Now the wires were stretched from trunk to trunk, and then the garlands had to be attached to the wires. So they were hung experimentally. The colonel reviewed them. There was no denying the necessity of adding Chinese lanterns. But since despite fog and sultriness it hadn’t rained in a long time, they expected a surprise storm any day now. The colonel therefore posted sentries in the Little Forest, their assignment being to take down the lanterns at the slightest hint of a brewing storm.
“The wires too?” he prudently asked the rittmaster. For he knew that great men listen to advice from their lesser helpers.
“Nothing’ll happen to the wires,” said the rittmaster.
So they were left on the trees.
No storms came. The air remained heavy and sultry. On the other hand, they learned from some of the refusals that a well-known aristocratic club in Vienna had scheduled a party on the same Sunday as the dragoons. Some of the invitees were torn between their desire to hear all the latest society news (which was possible only at the club ball) and the adventurous pleasure of visiting the almost legendary border. This exoticism was just as seductive as the gossip, as the opportunity to spot a favorable or hateful attitude, grant favors that were requested, or obtain favors that were needed. A few people promised to cable—at the last moment, however. Such responses and the prospect of telegrams almost totally destroyed the sense of security that Colonel Festetics had developed during the past few days.
“It’s disastrous!” he said.
“It’s disastrous!” the rittmaster repeated.
And their heads drooped.
How many room should be prepared? A hundred or only fifty? And where, at the hotel? In Chojnicki’s home? Unfortunately, he wasn’t here and he hadn’t even replied!
“He’s crafty, that Chojnicki, I’ve never trusted him!” said the rittmaster.
“I couldn’t agree more!” the colonel confirmed.
There was a knock, and the orderly announced Count Chojnicki.
“A fabulous fellow!” both officers cried in unison.
They welcomed him exuberantly. The colonel privately felt that his own genius was failing him and needed help. They took turns embracing the guest, each man three times. And each man waited impatiently for the other to finish his embrace. Then they ordered drinks.
All their deep anxieties suddenly turned into charming, graceful ideas. When, say, Chojnicki cried, “Then we’ll order a hundred rooms, and if fifty stay empty who cares?”, both officers chorused as if in one voice, “Brilliant!” And they again threw their exuberant arms around the guest.
During the final week before the celebration, there was no rain. All the garlands remained aloft, all the lanterns. At times the junior officer and the four privates camping like an outpost on the outskirts of the Little Forest and peering westward, in the direction of the heavenly foe, were frightened by a distant rumble, an echo of distant thunder. At times some pale sheet lightning flamed in the evening over the gray-blue fog thickening on the western horizon, where it gently cushioned the declining red sun. The storms might be breaking far from here, as if in a different world. But the mute Little Forest crackled with dry needles and the parched bark of the pine trunks. The birds peeped, dull and drowsy. The soft, sandy ground between the trunks was aglow. No storm came. The garlands remained on the wires.
On Friday a few guests arrived. They had been announced by telegrams. The officer on duty picked them up at the station. The excitement in both barracks mounted by the hour. In Brodnitzer’s café, dragoons and riflemen conferred, the pretexts flimsy, the goal being purely to intensify the nervousness. Nobody was able to stay alone. Impatience drove them together. They whispered; they suddenly knew lots of bizarre secrets that they had hushed up for years. They trusted one another unreservedly, they loved one another. They sweated harmoniously, in joint expectation. The celebration eclipsed the horizon like a huge festive mountain. They were all convinced that this was no mere diversion; it was a radical transformation of their lives. In the last moment they had qualms about their own work. The celebration, of its own accord, started beckoning amiably and threatening dangerously. It darkened the sky, it brightened the sky. The men brushed and ironed their dress uniforms. Not even Captain Lorenz dared to play pool in these days. The easygoing coziness in which he had made up his mind to spend the rest of his military life was destroyed. He eyed his dress tunic suspiciously; it looked like a fat drayhorse that is suddenly forced to run a harness race after years of standing in the cool shade of a stable.
