Haa… I miss Josef.
Josef understood everything even when I expressed myself directly.
…Pauline did too.
Königsegg and Metternich have the same names, but their personalities are complete opposites.
The two Sophies are similar in temperament, though.
“Your Majesty, a letter has arrived from His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Is that so? Read it.”
Ferenczy opened the letter and read it aloud.
“— I wish to go at once, but there is much to prepare for the tour of Milan.”
The tour of Milan?
“When does His Majesty say he will arrive?”
Ferenczy stopped reading, quickly scanned the contents, and answered.
“He says it will take about three months.”
Then the season will have changed….
“Summon the musicians and actors in Venice.”
Ah, I nearly forgot one warning.
“Do not summon Verdi.”
Just before the war, the slogan Viva Verdi had been widely used among Milan’s supporters of unification.
Was it Viva Vittorio Emanuele, Re D’Italia?
Long live Vittorio Emanuele, King of Italy, indeed.
“Ferenczy, send a letter to Johann Strauss.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
Haa, just how many musicians had I missed by a hair’s breadth?
Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Donizetti, Paganini….
What a pity. If I had come just five years earlier, I would have seen Schumann.
“Tell me what musicians are being talked about in the salons these days.”
“How about Brahms?”
Königsegg answered.
“Brahms… Johannes Brahms?”
“So Your Majesty has heard of him as well. He is the young German genius whom Master Schumann praised highly in his lifetime. I hear the Vienna Music Society has also had its eye on him recently.”
I know the three Bs.
Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
“Where is he staying?”
“I heard he is conducting a women’s choir in Hamburg.”
Strauss’s music is, after all, a little light. Waltzes are music suited to high society.
Brahms is a figure credited with reviving the symphony after its decline following Beethoven.
“Send the letter to Brahms instead of Strauss.”
And Königsegg. You and I have some work to do.
After finishing my bath and coming out, I said to her,
“You dry my hair today.”
Königsegg naturally took the towel and began drying my hair.
“Your Majesty, before you give your command, may I ask one thing?”
You, who teaches me etiquette?
I nodded slightly.
“…Your Majesty, when we were in Madeira before, did you not say that you wished to call us by name more often?”
I did.
I only nodded slightly again.
“I wished to ask why you thought so.”
Because it’s more comfortable.
Esterházy, the Mistress of the Household, serves as both Mistress of the Robes and chief lady-in-waiting, but while there is only one person in those positions, the court ladies all hold the same office.
Even Countess Lamberg, now retired, Hunyady, and Countess Königsegg, who is drying my hair right now.
“What is wrong with wanting to call my people by their names?”
I still remember the etiquette Esterházy taught me on the first day.
‘When Your Majesty has need to refer to me, you may call me chief lady-in-waiting.’
And what else was it?
‘In the imperial household, only offices exist; people do not.’ Was that it?
“There is nothing wrong with it. Rather, addressing us that way is more in accordance with etiquette.”
I turned around.
“What does that mean?”
“Until now, you have said, ‘Court lady, listen,’ or ‘Court lady, speak.’ That is not incorrect either, but it is actually more proper etiquette to call us by our family names.”
“Why did you not tell me that until now?”
“How could we dare point out that the etiquette Your Majesty had learned was wrong?”
No, but then why did Esterházy teach me that way?
I rang the bell and called Esterházy.
“Chief lady-in-waiting.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Please speak.”
“There is no problem if I call Königsegg or Hunyady by name?”
Esterházy answered as if I were asking something obvious.
“No.”
“But you told me I must not call you by name….”
“The reader is an exception.”
Yes, she had said that was why she had been assigned to me.
“You mean I may call them Königsegg or Hunyady, not court lady?”
“Yes, neither is against etiquette. Rather, if you ask which is more proper, it is the latter.”
“But on the first day, did you not say that only offices exist at court?”
“A house is an office, Your Majesty.”
“Then why did you not say anything when I called them court ladies?”
No, no. That was not it. Since it was not wrong, there had been no need to correct it.
“I thought Your Majesty still considered us to be Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess’s people.”
When Esterházy said that, Königsegg added,
“When Your Majesty called us by our surnames in London and Madeira, we were pleased among ourselves.”
“Why?”
“Because it was no different from acknowledging the authority of the houses we possess.”
So, because I misunderstood etiquette, I had been ignoring them for six years?
Unintentionally, but still?
“What about saying you would hear your names after retirement?”
“A given name is personal.”
To think I would only realize this after six years.
Then….
“Sophie Esterházy.”
I called her with her given name mixed in, as I had in Venice.
“…You must not say that.”
