when you led an expedition into my rooms

and over-ran us with soldiery.

Franz Joseph.   Come in.

You meant it as an affront, the officer

you sent me pinioned?

Rudolph.   A minimum return

for many similar favors. He’s your man;

you may have him back. He’s of the stuff you like

in councillors and statesmen—two parts crawling

and three parts venom.

Franz Joseph.   Still, without him, sir,

I should have fared but badly. You’d have got

just half my empire. That, if I may presume,

should be your first lesson in government. When you’re

crowned king, leave scruples at the chancel door

with the holy water. If you keep them by you

they’ll trip you up.

Rudolph.   I’m not here for instruction.

Moreover the demands I made before

are altered now.

Franz Joseph.   Suppose we speak in private.

[Taafe and Koinoff go out.]

Looking out over the conflicts of the world

I have observed that winners make demands,

losers take what they get. You’ve made a play

for Hungary, and lost. You have in tow

the little Vetsera, and no doubt for you

that constitutes victory. But you may keep her

only at my pleasure. You have little reason

to raise your voice, more than a cockerel has

for his first mezzo crowing.

Rudolph.   If you look

from the outer window, you’ll see men ranked four deep

around the palace. No one goes out or in

without permission.

[Franz Joseph pauses, then goes to the window.]

Franz Joseph.   Quite unusual. Tell me,

is there some celebration?

Rudolph.   These are our men.

Franz Joseph.   You have no force in Vienna.

Rudolph.   Try to leave.

Order your carriage. Call a servant. Ring.

You’ll get no answer.

Franz Joseph.   Count Taafe!

[John of Tuscany comes to the door.]

John.   Count Taafe is my prisoner, Your Majesty,

but if you wish him—

[Taafe enters.]

Franz Joseph.   Then whose prisoner am I?

Rudolph.   Shall we avoid the word? My terms are simple.

Shall I state them to you?

Franz Joseph.   You run great jeopardy

for a trollop and a farm!

Rudolph.   I’m not a novice

in such scurrility. I could pass it back,

but it hardly becomes us.

Franz Joseph.   You have scooped up brigands

among the socialist witlings—such as read

Herr Sceps, his garbage, and your own—but wait.

Wait till this slight disorder is perceived

by authorities in the city. Hold the Hofburg

against regulars if you can.

Rudolph.   Do you recall

what general commands in Vienna?

Franz Joseph.   More than one.

Rudolph.   There’s been a thundering exodus tonight

toward Buda-Pesth. Can you have been so blind,

with all your policy, as to lock the stable

and leave the house doors open? It’s Count Hoyos

commands Vienna. You’ve offended him

in some major way.

Franz Joseph.   Where is Count Hoyos?

Rudolph.   Here.

But he’s been busy. It was he gave orders

to isolate the palace.

Taafe.   Hoyos too?

Franz Joseph.   This may be much more serious for you all

than I had guessed. May I look at this rebellion

face to face?

Rudolph.   Surely.

Franz Joseph.   Bring them all in.

And our little frightened captain, bring him too.

I’ve something to ask him.

[Rudolph nods to John, who steps out.]

  This should make history,

what with so much nobility in one room,

and so little mother wit!

[John, Hoyos, Mary Vetsera, Sceps and Koinoff enter.]

  The good Count Hoyos,

Vetsera, the enchanting, the truant Archduke

who never sees his Tuscany, Herr Sceps

of the trenchant pen, silent in council, Rudolph,

the heir apparent. And not among them one

to say, when they knock at my door, let the lion sleep,

lest he be dangerous still? I am dangerous,

and never more so than now. If you will turn

and take your way to your homes through the silent snow

as silently as you came, I’ll not remember

what faces I saw here, nor once remind you

by word or act there was snow on the streets tonight

and you left traces in it.

Hoyos.   It’s a little late

to say that nothing’s happened. Some of your friends

have questioned our activities enough

to make a stand against us. Where they stood

the snow is somewhat bloody.

Franz Joseph.   An execution?

Hoyos.   No, a clash. However, not of our seeking.

Some companies on a street corner.

Franz Joseph.   How many dead?

Hoyos.   That’s not known yet.

Franz Joseph.   And this was done, Count Hoyos,

on your authority?

Rudolph.   No, on mine.

Franz Joseph.   Even that

might be hushed up and pardoned. I engage

to hush and pardon it if you end it here.

Not otherwise.

Rudolph.   The victors make the terms!

That was your word!

Franz Joseph.   And you are the victors?

Rudolph.   Ring!

Call your people! I saw a servant lying

across the threshold of your hall. It seems

he cared more for your safety than his own

and got his throat cut.

Franz Joseph.   So the boy’s dead. One more

to be explained.

Rudolph.   We explain nothing. We’ve taken the city and hold it.

Franz Joseph.   It’s not a grateful task to brush the dew

from such a gleaming dawn, but you’re misinformed

about the forces in our capital.

There’s a reserve of more than twice your numbers,

Count Hoyos, at the arsenal. They’ll be sent

to settle this night-brawling in the streets

and cut your lines outside. You’ll reign but briefly.

Count Taafe, testify to this.

Taafe.  

[To Rudolph]

Your Highness,

I have been hoping you’d withdraw your men

before you’re crushed here. It’s inevitable

if you wait longer.

Franz Joseph.   Perhaps you don’t quite trust

the word of the captain here, and yet he’s expert

in all these matters. He can state exactly

what regiments are stationed in the city

for emergencies.

Koinoff.   They’re lying! They’re both lying!

There are no troops at the arsenal!

Franz Joseph.   Koinoff! Koinoff!

The weathervane should make certain of the wind

before it whirls.

Koinoff.   But that’s the truth, Prince Rudolph,

there’s no guard there.

Franz Joseph.   Do you remember, Taafe,

I said there was something overlooked? Even so.

It was Count Hoyos who had slipped my mind

when we stripped Vienna down. And so we’ve lost.

At least we’ve lost this hand. And I accede

to your terms, Prince Rudolph. Much against my will

and judgment, choose out your village farm and dangle

your lady with you. You’ll rue it, and so will I,

but take the disease with the cure.

