A Woman In The Shadows

I sat down at the small table and reread the disturbing message from him that arrived that morning. I asked myself again what the story was, or had been, which had brought him to say to me those words so thick with repressed tears.

What should I not believe? Had there therefore been a scandal at the court of Vienna? What had happened between my future husband and that woman - I do not know how noble?

Evidently it was not a simple love affair between adolescents, without consequences, because otherwise he would not have even mentioned it. And yet, my God, he was only eighteen years old! When did all that (and what was this “all that”?) happen?

I racked my brains for a little while, without obviously drawing anything out, until I had a bad headache and decided to give up trying to resolve that enigma. I did not know if I would manage to stand the burning curiosity for two more months (that much time remained before the wedding), for the sake of argument, it was the case to speak about “that” thing from the first meeting with Leopold.

I closed the letter in a minuscule case of precious wood and inserted it in a secret drawer. I did not want to risk it being found, even by mistake, by some indiscreet sister or by my most curious ladies-in-waiting.

I stayed for a while looking at the night sky until it began to become slightly brighter in the East. I went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately, continuing to dream of a very beautiful young woman who cancelled with just her presence every effort of mine to appear gracious, confident, cultured and refined. In the dream, Peter Leopold appeared as in his portrait, but his eyes did not so much as look at me and, even though he was courteous, he did nothing but smile at her.

I woke up in even more of a bad mood than the day before and my tantrum to get the old Neapolitan governess to follow me, and not only as far as Genoa, became spontaneous and perfect. My father agreed, although objecting that I could not begin my new life with those whims. He knew only too well that in reality I was submissive and obedient like none other of his children and this must have convinced him that he could not deny me such a modest request.

The bad mood however continued still for some days, until it was replaced by the commotion of the goodbyes, mixed with the excitement and nervousness about the unknown future that awaited me in the land of Italy.

Chapter 2

After interminable days of sailing we disembarked at Genoa, where I met my cousin Luisa, who came from Parma and had, in turn, to embark to go to Madrid, as the wife of my brother Carlo. She was only 15 years old. We were two princesses, but we were alone and a little fearful thinking about what awaited us, exactly like any other two girls.

I talked to her about my brother and told her about life in the royal palace of Madrid. I gave her a very detailed description of the people, the places, the climate and the marvellous art galleries, in which she seemed particularly interested. I talked about my family and girlfriends I had left and finally Luisa seemed to calm down.

She did not know anything more about my future husband than had been told to me, even though her sister had some years earlier married Joseph, the older brother of Peter Leopold and the future Emperor.

I could not do so without betraying the oath that I had made and asked her if she had ever heard tell of some romantic scandal that had recently happened in Vienna.

- After all - I thought - she is about to leave and will not be able to gossip with anyone.

She replied no and I drew a breath of relief: perhaps all things considered, Leopold had got caught up by an exaggerated and useless scruple.

We stayed together for five days, then we said goodbye at the port. She took the sea route, I the mountain one in a North-East direction.

I crossed, with my entourage, the Apennines and the whole Padua plain, immersed in a muggy and oppressive heat. We went up towards Modena and then towards the Alps.

Every evening I asked how much further it was to Bolzano, where I had to meet Leopold, and when they told me that we should arrive the day after, I almost felt suffocated.

- “How do I look?”

- “Very beautiful, your highness”.

- “Don’t talk nonsense, I’m not very beautiful. Tomorrow morning, I want the dress with the green flowers and you must come in time to comb my hair and do my make-up”.

- “Don’t worry, Highness, your future husband will find you lovely”.

- It’s not true - I thought - he will compare me with the other woman and immediately hate me.

I was more tense than ever at that horrid thought, I would have wanted to escape, turn back, die that same night, just to not have to suffer his, in my opinion, inevitable, disdainful look, his tolerance.

I did my best to calm myself, but, in the morning, I had evident rings under my eyes, that the skilful make-up by my maids hardly managed to cover.

