MOURNING.
The sound of rejoicings was hushed. The people of Innspruck had hastened
to remove from the streets every symbol of festivity. The flowers and
flags, the triumphal arches, and the wreathed arcades had disappeared.
The epithalamium had been followed by the dirge.
Night had set in--the first night of the emperor's death. The corpse
still lay on the bed where its last breath had been drawn, and no one
was with the deceased sovereign except two night-watchers, whose drowsy
heads were buried in the arm-chairs wherein they sat. Death had banished
ceremony. In the presence of their dead emperor, his attendants were
seated and slept. In the centre of the room stood the coffin that
awaited the imperial remains; for on the morrow the funeral ceremonies
were to begin. But the empress had ordered that on this night all
ceremony should be suspended.
Deep silence reigned throughout Innspruck. The citizens, worn out with
the excitement of the day, had all retired to rest. Even the children of
the deceased had forgotten their sorrow in sleep. Maria Theresa alone
sought no rest.
All that day she had been overwhelmed by grief; even prayer seemed to
bring no relief to her heart. But now she was tranquil, she had thrust
back her tears; and the empress-widow, all etiquette forgetting, was
making her husband's shroud.
As a woman, she grieved for the partner of her joys and sorrows; as a
woman, she wished to pay the last sad honors to the only man whom she
had ever loved. She whose hands were accustomed to the sceptre, now held
a needle, and to all offers of assistance she made but one reply.
"None of you are worthy to help me in this holy work, for none of you
loved him. For you, he was the beneficent and honored sovereign, but for
me, he was the joy, the light, the air of my life. I, who loved him,
have alone the right to work upon his shroud."
"Oh, your majesty," cried the Countess Dann, while her eyes filled with
sympathizing tears, "would that the world could see with what devotion
the great Maria Theresa sits in the stillness of the night, and with her
own hands prepares her husband's shroud!"
The empress quickly raised her head, and, with something like her
accustomed imperiousness, said: "I forbid any one of you to speak of
what you have seen to-night. In the simplicity of my grief, I do what my
heart urges me to do; but let not my sorrow become the subject of the
world's idle gossip. When the husband dies his wife, be she empress or
beggar, is nothing but a sorrowing widow. Ah! I am indeed beggared of
all my wealth, for I have lost the dearest treasure I possessed on
earth. All my joys will die with him."
The empress's sobs choked her utterance; and burying her face in the
shroud, she wept aloud.
"In the name of Heaven, your majesty, do not let your tears fall upon
the shroud!" cried the Countess Dann, while she tried with gentle force
to wrest the cloth from the empress's hands. "I have heard it said that
what is laid in the coffin bedewed with tears, draws after it to the
grave the one who sheds them."
"Would it were true!" exclaimed the empress, who had already resumed her
work. "Would that my Francis could open his arms to receive me, that I
might rest by his side from the cares of life! Would that I were with
him, who was my lover from earliest childhood; for cold and cheerless
will be the life that is no longer lit up by his smile."
She bent over her work, and nothing further was said; but her ladies of
honor gazed with tearful eyes upon the high-born mourner, who, in her
long, black dress, was making a shroud for her lost husband.
At last the task was completed, and she rose from her seat. With a sad
smile she threw the shroud over her head, and it fell around her
majestic form like a white veil.
"My veil of eternal widowhood!" said she. "Let me warm it with my love,
that it may not lie too cold upon my darling's breast. Now, my friends,
go and rest. Pray for the emperor, and for his heart-broken wife."
"Surely," said the Countess Daun, "your majesty will not send us away
until we have attended to your wants. Let us remain; we will watch by
your bedside."
"No, countess, I will dispense with your services to-night. Charlote von
Hieronymus will stay with me."
Turning to her beloved little tire-woman she said: "I want your
attendance yet awhile, Charlotte; you are to dress my hair to-night as
becomes a widow. Good-night, ladies."
The ladies of honor, with deep courtesies, left the room. As the door
closed behind them, she said to Charlotte: "Now, Charlotte, dear child,
you shall go with me on my last visit to the emperor. Take a pair of
scissors, and come."
"Scissors, your majesty?" said Charlotte.
