The Deadly Game

Just a few more drawings that link into the last chapter and some added just for the hell of it. Did Mary feel any quaver of doubt towards the end, I wonder? What was she actually doing, letting Rudolf pull the trigger. Was she actually calling the shots in those last desperate minutes, so to speak?
Loschek, who had a small room adjacent to Rudolf's, heard them arguing loudly at one point. Was the loyal valet sorely tempted to put a glass tumbler to the wall to find out what was going on? What about Mary's peculiar mind-set did she really think that this was 'it' and that Rudolf was the great love of her life and he was worth dying with/for? 
A prematurely balding, diseased, frustrated, embittered Crown Prince from a dysfunctional family who loathed his wife, but adored his only child and was also clearly in the habit of making full use of that circle of loose/giddy women (both titled and untitled) that made themselves available to him?

'Before I Sleep...' does Mary notice that receding hairline at all?

The style of the above sketch is a bit 'Bunty', but I like the way Mary is clinging to Rudolf as there is something almost childlike about it.

Mary in Rudolf's suite at Mayerling, putting pen to paper on a wintry afternoon.

I can't imagine Mary being much of a letter-writer in her ordinary day to day life. I think her preferred form was the 'billet doux'. After all, she had first got Rudolf's attention by sending him a flirty 'fan' letter. However, that afternoon at Mayerling proved to be another exception. Again this sketch is a bit on the 'Bunty' side. Not sure that I don't prefer an earlier sketch that makes her look like Tatiana from Onegin (lol!) Here:

Yes, while we're about it, Mary was right-handed and couldn't possibly have pulled the trigger herself as she was shot in the left temple. Yet, according to an official autopsy report made c1955 (at the time her remains were decanted into a makeshift tin coffin, after the original copper casket had been damaged by Russian soldiers during WWII) an 'area of trauma' on her skull was identified but there was no actual evidence of a bullet wound per se. So was she bludgeoned to death instead? Is that why the witnesses (Loschek et al) claim only to have heard a single shot? The mind boggles! A later forensic report initiated by the nutty body-snatching Flatzelsteiner (c1991) came to a similar conclusion.


Also, on a less macabre note, would she have used a dressing table as a writing desk at Mayerling? I will have more to say on that subject later on.

Flashback: Mary wants to look her best for Rudolf...

I quite like her expression in this sketch it reminds me of a (warped) Jennifer Aniston. All very 'Me, Me, Me it's all about Me!' (Note the crescent moon hair decoration) I think Mary spent a lot of time admiring herself in the mirror.

A much earlier sketch (with speech bubbles) Mary calling the shots (!)

I prefer rough storyboard style drawings/vignettes. I also think that speech bubbles are cumbersome, tricky to position and just get in the way of the drawing, but that's just me. I'm kind of using this blog as a sketchbook for ideas and it's going to be very organic and not at all linear. Think curling tendrils of an Art Nouveau climbing plant, with new branches shooting out in all directions (you have been warned!)

    





 

The Night of the Hunted...

Well, that title is a bit over the top, but never mind. I'm back to the real tale and thinking of Rudolf and Mary at Mayerling on that fateful night. They have written all the farewell notes they need to write, what now? Mary is restless, having been secretly cooped up all day in the bedroom. 
Indeed so bored did Mary get while Rudolf was away entertaining Hoyos and Coburg Esq, that she idly scratched her initials (with the date) on the bottom of one of Rudolf's metal ashtrays. However, once the gentlemen guests have withdrawn, Mary is released, like a famished cat and is given a 'scratch' supper in the dining room. (There are also accounts of Bratfisch playing the bagpipes at this point but that sounds a bit too ludicrous to be believed!)
Anyway, much later (in my scenario) the doomed pair decide to take a last promenade together through the darkened schloss. Loschek is fast asleep and Rudolf's guest(s)* are snoring away in their respective gastzimmers. Daringly, Mary takes a swig of brandy from the decanter in the billiard room (like the naughty teenager she is) and perhaps Rudolf lights up a final cigar. 
In the hallway, Mary takes off her wrap and skips about (almost naked in a flimsy undershirt) in the silvery light of the moon that creeps across the floor from a high window. However, the nooks and crannies of the schloss are once more full of gloomy shadows as they wend their way back to the bedroom. Rudolf's steps increase in heaviness and he almost needs support from the young girl, letting her lead the way. It is now or never. 
The atmosphere in Rudolf's suite has become oppressive, to say the least, despite it being fairly spacious. It's as if the walls are slowing closing in on them during the last act. Rudolf always the keen hunter, has been responsible for an awful lot of "kills" in the field in his lifetime and now he's about to bag a more unusual trophy. However, she won't have a neat, carefully handwritten label tied to her feet like that dead blackbird (Ringdrossel) from Rudolf's ornithological archive. It is not the intention for this particular gamine specimen to be preserved by the taxidermist's art, either.