Okay. Given names are forbidden, but surnames are allowed.
“Countess Esterházy von Galántha-Liechtenstein.”
“Countess Esterházy is quite sufficient. Galántha is merely the name of the family estate, and Liechtenstein has the same meaning as Your Majesty’s Wittelsbach.”
Well, it would be strange if someone called me Empress Habsburg-Lorraine-Wittelsbach.
It is not the sort of title one uses in daily life.
Mr. Kim Cheolsu of the Gimhae Kim clan and the Andong Kwon family. Definitely strange.
I should have called them this way sooner.
For no reason, I had exhausted myself for six years over a misunderstanding of my own.
“But did you not tell me to call you chief lady-in-waiting?”
So I had diligently called her that. The other court ladies, too.
“It was merely a measure for Your Majesty’s convenience, out of concern that you might confuse our names.”
At Esterházy’s answer, I turned to Königsegg and said,
“Königsegg.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“This matter is not my fault, but entirely Esterházy’s, so blame the chief lady-in-waiting.”
When I made the joke, Esterházy let out a small sigh and pressed a hand to her head.
She should have told me from the beginning that a house was also an office.
It was not for nothing that I had so often called only for the chief lady-in-waiting and the reader… because of one wrong thing Esterházy said, she had ended up running my errands at her age.
So that was why Josef called Grünne by his surname.
“Come to think of it, I was not corrected when I called Schmerling by name either.”
Though that was simply because I did not know his office.
“These days, Count Grünne is being called Master of the Horse. Count Grünne has been striving to receive imperial favor again for that reason.”
So that was why Count Grünne had been paying attention to me lately.
He even poured coffee for me last time.
I had been ostracizing the world.
Somehow, I had thought we had grown a little closer, yet I still felt something like an invisible wall between us. To think this was the reason.
“I thought Your Majesty had spoken that way in Bavaria as well.”
Königsegg… no.
“Have you forgotten what the very first words I heard after coming here were?”
Both Esterházy and Königsegg looked as if they had no idea at all.
You were in the same place, and you forgot that?
“You are not Elisabeth of Bavaria. You are the Empress of Austria and the mother of the Habsburgs. You will have to learn everything anew, one by one, from how to smile, to how to walk, to how to breathe. Leave behind any freedom to act as you please in your homeland and forget it. That is what she said.”
When I imitated my mother-in-law’s voice, the two struggled with all their might to hold back laughter, apparently finding the sight ridiculous.
There had been no need to remember it, but I had sincerely forgotten.
The memories of Bavaria existed as faintly as the memories of childhood, so forgetting them had been all the easier.
“Your Majesty, what is the reason you summoned Countess Königsegg separately?”
Ah, right, right. If not for Esterházy, I would have forgotten.
“I intend to have her act as my proxy.”
“Your proxy, you say? I do not resemble Your Majesty….”
“Not that sort of proxy. Meet the actors and musicians in my stead.”
After all, an empress cannot supervise them directly.
“I intend to create a play to be staged at La Scala. Something people can sing along to, where actors sing and dance, and the story progresses.”
“Do you mean an operetta or a singspiel?”
I shook my head.
“His Majesty will watch it as well, so an openly satirical play like Offenbach’s would not be good.”
Besides, opera is music with drama placed over it, while a musical is drama with songs placed over it.
“They converse as in a play, then sing when emotions heighten, and at times everyone dances together.”
“You mean the music and the drama must be interwoven.”
Exactly. In that sense, I had thought Strauss would be all right too.
But the sort of play I want this time is a little different from that.
I rose from my seat for a moment and loosened my throat for the first time in a while.
“Ahh. Ahem. Aaaah.”
Phew. It has been so long that I am nervous.
Esterházy and Königsegg quietly watched to see what I was about to do.
“Now, from this moment on, I will portray a certain character.”
The performance had already begun.
A novel that everyone alive now would know.
A classic novel published two hundred and fifty years ago and still beloved in the twenty-first century.
I steadied my breathing and deliberately scraped my vocal cords.
“No longer ordinary Alonso Quijano, but an invincible knight! Don Quixote of La Mancha! Hear me, world rotten to the core—!”
Though it is set in Spain, it is close to Catholic and Latin culture.
Rather than rigid German-style lessons, the passionate and romantic tale of Don Quixote will be far better received in Milan.
Lastly, it can reach both the Italians who dream of revolution and the nobles who seek to protect the old order, each in a different meaning.
After finishing the number of the Knight of La Mancha, I exhaled and asked the two of them,
“What do you think? With a play like this, they would forget Verdi for a while, would they not?”