The Lost Prince (65 page)
“Oh, look,” Standish said. “Look who it is.”
It was Arnauld Esterhazy.
Arnauld’s smile in the doorway of the train car contained for her the whole world. As she stood rooted to her spot on the train platform, watching as his focus shifted from her own radiant face to the boy, she did not move. And then the moment he descended the steps and touched foot on the terra firma of the station platform in her Boston with his arms out, her son responding by rushing toward him, the sight crystallized the myriad thoughts coursing through her mind. She found herself overcome, transported to the dream of a few nights before, of standing with Arnauld, the fully recovered teacher, the Haze, a few years hence watching Standish perform heroically in his football game. Everything seemed to fall into place. She had done her job.
This lost prince returned, saved from the horrors of war, would resume his role at St. Gregory’s and become the Haze, the legendary teacher he was supposed to be. The boy, her son, Standish, growing up under his tutelage, would rise to become Dilly Burden, the great hero of countless
campaigns at Harvard, and go to war himself. In this role as a warrior, in pre-Blitz England, he would meet the love of his own life. She, already pregnant, would deliver a son, whom Dilly would accept as his own son. This boy would grow up—after the death of his father in war—and, acquiring the name Wheeler as a result of his prowess in baseball, become a legend himself, a musician, one of the most recognizable faces of his generation. And then, through a miracle, he would end up in Vienna in 1897 at the same time as her sojourn there, right after her graduation from college. All of this would now fall into place.
And now, standing on the train platform in Boston’s Back Bay watching Arnauld Esterhazy and her son embracing, she could for the first time in twenty years transport herself back there to the scene that had for years been too painful to recall: Wheeler Burden, the love of her life, standing surrounded by beautiful Secessionist paintings. In an instant, something broke loose, something permanent she was to discover, and she found herself able to travel there now in her mind, and for the rest of her life relish, rejoicing in what she found, content with the role the experience had given her on into the future. Suddenly it all fit together, all the parts: William James, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Will Honeycutt, the Hyperion Fund, Franz Jodl, even Miggo Sabatini.
In retrospect, it would amaze her that the one simple event of Arnauld’s return from war, healthy and in full possession of his faculties, had caused such an explosion in her. The world was now, because of this return, as it should be: The past was what it was, the future would be what it would be. “We meet each other in dreams,” her great love had said to her, and she herself had repeated. Now, suddenly, in a rush she could see it all. Now suddenly she believed.
And even Frank Burden played his part willingly, oblivious to much of what went on, missing out on much because he did not wish to “engage the world at their level,” as he had stated proudly, referring to Freud and Jung, and perhaps even William James, but also to much of what she had done and believed. Always the literalist, as he called himself, Frank would watch his son grow into the great hero with whom he could identify, watching him be sacrificed in war and finding a kind of steely pride in that sacrifice.
She revisited Vienna now and would comfortably into the future, welcoming the poignancy of the memories and their powerful gifts to her.
She watched Arnauld and Standish, man and boy, embracing, and she approached them smiling. She reached out to join in the embrace, not as a lover or even as a mother, but with the objectivity of a temple priestess, not so much with the power of Athena now, but with that of the Egyptian goddess Isis.
She allowed herself to drift back to that time, felt herself back in the artist’s studio in Vienna, back in the arms of the love of her life, feeling as he called it then “the connectedness of all things.” She reached out and touched this restored and healthy man Arnauld Esterhazy, who meant so much to her life, and she touched her son. The
two
princes.
And, for the first time in more than twenty years, she allowed herself to hear the music.
It was the music of Vienna, the music of the waltz.
Like its predecessor
The Little Book
, this novel is a work of imagination, but it derives much of its context from actual history. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung really did go to Clark University and then Putnam Camp in the Adirondacks in 1909; J. P. Morgan actually did miss, for some unknown reason, sailing on his White Star liner
Titanic
’s maiden voyage; the World War One scenes really did play out in their horror on the Isonzo River in northern Italy; and the Spanish Flu added its devastation to that of the world war in 1918.
A number of sources were essential from the story’s beginnings, particularly
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915–1919
by Mark Thompson;
Jung: A Biography
by Deirdre Bair;
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
by Robert D. Richardson;
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Annotated Edition)
by Edwin Lefèvre, Jon D. Markman, and Paul Tudor Jones; and
Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology
by George Prochnik.
A number of people served as invaluable readers, adding constructive and critical support along the way. Principal among these were Meghan Tally, my Princeton roommate Louis Sanford, the invaluable Pat LoBrutto, and, of course, my wife, Gaby, the consummate English teacher, who lent careful attention to every page. Bobbi Wolf, Cathy Frantzis, Jano Tucker, Dave Raphael, and David Agnew also read and made timely suggestions.
A number of people helped with research. Invaluable resources among these were Paolo Valdemarin and Monica Loredan in Gorizia, Italy, and
Dietmar Steinbrenner in Vienna, all three of whom devoted valuable time hosting and generously sharing locations. It was Aaron Edelheit who pointed me in the direction of Jesse Livermore and the bucket shops that proved so instrumental in the development of Will Honeycutt’s passions. Brock Brower lent his expertise on William James. And, as before, I am grateful for my years at Pacifica Graduate Institute for filling in details of depth psychology, Jung’s active imagination, and the significance of dreams.
There is no question that this novel would not exist if it were not for two extraordinary colleagues in the book business: my agent, Scott Miller, and my editor at Dutton, Ben Sevier. Scott and Ben, both superb at their jobs, prodded, goaded, and cheered me on during the difficult gestation period of this second novel.
Also I am grateful for the remarkable support team at Dutton: President Brian Tart, Christine Ball, Carrie Swetonic, Liza Cassity, Stephanie Kelly, Susan Schwartz, Rich Hasselberger, Monica Benalcazar, and Kirby Rogerson. All played their parts well.
On a personal note, I cannot express adequately the significance of the friendship shown to me over the past four years by Pat Conroy in the development of my own journey as a writer. Pat has been as supportive as he is an inspiration. Also this time around I wish to thank Seattle writers Jennie Shortridge and Garth Stein. What a luxury to have such writers as friends.
And finally a word about my dedication page: my three children, Nan, Bruce, and Paula, readers all, have chipped in over the years to help with ideas and plot points. They along with their mother have been the ideal family for a late-blooming author. To all four of them I extend my deepest love, gratitude, and admiration.
A graduate of Princeton and Stanford, Selden Edwards is a former English teacher and was headmaster at several private schools during his career in education. His debut novel,
The Little Book,
which he began writing in 1974 and worked on over the course of thirty years, was published in 2008 and became a national bestseller. He lives near Santa Barbara, California.