In the sketch below, I have shown Rudolf and Mary on their last stroll through Mayerling. Soon after their deaths the hunting lodge which has become synonymous with their doomed affair will be razed to the ground (on the orders of Emperor Franz Joseph) and a chapel built in it's place. On the site of their joint deathbed will stand an altar and nuns will pray daily for the repose of Rudolf's soul (but not Mary's?)

They are in effect a 'dead couple walking'

Note on the drawing: Mary is holding a small lamp which lights her features from below and isn't particularly flattering. Perhaps it has just dawned on her that this isn't just a splendid romantic game any longer and that the journey to paradise might prove to be a bit of a bumpy ride. Rudolf just looks weary. 
In the background I've placed a painting of a (blonde) Madonna with Christ child and a carved statuette of an eagle perched with folded wings. These artefacts actually exist and were once part of the furnishings at Mayerling. Both were displayed in the Kronprinz Rudolf Lebenspurren exhibition at the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna in 2008/9.
The Madonna picture in the background provides a bitter counterpoint. According to some (secret police) accounts, Mary Vetsera is actually in the early stages of pregnancy (and also venereal disease.) I doubt the pregnancy somehow, but the VD infection is most likely. In her last letters, she seems to cleave to the idea that there will be an afterlife-- no wonder!

Rudolf and Mary at Mayerling

"It is all mystery, mystery, mystery..."  British Ambassador (Sir Augustus Paget) to PM Lord Salisbury...(re the Crown Prince Rudolf's death, from letter dated Feb 15th, 1889)

 *A brief note on Hoyos and Coburg:

They sound like a firm of international lawyers but their double-act as witnesses in the Mayerling incident is a bit of an intriguing puzzle in itself. They were definitely close pals of Rudolf and hardly likely to be a brand of courtier/spy like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-- lol!) Rudolf trusted them. They were invited as 'cover' for the impending double suicide and if the Crown Prince was going to blow his brains out then he may as well do it with close friends in the vicinity who could be relied on to deal sensitively with the aftermath. According to the official account, only Graf Josef Hoyos stayed the night at Mayerling. Coburg departed for Vienna and returned (early) the next morning.

Phillip, Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was Rudolf's brother-in-law (he was married to Stephanie's elder sister, Louise) and the marriage may have been an unhappy one (the couple divorced in 1906)--  so perhaps he had a lot in common with Rudolf. Anyway, for whatever reason, or misgivings, Coburg didn't fancy spending the night in that schloss and preferred the idea of trundling back to Vienna instead. A floorplan of Mayerling shows two gastzimmers adjacent to Rudolf's ground floor suite, just off the billiard room and ideal for unaccompanied gentlemen guests, on a brief overnight stay (one would have thought.)

It is believed that Hoyos was given a room in another wing of the schloss. There was certainly a separate annexe for Erzsi (Elizabeth, Rudolf's daughter) when she came to stay. Stephanie, his wife, had her own apartment on the first floor. So I'm not quite sure where Hoyos actually lodged, frankly. However, perhaps for reasons of privacy, Rudolf must have requested that those particular gastzimmers near his bedroom remain unoccupied.

Anyway, Loschek cannot rouse the Crown Prince (after shot(s?) have been heard) and the door is firmly locked. H and C,(who may have been breakfasting together at that point?) are duly informed.
Of course, neither gentlemen were aware that Mary was in-situ, until they are informed by the panicky valet (rather reluctantly.) Both men of the world, they may have feigned surprise at the idea of Rudolf hiding a young Baroness away in his private suite.

