“. . . The groom’s entire family is so upstanding that you could not possibly find a better one. Hardworking, loving, they came to their fortune honestly.”
The guests make their agreement known, nodding.
“In addition, they have many attributes and talents, and above all, they are ambitious,” the count goes on. “And good for them. They are no different in that respect from those of us who were ennobled long ago, in barbarian times, when our ancestors backed the kings with swords or plundered local farmers and took up all their land. You all know perfectly well that not every ‘von’ is synonymous with great attributes of spirit and heart . . . And we need people who are powerful, in order to share and incarnate that which is most valuable. You can accomplish more from the outset with connections and power. All that we consider to be obvious and universal, the whole structure of the world as we know it, is decaying and crumbling before our very eyes. This house needs reconstruction, and we hold the trowels to repair it in our hands.”
There is resounding applause, and the guests’ mouths are submerged in the finest Moravian wine. Then the music starts—no doubt there will be dancing. Curious glances dart to Eva Frank, and soon Count Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhofen appears at her side. A smiling Eva gives him her hand, as her aunt has taught her, but at the same time she looks for her father. There he is. He is sitting in darkness, surrounded by women, and he is looking straight at her from all the way over there. She can feel his gaze as if it were his hand. It gives her permission to dance with this graceful young aristocrat who looks like a grasshopper, whose name she can’t possibly remember. But then, when a man named Hirschfeld, a fantastically wealthy merchant from Prague, comes up to her, her father almost imperceptibly shakes his head. After a moment’s hesitation, Eva declines, blaming a headache.
That night, she hears a thousand compliments, and when she finally falls into bed still wearing her dress, her head is spinning wildly, and her stomach, on account of an excess of Moravian wine, consumed furtively with Esther, seethes with nausea.
Of the emperor and people from everywhere and nowhere
The great enlightened emperor, who co-rules with his mother, is a handsome thirty-something-year-old man and a widower twice over. He is said to have sworn that he would not get married a third time, which has sent many young ladies from the best homes into despair. He is reserved and—even those who know him best say this—shy. A shy emperor! He lends himself a little courage by slightly raising his eyebrows, which makes him feel like he is looking down on everyone. His girlfriends say that he is not very present in bed, and he finishes quickly. He reads a great deal. He corresponds with the Prussian Frederick, whom deep down he admires. He imitates him in that he sometimes goes out into the city incognito, dressed as an ordinary soldier, and in this way he sees with his own eyes how his subjects live. Naturally he is discreetly accompanied by bodyguards, also in disguise.
He seems to have a slight inclination toward melancholy, and he is interested in the human body and its mysteries, all those bones, remains, human skulls. He also likes taxidermy and rare monsters. He has set up a fantastic Wunderkammer, where he takes his guests; he is amused by their childish surprise, their disgust blended with fascination. In that moment he carefully watches his guests—yes, now that polite smile of theirs falls away, that obsequious grimace they all have on their faces as they interact with the emperor. Then he sees who they really are.
Soon he would like to turn this Wunderkammer into an organized, systematic collection, divided into classes and categories—then his collection of curiosities could become a real museum. It would be an epochal transition—the Wunderkammer represents the old world, chaotic, filled with anomalies and incomprehensible to reason, while the museum is the new world, enlightened by the glow of reason, logical, classified, organized. When it opens, this museum will be a first step toward further reforms—toward fixing the nation. He dreams, for instance, of reforming the overgrown, overly bureaucratized administration that devours enormous sums from the treasury; he dreams of abolishing the serfdom of the peasants. Such ideas do not please his mother, the Empress Maria Theresa. She considers them newfangled eccentricities. They disagree completely on such questions.