Sunday dawned at last. They counted fifty-four guests. “Well I’ll be damned and double damned!” Count Zschoch said a couple of times. He knew the kind of regiment he was serving in, but at the sight of the fifty-four exalted names on the guest list he decided that all these years he had not been proud enough of this regiment.
The celebration began at 1 P.M. with an hour-long parade on the drilling grounds. They had borrowed two military bands from larger garrisons. They performed in two round, open, wooden malls in the Little Forest. The ladies sat in canvas-covered baggage wagons, wearing summer frocks over stiff corsets and wheel-size hats on which stuffed birds nested. Although the ladies were hot they smiled, each lady a cheerful breeze. They smiled with lips and eyes, with breasts trapped in airy tight-hooked frocks, with ajourisé lace gloves that reached up to their elbows, with tiny handkerchiefs that they held in their hands, sometimes dabbing their noses—but gently, gently to avoid tattering the lace. Vendors sold candy, champagne, and tickets for the wheel of fortune, which was handled personally by the superintendent, and colored pouches of confetti, which was poured on all of them and which they tried to puff away by coquettishly pursing their lips. Nor was there any lack of paper streamers. They coiled around necks and legs and dangled from the trees, instantly turning all natural pines into man-made ones. For they were denser and more convincing than the green of nature.
Meanwhile the long-awaited clouds had gathered in the sky above the forest. The thunder drew closer and closer, but it was drowned out by the army bands. When the evening set in over tents, carriages, confetti, and dancing, the lanterns were lit, and no one noticed that they were shaken harder by sudden gusts than was proper for festive lanterns. For a long time the sheet lightning that flamed more and more intensely in the sky could not compete with the fireworks that the troops set off behind the forest. And most of these people assumed that any flashes of lightning that they happened to notice were merely fizzled rockets. All at once somebody exclaimed, “A storm’s coming!” And the rumor of the storm began spreading through the forest.
So they got ready to leave, and on foot, on horseback, and in carriages they headed toward Chojnicki’s home. All the windows were open. The radiance of the candles poured freely, a powerful flickering that fanned out into the broad avenue, gilding the ground and the trees, making the leaves look like metal. It was still early but already dark, because of the hosts of clouds moving in on all sides, joining forces, uniting in a single mass. Outside the entrance to the castle, in the broad avenue and on the gravel-strewn oval in front of the gates, the horses, carriages, and guests now gathered, the colorful ladies and the even more colorful officers. The mounts, which privates held at the bit, and the carriage horses, barely reined in by the coachmen, grew impatient: the wind stroked their glossy coats like an electric comb; the frightened horses whinnied for their stables, scraping the gravel with trembling hooves.
The humans seemed to share the agitation of nature and animals. The excited shouts accompanying their ball games just minutes ago now died out. They all peered, somewhat nervously, at the doors and windows. The huge double door flew open, and groups of people began approaching the entrance. Either they were too preoccupied with the not unusual but nevertheless constant agitation of the storm or else they were distracted by the confused sounds of the two military bands, which had already started tuning their instruments inside the house. But whatever the reason, no one caught the rapid gallop of the
orderly who now sprang over to the gates and sharply reined in his horse; in his service uniform, with a sparkling helmet, a rifle slung across his back and a cartridge belt on his waist, the orderly, surrounded by the flickers of white lightning and the gloom of violet clouds, was not unlike a theatrical messenger of war.
The dragoon dismounted and asked for Colonel Festetics. The colonel, he was told, was already inside. An instant later, Festetics came out, was handed a letter by the orderly, and went back indoors.
He halted in the circular vestibule, which had no ceiling light. A footman stepped behind him, clutching a candelabrum. The colonel tore open the envelope. The footman, although trained since earliest childhood in the great art of serving, could not keep his hand from suddenly trembling. The candles he held began guttering wildly. He made no attempt to read over the colonel’s shoulder, but nevertheless the text of the letter passed within sight of his well-trained eyes: a lone sentence made up of huge and very distinct words scrawled in blue pencil. Had his lids been closed, he would have still been unable to avoid sensing the lightning that now flashed more and more often in all parts of the sky, and likewise he could not possibly have removed his eyes from the big, blue, dreadful script. HEIR TO THRONE RUMORED ASSASSINATED IN SARAJEVO, said the capital letters.