Rudolph.   It was my plan

to take only Hungary, leave you Austria,

but now you’ve pushed your stakes across the table

and thrown your dice and lost, I win them both,

and keep them both.

Franz Joseph.   Both? Not only a farm,

but Hungary—and not only Hungary,

now, but Austria, too.

Rudolph.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   Come. I’m to abdicate?

Rudolph.   It’s necessary—in cases of this sort.

Franz Joseph.   You’ve studied them?

Rudolph.   I have.

Franz Joseph.   You hold a palace,

and one old man in his room. Outside the empire

sleeps peacefully, but when it wakes and asks

what has been done with the emperor, you’ll have

no ready answer.

Rudolph.   Tell me then what answer

you made when in your youth you took your crown

from the man who wore it? What’s been done before

can be done again.

Franz Joseph.   Boy, you’d be followed only

by those who stand to gain by you! The gifts

you give to some you must take away from others!

Could you ride a civil war?

Rudolph.   Sir, by all rules

of immemorial Austrian intrigue you

would have the better of me. But the earth

goes steadily round the sun, and men and customs

die out or change. Shut here in your darkened room

you’ve seen all Europe as one static night

inhabited by spiders that sit still

mending their webs, eating their flies, and watching

each lest another spring. But, could you see,

you have not stayed the wheeling of the stars

nor held the tide piled on one longitude

by bandaging your eyes. Were I not here,

were there no men about your palace, still

your sun went down the Simplon twenty years

before tonight. What you came offering

when you were crowned, men want no longer.

Franz Joseph.   Son,

they never wanted it.

Rudolph.   If I offer now

what a new day demands, they’ll come to me,

and the old dog’s forgotten. It’s no pleasure

to say this to my father, but it seems

that in these matters sentiment’s not used.

You taught me that.

[Franz Joseph turns away for a moment, then comes back.]

Franz Joseph.   It might be done. If you turned orator,

and spread the butter thick where the logic’s thin

and acted swiftly, and somewhat brutally

while the spell was on them, you could sew them up

before they caught their breath. But it’s not your way,

my Rudolph. No, you’d mean it while you said it,

and trust in righteousness to bring you through

and they’d have you by the throat.

Rudolph.   I’d mean it all.

Franz Joseph.   No doubt. But when an actor plays a part

he’s much more moving to the audience

if he’s not taken in by what he’s doing

enough to weep real tears. The trick of the onion’s

more effective.

Rudolph.   Sir, you may hear my creed.

There’s been no king, since the half-mythical figures

of medieval times, who took for his motto:

Nothing for myself. But I shall take it.

I’m tired of having. Let me drink plain water

and eat plain food, and turn what mind I have

to an instrument of justice, clean of greed,

despising politics. The first steps we take

may seem arbitrary or tyrannous,

but when we’re once entrenched we’ll lighten all

oppression from above, and let the garden

grow, for it will!

Franz Joseph.   Suppose I abdicate.

What is your first step, being king?

Rudolph.   To remove

political restrictions.

Franz Joseph.   Oh, but first, I know,

say two or three hundred men in Hungary,

say three or four hundred men in Austria,

who must die if you’d be king. Oh, yes, they must.

And I’m among them.

Rudolph.   I’d think there were not so many.

Shall we say—imprisonment?

Franz Joseph.   Oh, no—they’re like

the little servant who was killed outside.

While they’re alive they’ll fight, and they’ll have friends.

Koinoff will live, the snakes will shed their skins,

but those who can’t crawl must die—that’s absolute,

if you’re to last ten days.

Rudolph.   Very well. Let them die.

Franz Joseph.   Yes, a few—you’ll say—men nobody wants,

but for your real antagonists, the men

with power and will and courage, you’ll respect them

and let them live, because your heart’s too soft

for more than a moderate slaughter. And being alive,

and having no inhibitions of your sort,

they’ll rip you up.

Rudolph.   And since that must be prevented

I’ll be thorough.

Franz Joseph.   I beg your pardon?

Rudolph.   Sir,

interpret it as you please. I shall be thorough.

Sceps.   This is a strange beginning, Rudolph!

John.   Yes,

but logical. There’s no escape from it.

Mary.   Rudi—it’s not the way—

Rudolph.   It’s the road we’ve taken

and can’t retrace—

Sceps.   Yet we’ll have much the look

of the French guillotine that came, my lord,

to set men free!

Hoyos.   When men make revolutions

they put their enemies to death or die.

That’s beyond argument.

Rudolph.   Little as we like it

some few must die.

Sceps.   I don’t go with you in it!

Moreover, in matters serious as this

you owe it to us all to ask our word

before you make decisions!

Rudolph.   I shall ask

your word, later on, but at the moment this

is a military action. One strong hand

must guide it.

Sceps.   If you begin, Prince Rudolph,

with these wholesale proscriptions, my tongue and pen

are useless to you. I’m no facile journalist.

What I believe I’ll write and publish. These

are murderous tactics, unnecessary to

the establishment of authority.

Rudolph.   You’ll no longer

cooperate with us?

Sceps.   No.

Rudolph.   Why, in that case

you’ll publish nothing till we give you leave.

Sceps.   You’ll establish censorship? You?

Rudolph.   Until it’s clear

who governs—till we’re quite past being shaken

we dare brook no opposition.

Sceps.   Dare not! Dare not!

Rudolph.   You heard my order!

This is no moment for a descent of doves

and apocalyptic revelations! Take

your place among us or leave!

[Sceps is silent.]

Franz Joseph.   Your reign begins

to shake off dreams, and may in time emerge

as the age of iron. We agree on my demise.

And what will you do next?

Rudolph.   With Your Majesty’s pardon

our time grows short, and we have much to do.

I can give you no more answers.

Franz Joseph.   To put it plainly

you wish to see this remnant of a monarch

encased behind stone walls?

Rudolph.   Of necessity.

And further speech is useless. In this hour

I’m responsible to myself alone.

Franz Joseph.   It’s best

when you’re in company to make pretense

that there’s a God, and you’re responsible

to Him on high. But there, I take your time.