Part of the panel of Rudolf's bedroom door is then smashed in by Loschek (who has asked permission to do so) and from this improvised spyhole (which seems to afford a conveniently wide-angle panorama of the whole room) the bodies of Rudolf and Mary can clearly be seen lying on the bed.

From then on Hoyos seems to take the initiative for getting word to the Hofburg (travelling via carriage and express steam train.) Meanwhile, the higher-ranking Prince Coburg seems to become a bit of a blubbering wreck. Traumatised by the event and unable to assist in any practical way, he bows out of the story.

Mitzi and Mary

Mitzi Caspar and Mary Vetsera certainly never met. Mitzi Caspar was Rudolf's long-standing paramour. She was supposed to have been an actress but no mention can be found of her in any playbills of the time. I think 'chorus girl' is more likely, or rather a chorus girl who drifted into prostitution as many of them did in those days.
Mitzi was always available when Rudolf had to take command of some of those meaningless military manoeuvres/exercises based near various God-forsaken garrison towns in Galicia. She would happily 'shack up' with him while he was on his tours of duty. Rudolf was very fond of her and actually spent a last night with her before travelling to Mayerling. He had also once asked her to be his 'companion in death' but Mitzi flatly refused and actually went to inform the police about it. No-one actually thought to tell the Emperor of Rudolf's 'death-wish' and the information was simply filed away. 
Mitzi didn't often keep her mouth shut on the subject of Rudolf it seems. This proved very handy for the secret police who were keeping him under surveillance a lot of the time. The Crown Prince's maverick stand on various crucial political issues was considered rather subversive to say the least. 

(Note: Rudolf opposed the plan for Austria to enter into an alliance with Germany (he loathed his cousin Prince Wilhelm of Prussia) and he was also a fervent admirer of the French Republic. In Emperor Franz Joseph's opinion alone, those sort of views would make Rudolf 'Public Enemy, No 1', so it's no wonder that the powers that be wanted to keep a close eye on him.

                           Sketch entitled 'Bitch-slap between Mitzi Caspar and Mary Vetsera'

Anyway, enough of politics and back to a little divertissement of my own devising, if you don't mind. Yes, I couldn't resist drawing this! Mitzi has ambushed Mary in her dressing room. Mary may well be preparing herself for another tryst with Rudolf in this instance.I think it would have been a most interesting scrap, Mary biting and scratching and Mitzi employing more of a 'sucker' punch, who knows?  There is certainly no love lost between these too. Mary would have looked down on Mitzi (hey, MV also publicly disparaged the Crown Princess, ffs!) who she would not think fit to wipe her button boots with. 
Mitzi would have seen Mary as a society strumpet 'on the make' and not a good thing for Rudolf. Mitzi knew her place and Mary just didn't bother with those sort of concerns.
'Be happy...only marry for love.' Mary had written to her sister during that fateful stay at Mayerling.

More Views of Mary

Yes, who was Mary? Today she would be classed as a 'troubled, sexually precocious adolescent' who was being carefully 'groomed' by Marie Larisch. The Mary Vetsera type these days would probably be slightly older (in her early twenties) and would also be rather more 'savvy' and have signed up with Max Clifford in the blink of an eye. 
The real Mary's trajectory of notoriety was fairly meteoric for the times and would certainly have impressed MC! Anyway, I like to think of her as a fledgling version of Donna Elvira in Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' (ie: oversexed and slightly mad.)  
These three vignettes show aspects of her which were reported at the time and I haven't actually made these situations up at all but they are a bit cartoon-like of course, kind of in the spirit of 'Bunty' comics for girls, lol. 
The MV storyboard begins with a sketch of Mary being surrounded by male admirers at the last grand ball she attended before the fateful trip to Mayerling and oblivion. I have pictured her wearing her crescent moon hair decoration (which she can be seen wearing in a series of portrait photos c1888.) Of course, I've made it slighter bigger than actual size, for emphasis etc. I quite like her rather fanatical glassy-eyed look in this. I have also put her confidante, Marie Larisch, in the background. The crescent moon is a symbol of the Roman goddess Diana, the huntress, who was also the goddess of chastity.

