Anne Rice - Violin

"It's nothing, Hans. You have done kindness for me. I thank you. God can't look unkindly on that. You did not murder my Father. And my Mother put her blessing on all this, I see. That's my father's finest cloak, lined in Russian fox, you see? How she thinks of me. Or did Vera give it to you?"

"It was Vera! But mark my words. Leave Vienna tonight. If you are caught there will not be a trial for this! They'll see to it you are shot dead first before you can speak or anyone can speak who saw him hurt you."

"I have been tried in here," said Stefan, touching his coat with the wrapped hand.

"I killed him."

"Leave Vienna as I told you. Get to a surgeon who can yet mend your fingers.

Perhaps they can be saved. There are other violins for one who plays as you play. Go across the sea, to Rio de Janeiro, go to America, or east to IstanbuJ where no one will ask who you are. In Russia, have you friends, friends of your mother?"

Stefan shook his head, smiling. "All cousins to the Czar or his bastards, every one," he said with a small laugh. It was the first time in this ghostly life that I had seen this Stefan truly laugh. He looked carefree for a moment, and happiness took all the lines from his face and made him, as it customarily does to people, perfectly radiant.

He was full of quiet gratitude for the flustered little man. He sighed and looked about the room. It seemed the unadorned gesture of a man who might soon die and looks at all the simple things with loving regard.

Berthe tied his frills, made his collars peaked and straight against his neck. She knotted the white silk tie in front. She took a black wool scarf and wound it round his neck, lifting his groomed and shining hair and letting it fall down. Long, yet trimmed.

"Let me cut it. . ." she said. More disguise?

"No . . . it doesn't matter. The cape and the hood will hide me. I have no time left. Look, it's midnight. The long deathwatch has probably begun."

"You can't!" she cried.

"But I will! Will you betray me?"

The thought stymied her, stymied her f!ther. They shook their heads, silently and obviously vowing that they would not.

"Goodbye, darling, would I could leave you with something, some little thing...

"You leave me with all I'll ever need," she said softly. There was resignation in her voice. "You leave me with some hours that other women must make up or read about in stories."

He smiled again. Never in any setting had I seen him so perfectly comfortable. I wondered if the bleeding hands hurt him, because the bandages were bad already.

"The woman who fixed my hands," he said to Berthe, sticking to his point, "she took my rings in payment, all of them. I couldn't stop her. But this is my last warm room for the night, my last unhurried moment. Berthe, kiss me and I'll go. Hans, I can't ask you for a blessing, but a kiss, I do."

They all embraced. Stefan put out his arms, as if he could lift the cloak with the clubby hands, but Berthe was quick to get the cloak, and the man and the woman together put it over his shoulders and brought the hood up over his head.

I was sick with fear. I knew what was to come. I didn't want to see it.

Chapter 13

The vestibule of a great house. The undeniable ornament of the German Baroque, gilded wood, two murals facing each other, a man, a woman, in powdered wigs.

Stefan had gained entry, his hands tucked inside his coat, and still spoke sternly in Russian to the guards, who were confused and unsure about this well-dressed man who had come to pay his respects.

"Herr Beethoven is here? Now?" asked Stefan in this sharp Rus sian. A divertissement. The guards spoke only German. At last one of the Czar's private men appeared.

Stefan played it to the hilt, without remo ving his bandaged hands, making a deep Russian bow, the cape falling around him on the tiled floor, the chandelier above lighting the dark, near monastic figure.

In Russian, he said, "I have come from Count Raminsky in St. Petersburg to pay my respects." His confidence and bearing were perfection. "And also to convey a message to Herr van Beethoven. It was for me that Herr Beethoven wrote a quartet which was sent to me by Prince Stefanovsky. Ah. I beg you to allow me a few moments with my good friend; I would not at this hour disturb the family, only I was told that the watch was all night, that I might call."

He was on his way to the door.

A great formality descended on the Russian guards and was imme diately adopted by the German officers and the wigged servants.

The servants trailed after the guards, then hastened to open doors.

"Herr Beethoven has gone home some time ago, but I can escort you to the room where the Prince is laid," said this Russian official, obviously in some awe of this tall imposing messenger. "And I should perhaps wake..."

"No. As I have already explained, I would not have them disturbed at this hour,"

said Stefan. He glanced about the house as though there was nothing in its regal dimensions that was familiar to him.

He started up the steps, the heavy fur-lined coat dancing gracefully just above the heels of his boots.

"The young Princess," he said glancing over his shoulder at the Russian guard who hastened to follow. "She was my childhood friend. I will come to call upon her at the proper hour. Only let me rest my eyes upon the old Prince and say a prayer.

The Russian guard started to speak, but they had come to the proper door. It was too late for words.

The death room. Immense, its walls replete with the gilded white curlicues that make the rooms of Vienna look so much like whipped cream; soaring pilasters with gilded tracery; a long row of outside windows, each deep in its rounded arch beneath a gilded soffit, its counterfeit in mirrors opposite and far at the end double doors such as those we entered now.

The coffin lay on a great curtained dais of rich gathered velvet, and a woman in a small gilded chair sat on the dais right beside the coffin, her head bowed in sleep. The nape of her neck showed a single strand of black beads, her dress was the high-waisted Empire style but in strict black mourning.

The whole bier was heaped and surrounded by exquisite bouquets of flowers.

Marble jardinieres held sprays of solemn lilies and dour roses in profusion all about the room, becoming part of the engulfing decoration.

White-painted French-style chairs were set out in rows, their solemn damask upholstery of deep green or red, in sharp contrast to the clumsy German-made white frames. Candles burned, singly and in candelabra and in the great chandelier above, a massive thing of gold and glass not unlike that which had fallen in Stefan's house, all crusted with beeswax, pure and white.

A thousand flames fluttered timidly in the quiet.

To the rear of the room, a row of monks sat, saying the Rosary aloud in Latin, sotto voce, and in unison. They didn't look up as the hooded figure entered and made his way towards the coffin.

On a long golden couch two women slept, a younger dark-haired woman with Stefan's sharp features, her head against the other woman's shoulder, both of them dressed in rich black, their veils for the moment thrown back. A brooch loomed on the elder's neck. Her hair was silver and white. The younger stirred in her sleep as if arguing with someone but didn't wake, even as Stefan walked past, though some distance from her.

My mother.

The unctuous Russian guard didn't dare to stop the imperious aristocrat who boldly came to the dais.

Servants at the open door stood blind, as if they were waxen dummies in their pre-Napoleonic blue satin and pigtailed wigs.

Stefan stood before the dais. Only two steps above, the young woman slept, in her small gilded chair, one arm in the coffin.