If I might put one question more I’ll swear

to eternal silence.

Rudolph.   What is it?

Franz Joseph.   When you’ve killed

these seven hundred men, and they’ve been ushered

solemnly under ground, what disposition’s

planned for their property? Will it be given

to friends of yours?

Rudolph.   Sir, not to my enemies.

Franz Joseph.   Why, fairly answered.

Count Taafe, stand erect. We’ve had the watching

of many gallant gentlemen who passed

this doorway for the last time. Our admiration

went with those few who took it in a stride

and laughed as they went out. I say goodnight,

adding, with the fine old piety of kings,

a hope that we meet in heaven.

Rudolph.   Goodnight.

Taafe.   Goodnight.

Hoyos.   Shall I call a guard?

Rudolph.   Yes. Take the emperor

and Taafe in your keeping. As for Koinoff

have him shot when convenient.

Koinoff.   Your Majesty!

Rudolph.   I want no such allegiance! Wipe him out,

and let his death come first! Let it stand as omen

over what follows!

Franz Joseph.   In your place I’d keep him,

but that’s a minor matter. Before I go

may I congratulate your cabinet

on the accession of an emperor

who’ll give my reign, in retrospect, the air

of a golden age, in which the headsman’s axe

fell as light punctuation.

John.   Why do you say so?

Franz Joseph.   When you grind my friends

for fertilizer, and plant your friends in their dust

I know your history.

[Franz Joseph and Taafe step toward the door.]

Now may I ask

one final favor?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Franz Joseph.   When the good Count Hoyos

finds me a cell, will he see that this cell’s furnished

with pen and ink and paper, paper enough

to hold seven hundred names? It just so happens

that I, of all men living, can tell best

the names of my fast friends. For a legacy

I’ll leave the list to you.

Rudolph.   Leave it if you like.

I’ll not trust it.

Franz Joseph.   It will be full and accurate. One name

will be omitted, that of Count Taafe here,

because there are, say, ten or a dozen matters

he can inform you of, unfinished business

that carries over. What you may do with him

or with his information, when you have it,

that of course rests with you. Will you mind, Count Taafe,

if we leave you delegate among the living

from the kingdoms of the dead?

Taafe.   At Your Majesty’s service.

Rudolph.   And for your information let me state

that no unfinished business carries over

from your régime to mine. I want no links

that tie us in with your machinery

for the exploitation of underlings. No doubt

you leave ten thousand questions at loose ends,

matters of foreign correspondence, matters

of internal discipline, taxes, legislation

to stop fresh gaps in the walls where liberty

begins to wear through stone. But all these questions

will go unanswered till we get to them

and answer them our own way. Our way’s not yours,

has no relation to it.

Franz Joseph.   You could trust him.

I am myself too dangerous a chattel

to keep about, but Taafe knows as much

as I, and will serve you quite as well.

Rudolph.   Have you failed

to hear me? What in God’s name is Taafe to you

that you should plead for him?

Franz Joseph.   Lad, nothing, nothing.

I don’t ask this for Taafe, but for you!

Rudolph.   And I don’t want him, won’t have him at any price—

want none of your retinue, nor plans nor fragments

left over from your ruins!

Franz Joseph.  

[Almost to himself]

It may be wise.

It may be the way to win them. Yet at first

you’ll go so far astray. Well, let it go,

Taafe comes with me.

Rudolph.   Why this is kind of you.

I thank you both.

Franz Joseph.   You’ll think I delay for a purpose,

but one more word. A revolution’s won

or lost on its first morning, all depending

on how your people take it, and your people

depend on the press entirely. Before one word

sifts out on your revolution, the journalists

of both the capitals must be informed

firmly of what to print. A censorship’s

inevitable. Herr Sceps is an indication

of what you must expect.

Rudolph.   Must I say again

that nothing you have ever said or done

is necessary as a precedent

to what we have to do? You came to enslave!

We come to set men free!

Hoyos.   But if you’re worried

about the censorship, we thought of that.

The papers have been silenced. That was my job,

and I saw to it first.

Franz Joseph.   You’ve seen to it! I see.

You have two hands; with one you set men free,

with one you shut them up. That’s as it should be.

That’s as it always is.

Rudolph.   Does your catechism

draw to a close, or will you indulge us further

with reminiscences of triumphs over

the people you have ruled?

Franz Joseph.   You have left one weakness,

though only one. The Princess Stephanie

is still your wife. If you should break with her

you will get tardy recognition from

the powers of Europe; your support at home

will be confused. Temper your blood a while;

postpone your union with Vetsera, or

your kingship’s mortally wounded.

Rudolph.   I’m aware

of your feeling on that question. We’d not be here

tonight if the tempering of my blood had lain

in your imperial hands.

[He turns to Mary.]

Franz Joseph.   You turn for solace

to a rather doubtful bosom—I know this lady

better than you—

Rudolph.   Damn you, will you bring this maundering to an end?

why all this kindly interest in me? Why,

to poison what I’m to do, with your last breath

infect us with your leprosy! Take them out!

Let it end! I’ve listened too long!

[He turns his back and walks away. A pause. Taafe steps toward the door. Koinoff, a dagger in his hand, leaps across the room toward Rudolph.]

Franz Joseph.   Rudolph! Rudolph!

[He throws himself between Koinoff and Rudolph and is hurled to the floor. Hoyos and the Archduke John pinion Koinoff’s arms and his knife falls. Rudolph bends over Franz Joseph, helping him as he gets to his feet slowly.]

Koinoff.  

[To Franz Joseph]

Why did you stop me? Do you want to die?

Franz Joseph.   You mistake me, sir!

Was I too quick for you? It’s not for nothing

I’ve learned to watch men’s eyes! These weathercocks

blow east and west.

Rudolph.   Why do you risk your life

to save mine?

Franz Joseph.   Why, because you’ve forty years

of life in you, and I have ten or twelve—

and we’re alike. I shall have no other son,

but you may breed a dozen Habsburgs yet

to send the name on.

Rudolph.   Sir, have you joined my rebellion

against yourself?

