In the first years of their marriage – years in which she was still very vulnerable because of her youth – Sisi had to beat a great deal. That she became increasingly depressed is only too understandable. Then she found out, inevitably, that her husband was cheating on her. This was the last straw. She immediately took Gisela and left Vienna for Possenhofen, to her family. She was now twenty-two years old, had given birth to three children in four years and then lost one of those. She had been badly repaid for all the love and admiration she had shown her husband. She had been extremely lonely in the midst of all the intrigue at Court and found herself caught-up in an endless war of nerves with her mother-in-law. All of this manifested itself in a series of grave problems with her health. Among other symptoms, Elisabeth was already suffering from permanent coughing bouts and there was talk of ‘lung trouble’. The difficulty in establishing a clear diagnosis and the lack of success in treatment indicate that the causes were psychosomatic. In any case of cure of several months on Madeira was strongly recommended. Sisi accepted the advice with gratitude as she would have been prepared to do anything to escape the Court in Vienna.
This trip was to mark the beginning of an incessant and restless bout of travelling, which Elisabeth was to embark upon like a refugee for the rest of her life. She was absent from court in Vienna almost continually for two years. After Madeira, she went on to Corfu, to Venice, to Bad Kissingen and then to Possenhofen. It was during this period that she really began to find an identity of her own.
The Emperor inundated his wife with jewellery. However what she sorely missed was his affection and any sense of real security in their marriage.
Elisabeth’s suffering is written all over her face in different photograph’s. Despite her youth, she bears a striking resemblance to hew own mother, who was visible troubled from a relative early age.
|
