Introduction

In December 1913, the city of Vienna glitters with promises of the future for sought-after debutante Amalia Faulhaber. But life takes a dramatic turn when simmering political unrest escalates into the most deadly war the world has ever known. Amalia is devastated when her fiance, Baron Eberhard von Waldburg, breaks off their engagement to return to his native Germany and obligatory military service. But she soon discovers that her passion for democracy in an increasingly fascist world has put everything she loves in danger. Her family torn apart and improvished by the war, Amalia must now choose between an idealistic young Polish doctor, who shares her political views, and the wealthy Baron von Schoenenburg, an Austrian Cabinet minister who promises to provide safety and security in a violent, tumultuous time. Reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, this epic novel explores the nature of human character and the elusive search for love and peace.

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Excerpt

Traveling across the vast imperial courtyard of the Hapsburg Palace, Amalia appeared as a mere speck of green against the snow. The matronly edifice, surrounded by cream pastry monuments, rose as a fantasy out of the white. Here an unbroken line of Hapsburg emperors had ruled over central Europe for half a millennium. This fact was there, buried deep in whatever consciousness of self the nineteen-year-old Amalia Faulhaber had, telling her much more than she realized about who she was—a Viennese.

Eberhard thought these thoughts, striding impatiently before this aged grandeur as he awaited his fiancée. When she reached him and he handed her down from the carriage, he had the familiar sensation of possessing a long-stemmed lily—graceful, fragrant, and pure.

“This is rather melodramatic, darling, ” Amalia said. Her mahogany red coiffure was capped by a perky feathered hat, hardly suited for the impending blizzard. “A note to meet you alone! I hope you know I had to lie to Mama.”

“Let’s walk,” he suggested curtly. Head and shoulders above his fiancée, who was tall for a woman, he was barely able to tame his stride to accommodate hers. She appeared to be a typical young socialite in her Loden cape, but to him, she was anything but typical. Somehow, in her artless way, she had ensnared a heart that belonged to another life, another world.

Now, instead of speaking, Eberhard studied the snow-darkened horizon that was capped by the ornate roofs of the courtyard buildings, green with age. How could he begin? He must shake off this feeling of being small. This place had no hold over him. It was doomed decadence. He belonged in the fast-paced Protestant streets of Berlin, where men strode instead of strolling. But there was Amalia . . .

“What’s wrong, Eberhard?”

“We’re going to have another blizzard,” he said, without looking at her. “We’d better get this over with and return you to your home.”

“That sounds rather forbidding.” She drew a little apart. He captured her arm, holding her to him and guiding her down a pair of steps. He was taut all over at the contact.

“Come, tell me what this is about. Why couldn’t you call at the house in the normal way?”

“Someone is always hovering. I needed to talk to you alone, and I didn’t want you flying off before I’d finished speaking to you.”

“It’s bad then?”

“I’m afraid it is.” He gazed into her face for the first time.

Amalia withdrew her hand from his arm, raised her chin, and looked him straight in the eye. Eberhard was the first to avert his gaze, running his fingers through his hair. Best to get it over with. “Amalia, I have to leave Vienna.”

“Your mother . . . ?” she began.

Cutting her off with a raised hand, he added, “Mother’s fine. It’s just that I’m afraid it will be impossible for me to marry you.”

Obviously stunned, she raised a gloved hand to her mouth. He read the thoughts in her transparent countenance--He couldn’t possibly be serious! They were engaged! The notice had been given in the newspapers! She was being fitted for her wedding gown! What madness was this?

He was instantly repentant, grasping her hands and squeezing hard. He had to make her understand. “I’ve decided I must go back to Berlin to enlist in the army.”

She breathed again and the tension went out of her. “Is that all?” Her lapis blue eyes chastened him. “Then there’s nothing really wrong.”

“I don’t think you understand, Amalia.”

“Eberhard, you’re making this far too difficult. Soldiers aren’t monks.”

He felt the lines of his face soften in a moment as he looked down at her. Despite her sophisticated air, the milkiness of her skin was that of a child still. Her innocence was always refreshing to his spirit in this overblown, world-weary place. “No, of course they’re not. But there’s going to be a war, you know.” Turning away, he said, “I may be killed.”

“Of course you won’t be killed,” she said. “If there were a war, which I doubt, it would only be a short skirmish with those devilish Serbs. Germany wouldn’t even be involved!” She had recovered her equilibrium now, reminding him that she was the great granddaughter of a count.

In exasperation, he dropped her hands. They began to walk again.

“There’s going to be a blow up, Amalia,” he insisted. “This situation can’t continue much longer. Russia is Serbia’s ally. If she fights, then Germany’s bound to. France, too, for that matter.”

“Wolf says Russia won’t fight over some silly disagreement in the Balkans.”

They had had this discussion many times. “Your brother is entitled to his opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that Austria needs to settle things permanently in that part of the Empire. It’s a tinderbox. A haven for anarchy. It could ignite all Europe. That’s the Kaiser’s assessment, and I agree with him.” Wresting his gaze from hers, he stared at the horizon and imagined himself in the ceremonial uniform of a Prussian officer with its gold epaulettes, red lapels and shiny top boots. Memories of his father coming home from the Officer’s Club in just such a uniform were as much a part of his childhood as horseback riding, shooting, and . . . violin sonatas.