I got into the carriage for the last few miles that separated me from the meeting. I felt my heart choking my breath with its thundering beat. If I had had a girlfriend around, I would have cried, but there were only strangers with me, come to escort me and I felt very embarrassed.

It was pouring with rain when we stopped and then I saw him for the first time: he was standing under that deluge, head uncovered, waiting for me.

He was tall and slim, a very young face that looked even younger than his eighteen years, a proud bearing, but not arrogant. His dark eyes stared at me for a moment, while I tried to bring out my best smile. He took my hand to help me get down from the carriage and I sensed that he was as nervous as me. He greeted me ceremoniously and accompanied me into the palace where I was lodging.

It was pouring with rain everywhere and I, notwithstanding the moment of extreme tension, smiled to myself.

- “What do you have to smile about, Highness? He asked, curious.

-We are leaving a stream of water behind us.

- Does it seem so funny to you?”

- “Yes, decidedly”, a response at least unusual, not really according to protocol; “our passage certainly will not pass unnoticed”.

Even he smiled for the first time since we had met and that smile completely transformed his face, giving him a pleasant air and lighting up his too serious eyes.

- “You’re right” - he agreed – “we really look like two ducks in a pond”.

I laughed at that that curious expression I had never heard before and he echoed me.

We had to dine together in my apartment that evening.

When he arrived, he was most handsome in his red and gold suit, I had chosen a blue dress embroidered with silver and pearls.

- “What happened to that gracious dress that you had on today?” - he asked me.

- “Why”?

- “I liked it very much”.

- “But is was certainly not suitable for this so special evening.”

- “You say so? Aquamarine is my favourite colour.”

I looked at him and asked myself if he could be serious.

- “Would you have the patience to wait for me fifteen minutes more?”

- “Certainly”.

I disappeared into my rooms and changed in haste and fury, putting on a dress in the colour that he had declared was his favourite.

When I returned to the dining room, he met me with a delicious smile and whispered to me:

- “You have been kind to indulge me, but I don’t want you to believe that it’s your duty to do it in every case.”

- “No” - I said - “but I will always be happy to see you smile like now.”

- “Have they perhaps said that I am not a cheerful type? That I’m too serious and sometimes even sad?”

- “Yes”.

- “And what else have they said about me?”

- Oh God - I thought - here we are.

- “I know many things about you as an Archduke and Prince, about your brilliant studies, your culture, but, sincerely, I don’t know anything about you as a man; I imagine that also you don’t know much more about me.”

He insisted as if he had not heard:

- “What else?”

Then I gave a start - “Do you want to refer to what you mentioned in your letter?”

He stared into my eyes so intensely that I found it hard to bear that look. He made me stay calm whatever thing he revealed to me.

- “No” - I murmured - “they haven’t told me anything about that story and I, notwithstanding I was burning with curiosity, haven’t asked anyone anything. It seemed to me indelicate towards each other and I have decided that I would have learnt it only from you. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, don’t worry, I will respect your discretion and your wishes. Talk to me about it only when and if you wish. It’s your right to not say anything if it’s so painful for you. Because it is, isn’t it? I understood it as soon as I read those words.”

Peter Leopold did not reply, he only grasped my hand and brought it to his lips. I saw that his eyes were moved to tears.

- “I thank you for your sensitivity. I swear to you that I will tell you everything, one day. It’s not easy for me, but perhaps with you I will do it. I hope that we will be friends.”

- “Friends?” - I murmured and from my voice there must have leaked out the delusion that, notwithstanding everything, had invaded me at those words.

- “Is that not enough for you? Do you want” - he hesitated a moment - “love?”

I remained silent and thought of the only love that had lightened my life and, comparing it at this moment, felt a cold chill in my heart.

We sat down facing each other and not one of us had much desire to eat. We looked at each other, scrutinising each other in silence and chasing each other’s thoughts, while the waiters bustled around us.

