A walk in Vienna in the footsteps of Almah, the gripping heroine of the writer Catherine Bardon
Cultural effervescence
The city retains many vestiges of the bustling existence in which the heroine spent her childhood and youth. “Almah loved this building,” she says in front of the Secession Palace (3) . Its cubic architecture topped with a golden sphere symbolizes the modernity of the early 20th century. While the storefronts of the Cafe Museum (4) or the Café Central, – emblematic places assailed by tourists – bear witness to the excitement of the Austrian capital at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “In these cafés, intellectuals, artists, journalists gathered all day long. They even received their mail there,” relates the writer who greedily scrutinizes the elegant pastry menus. A few steps away, the prestigious Viennese Opera (5) echoes the concerts that fill the streets and churches of the capital after dark. “That’s what I love about this city,” says the author. This joy of living, this sense of celebration! » These streets lively with tourists and Viennese families sitting on restaurant terraces over goulash (a typical Central European dish), the heroes of the saga wander them in the evening, going to listen to the latest popular speaker or an opera by Richard Strauss .
Before the fall
Like her young heroine exploring her city with delight, accompanied by her best friend and then her lover, Catherine Bardon marvels at everything, from the golden statues adorning the roofs of buildings to the multicolored boxes of the chocolatier Demel (6) an institution. At this artisan’s house, Almah’s father, a doctor from very good Viennese society, chooses a present for his beloved wife. It is also there that the young journalist Wilhem, less well-born, comes to buy something to attract the favor of his future in-laws. Backed by the Ring (boulevard which surrounds the historic center of Vienna), Hofburg (7) the former imperial palace, features a large arc of sculpted columns, immaculate stone and gilding. “From this balcony, Hitler delivered his speech establishing the Anschluss, the attachment of Austria to Nazi Germany, in 1938,” recalls Catherine Bardon gravely. Almah chronicles the period preceding this turning point in history. A thrilling time when the Viennese danced on the edge of the abyss in an atmosphere of “joyful apocalypse”, in the words of the Austrian novelist Hermann Broch. A vanished world that fiction brings back to life.