“But Eberhard what does your Kaiser have to do with our getting married?”

“Amalia!” She wouldn’t see. “Don’t you ever look beyond yourself? No. Of course not. How could you? You’re a part of this doomed madness.” A sweeping gesture took in the overly ornamented buildings of the Hofburgplatz. “It’s finished, Amalia, or soon will be. You’ve got to realize that. You’re in moral bankruptcy and decay, hanging on by a fraying thread of tradition. Your emperor is a tired old man, living in the last century. His heir committed murder and suicide, for Heaven’s sake. Everyone who is anyone in Vienna commits suicide!”

“I don’t know a soul who has committed suicide.”

Ignoring her, he proceeded with the speech he had prepared. “Your only prayer is Germany. Our emperor is young, full of fresh ideas. Strength and vision!”

She stood still, studying his face. “Sometimes I think you’re quite mad, Eberhard,” she said, and he heard echoes of her grandmother’s hauteur. “You’re so passionate about all these things another person can’t begin to understand.”

“And sometimes, Amalia, you’re too Viennese for words.”

“Then why on earth do you want to marry me?” she challenged.

“Heaven only knows,” he said, the fight going out of him as his heart softened as it did when he lost himself playing his violin. In moments such as these, she sneaked into his breast, bringing her multicolored vitality. It almost blinded him. He had to remind himself that the world was black and white.

“I’ve got to get away,” he said, shaking his head to rid it of the spell. “I should have left weeks ago, but I kept finding excuses to stay.”

Amalia stopped. “You make me sound like just some impediment to your duty.”

A vision, which he had experienced many times—Amalia coming towards him down the aisle of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, all trembling and white in her purity—visited him now and wouldn’t leave. “Do you think I feel nothing? Can’t you see how difficult this is for me?” he demanded harshly.

Shocked into silence, she averted her gaze. Her body suddenly lost its rigidity, and she stumbled to a nearby bench to sit down.

He said, “It’s not a good time to be in love, Amalia. I’m sorry.”

“So we are expected to turn our feelings off,” she said, her voice low. “How can you, Eberhard?”

The grandeur around him faded to winter bleakness, and he just managed to cling to the vision of himself in his uniform. “I’m setting you free, Amalia. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You won’t even ask me to wait?”

“You weren’t made for waiting, my dear.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I wouldn’t ask it of you. I think once I’ve gone you’ll even come to realize you don’t actually love me, Amalia.” This realization was sudden and came, unwanted, from the deepest part of him.

It stupefied her completely. “How can you mean that?”

“You have never felt for me what I feel for you,” he murmured gently, knowing it to be true. He was her mother’s catch. A baron. Amalia was too young and inexperienced to feel the agony that was making him tremble.

“Tell me what I’ve done,” she pleaded. “Where have I fallen short?”

Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead with all the ardor that was crippling him. “Someday you will know what it is to love with body and soul.”

Her brow furrowed. Then, flushing Amalia looked away.

“There are some things that are too big for us, Amalia,” he said, his voice suddenly hard as he averted his face from the sight of her. “I have known all my life that I was born to be an officer in the Prussian Army. It is simply who I am.” He paced two steps away from her. “Vienna was an experiment I undertook to please my mother. But it is not my destiny to be a dilettante violinist. Nor to marry the fairy-queen.”

She looked up at him, her eyes large and surprisingly angry. “I’m not a fairy queen! You’re talking like a book, Eberhard. A Romantic! You don’t even sound like yourself.”

He turned his back on her. The move was deliberate, calculated. He couldn’t allow her to see inside him to that insecure place that he didn’t control. That place where the violinist dwelt, where he actually feared for his life, where he loved her so much that his resolution was nearly gone.

Throwing off these thoughts, he assumed the stance of a soldier while he still could. Innocent she may be, but Amalia Faulhaber was part of this dying city that was threatening to pull him down in its death throes. Enough!

“There isn’t anything I can do to make you change your mind?” she asked.

Merely shaking his head, he kept his back to her.

“Eberhard, this is a mistake.”

“I’m a soldier, Amalia. That’s all I ever was. I’m sorry if for a little while I forgot the fact.”

“Yes, it is a pity.” He heard the sarcasm in her words, and could visualize her drawing herself up. Hers was not the character to be crushed by rejection.

“Well, if you must go, do it now,” she challenged him.

He looked over his shoulder, studying her one last time, as she sat there in green, tiny against the immense landscape. Then he turned and walked away without looking back. He knew if he did, he would never go. [From Chapter 1] view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Author:

Book Club Discussions for The Last Waltz
1.What faction of Viennese Society does each of the main characters represent?
2. How is what happens to them symbolic?
3. What do the following characters think of Amalia?
Eberhard
Andrzej
Rudolf
Uncle Lorenz
Trudi
Wolf
Louisa
4. How do the following characters change and develop through the novel?
Amalia
Andrzej
Eberhard
Rudolf
Grandmama Eugenia
Gretel Faulhaber
Wolf
5. What theme or themes would you say the novel portrays?
6. How is this novel relevant to our lives today?
7. Would change the ending? If so, why?
8. What does the ending symbolize?
9. What forces shaped each of Amalia's suitor's personalities?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Official Web Site of The Last Waltz
»	Author GG Vandagriff's Facebook Page

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