(As a side note,  Sisi, Rudolf's mother, at the zenith of her beauty, was famous for wearing star decorations in her hair-- see the famous Winterhalter portrait. Sisi had been much impressed by the starry set decoration for the 'Queen of the Night' scene from Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' and Franz Joseph had commissioned the diamond star hair decorations as a special gift for her.)

The middle sketch is MV in a theatre box, training her opera glasses upon Crown Princess Stephanie. Apparently she was known to do this kind of thing quite often, winding up the poor CPS something chronic. MV once pointedly refused to curtsey to her at a ball.  
Here Mary is wearing a simple black dress, the style of which is copied from one of the last portrait photos of MV (touch of the Lillie Langtry coquette here as well as a bit of proto-Chanel fashion nous, methinks!)

The final sketch is a sort of representation of Rudolf and Mary's first meeting. I think Mary set out to get noticed by the Crown Prince at any cost and on one occasion held a red rose in her gloved hand. She then kept staring at Rudolf at every opportunity, trying to catch his gaze from across the room and glancing at him over her shoulder. She obviously loved the art of flirting but wasn't terribly subtle about it as everyone noticed what she was up to straightaway, of course.

O, Whistle, and I'll Come to You...

Yes, Mary is a survivor in my personal 'Vetsera Fantasia' and why not? OK, Rudolf may have been dispatched with a champagne bottle (or drunk from a champagne bottle containing Prussic acid) or even, on this occasion, just been hit over the head with it during a quarrel with Mary. However, he still ends up a messy suicide in a Paris bordello a few years down the line. So Sarajevo and World War One will happen all the same, there's no escape.
I'm more interested in what would have become of Mary had someone intervened. Like Bratfisch, for instance. Mary's' mindset might have changed from the willing death-pact soul-mate to slightly peeved teenager 'What about me?'.A bit of self-preservation kicking in at last, perhaps. I like the sound of Bratfisch, Rudolf's trusted coachman and erstwhile 'entertainer'.
In one of Mary Vetsera's last letters she mentions Bratfisch entertaining both her and Rudolf with one of his amusing 'whistling' songs during their last afternoon together at Mayerling. Bratfisch was one of the few retainers never to spill the beans about what he knew about the Crown Prince's escapades. Mary wasn't the only woman/girl to be ferried around by Bratfisch at the behest of Rudolf, but she was probably the most notorious.
It has been said that when the 'Hofburg shuttle' came to pick her up at night, she would jump in having just thrown a coat over her nightdress.Well, that's teenage hormones for you! Bratfisch must have known an awful lot, but he kept schtum, right up to his premature death (from cancer) at the age of 45. However, let me preserve the good Bratfisch and Mary together in this particular fantasia and let's avoid the early death scenario for both and have some fun.
I don't think there is a budding romantic link between them per se. I think my Bratfisch is a combination of a shrewd operator who also takes pity on MV's predicament after the champagne bottle incident. He becomes her chevalier/rescuer, then later on her protector and manager.

Bratfisch carrying an unconscious Mary to his get-away coach...

In the sketch above, I have drawn the unconscious Mary (she was caught in a swoon) and the practical Bratfisch is carrying her (like a side of ham,lol) to his coach waiting outside in the courtyard. Two servants look on in the background,probably wondering what on earth is going on. 
Mary is carefully placed inside and a fur coverlet is tucked over her flimsy nightdress. The coach windows are blacked out so no-one can see inside. Bratfisch climbs up to the driver's seat, blows on his hands, gees up the horses and takes Mary away to an unknown destination. To be continued...