The text plunged as one word, without breaks, into the colonel’s mind and into the footman’s eyes behind him. The colonel dropped the envelope. The footman, his left hand clutching the candelabrum, bent down to retrieve the envelope with his right hand. Standing up again, he peered directly into the face of Colonel Festetics, who had turned toward him. The footman stepped back. He held the candelabrum in one hand, the envelope in the other, and both his hands trembled. The glow of the candles flickered over the colonel’s face, alternately brightening and darkening it. His normally reddish face, decorated with a big grayish-blond moustache, kept turning violet or chalk white. His lips quivered slightly, and his moustache twitched. Aside from the footman and the colonel, the vestibule was deserted. From the interior rooms they could already hear the first muffled waltz of the two army bands, the clinking of glasses, and the murmuring of voices. Through the vestibule door, they saw the reflections of distant lightning, they heard the faint echoes of distant thunder.
The colonel eyed the footman. “Did you read it?”
“Yessir, Herr Colonel.”
“Keep your mouth shut!” said Festetics, putting his finger to his lips. He walked off. He reeled slightly. Perhaps it was the flickering candlelight that made his gait look unsteady.
The inquisitive footman, as agitated by the colonel’s gag order as by the gory news that he had just learned, waited for a colleague who would take over his candelabrum; the footman wanted to go into the rooms and perhaps get some details. Although a sensible and enlightened middle-aged man, he suddenly got the creeps in this vestibule, which he could illuminate only meagerly with his candles as it sank into an even deeper brown darkness after each vehement streak of bluish-white lightning. Heavy billows of charged air came through the room. The storm hesitated. The footman saw a supernatural link between the chance arrival of the storm and the terrible news. He felt that the moment had finally come when the supernatural forces of the world, were clearly trying to announce their dreadful coming. And he crossed himself, his left hand clutching the candelabrum. At that instant, Chojnicki emerged, gaped at him in surprise, and asked if he was really that frightened of the storm. It wasn’t the storm, the footman replied. For while he had promised to keep mum, he was no longer able to bear the burden of his complicity.
“Then what are you scared of?” asked Chojnicki.
Colonel Festetics had received some horrible news, said the footman. And he quoted the text.
All the windows were already shut because of the storm, and Chojnicki told his servants to draw the thick curtains as well and then to prepare his carriage. He wanted to drive to town. While the horses were being harnessed, a droshky pulled up, with its unrolled hood dripping, so you could tell it came from an area where the storm had already broken. Out stepped that cheery district commissioner who had tried to quell the demonstration of the striking bristle workers; he had a briefcase under his arm. First, as if this were his main reason for coming, he reported that it was raining in the little town. Next he informed Chojnicki that the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had probably been shot to death in Sarajevo. Travelers who had arrived three hours ago had been the first to spread the news. Then a mutilated, encoded wire from the governor’s office had arrived. Obviously, he said, telegraph communication had been disrupted by the storm, as a request for particulars had so far gone unanswered. Furthermore this was Sunday, and there was almost nobody in the offices. The agitation in town and even in the villages was, he said, rising steadily, and despite the storm people were out in the streets.
While the commissioner spoke in hasty whispers, they could hear the shuffling of the dancers in the rooms, the sharp clinking of glasses, and, from time to time, the deep laughter of men. Chojnicki decided to gather a few of his guests in a separate room—people he viewed as influential, discreet, and still sober. Resorting to all kinds of pretexts, he steered now one, now another into the selected room, introduced the district commissioner, and reported the news. These chosen few included the colonel of the dragoon regiment and the major of the rifle battalion with their aides, several bearers of illustrious names, and, representing the officers of the rifle battalion, Lieutenant Trotta. The room they were in was short on seating, so a couple of the men had to lean against the walls while a few unsuspecting and exuberant souls, not knowing what had occurred, sat cross-legged on the carpet. But as it soon turned out, they remained where they were even after hearing the news. Several may have been paralyzed by the shock, others were simply drunk. A third group, however, was by nature indifferent to all events in the world and, so to speak, paralyzed out of innate refinement, and they felt it would not do for them to inconvenience their bodies merely because of a catastrophe. Some had not even removed the gaudy shreds of streamers and the round confetti bits from their necks, heads, and shoulders. And these clownish insignia lent even greater horror to the news.
