“What we hear every day through the nobles is quite different.”
I smiled as I spoke with the man beside me.
When I poked Joseph in the side, only then did Joseph react.
“So it is.”
You have to say how it’s different!
“…It is the opposite of what the nobles told us—that protests had broken out because the people opposed factories being built.”
The man answered with an expression of deep emotion.
“No, Your Majesty. We have ears and eyes as well.”
The opera had already become nothing more than background music, and the subjects were all looking at us, who were watching from the same place as they were, and listening closely.
“His Majesty agonized every day over how to commend your labors, and yet to think that the nobles, who should have been your voice, betrayed you.”
So it wasn’t that the emperor oppressed the people, but that the nobles deceived the emperor?
In truth, the nobles of Milan whom you trust aren’t freedom fighters, but a corrupt privileged class blocking the emperor’s grace for the sake of their own interests. Got it?
A boy sitting right in front of us asked us,
“Your Majesty, but why are you trying to speak with us—”
“Emilio! Forgive us, Your Majesty…”
You’re a republican, aren’t you?
Well, there’s no way they’d come to believe in the emperor as their father overnight.
To them, the Revolution of ’48 was still so recent that the rivers and mountains had not even changed once.
“It is all right. At a young age, countless thoughts tend to trouble the heart.”
I answered the question of the boy, who looked barely fifteen.
“His Majesty the Emperor and the Empress are the father and mother of the empire, and the subjects are our children. Is it not only natural for parents to converse with their children?”
Poke, poke.
“That is so. Since we cannot look after every child, we have heard of them through the nobles, the representatives of our subjects.”
Our Joseph is doing well.
I laid my hand on the back of Joseph’s hand.
“So the subjects were deceived by them and wronged their father.”
“That is so.”
“Your Majesty, perhaps they fled beforehand because they were afraid of Your Majesty meeting your subjects.”
At those words, everyone’s eyes turned toward the empty box seats.
“Lies always come to light, like… the invisible clothes of a certain king. Everyone whispers that they are marvelous, but in the end, there is nothing there at all.”
Those who could attend a performance at La Scala were citizens with a certain amount of capital.
Poke, poke.
“Ahem. No matter how splendidly the exterior may shine, a place devoid of truth is nothing more than a whitewashed tomb.”
“…Your Majesty!”
The subjects stared at Joseph with shocked expressions.
…What is that? Why is he getting a better reaction than me?
Even if Jesus returned to Milan among the living, would he receive such a fervent response?
“Are you all right?”
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty has! The nobles!”
Saying that, the man beside me collapsed.
“Sir, sir!”
I urgently called for the guards.
“Guards! A man has collapsed here! Quickly, to the hospital!”
The guards, caught between their original duty and my command as empress, hesitated in confusion.
“This is an order. Take this man to the hospital at once. I will ride in His Majesty’s carriage, so use my carriage.”
The guard looked back and forth between Joseph and me before finally carrying the collapsed man on his back and rushing out.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Though it was the empress’s word, there was no way a guard would so easily forget his duty and move.
It must have been possible because Joseph had sent some sort of signal.
“If the Empress is worried, how about we go to the hospital as soon as our conversation is over?”
I nodded.
For now, we had to settle this chaotic situation first.
***
Silence flowed through the carriage on the way back after the play ended.
“You did well.”
“You worked harder than I did.”
He must have been flustered by the sudden request to act, yet he had followed along well.
The bourgeoisie would not turn to our side in an instant.
“You know this is only a temporary patch, don’t you?”
Joseph nodded reluctantly.
“Do you think they truly believe in us?”
Of course not.
“Nationalism is like opium. It simplifies the world into a dichotomy. It is a sweet illusion that makes them think their misfortunes are Austria’s fault, and Sardinia’s prosperity is thanks to the nation.”
“Does that make sense?”
Phew.
“Joseph, our Apostolic King. Can you convert to Protestantism?”
“Are you saying that is a religion?”
I answered while looking out the carriage window at the dark streets of Milan passing by.
“A terribly modern religion in which God has been replaced by the name of the nation.”
“……”
“Just as you cannot abandon your identity as Apostolic King and become a Protestant, there is no way those who have already converted to the faith of the Italian nation will accept our doctrine called the Habsburg Empire. To them, you are not the pope, but Martin Luther. Ah, perhaps not Luther—caliph would be more fitting.”