I found him quite pleasant and interesting, in his manners and looks. Sensitive and sweet, which moreover confirmed the impressions his letter had made on me, but also direct and frank when it was necessary.

I felt a little embarrassed before his gaze, which was examining me with scrupulous attention, even though not arrogantly.

I hoped that I did not seem too insignificant to him nor too foolish. The extended silence at a certain point seemed intolerable to me and, I do not know why, I began to tell him about my childhood in Naples and the games in the park at the royal palace at Caserta, the marvellous climate and the sea.

- “Have you ever seen the sea?”

- “No, never.”

- “Oh, - I smiled - “in Naples it’s marvellous. Blue and green, transparent and warm. At sunset, the sun leaves golden stripes on the water that appear to contain all its light, almost to console us for the night that is coming and, in the evenings with a full moon, it’s a dream. Also in Vienna does the starlit sky appear to be a golden quilted blanket?”

He smiled, resting his chin on his hand, “Are you always so poetical?”

I do not know if he said it ironically, but by now the memories of my past, which was around the corner and yet it seemed to me centuries ago, crowded my soul so much that I could not stop. In the end, I had told him more than I would have wanted, but I did not regret it. I felt lighter and calmer now.

- “Have you ever been in love?” - He then asked me.

- “No” - I lied.

H blushed and closed his eyes - This however was a lie. I did not believe I deserved it.

- “Why do you want to know about me what you do not want to tell me about yourself?”

- “You are right, I apologise.”

- “And yet I want to be sincere with you. I was sixteen years old when I fell in love with a young gentleman in my brother’s entourage.”

- “Do you still love him?”

- “No; it was, I think, an adolescent thing, a little too much daydreaming. Or perhaps it was only a way of saying to myself that my soul and my heart were mine only and no-one could have them if I did not allow it - well, life is not like that, I know, but at times you need to just delude yourself in order to not die.”

- “Die? Did you die when they told you that you would have to marry me and not your lover? Certainly, you would have preferred it to have been him to give you your first loving kiss and make you dream and not an Austrian archduke, surly and cold, a little sad and certainly not handsome like your Spanish gentleman.

I thought of the resentment smouldering for days inside me at the idea of not being able to realise a dream and end up in the arms of a stranger and I kept quiet to not hurt him.

I now felt suddenly tired and I no longer had the desire to open up my heart to someone who did not intend to open himself up at all.

Peter Leopold noticed and apologised.

- “I have been indiscreet, excuse me”. “You have been sincere and I instead cannot manage to tell you anything about myself.”

- “My love was a dream, almost a fine game, I knew it from the start; even though I suffered enough, it did not leave too painful wounds in my heart. I did not add “Like yours”, but he understood.

Contravening every rule of etiquette, he took my hand again and kissed it. I felt his lips slightly trembling. I looked at him and saw that he was pale and his eyes seemed lightly circled with dark and misty, like from a fever.

- “Do you feel well?” - I asked.

- “Yes, why?”

- “Excuse me, you are so pale.”

- “I am well, I am just very tired. - If you give me permission, I will withdraw.

- “Certainly, your Highness. I also, indeed, am tired and over the next few days many commitments await us.”

- “Right” - he said, bowing his head respectfully.

I saw him furtively pass a hand over his forehead and, when he got up to leave, he seemed to me to stagger slightly.

- “Your highness” - I called him back

He turned round again to me and, in that moment, I thought – “He’s really not well.”

- “Tell me.”

- “Sleep well”.

- “Thank you, I wish you also a good rest. Do not dream too much of the beautiful gardens of Madrid. Here we are in Austria and the weather is really very bad. The Spanish sun is by now far away.

I also got up and took two steps towards him and he shook my hand, this time not in a formal way, but almost comradely: “Anyway, thank you for everything. You have been a pleasant discovery.”

Then he went off quickly, before I could add anything more.