Franz Joseph.   Why, lad, I’ve won! I’ve won!

What I want most is to leave a king behind me

such as I see you are!

Rudolph.   You wanted this?

You played for it?

Franz Joseph.   How often what we’ve wanted

comes to us in the night, a little early,

too unexpected, and we put it by,

and it never comes again. I take my way

quite happily into what darkness you prescribe,

my son, knowing now I leave behind a king

after my heart, a better than myself,

but a king, and a Habsburg king! He will chew on iron

who tries to eat you, now that your salad days

are over. When you speak you speak the words

of Wittelsbachs and fools, but when you act

then you’re my son, and the long quarrel in your blood

between the Empress and myself, the quarrel

that lay in your conceiving, it’s now ended,

and I shall win, by dying.

Rudolph.   I shall not rule

as you have.

Franz Joseph.   You’ll try reforms, and then you’ll learn

that all reforms are counters in the game

of government, played to get what you want;

a trick of management. I tried it too,

and found it useful. We have said goodnight—

the guard is ready, you have things in hand,

and I’m sorry to have kept you. Before you sleep

look in that little black book on your desk—

and read three words of it. I think you’ll find

it’s worth your time.

[The prisoners are taken out, Koinoff between Hoyos and John. Mary and Rudolph are left together.]

Rudolph.   I am the thing I hate!

Among us all we’ve made of me the thing

I shall hate most till I die. The thing I do,

caught on this bayonet of time, and driven,

repeats in word for word and death for death,

his coronation.

Mary.   Once I heard you say

a king might be a man, but a man with power

to make men free.

Rudolph.   I’ve come to this point in anger,

but standing here, looking out on what’s behind

and what’s before, I see in one blinding light

that he who thinks of justice cannot reach

or hold power over men, that he who thinks

of power, must whip his justice and his mercy

close to heel. My anger brought me here

and ruthlessness will hold me where I am

and those who are my friends are gainers by it

but nothing’s changed. I knew this as a child

knows what’s in books, as words, and I believed

that by some ardent miracle of the mind

I’d give my own mind wings. But what was anger

I must now keep, and make a code, and live by,

or be torn down.

Mary.   One moment since you said it,

let the garden grow.

Rudolph.   I said it. But in this light,

this blinding light that beats on you and me

now as we stand here, robbing those who have

of what they robbed from others, tell me what rule,

what guide, what standards, human or divine,

can possibly direct a man or king

toward justice? Is it just that men shall keep

what they already have? It was not gained justly.

The titles to possession all run back

to brigandage and murder. What men own

is theirs because they have it, remains theirs

while they can keep it. There’s no other proof

of any man’s deserving. I set up

my title now on murder, as my father

set his up long ago. And I take over

an old concern, maintained by fraud and force

for traffic in corruption. The rest is perfume.

A government’s business is to guard the trough

for those whose feet are in it.

Mary.   How can you know this?

Rudolph.   I have been taken up on a crest of time

and shown the kingdoms of the world, those past,

those present, those to come, and one and all,

ruled in whatever fashion, king or franchise,

dictatorship or bureaucrats, they’re run

by an inner ring, for profit. It’s bleak doctrine,

it’s what the old men told us in our youth,

but it’s savagely true.—I know it true for me,

for when I entered this room, and knew I owned it

and knew I’d touched Franz Joseph’s power, then virtue

went out of me to him; I was not the same,

and any man who sits here in his place

will be as he was, as I am.

[He sits at the table, placing his hand on the notebook. Mary comes forward and lays her hand over his.]

Let the man live.

Let the old man live.

Mary.   Don’t read it.

Rudolph.   No. I won’t read it. I won’t need it now.

I know what I have to do.

Mary.   Not for that reason.

You’d know the writing.

Rudolph.   Yes?

Mary.   Because it’s mine.

Rudolph.   What’s written in it?

Mary.   It’s a diary,

Of where we went, and what we did, at first,

when I first knew you.

Rudolph.   How does it come here, Mary?

Mary.   I was a little fool, and I had seen you

somewhere at a ball—and worshipped you—

as they all worship you, perhaps, not thinking,

just whispering to each other in the night

about the Crown Prince Rudolph. Then one day

the Countess Larisch took me aside to say

she could arrange a meeting. All she asked

was that I keep a record of my day,

and where we went—

Rudolph.   These are reports to him?

Mary.   Yes.

Rudolph.   This is how you came to know me?

Mary.   Yes.

Only at first—

Rudolph.   I think I might forgive

anything else you’d done, but to think of you

along with Koinoff! Did you know Koinoff?

Mary.   No.

I warned you when I knew. Oh, Rudolph, please,

it’s nothing. There’s nothing here you couldn’t see

if you wish to read them. And when I loved you, then

I sent no more. You can believe it, truly,

knowing how much I love you.

Rudolph.   I do believe you.

And I have loved you, but it is like Koinoff.

These Koinoffs. They’re the woman in your arms.

They’re the love she brings you. They’re your love for her.

You hear them in the music, taste them in

the drink. It seeps and rains and drizzles Koinoffs.

I think I must have loved you more than I knew.

More than I knew.

[Hoyos and John re-enter.]

There was little enough left walking on this earth

to hold a man from spitting! That’s gone now!

This was to be my lover and my queen,

and he sent her to me, to sleep with me and tell!

Even that was his! Let him keep it! Let him have his earth

where men must crawl and women must crawl beneath them

and all their words are lies! I’m sick of it,

sick, and sick to my death!—Hoyos, the guard

that’s round the palace—send them all home to bed.

Our revolution’s over.

Hoyos.   Yours may be,

not mine. I have no wish to send myself

the last six feet downstairs.

John.   Walk out if you like,

but I’m not through.

Rudolph.   Take it. You’re next in line.

Take Austria and welcome.

John.   Will you let us die

like so many bitch’s pups?

Rudolph.   Why, who are we

that we shouldn’t die? Have we more reason to live

than our seven hundred? But you won’t die, you’ll fix it

or get away.

Hoyos.   Is this definite?

Rudolph.   Quite definite and final. But you’ll live.