The small room became hot within minutes. “Let’s open a window!” someone said. Someone else unlatched one of the high narrow windows, leaned out, and bounced back a second later. An unusually violent bolt of white-hot lightning struck the park beyond the window. They couldn’t tell where it had landed, but they heard the splintering of felled trees. Their roaring crowns toppled, black and heavy. And even the exuberant squatters, normally indifferent, leaped up; the tipsy guests began to stagger; and everyone blanched. They were amazed that they were still alive. They held their breath, gawked wide-eyed at one another, and waited for the thunder. It followed within seconds. But between lightning and thunder, eternity itself was crammed in. They all tried to huddle together. They formed a clump of heads and bodies around the table. For an instant their faces, however diverse the features, showed a fraternal resemblance. They acted as if this were their first storm. In fear and awe they waited for the terse clap of cracking thunder. Then they breathed sighs of relief. And while outside the windows the heavy clouds sliced up by the lightning foamed together in a jubilant tumult, the men began returning to their places.
“We have to break up the party!” said Major Zoglauer.
Rittmaster Zschoch, with some confetti stars in his hair and a scrap of pink streamer around his neck, leaped up. He was offended: as a count, as a rittmaster, as a dragoon in particular, as a cavalryman in general, and very particularly as himself, an extraordinary individual—in a word, as Zschoch. His short thick eyebrows bristled, their stiff tiny spikes forming two menacing hedges against Major Zoglauer. His big, bright, silly eyes, which always mirrored everything they might have picked up years ago but rarely what they saw at the moment, now seemed to express the arrogance of his ancestors, an arrogance from the fifteenth century. He had nearly forgotten the
lightning, the thunder, the dreadful news—all the events of the past few minutes. His mind retained only the arduous efforts he had gone to for the celebration, his brainchild. Nor could he hold liquor—he had drunk champagne, and his tiny saddlenose was perspiring slightly.
“The news isn’t true,” he said. “It’s simply not true. Let someone prove to me that it’s true. A stupid lie—you can tell just from the words ‘rumored’ or ‘probably’ or whatever the political gobbledygook!”
“A rumor is enough!” said Zoglauer.
Now Herr von Babenhausen, reserve rittmaster, joined the argument. He was tipsy and kept fanning himself with his handkerchief, either sticking it into his sleeve or pulling it out again. He detached himself from the wall, stepped over to the table, and squinted.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “Bosnia is far away. We don’t give a damn about rumors. As far as I’m concerned, to hell with them! If it’s true, we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Bravo!” cried Baron Nagy Jenö, the one from the hussars.
Although he undeniably had a Jewish grandfather in Bogumin and although his father had purchased his baronage, he considered the Magyars one of the noblest races in the monarchy—nay, the world!—and he managed to forget his Semitic background by taking on all the defects of the Hungarian gentry.
“Bravo!” he repeated. He had succeeded in respectively loving or hating anything that seemed favorable or detrimental to Hungary’s nationalist policies. He had spurred his heart to loathe the heir to the monarchy’s throne because it was generally said that Franz Ferdinand was partial to the Slavic peoples and hostile to the Hungarians. Baron Nagy had not traveled all the way to a party on the godforsaken border just to have it disrupted by some incident. He considered it a betrayal of the whole Magyar nation if some rumor prevented one of its members from dancing a czardas, which he felt racially obligated to do. Wedging his monocle in tighter as he always did when he had to feel nationalistic, the way an old man clutches his cane harder when he starts out on a hike, the baron said in the German of the Hungarians, which sounded vaguely like a process of whiny orthography, “Herr von Babenhausen is right, absolutely right! If the heir to the throne has been assassinated, then there are other heirs left!”