The Ludwig Conspiracy(111)
“Oh, Dürckheim. Munich!” the king interrupted. “Look at me. I am tired and sick. City air does not agree with me.”
“Then . . . then at least take refuge in the Tyrol,” I begged him fervently. “The empress of Austria is your cousin. She will help you. In a few hours’ time, Count Holnstein will have sent a battalion of Munich police officers here to surround the whole castle.”
“My dear Marot, what would I do in Austria?” Shaking his head, Ludwig returned to his desk. “Look down from the mountains at my castles, which wouldn’t be mine anymore? Write a counter-proclamation on my behalf if you think it really necessary, but don’t trouble me any further with it. I have other plans.” He put the larger letter into Count Dürckheim’s hand. “My dear count, I have only two requests to make of you. This sealed document must be taken to Linderhof as fast as possible. It may well be the most important missive I have ever written in my life, so take good care of it. This message,” he added, picking up the smaller, folded sheet of paper that had been lying on the table, “tells you to whom you are to hand the document. Do not read it until you have reached Linderhof. Compris?”
Count Dürckheim nodded. “I understand, Your Majesty. And your second request?”
“Get me some cyanide.”
Neither Dürckheim nor I said anything for some time; the king’s words had taken our breath away.
“My king, you mustn’t do a thing like that!” the count finally exclaimed. “Bavaria needs you. What is to follow you?”
“Other times,” said Ludwig quietly. “Times in which I do not want to live.”
Count Dürckheim clicked his heels. “Majesty, forgive me, but that is the first order you have ever given me that I cannot obey.”
The king smiled mildly at him. He seemed to be in a distant world once again. It was as if, in his mind, he had withdrawn into one of the mural paintings of the Tannhäuser saga that surrounded us on all sides in the study, an ideal medieval world in which knights, minstrels, and real kings still existed. “Very well, Dürckheim, very well,” he said at last. “Leave me alone now.”
The last thing I saw as I turned away was Ludwig throwing letters one by one into the fire burning on the hearth, where they briefly flared up blue and green, and finally fell to ashes.
JG, J
The next blow of fate came hurrying toward us in the form of a battalion of police officers from Munich. They arrived at the castle at eight o’clock that evening and promptly took control of it.
By now all letters to or from the king had been intercepted. From this point on, he was entirely cut off from the outside world, and his orders held sway only as far as the castle gate. However, that did not seem to trouble him much. He had spent all afternoon burning old letters in the study, and then he wandered lethargically around the great halls of his castle. Sometimes he stared through the window for minutes on end, so that I began to fear he might jump out. But since asking for cyanide, he had expressed no more thoughts of suicide. Ludwig seemed to be resigned to his fate. A leaden weight lay over the castle; it was like being in the castle of the Sleeping Beauty, in expectation not of a prince but of the arrival of the traitors. The first of the servants had already left.
The thirty Munich police, commanded by four officers, sent the last of the loyal local police home and barred the castle gate. They cut off the telephone, that newfangled invention with which Ludwig might have telegraphed messages to Füssen. They turned off the warm-air heating system, and forbade the king to go for walks. From this point on Ludwig II was a prisoner.
At midnight I lay down to rest in one of the second-floor servants’ rooms, but I could not sleep properly. I tossed and turned restlessly; in my dreams I saw Maria, who was running away from me as I pursued her. But whenever I had almost caught up, and tried to reach for her, she was several steps ahead again. Suddenly she stopped, turning to me, and her face was the face of a rotting corpse. Her mouth opened, maggots crawled out of it, and I heard her hoarse voice in my mind.
He’ll kill me . . .
Suddenly I was awoken by someone shaking me hard. When I opened my eyes, I saw Count Dürckheim standing over me. He wore his uniform, his coat, and his officer’s cap, as if he were about to leave. Outside, it was nearly dawn.
“We must talk,” he whispered. When I opened my mouth, he put a finger to his lips. “Not here—the walls have ears. The police from Munich are all over the castle. Follow me.”
Drowsily, I pulled myself upright and accompanied him to the stairway, which we climbed in silence. On the fourth floor, the count led me through the various rooms until finally we were outside the door of the king’s bedchamber.