And Koinoff, he’ll live, too. It’s an ill wind

that brings nobody salvage. Make your arrangements,

Hoyos, and cross the border. It’s snowing still,

and the blood we shed’s been covered. The little groom

that fell on my father’s threshold, see that he’s

removed, so folks won’t stumble when they enter

and raise an outcry. I think you said the shooting’s

good at Mayerling. I shall try it. If

you want me, look for me there.

[To Mary]

You’ve managed nicely

to take my last faith from me.

[He turns away.]

Mary.   Am I to stay?

Rudolph.   You’d better go with Hoyos. Take care of her

for my sake, Hoyos. Look that she’s safe away.

[He starts out the door.]

The devil take these dead men. I shall see

his eyes forever.

Mary.   Rudolph!

[Rudolph goes out.]

CURTAIN

THE MASQUE OF KINGS

ACT THREE

ACT  III

Loschek.  

[Softly]

Your Highness.

[Rudolph comes out in a dressing gown, a packet of letters in his hand.]

You wished me to call you at dawn, Your Highness.

Rudolph.   Yes. It’s dawn already?

Loschek.   Nearly six.

Rudolph.   Is Hoyos about?

Loschek.   I think he’s shooting in the lower copse with the others. They went out at five.

Rudolph.   Yes. I heard them banging. There’s nothing like firearms to amuse a soldier. I’ve been writing letters, Loschek.

Loschek.   Yes, Your Highness.

Rudolph.   I have addressed them in my own tangled chirography, but you’ve had experience with it, and I trust them to you.

Loschek.   Yes, Highness.

[He takes the letters.]

Rudolph.   Also I think your face is my earliest memory, Loschek, except perhaps for my mother’s. You’ll say your face is nothing much to remember, I know—

Loschek.   Yes, Your Highness—

Rudolph.   But the point is you’ve never failed me in any commission—nor in anything whatever—except for brief periods when you restricted my allowance of spiritous liquors—

Loschek.   Oh, sir—

Rudolph.   Thereby lengthening my life toward some highly dubious conclusion. Which conclusion, if it should be sudden, I have anticipated by penning certain laborious notes to my friends. You will keep them for me, and you will keep them where nobody will find them unless—and until. You understand me?

Loschek.   Too well, Your Highness.

Rudolph.   Oh, but there’s nothing immediate, nothing in the least immediate. Only the news has reached me that we all die sometime. Azrael, the angel of death, came to me in the night and told me I bore a resemblance to my father. I felt a feather fall from his wing, and where it touched my temple the hair was gray this morning. As they say in the Old Testament, Selah.—When we know that we’re to die what’s the difference whether we’re dead or not, Loschek?

Loschek.   The greatest difference in the world, my lord.

Rudolph.   And yet no difference at all.—In fact, I don’t know yet what future my dear father plans for me, if any. I await his pleasure. Nobody knows what may go on at the back of the old man’s mind. Hence the premonitions. Let me see Count Hoyos when he’s finished with the partridges.

Loschek.   Yes, Highness.

[He goes out. There are a few scattering shots from the copse and Rudolph goes to a window. Mary Vetsera opens the rear door and enters in a nightgown. She pauses a moment, then speaks softly.]

Mary.   Rudi.

Rudolph.   Yes.

Mary.   I was half awake, and reached for you with my arm,

but you were gone; then suddenly I felt

such deadly terror—I’d have died of it

if I hadn’t found you.

Rudolph.   Or gone back to sleep

and waked to ask for breakfast.

Mary.   Rudi, please

don’t mock me—my blood’s cold with it—as if

the author of the experiment put out

a hand and took the sun—and from then on

it would be dark and cold. It was a dream.

One can’t tell dreams.

Rudolph.   You tell them very well—

you do everything well—perfect, finished,

adept, accomplished—that’s the woman of it;

God knows where they learn.

Mary.   Is it dawn on the windows?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Mary.   The sun’s not gone then. But it’s cold

as if it would never be warm.

Rudolph.   Go back to bed.

I’ll have them light a fire.

Mary.   Whose lover were you—

last night when you loved me?

Rudolph.   I can pay.

[He holds out his hand with coins in it.]

No doubt you’ll recognize the sum. It’s usual

here in Vienna.

Mary.   Is this the wage they set

for prostitutes?

Rudolph.   You recognize it?

Mary.   No,

but I’ve heard, I think.

Rudolph.   I’ve heard men say it was little

for a woman’s soul in the night. It seems her soul’s

worth more then than by day. For scrutinize it

under broad daylight and it’s plainly dirt

like the rest of us. Take the money.

Mary.   You want to hurt me?

Rudolph.   These little hurts! They’re fiction, like your souls,

and they wash out like rain. With a new dress

they’re half-healed—add half a dram of starlight,

three kisses and a ring, and they’re gone clean,

better not spoken of.

Mary.   What have I done?

Rudolph.   Women are realists, my dearest dear,

loving the sun like flowers, but if one sun

goes headlong down the sky, with Phaethon,

they weep a little under dewy lids

and wait for the next sun’s rising. I’ve gone down

and you will weep your most becomingly

and swear it’s the end, the last, and so it is

until the next sunrise.

Mary.   Why should you hurt me?

Is it because you hate the whole earth so much

you want to hate me too?

Rudolph.   If you’ll go stop

three tradesmen on the street, and ask the three

what it is they live by, they’ll reply at once

bread, meat and drink, and they’ll be certain of it;

victuals and drink, like the rhyme in Mother Goose

makes up their diet; nothing will be said

of faith in things unseen, or following

the gleam, just bread and meat and a can of wine

to wash it down. But if you know them well

behind the fish-eyes and the bellies, if

you know them better than they do, each one

burns candles at some altar of his mind

in secret; secret often from himself

each is a priest to some dim mystery

by which he lives. Strip him of that, and bread

and meat and wine won’t nourish him. Fish-eyed,

pot-bellied, standing over counters, still

without his chuckle-headed hidden faith

he dies and goes to dust. The faith I had

was baseless as a palace of the winds

anchored in cloud, a faith that I had found

a use for kings, a faith that with skill and wisdom

and infinite tolerance, infinite patience, I,

the heir of all the Habsburgs, might strike out

a new coinage of freedom, cut new dies for the mind

and lift men by their bootstraps till they walked

the upper air. This is the faith of fools,

but I had it, and I lost it. One by one

the holds I counted on to take us up

turned out to be the ancient clanking irons

that bind men to the rock. Till one by one

I could trust no one—could not trust myself,

and stretched out blindly at the end to rest

on a love I had—a woman’s love—not much

to ask when your world comes down about your ears

after your faith. And then I saw it there,

a little, dirty, calculating love,

smelling of stale champagne and cigarettes

and girls’-school lushing. Fit to go to bed with,

and offer coins for.

