What struck me most in the (surprisingly unimpressive) Imperial State Apartments in Vienna was the dining room – the last call on the tour. Actually, it was less the salon itself that triggered my imagination than the array of cutlery laid out for each diner.
A nervous young lass, trembling her way through her first dinner in the Kaiser’s company. Plucked at a tender age from her family home; forced to marry a much older Habsburg – after a series of humiliating inspections to check her health and obedience.
Used, on her wedding night, more roughly than she had dreamt possible. Expected and required to submit to unwanted attentions from her new husband – and, one awful evening, his fellow officers – night after humiliating night.
“Whatever you do, say nothing to upset the Kaiser” had been her instruction. And now, once the final dishes had been cleared away, she noticed him staring at her. He turned to her husband: “Remind me where you found her?”
A minor Prussian principality. “And they taught her no manners?” The imposing figure gestured at the unused silverware in front of her – the table in front of the other guests being, she suddenly noticed, clear.
“Whip some etiquette into her after dinner, good chap. If she’s to be family, I need her to uphold the highest standards. And show her no mercy. You can send her to me after you’ve flogged her, so I can check you’ve dealt with her sufficiently thoroughly..”