At least Protestants share the commonality of being separated brethren, don’t they?
I looked at Joseph.
He still wore an expression that said he found it difficult to understand, or perhaps did not want to acknowledge it.
“Joseph. What makes a religion? Faith, scripture, and martyrs.”
I folded down my fingers one by one as I spoke.
“To them, the nation is an unquestionable faith. Their common language and the history they have recreated are their scriptures, and those who died at the hands of your army in 1848 are martyrs who shed their blood.”
“Then what we did today was…”
“It was not missionary work.”
I cut him off.
“We did not try to convert their faith. We merely exposed that ‘the priests you believe in are in fact greedy swindlers embezzling your offerings.’”
“……”
“What happens to believers when the object of their faith remains the same, but they come to distrust the leaders who guided that faith?”
Joseph did not answer.
“They either seek a new, more fanatical leader, or they fall into extreme confusion, doubting everything. What we saw today at La Scala was not emotion. It was precisely that confusion. The same goes for why that man collapsed.”
The Italian problem was already a confirmed defeat for us.
“It is different from Hungary or Bohemia. We can conciliate them.”
“Bohemia and Hungary? They, too, did not choose themselves as Slavs and Hungarians?”
“Your Majesty, Bohemia being defined as Slavic does not mean they wish to submit under Russia. Rather than agonize between Germany and Russia, they will likely believe it is better to go with us.”
That was something you already knew, wasn’t it, Joseph?
“Your Majesty, if you wish to speak more politics with me… forget Vienna’s opinion for a moment.”
I know how Sophie’s failure is completed.
“If, as you have wanted from me until now, you want only love and not politics—yes, I will do that for you.”
“Sisi…”
After hesitating for a moment, he asked me cautiously,
“Then what was that action just now? If the Italian problem cannot be solved, why did you go that far?”
That was simply because of my personality.
“It would be unfair if we were the only ones to suffer.”
Even if Sardinia unified it, I wanted an even weaker Italy.
If we could not have it, then I would divide it and smash it to pieces completely.
“…You reminded me of Mother.”
What? What is this bastard saying?
***
The more Joseph listened to Sisi’s explanation, the more one person came to mind.
‘Mother…’
A cool reason unshaken by emotion, merciless political engineering like divide and rule, and an iron will that would endure any criticism for the sake of maintaining the empire.
The standard of competent politics Joseph had seen and learned all his life was his mother, Archduchess Sophie.
“…You reminded me of Mother.”
Sisi frowned with her beautiful face, revealing her displeasure.
Joseph found it difficult to answer Sisi’s question.
As empress, she was capable, but he sensed that the policies she desired differed from his own ideals.
‘Approaching the subjects without hesitation, trying to join hands not only with Germany but with Bohemia and Hungary, thinking of Lombardy as a card already discarded.’
As a believer in Greater Austrianism, Joseph could not easily take her hand.
Moreover, the Sisi Joseph had wanted was a refuge.
The fact that his only salvation was an empress with the same face as his mother made Joseph suffer all the more.
‘I thought I had escaped the prison called Mother, but does that mean the wife I love is the same prison as well?’
“Joseph.”
Once again, she reached out her hand.
“Should I just not do politics?”
She cradled him with her warm hand.
‘…Because I am pathetic.’
She was saying, of her own accord, ‘If you cannot handle me, then for your sake, I will cast aside my strongest weapon and become your refuge.’
‘…Because I am not strong enough to stabilize the empire.’
Joseph clenched his fist tightly.
***
In truth, I do not like politics that much.
It reminds me of tiring things from the past, and fundamentally, I dislike the stress of competing.
In the cases of Archduchess Sophie and the Milanese nobles, I only did politics because they tried to invade my territory or ignored me, and I lost my temper.
So if Joseph told me not to do politics, I was thinking I would not.
“Can you promise me one thing?”
“What is it?”
“Erase Mother’s shadow.”
I withdrew my hand from him and slowly nodded.
In the end, Joseph had chosen his mother.
I was not disappointed like Elisabeth.
…Because I knew he was originally this kind of person, and because each person’s ties and values face different places.
“All right, Joseph.”
Still, perhaps I was a little hurt.