The next day, someone said to me that, in fact, Leopold had not been very well in the last few days before our meeting, but that now he was much better. I thought, I do not know why, that it was not at all true and that his indisposition was still present and that it belonged more to his soul than to his body.

Going from Bolzano towards Innsbruck, it seemed to me that the mountains hung threateningly over me; the dark colours, only rarely and for short moments illuminated by some ray of sun, that managed to escape from the low blanket of cloud that hid the mountain peaks, gave me a sense of oppression and melancholy. Inside myself I compared that severe and dark world with the sun which had shone on my days, sometimes burning, but so bright and vital. And it seemed to me that my most pessimistic expectations were coming true. Even he had seemed to me cordial, not so reserved and grey as they had described him to me; perhaps not extrovert and effusive like a Neapolitan prince, but certainly anxious to establish a good relationship with me. He had said: “You have been a pleasant discovery” - and I wanted to delude myself that I had made a small breach in his heart. I had to do it in order to not feel myself alone and abandoned. Because this was the feeling that dominated me, while I travelled up the roads that, little by little, left the Adige Valley to climb up towards the mountains. Leopold was in another carriage and we met each other only during the brief stops.

Chapter 3

On the morning of the wedding day, the sky seemed for a short time to take away the usual dullness and the sun appeared, warm and bright, even though continually threatened by grey clouds which raced over the sky and promised more torrential downpours.

- “My life will always be like this sky” - I said to my Neapolitan lady- in-waiting when I looked out of the window - “I could do with a fine sun to warm my soul, but it does not come out very often, I fear.”

- “What are you saying, your Highness? I do not understand and today should not be a day of melancholy. You told me your future husband is nice and kind, don’t you think you’re lucky?”

- “Yes, don’t worry” - I forced myself to smile, but I thought – “Only that he will not love me and he will always have his heart elsewhere.”

At six o’clock in the afternoon, I made my official and solemn entrance to Innsbruck.

Leopold was waiting for me in front of the church of San Giacomo and, when I saw him, I could not do other than feel my heart constrict: he was white and suffering, so much so that at a certain point he had to be supported by his valets: he looked like a man condemned to death being led to the scaffold, rather than a husband on the most beautiful day of his life. He only glanced at me and I felt tears welling up in my eyes: it was not like this that I had imagined the day of my wedding. In reaction, I rejected that thought almost with hatred and concentrated my thoughts on the face of my beloved Felipe, sunny, smiling, bright and extrovert. I did not make much use of that absurd rebellious attitude, but at least I seemed to manage to keep a minimum of my identity.

Suddenly, while were kneeling, he stretched out a hand to squeeze mine. I heard a just perceptible whisper and turned my head slightly, he was again very ill and I feared that he was about to faint.

I waited a moment, but he did not add anything more and I convinced myself that I had imagined it all. Our nerves were evidently at the point of snapping.

The long ceremony finished and Leopold, immediately after the lunch, excusing himself in a cold and formal way with me, returned to his rooms, feverish in mind and body.

I found myself in the middle of a whirl of parties and receptions without him. Luckily my father-in-law, sparkling and cordial, was a delicious companion and helped me to feel less alone. There were never-ending dances, theatrical performances and receptions, but I did not manage to enjoy anything and those celebrations seemed long and tiring to me, without a bit of joy.

During those days, Leopold was so ill as to be at risk of even his life and to receive the last rights; the weather was changeable and unpleasant; but the worst still had to come: My father-in-law suddenly died two weeks after our wedding, one evening after the theatre, and that was really the greatest distress for us; my mother-in-law seemed to have suddenly lost her sense of living, my brothers- and sisters-in-law, especially the youngest, felt almost lost without their cheerful and affectionate father, so good and dear also with me, who was after all a complete stranger.

The people loved him, his family loved him and everyone wept with sincere sadness.

The day after his death, I saw Leopold again, who had just been declared out of danger and had had himself taken to console his mother.

