The Reluctant Empress Quotes

“[A translation into English of a poem Elisabeth wrote two weeks after her wedding]

Oh, had I but never left the path
That would have led me to freedom.
Oh, that on the broad avenues
Of vanity I had never strayed!

I have awakened in a dungeon,
With chains on my hands.
And my longing ever stronger-
And freedom! You, turned from me!

I have awakened from a rapture,
Which held my spirit captive,
And vainly do I curse this exchange,
In which I gambled away you -freedom!- away.

The Reluctant Empress, Chapter 2”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“She knows how to keep him interested in a thousand ways. And her peculiarity, her singularity may not always be easy for him to bear. But surely she has never bored him. Elle sait se faire désirer, but without pretenses. It is her way, and he is under her spell like a lover, and happy when he can touch her lightly to remind her of something!”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Elisabeth "has always been strange and has followed only her whims and wishes, and now shyness and melancholia have been added. Who among gifted people who enjoy unlimited freedom is entirely normal? The Empress is, as we all are, the product of conditions." (Bavarian lady-in-waiting)”
― brigitte hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“No outsider was allowed to glimpse the mansion when Elisabeth was in residence. She could go walking for hours, observing the deer (she always carried wooden rattles with her to protect her from wild boars, who were afraid of the noise) or composing poems.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Whatever Elisabeth did, Franz Joseph's affection remained unchanged.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Quando chiese al fratello Carlo Teodoro perché anche lui non approfittasse delle passeggiate per farsi leggere da altri degli scritti in lingua straniera, la risposta fu: «Mi prenderebbero per pazzo».
Elisabetta ribatté: «E che importanza ha? Non ti basta essere convinto che non lo sei?»
La dama di corte bavarese Maria Redwitz, che riporta questo dialogo, fece il seguente commento: «Questo era il modo con il quale si era spiegata tante cose nella vita. Faceva ciò che le andava a genio e lasciava che gli altri pensassero ciò che volevano. Nonostante tutte le stravaganze era rimasta una persona fondamentalmente semplice e affatto naturale».”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Non ha notato che in Shakespeare i pazzi sono le uniche persone assennate? Così anche nella vita non si può mai sapere dove si celi la follia e dove l’assennatezza; parimenti non sappiamo se la realtà è un sogno o il sogno è la realtà. Io propendo a considerare sani di mente quelli che vengono chiamati pazzi. Il vero buon senso viene considerato ‘pazzia pericolosa’.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Elisabeth later always referred to this situation [her engagement and marriage] with great bitterness, saying, "Marriage is an absurd arrangement. One is sold as a fifteen-year-old child and makes a vow one does not understand and then regrets for thirty years or more, and which one can never undo again."

"The Reluctant Empress", chapter 1”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“But even her Greek property did not inspire Elisabeth to settle down. Hardly had the castle been completed that she set out again, not unlike the way she had behaved about the Hermes Villa, which she no longer especially liked.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Time and again the Empress contrasted the Habsburgs' sense of being among the elect with the middle-class virtues of the age of liberalism.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“This farce with "Titania and Alfred" is not as trivial as it may at first glance seem in the context of a biography. It characterized Elisabeth's relations with her admirers, as well as her inability to separate reality from fantasy. The fact that she spent many hours composing the Alfred poems shows the extent of her isolation.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Triumphing at the hunts brought Elisabeth both an increase in self-confidence - since she shone not as an emperss, but as a horsewoman and a beauty - and a freedom from the court obligations that she sought. But such days on horseback generally ended in despair and bitter complaints about her life.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“At her return, the Viennese did not receive their Empress with any great affection. Everyone was now criticizing her, even the common people, who were disturbed at the stories of the great sums she spent abroad. The diplomates also joined in the general chorus of outrage.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“She [Sisi] knows how to keep him [Franz Joseph] interested in a thousand ways. And her peculiarity, her singularity may not always be easy for him to bear. But surely she has never bored him.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Sissi's esoteric, overly sensitive nature was coupled with a considerable arrogance.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Elisabeth, unmoved, replied: "Oh, yes, they're curious - whenever there's something to see, they come running, for the monkey dancing at the hurdy-gurdy just as much as for me. That is their love!”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“Hardly any other tale from Vienna was as interesting as learning from an eyewitness whether the Empress was truly as beautiful as it was said.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“During the nearly two years of separation from her husband and the society of the Viennese court, the Empress had changed. She had become very self-confident and brisk and had learned to assert her interests vigorously. The Emperor living in constant fear that at the first sign of discord she might run off again and do further damage to the prestige of the August House, treated her circumspectly, showing infinite patience.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“The Austrian Empress' entourage was so vast, with everyone watching everyone else, so many petty jealousies raged within this small society on Madeira, which was completely cut off from the outside world, that not even the slightest emotion could go unrecognized.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress

“After a ball given by the Margrave Pallavicini, she did not return to the Hofburg until six thirty in the morning, by which time the Emperor had already set out for the hunt, so that she no longer found him at home. Political cares did not deter the Emperor, either, from going hunting as often as possible.”
― Brigitte Hamann, The Reluctant Empress