Mary.   I know it. I said it once.

And now you see me as I see myself,

a baggage, the sort that might have sold you flowers

or cleaned your rooms. Once when we walked in line

out of the school, thirty girls in line, you rode

with your princess, down the Prater—and we looked

and gasped and worshipped. That’s when I saw you first,

among these females in the egg, adoring

their king of men. I loved you after that,

even when I had a nasty small affair

with the officer, that, too, was in your world,

and I was almost proud. I know it’s silly

to be young, to be love-sick, to make a portrait-shrine

of someone far-off, above you; but to have

a countess offer you a meeting with him

if only you’ll bring word of where he goes,

and then to find that he’s incongruously

in love with you, as you with him, to know

that you’re a little fool, no more, no more,

and one of the great masters of the world,

the highest, wisest, godliest, looks down

and loves this empty face of yours—oh, Rudi,

I could have wished you better than to love

where there was nothing! Then I took my soul

between my hands, and said, if this is his

it must be worthy of him; watched your ways

and listened when you spoke, and loved, and listened

till I knew better than you knew yourself

what your dreams were; yes, till it sometimes seemed

that something nobler grew here in my breast

than the heart of a gypsy’s daughter. Words came to me

to say what I had never thought nor said,

and pride came, and reserve. But these are yours,

not mine, for I was moulded in the womb

after a slighter pattern. Made for dancing

or for light loves. And now you look on me

and see it. What was yours you take away

and what you leave of me will dance again

because that’s all it knows, but not be happy

because it loved you once.

Rudolph.   Why were you here

last night?

Mary.   Was it wrong? I’ve nothing that’s my own.

I followed you. I came because you came,

not even thinking. Why did you let me in

if I wasn’t wanted?—But it was wrong. I know;

I come between you and your father. Once

I’m gone he’ll take you back. Rudi, I swear

I didn’t think of it.

Rudolph.   Think of this then, my dear;

my date’s run out; I’m no more king of men

than Loschek. I’ve a pocket-full of silver,

and certain braid on my coat, and a name I hate,

and a strong inclination toward the dark

like a cur dying. It’s a woman’s place

to fix her to some bastard that goes up

and set her heel on faces that go down

as mine is going. All the rest is words,

the weeping interim, the sweet despair

before you dance again.

Mary.   I’ll go if it helps you.

I’ll try never to see you.

Rudolph.   Try? Oh, child,

look in your heart. Your hands still cling to me,

but if you’re a woman, if you’re human, while

you cling, your mind’s alive with circling wings

searching this way and that—one man who smiled,

one man who asked you boldly for a night,

ten men who came a-wooing—of them all

which of them all shall make his bed with me

when Rudolph’s gone? The treacherous, savage mind

knows betters than our words. And I know this

because my mind’s more savage than your own,

filthy, desperate, faithless, hopeless of faith

in men or women or myself.

Mary.   Is there no way

I could still see you, any creeping way,

so low the emperor would never know

that I was there? If I could be your dog,

even your dog—

Rudolph.   You’re shivering. It’s cold here.

We must have a fire.

[He lights the fire in the grate.]

Mary.   I read a story once

about how all men vanished from the earth

after some pestilence, and a race of dogs

grew up where men are. Their religion was

that there had once been gods who walked upright,

built fires, and knew all things, and gave commands

and still lived, but invisible. I think

when I have lost you I’ll remember you

as the dogs remembered man.

Rudolph.   For the fires I build?

Mary.   No. One must have a god. Was I faithless, Rudi?

Why did I speak when you’d have had an empire,

and warn you not to take it?

Rudolph.   Because you knew

you’d lose me if I were emperor.

Mary.   Would I have lost you?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Mary.   Yes, I would. And that was selfish, too.

Either way I must lose you. Very well.

I lose you either way.—What will you do?

Where will you go?

[Rudolph is silent.]

  You’ll be crown prince again.

Go back to your father.

Rudolph.   Yes.—It’s all one now

which way I go.

Mary.   Yes. Surely.

  You’ll be forgiven if you give me up,

but with me you’re a beggar, as I am.

You were too chivalrous to say it out,

but that’s the way it’s left us.

Rudolph.   As for you

the world’s young yet. If you should never see me,

isn’t it true, another love comes by

and whistles at your window, and it’s spring,

and the great wound you thought would never heal

leaves not a scar in time—? oh, a few months

or years and all the paths that led to grief

are stopped with green-briar, overgrown and lost,

past finding when we hunt for them.

Mary.   Why, yes,

oh, yes. I shall not like the thing I’ll be

when that has happened.

Rudolph.   When it’s happened, then

we think no more about it.

Mary.   Yes, but now

I’d rather be a statue to my love,

a statue in a forest, lost and unseen,

cold, too, and white, and hardly once remembered,

but changeless just the same.—Oh, but I’ll go!

When feet are made for dancing they must dance

unless the heart stops.

[A couple of random shots are heard from the woods.]

Rudolph.   Hearts are durable;

they wear out all the rest. You’re still trembling.

Come near the fire.

Mary.   No, I’ll go back to bed.

I think I’m tired.

Rudolph.   Forgive me?

Mary.   As a dog

forgives his god, see, I forgive you wholly,

and worship what you do. Only forgive me

if I should never change.

[She kisses him.]

Rudolph.   Yes. Rest well.

Mary.   I’m happier now, and I’ll rest.