He greeted me with a pale drawn smile, but he did not say a word to me.

I looked him in the eyes and he, when he read my disappointment and resentment, diverted his eyes from mine.

Returning to his rooms, he brushed me with his hand and whispered: “I’m sorry to have disappointed you like that, but I can’t do anything about it”

If I could have, I would have given him a stinging reply, such as I often reserved for annoying people when I was at my father’s court, but it was not the time and place and I bit my tongue, limiting myself to say goodbye to him with a nod of my head.

The situation was paradoxical: on the one hand, the mourning and the preparations for the solemn funeral, on the other, the wedding feast having gone down in flames and equally frenetic preparations for our departure for Italy.

I saw with anxiety the time approaching for me to find myself side by side with Leopold in the narrow carriage ride for days and days.

Every so often we met, but we still had never yet slept together, him being very weak (and I suppose very weak also in spirit from that succession of unpleasant or painful events).

The evening before our departure, we went to say goodbye to the Empress and she, notwithstanding her grief, had kind words for me and gave her son her instructions and recommendations. My husband was tense and silent and I, once more, felt cast aside without any consideration.

I retired soon to my apartments with my heart full of contradicting feelings.

Firstly, sadness and melancholy, secondly, resentment for the evident indifference that my husband seemed to harbour for me, thirdly, curiosity about the places that I was getting ready to see during the long journey, which would take us towards that land in Tuscany that they said was so beautiful and rich in art, finally, a good dose of anxiety about the start of my new married life, with all that that would entail.

I was naturally not sleepy and, when my maid and my ladies-in-waiting had withdrawn, I started to read a book.

Reading was my passion and, even though my culture was not the highest, I tried to always find some new work to improve it.

That evening, however, it was a book of poetry which I had brought with me from Madrid and which I had never opened since then.

I had been told that in Florence I would find a rich and lively cultural life and that I would be able to indulge myself at my leisure among works of art and libraries. It was a thing which consoled me a little, but only a little.

At a certain point, I heard light knocking at the door and, without looking up, said: “Come in” - expecting one of the maids had come to ask, as always, if I needed anything.

The door opened silently - “I don’t need anything, thank you” - I said - “you can go to bed”.

Not hearing a reply, I finally lifted up my eyes from the book and gasped: in front of me was Leopold.

I leapt up from the armchair, making the book fall to the ground with a dull thud.

He signalled me to keep quiet and knelt down to pick up the book. He handed it to me with a smile.

- “You don’t mind, do you, that I have come to find you?” - he then asked, almost timidly - “I couldn’t sleep. You neither, I see”.

I didn’t know what to say, I felt my heart beating furiously.

- “Who told you that I was still up?”

I blushed –

- “No-one, but” -

- “And if I had been already in bed?”

- “You're my wife after all” - he objected – “don’t I have the right to enter my wife’s bedroom?”

- “I’m not your wife yet” - I responded, embittered - “And you, it seems, don’t care about it very much.”

His eyes became dark and narrow, like two cracks - “Do you want to provoke me? Do you perhaps believe that I am not capable, if I wanted, of asserting my rights over you in every way? But I did not want our life together -”

- “That you abhor just thinking about it” - I interrupted him - “because all you do is compare me in your heart with the one you lost and you find that I am ugly and insignificant in comparison with her. Thus you feel you have the right to reject me, to keep me away from you and your heart and accuse me of wanting to take the place not asked for. But you know, like me, that neither of us has been free to choose and I certainly am not to blame if they separated you from her. Will you reproach me for this lost love for all your life? Why then haven’t you fought for her? Like a tiger you should have pulled out your claws and instead you are closed in yourself, stewing until you put your own life in danger. I well know that you don’t love me and perhaps you never will and if you ever come into my bed, it will be because the sovereign rights and loyalty to the Imperial family call you there. But do you perhaps believe that it’s different for me? You have kept me away from you since the first moment and now - now you come and tell me” -