"Yes, my dear," replied she, as she advanced to her work-table from
whence she took up a silver candelabrum, and signed to Charlotte to
follow.
Wrapping the shroud close about her, the empress went forward through
the long suite of magnificent but dark and empty rooms, that lay between
her and her husband. Her tall white figure, enveloped in the shroud,
looked in the gloom of night like a ghost. The light which she carried,
as it flashed across her face gave it a weird aspect; and as the two
wanderers went flitting by the large mirrors that here and there
ornamented the rooms, they looked like a vision which had started up for
a moment, then vanished into utter darkness.
At last they came to a door which stood ajar, through which a light was
visible.
"We are here," said the empress, leaning against the door for support.
"Step lightly, Charlotte, and make no noise, for the emperor sleeps."
There on the bed, with its yellow, sunken face, was the corpse that had
been her husband--the only man she had ever loved. And that hideous
black coffin, which looked all the gloomier for the wax-lights that
burned around it, was his last resting-place.
Maria Theresa shuddered when she saw all this; but her strong will came
to her help, and she went steadily forward until she reached the
night-watchers. She awoke them and said, "Go, wait in the next room
until I call you." Charlotte was already on her knees, praying.
The empress stood once more irresolute, then rushing forward with a cry
she leaned over the body.
Presently she laid her hand lovingly upon the staring eyes of the
corpse, and looked long and tenderly at the face.
"Shut your eyes, my Franz," said she softly, "shut your eyes, for never
have they looked so coldly upon me before. Do not forget me in heaven,
my beloved; but leave your heart with me; mine has been with you for so
many years! First I loved you as a child--then as a maiden--and lastly,
I loved you as a wife and the mother of your children. And I will ever
love you, my own one. I was true as your wife, and I will be true as
your widow. Farewell, my beloved, farewell!"
She bent over and kissed the emperor's mouth, and for a moment laid her
head upon his cold, still bosom. Then again she drew her hand softly
across his eyes, and tried to close them. A proud smile flitted over her
wan face, for the eyes of the corpse closed. The loving hand of the wife
had prevailed where every other effort had failed. True to her wishes in
death as in life, the dead emperor had shut his eyes to earth forever.
"Come, Charlotte, come," cried the empress, almost joyfully, "see how my
emperor loves me! He hears me still, and has granted my last request. I
will mourn no more, but will think of the day when I shall go to him
again and share his home in heaven. Until then, my Franz, farewell!"
She bent her head, and taking the shroud from her shoulders, she spread
it carefully over the coffin, smoothing every wrinkle with her hands,
until it lay as perfect as the covering of a couch.
"Call the valets, Charlotte," said she; and as they entered the room,
she motioned them to advance. "Help me to lay the emperor on yonder
bed," said she. "Take the feet and body, and I will bear his head."
With her strong arms, she raised him as a mother would move her sleeping
child, and, with the help of the valets, she laid her husband in his
coffin. This done, she again sent away the attendants, and then wrapped
the body in the shroud as though she had been protecting it from the
cold.
"Come hither, Charlotte," said she, "with your scissors." Charlotte
approached noiselessly. "Cut off my hair," continued she, taking out her
comb, and letting down the rich masses until it fell about her person
like another shroud.
"No, your majesty, no," cried Charlotte, bursting into tears. "I never
can cut off that magnificent hair."
"Good child," said the empress, "many a weary hour has that magnificent
hair cost you, and do you ask to have it spared? It shall give you no
more trouble. Take the scissors and cut it off!"
"Has your majesty then forgotten," pleaded Charlotte, "how dearly the
emperor loved this hair?"
"No, Charlotte, and therefore he must have it. 'Tis the last love-token
I have to give him. I cannot die with him like an Indian wife; but
religion does not forbid me to lay this offering at least in his coffin.
He used so often to pass his hands through it--he was so proud of its
beauty, that now he is gone, no one else shall see it. Say no more,
Charlotte, but cut it off."
The empress bent her head, while Charlotte, with a heart-felt sigh and
trembling hands, cut off the long and beautiful blond hair which Maria
Theresa laid as a love-token in the coffin of her husband. [Footnote:
Caroline Pichler. "Memoirs," vol. i., p.23.]