Penny Dreadful

There are a plethora of conspiracy theories about what happened at Mayerling on 29/30th January 1889, including some really daft ones. The inevitable cover-up surrounding the aftermath of this scandalous murder/suicide incident just fanned the flames. Initially, it was the idea of the Empress Elizabeth to announce Rudolf's death as the result of a sudden heart attack. Rather prescient of her, in some respects, as one of the stages of advanced gonorrhea (which Rudolf was suffering from at this point) affects the valves of the heart.
Of course, Mary Vetsera was not mentioned at all and they tried to make out that Rudolf had died alone at Mayerling. That in a sense, is of course true, ironically enough. Rudolf had wanted a suicide pact with Mary, but Mary had ruled out the use of poison and went for the revolver option instead, which meant that Rudolf had to shoot her before killing himself. 
After shooting Mary in the head (probably the right temple) he sat with her body until daybreak,pondering no doubt. He even left the room at one point, instructing the valet, Loschek, about early morning arrangements and requests not to be disturbed. Perhaps there was one more letter he had to write before he did the deed.
Anyway, the dead Rudolf is eventually seen in that famous photograph with a bandage on his head, lying in state on a catafalque, looking very like a waxwork and covered in floral tributes-- all the hothouses in Vienna having been emptied for this purpose. 
Poor Mary, in the meantime, had undergone a hasty autopsy at Mayerling. Her naked body was left in an outhouse for a few days before she was 'collected' by two male relatives (the uncles?) Here it starts to get rather 'grand guignol', as Mary's body is then dressed (by the uncles?!) and she is taken away in a carriage, propped up by a broomstick tied to her back with her hat perched on her head (hiding the gunshot wound.) Just as if she'd been on a country excursion and was now returning home. A hasty burial at Heiligenkreuz cemetery then ensued. A few years later the Vetsera family erected a proper sepulchre/monument for her.
There is supposed to be a box of items collected from the 'death room' at Mayerling which has never seen the light of day and is still kept by current members of the Hapsburg family. It was last reported (c1990's) to be in the possession of Otto, the son of Kaiser Karl, the last Emperor. It (allegedly) contains the actual revolver and some 'last letters' that Rudolf wrote to close friends including one, to his old flame, Mitzi Caspar.
The only 'last letter' to have come into the public domain is the one Rudolf wrote to his wife, Stephanie. There was no letter for his father-- and the Emperor Franz Joseph, was devastated by this deliberate and cruel omission by his only son and heir. 
The long-lived Empress Zita, the widow of Kaiser Karl, always claimed that Rudolf had been the victim of an assassination plot by foreign agents disguised as Austrian officials and/or certain 'insiders' who thought that Rudolf was getting too pally with Hungarian nationalists. Of course, some people even believed that Rudolf and Mary had in fact faked their deaths and escaped to some obscure outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire to lead a simple bucolic life together. Not many 'fake' Marys and Rudolfs have turned up in the intervening years though. They haven't proved to be as enduringly 'fakeable' as the two youngest Romanovs, Tsarevitch Alexei and his sister, Anastasia, who were murdered with their family and retainers at Ekaterinburg, Russia, in 1918.

The assassination attempt by champagne bottle with music by Strauss

My favourite conspiracy theory is the 'assassination by champagne bottle' as seen above, in which Rudolf is bashed over the head with a bottle of bubbly by persons unknown. Ahem, more likely to produce a very sore head than actually kill, one would assume. Then one begins to wonder about the vintage etc. It's all a bit like a plot twist from a blackly comic Strauss operetta. 
My riff on it is deliberately ambiguous. We are not quite sure who has done the deed and whether Mary, in a fit of pique, has been responsible. Another theory that circulated at the time, was that Mary had deliberately poisoned Rudolf, possibly using rat poison, which can result in haemorrhage and might also explain the blood everywhere. However, I think this attempt by the Hapsburg set to point the finger of blame at Mary (clearly in denial of the murder/suicide verdict) was pretty feeble and even diehard conspiracy theorists fail to pedal that one. 
I must admit I'm a fan of those completely over the top 19thc 'Penny Dreadful' scene of crime illustrations and this sketch is very much in that genre and should not be taken at all seriously! Note the over-turned chair in the background-- I have also put Bratfisch, Rudolf's personal coachman, bursting in through the door. Of course very unlikely, but I like the jolly Bratfisch a lot and in my version of the Vetsera Fantasia (where Mary is a survivor) he plays a key role. To be continued...

Dangerous Liaison...