[She goes into the bedroom and closes the door. There is a tap at the hall entrance and Loschek looks in.]

Loschek.   Count Hoyos, Highness.

Rudolph.   Let him in.

[Loschek withdraws and Hoyos enters.]

Hoyos.   Greetings, Your Highness.

Rudolph.   It seems

you never sleep.

Hoyos.   I haven’t your inducements.

I hear you sent for me, but I was coming

with a bit of news. A coach just topped the rise

bearing the royal arms. It looks to me

as if you had early visitors.

Rudolph.   You saw it?

Hoyos.   On the other side of the gates. He should be here

by this time.

Rudolph.   It’s the Emperor.

Hoyos.   No doubt.

It struck me you’d do well to wash your face

and hide your woman.

Rudolph.   How do you stand with him?

Hoyos.   Well, as I said, he put us out like lightning,

gave us our pardons with the back of his hand

and combed his whiskers. I was out of favor—

I’m still out, that’s all.

[A single muffled shot is heard.]

Rudolph.   Why is he coming?

Hoyos.   Oh, just to get you back. Put in a word

for your humble servant.

Rudolph.   I will. That’s what I sent

to tell you now.

Hoyos.   You’ll kiss and make up?

Rudolph.   Why not?

Between the black wolf’s jaw and the lamb’s hind-quarters

I’d rather play the wolf.

Hoyos.   That’s sensible.

Rudolph.   I was born half wolf, half sheep, God pity me;

one tears the other.

Hoyos.   If it’s that way with you

make your terms, man.

Rudolph.   Terms? When wolf eats lamb

that’s terms—and peace. Wait for me.

[He goes into the bedroom. Hoyos walks to the fire. After a moment Rudolph comes out with a small revolver in his hand.]

Hoyos.  

Hoyos.   Yes?

[Rudolph shows the revolver. Hoyos goes into the bedroom. Rudolph sits unsteadily. Hoyos returns.]

When did it happen?

Rudolph.   This moment. She was here.

Hoyos.   I must tell the emperor.

Rudolph.   No! Tell no one! Their damned kites

will take her from me!

Hoyos.   What will you do?

Rudolph.   I don’t know yet.

Keep them away.—She’s dead?

Hoyos.   She died instantly.

Rudolph.   I can’t believe it. Hoyos, she was here,

before you came.

Hoyos.   I must tell some story. Quick,

what is it?

Rudolph.   Keep them out. Let them leave me alone.

She wanted to be changeless. I heard the shot

and thought it was the hunters. Tell the king

the Crown Prince Rudolph came to Mayerling

to seek seclusion. Hold them off with that

and tell them nothing.

Hoyos.   Lad, I know it’s awkward

to see a pretty woman that you’ve known

with a bullet through her head. But don’t let that

mislead you. It’s an embarrassment the less

once you’ve run dry of tears. Suppose we’re quiet

till I can smuggle her quietly underground.

Then if she’s travelling in Italy

or Turkestan and never does come back

at least she’s gone.

Rudolph.   Damn you, what do you mean?

Hoyos.   Only that we say nothing. You yourself

suggested it.

Rudolph.   Then do as I suggest,

and leave me with her.

[Hoyos goes toward the door. As he approaches it there is a knock and he opens to Loschek.]

Hoyos.   Who is it?

Loschek.   The Empress, sir.

She asks me to tell Rudolph that she begs

on her knees to see him.

Rudolph.   Why should she beg of me?

She may come if she likes.

[Loschek steps back, and after a moment the Empress Elizabeth enters.]

Elizabeth.   What is it, Rudolph?

What’s in your face?

[She goes across and kneels beside him.]

Rudolph.   The black jaw’s at the flock,

that’s all.

Elizabeth.   What is it, Hoyos?

Hoyos.   We’ve both been rebels;

maybe we’re sorry for it.

Elizabeth.   It’s something more.

As if you’d watched a pageant cross the night

with horror at the end.

Rudolph.   Oh, mother, mother,

so many, many times, I needed you

when I was a child, but you were never there,

and now we’re strangers.

Elizabeth.   They kept me from you!

Rudolph.   Yes.

And now we’re strangers. What you’d have me do—

all that was worth the saving in me, that

was you, and I’ve betrayed it.

Elizabeth.   But all we’ve lost,

all the lost years, we’ll have them now. Look, Rudolph,

your father’s with me. This night long he wept,

a pitiful, shrunken king, because his child

despises what he does. Come back to him.

I’ve been against him always, as you have,

but we’ve grown old together, and his son

means more to him than kingdoms. He’s forgotten

whatever it was that happened, forgives it, pardons

all that took part, asks nothing, only to have

his man-child back again.

Rudolph.   Yes—as before.

Elizabeth.   Will you see him?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Elizabeth.   He’s waiting, Hoyos.

Hoyos.   Yes, madam.

[He goes out.]

Elizabeth.   You haven’t slept.

Rudolph.   No.

Elizabeth.   It’s quite useless, Rudolph,

to fight against what we are. It’s broken me.

It will break you too.

Rudolph.   You have gone over to them.

Elizabeth.   Only to help you.

[There is a short pause, then Franz Joseph enters. They rise.]

Franz Joseph.   Lest you should think I deal

in crocodile promises, Rudolph, I have here

three long state papers, drawn in a sleepless night,

and signed and sealed. One is full pardon for

your friends and you, another’s a commission

left blank that you may choose what place you’ll take

in the Austrian government—and this, the third,

will place you on the throne of Hungary

three years from now, even if I live so long

and you’re not there before. I offer these

as humbly as I can. Lose you I cannot.

Let you go I cannot. If I’ve been

too politic, too stern, forgive me, Rudolph,

I went to a bitter school.

Rudolph.   What else?

Franz Joseph.   I hold

to one condition only. The Vetsera’s

a light, designing woman, bought and sold,

loving by instinct where she lies, but quick

in trade, like the trader’s daughter that she is,

where a kiss will mean advantage. She’s no queen

for you. The mirror on her wall has kept

as full a record as her heart of those

she’ll reach her arms out for.

Rudolph.   I told her that,

and have her answer that she’ll never change

after this morning.

