Palace of Flies

On one of the first days, he wondered whether he might have grown too old for this place, which had been a source of conflicted feelings since childhood. Had his memory of the happy days and weeks here, all those years ago, played a terrible trick on him?

What in Bad Fusch was now called the Grand Hotel was, in fact, a third-rate hotel, really an inn but only slightly more distinguished. In earlier days, of course, in the nineties, around the turn of the century, his family and even the more coddled guests of the monarchy’s summer resorts had not been as demanding as they were today. Often, they had lodged in the bedrooms of farmers, who in turn slept in the attic during the summer.

Now I have this half-full chamber pot under my bed, it occurred to him, and there is no bell, let alone a telephone, to call Vroni or Kreszenz. Why didn’t I stay in Lenzerheide, with dear Carl? The room had been fine, the food first-rate. Swiss, plain and simple: There, the wretched war had not ruined everything. Unlike what he had imagined in Lenzerheide, however, he was as incapable of working in Fusch as he was in Switzerland. Thus far he had been unable to use the undisturbed environment here to his work’s advantage.

On the contrary, the best thing here in Fusch had in fact been his acquaintance with Doctor Krakauer, and he very much hoped that it would not break off now—that would be too harsh a punishment for his faux pas. It had been three days since Krakauer disappeared from the face of the earth—on the other hand, he himself had been sitting in his room for the most part, at a little table by the window, unable to believe that his imagination, his associative faculties, had once again completely abandoned him.

He pondered further: Actually, I owe it to my circulatory collapse that I met Krakauer—a wonderful fluke of fate that he happened to pass by!

He would never forget the view through the delicate branches, the radiant crown of the…beech tree, probably…tiny veins, the lines of life … or maple? How the leaves shone, some golden, most green. How many things swept through my head in that moment? Five days it has been—or four?

It seems to me that you are able to sit up; would you like to try that? I will help you, if I may.

A young man, gray-green loden jacket, held my hand … apparently counting the beats of my pulse. With the other hand he placed a hat, my hat, in my lap. I had lain on the ground like this once before, some years ago … in front of a garden gate. In Altaussee, in front of the villa of Baroness … Lhotsky.

Are you feeling dizzy?

The cane the young gentleman was holding was mine. What happened?

Breathe, he said, breathe calmly.

An elderly couple in their tracht, who had been standing next to the man, now moved away.

He had seen this face once before. Had it been the previous day? If he remembered correctly, in the company of an elderly lady, this man’s mother perhaps, wearing a hat with a lavish brim. From some distance, he heard the sound of a postal omnibus’s engine revving, struggling up the mountain road.

Your pulse … Allow me.

The young man lowered his voice.

"Herr von Hofmannsthal, isn’t it? My name is Krakauer, I’m a physician. Well, your pulse seems to have stabilized. I saw you keel over after passing the stile over there. We brought you to this bench here. Those fine people helped … I have a blood pressure gauge in my hotel room … It’s no wonder! After all, you can almost see the foehn veer into a chilly wind on the ridgeway. That wasn’t the case this morning. Stay seated for a moment. If there’s anything I can do to help, please just knock on my door at the Hotel Post, room twenty-two.

"Do you suppose you can make it to town by yourself? You wouldn’t have very far to go. Take your time, stay seated for a while, Herr von Hofmannsthal. The baroness has gone ahead, we want to change our clothes and take our tea.

She adores you, by the way. The two of you also have a mutual acquaintance—Princess Marie of Thurn and Taxis.

What made him almost cringe at that moment? Was it the princess’s bond with Rilke, of which everyone was aware?

We saw you at the Magenbrünnl yesterday; the baroness immediately recognized you.

Had that been on Monday? In any case, he had eaten with appetite that evening.

An automobile, the engine running at high revs, the exhaust fuming, approached the hotel’s forecourt at walking pace. H. paused for a moment on the front steps, looking at the powerful vehicle, its chauffeur in a captain’s hat; the car’s roof was retracted.

He stepped aside, making room for two gentlemen in long coats with leather caps on their heads who were exiting the hotel. In this motorist’s outfit, he had recently said to Carl, especially with glasses on—why, I wouldn’t recognize even my best friends.

When he finally attempted to enter the hotel foyer, he had to make room once again, for Leo the page, who was carrying two suitcases and had two smaller ones tucked under his arms; he exclaimed, almost croaked, Good morning, Herr von Hof—. Just in time, the good chap remembered what H. had requested of him, for the second time, one and a half hours ago, when they had met outside, on the road that ran through the village. Leo had been removing weeds from along the wall of the sunroom with a sickle and had yelled … —well, he couldn’t help himself, and perhaps he had just forgotten that they had already met earlier today. But what striking facial features he had! Unthinkable that this man could pretend to be someone else. Only that his falsetto did not match his bulky skull. H. remembered the kind demeanor his father had perpetually displayed toward servants, and how he, the son, had found it exaggerated here in the mountains, but then ended up adopting it himself. He noticed how a little girl in ragged clothes, a finger up her nose, was watching them both from the other side of the road; evidently the child of some chambermaid or cook. She was standing in front of the entrance to the new hotel, the name of which he had already forgotten.

As he walked up to the reception desk, he remembered that the mail would not arrive until noon, at the earliest. Some resort guests appeared to be leaving. By the seating area in the hall stood a large straw trunk, on which lay two umbrellas.

How old might Leo be? The day H. had arrived in Bad Fusch by postal omnibus—the first time he had not come by oxcart or mail coach—he had been impressed, nay, moved, by the sullen face of Leo, who was dragging the two large trunks from the coach stop to the house, when it suddenly lit up inordinately after he recognized H. in front of the hotel. H. had insisted on carrying his travel bag himself.

Well, whaddya know, Herr Doktor.

Thank God Leo had not been able to remember his name at that moment. Maybe the reason this impressed me so much, he wondered, was that the house servant didn’t know me as a famous writer but only as a summer guest of many years, starting from he was young. His last stay here had been many years ago, though. As he climbed the stairs to his room, he tried to remember: Was it that summer, when Papa could not be stirred to leave Vienna after Mama’s death? No … the last time he had come to Fusch was in nineteen hundred and eight, that rainy July, the mountain peaks covered in snow, when he had worked here in seclusion, away from his wife and children, on his Florindo.

How old might Leo be now? He was struggling a lot to drag the trunks up to his room on the third floor, reminding him very much of Alfons Walde’s and Albin Egger-Lienz’s maladroit peasant and lumberjack figures.

Now, he would have liked to read about Bad Fusch in the letters of Alexander von Villers, about Sankt Wolfgang, as the village had been called at the time. But the edition’s first volume, which he had brought along on his travels, had remained with Carl, who had immediately fallen for the charm of these letters. Villers, he remembered, had said rather disparaging things about Fusch, and had preferred to spend his summers in Ferleiten, at the Lukashansl Inn; he had apparently hiked up to Fusch once a year, or perhaps more often, to experience the goings-on of the resort for a few hours and then feel even better about his stay in Ferleiten. Why hadn’t he thought of Ferleiten when he couldn’t stand being in Switzerland any longer, when he had pondered where he might be able to lodge during the first half of August, before continuing with his writing in Altaussee, with the