Rudolf and Mary in the Turkish Room at the Hofburg

The sketch above is based on a contemporary engraving of the Turkish Room in Crown Prince Rudolf's private apartments at the Hofburg. The original shows Rudolf's wife,  Princess Stephanie, perched tentatively on the edge of a chair near the curtained doorway while Rudolf is depicted standing awkwardly on the other side of the entrance.
It all looks terribly formal and not very relaxing. 
I've redrawn it with a chilled Rudolf seated on the central divan in a passionate clinch with Mary who has practically thrown herself on top of him in wild abandon. It could be more X-cert than this, I suppose, but er, (that's quite enough --ed!) I've also hinted that a manservant may be taking a peep at them from behind the curtained doorway. I have no idea if the real Mary and Rudolf would have had a tryst in this room. I think Rudolf did entertain his close circle of friends here, but there is also something a bit artificial about the set-up of the decor, too. In a way it's a 'what I did on my travels' kind of hobby/showpiece. Some of the original furnishings and fittings from the Turkish room can be seen in the Hofmobiliendepot (Furniture) Museum in Vienna-- a must-see.

The MV project book...

The Myth of Mayerling

Have been fishing around for a subject worthy of the blogsphere and the tragedy of Mayerling kind of hove into view. Lots of conspiracy blogs on the subject and quite a few video compilations on YouTube. Mayerling refers to the joint murder/suicide in 1889 of Mary Vetsera and Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria at Mayerling, a royal hunting lodge a few miles from Vienna and Rudolf's favourite bolt-hole. It is also the subject of a superb three-act dramatic ballet by Kenneth Macmillan for the Royal Ballet (1978) as well as various screen versions.
The facts of the case can all be found on Wiki in some shape or form. Poor Mary Vetsera had an unexpected resurrection c1992 when an eccentric antique furniture dealer, a Herr Flatzelsteiner from Linz, extracted her corpse from the tomb (with some articles of clothing that she had been buried in) and sent it to various forensic experts to be analysed (claiming the remains to be that of his great grandmother.) 
During the resulting investigation and court case there were some fascinating forensic photos taken (including one of a long, fairly thick and rather curly hank of her dark hair and another of a pair of witchy-black/dilapilated shoes that she was buried in.) These photos are rarely shown (or published for that matter) and may be subject to publishing restrictions as they are probably copyright of the federal police dept. However they were on show recently in a display case at the Kronprinz Rudolf Lebensspuren exhibition at the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna in 2008/9 in the section near the end, which is dedicated to the incident at Mayerling in 1889.
Rudolf was a very troubled Crown Prince and was probably going through a mid-life crisis when he met Mary Vetsera. He was actually just 30 yrs old when he died but the last few portraits of him make him look about 40 at least. There is one last portrait study by a Hungarian artist where Rudolf's eyes are almost obscured in shadow under the brim of a kepi style helmet and he actually looks a lot like the actor Edward Fox (at 40-ish).
Mary was about 17 when they met. He was apparently very taken with her 'oriental eyes' which some gentlemen admirers claimed to be 'hypnotic'. The couple was introduced by an old lover of Rudolf's, Marie Larisch and you get the idea that Larisch was a bit of a 'procuress by appointment'. However, one also gets the impression that Mary was 'stalking' Rudolf and that she really 'set her cap at him'. She really wanted to get his attention and kind of revelled in her notoriety in the upper echelons of Viennese society.  Unfortunately, Rudolf had been seeking a willing partner in death for some time and when Mary came along he didn't have to look further.

Introduction

I'm not sure how this is going to go. I have a few ideas, but I'm going to huddle in the corner somewhere and have a think and I may be sometime!
I'm not a writer, I'm more into visual things and I find solid blocks of text boring to look at.
I do want to include drawing content but I don't want it to be the same as my Flickr site. This blog is for personal musings and off-the-wall stuff.The sort of stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere. The name of my blog is a bit of a mystery. My late father used this expression a lot, when he wanted to 'bag' something or do something his own way. It may even be biblical in origin, a grammatical exercise or perhaps even a line from a Marx Bros. film?
I don't actually know. I'm too lazy to Google it to the max, so will let it lie. I would also like to make it clear that this blog has nothing to do with actual singing or playing the harp. I like music, but can't sing a note or strum/pluck anything for the life of me. So that's about it, folks. I've got to go away now and have a big think...