Franz Joseph.   You believed her?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Elizabeth.   There should be something regal in a queen,

Rudolph; she’s small and cheap.

Rudolph.   But she’ll not change,

after this morning. A statue in a wood

runs more in the rain, yields more to the frost, than she

in this last mood.

Elizabeth.   Is she here?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Elizabeth.   May I see her?

Rudolph.   Mary! Mary Vetsera!

[There is a pause.]

Elizabeth.   She’s asleep?

Rudolph.   Yes.

Elizabeth.   Shall I wake her?

Rudolph.   Wake her if you can.

Elizabeth.   What is it, Rudolph?

[She looks at Rudolph’s face, then crosses to the bedroom and enters. Returning, she leans heavily against the door-jamb, her eyes fixed first on Rudolph then on the Emperor.]

Franz Joseph.   I understand.

[He walks to the door, looks through it briefly, then turns to Elizabeth.]

It will be necessary to conceal

our visit here. Hoyos will bring us word

of what has happened to the Hofburg.—You

will come with us.

Rudolph.   I shall stay here to make

the necessary arrangements.

Franz Joseph.   It must not be known,

that you were with her. Nothing in the world

could clear your name of scandal, or suppress

the story if you remain.

Rudolph.   She’s quite immune

to scandal now, and I shall not greatly mind

what’s said of me.

Elizabeth.   Rudolph, Rudolph, it’s your name,

your name before the people! Say you loved her,

still nothing you do or say can hurt her now,

and you have a life to live!

Rudolph.   If I go back

this morning, and leave her lying in this room

alone, then hour by hour you’ll win me from her,

and in the end it will be my hand that guides

all Europe down to hell. I know myself

and what you’ll want of me, and what I am,

and my black destination. But I’ve learned

from the little peddler’s daughter, the Vetsera,

how to keep faith with the little faith I have

quite beyond time or change.

Franz Joseph.   For the love of God!

Rudolph.   You have no God, nor I! When a man lies down

to sleep, he sleeps!

Elizabeth.   My child, my child, don’t think it!

It tears my heart!

Rudolph.   My mother was a rebel,

and she used all her beauty and her brain

to check the darkening evil of a house

that thrives and grows by evil. She’s here now,

an angel still, but fallen, holding out

to me the bloody symbols of the trade

by which we’ve lived too long. And if I live

I’ll wear them, as she wears them, till my mind’s

a charnel house, and men remember me

as the breath of pestilence! I had thought, indeed,

of going back with you, but I’ll die young

and pleasanter to remember.

Franz Joseph.   Must we believe

that the first prince of Europe, in his pride

of mind and hope, will die for love—the love

of a basket-woman’s child?

Rudolph.   Sir, in your sanity

you’ll never glimpse what thin partitions part

our life and death, to a dweller on the threshold.

This prince is only a walking apparatus

for oxidation, a web of water, spun

to last one morning. A morning more or less

will hardly count.

[A burst of gun-fire is heard from the wood.]

Elizabeth.   Let me have this, at least,

out of my sacrifice, that the son I bore

to be a Habsburg king, will be a king;

let me have this! Whatever else I had

when I was young is gone now, melts beneath

a finger’s touch, like the tapestries they lift

into air from a Pharaoh’s tomb. When I have walked

the Hofburg rooms, this alone was real, that you

were Rudolph, and my son, and would be king

though the very walls dissolve, and I dare not speak

to those I pass lest there be no one there

but my imagining.

Rudolph.   We are all ghosts, we three,

walking the halls of Europe in a dream

that’s ended, a long masquerade of kings

that crossed the stage and stumbled into dark

before we came. We are the shadows cast

by medieval conquerors, a rout

of devil-faces, thrown up long ago

by the powers beneath erupting, but long dead

and gone to slag. Now the earth boils up again

and the new men and nations rise in fire

to fall in rock, and there shall be new kings,

not you or I, for we’re all past and buried,

but a new batch of devil-faces, ikons

made of men’s hope of liberty, all worshipped

as bringers of the light, but conquerors,

like those we follow. I leave the world to them,

and they’ll possess it like so many skulls

grinning on piles of bones. To the young men

of Europe I leave the eternal sweet delight

of heaping up their bones in these same piles

over which their rulers grin. To the old and dying

I leave their dying kingdoms to be plowed

by the new sowers of death—fools like myself

who rush themselves to power to set men free

and hold themselves in power by killing men,

as time was, as time will be, time out of mind

unto this last, forever. We are all ghosts,

we three, but from today I shall not haunt

the Hofburg halls, Habsburg or Wittelsbach,

wolf, sheep or shadow. So saying, light of heart,

I lie with the Vetsera.

[He makes one of his stiff little bows, steps into the bedroom, withdrawing from royalty, and closes the door. Elizabeth runs to it.]

Elizabeth.   Rudolph, Rudolph—

you cannot, cannot—Rudolph, open to me,

your mother!

[There is a shot within the room.]

Franz Joseph.   We have no son.

[Hoyos enters.]

Elizabeth.   Hoyos, here—quick,

It’s Rudolph—

Hoyos.   What has he done?

Elizabeth.   Break down the door!

He went in—he may be only hurt!

Hoyos—Hoyos!

Hoyos.   I shall need help with this.

Elizabeth.   Help him, Franz.

Franz Joseph.   Help him? We have no son.

Leave this pawing of doors. He was too much

a prince not to die if he wished. And he is dead.

Elizabeth.   You wished him dead!

Franz Joseph.   I loved him. I must think now

how to go on without him.

Elizabeth.   How to go on!

What could we go toward now?

Franz Joseph.   Toward that same darkness

he prophesies, perhaps—Oh, Rudolph, my son,

would I had died for you. Would I had died.—

This must be covered up. We have not been seen here.

Hoyos will bring us word to the palace. Get

the girl in the earth tonight. An accident—

a hunting accident—

[There is faint gun-fire in the distance.]

  Toward that same darkness

he prophesies—

CURTAIN

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed; otherwise alternative spellings have been retained.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of The Masque of Kings, by Maxwell Anderson.]