Since then she has never once paid me a fair price for my work and in the last year has sent in a collection of bric-a-brac by way of payment for which the pawnbroker in the Dorotheergasse, shaking his head, scarcely gives me the price of the cloth.

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The first tourists are beginning to arrive. Poor things, you see them trailing round the Kunsthistorisches Museum behind their guides or rushing in and out of Birth Houses and Death Houses or houses where Beethoven is supposed to have poured buckets of water over himself.

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The Danube is a particular problem for foreign visitors: a yellow-grey river skirting only the northern industrial suburbs. 'Someone ought to sue that Johann Strauss,' said an exhausted American lady sinking into my oyster velvet chair. 'The Blue Danube indeed! Though I suppose you can't blame him for the dead cats.' 'Did they tell you that it's only blue when you're in love ?' 'They did,' she said grimly.

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My closest friend in Vienna is Alice Springer. She's three years older than I am, gentle and funny, and though she talks almost without stopping she never seems to say anything wounding or indiscreet. Alice sings in the chorus of the Volksoper - a hard life of dirndls and um-pa-pa - and I regard this as a shocking waste because she has a real gift for millinery. Hats come to Alice like dresses come to me and she has total recall for any hat that has ever caught her interest. She's not a person to complain, but I think of late things have been hard for her. Though she's so pretty - one of those nut-brown women whose eyes and hair have the same russet tint, she's nearly forty and recently there's been a tendency to put her in the second row, often with a hay bale or a milking stool. And from there, as everyone knows, it's only a short step to the back row in a grey wig with the village elders and a spinning wheel. I usually pick her up at the theatre and we go and have a spritzer at the Cafe Landtmann. Tonight I was early enough to use the ticket she'd left for me, and so I was privileged to see the whole of a new production from Germany called Student Love. Alice was in the second row again, holding huge steins of beer aloft because it all took place in Heidelberg and about the operetta itself I prefer not to speak. At the same time people were enjoying it. I noticed particularly a very fat man in the same row as me. He had bright ginger hair parted in the middle and a round red face which clashed with his moustache and it was clear that he was very much moved by what was going on. During the song about the fast-flowing River Neckar he sighed deeply, during the duet in which the nobly born student and the impoverished landlady's daughter plighted their troth, he leaned forward with parted lips, and during the heroine's solo of (strictly temporary) renunciation he was so overcome he had to mop his face several times with a large white handkerchief.

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It was a beautiful evening; the scent of narcissi came to us from the Volksgarten and the waiter, who knew us, found us a quiet table, for together Alice and I are inclined to unsettle unattended gentlemen. As Alice poured our wine and mineral water she chatted cheerfully enough, but I know her very well and I thought she was worried.

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Alice loves the Hof Advokat Herr Doktor Sultzer very much. For the past eight years she's made for him a secure retreat in her little apartment in the Kohlmarkt and asked only the basic courtesies that any woman has a right to expect from her lover: a new dress now and then, a bracelet. No one in the Sultzer household knew of her existence yet she shared, if anybody did, his life.

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The only stipulation he made was that her trousseau should be completed a week before the wedding, which was to take place in the Capuchin Church on the fifteenth of October.

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I have just made a complete fool of myself. I went to see Alice to tell her about Herr Huber's visit and on the way back I thought I saw across the width of the Kärntner Ring a figure that I recognized. Yes, I was sure that I knew that soldier in the uniform of the Bohemian Dragoons with his slow gait and clumsy boots. I even thought I could smell across the heads of the fashionable crowd who promenaded there, the whiff of the raw onions that nothing can prevent Corporal Hatschek from chewing when he is off duty. And my heart raced, excitement coursed through me - and I lifted my skirts ready to hurry across the road. But the Ringstrasse is wide, the hansom cabs are never in a hurry. By the time I'd reached the other side there was no sign of him. I'd imagined him then. Conjured him up out of my deepest need. It's not the first time that I've run across the road like a homesick child towards this onion-chewing corporal and found he was a mirage. Well, so be it. There is only one cure for what ails me, and thank heaven I have it in abundance. Work.

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I shall never forget my drives to the Hotel Bristol. In winter there are violets pinned to my muff; the snowflakes drift past and I think of Anna Karenina, but I am luckier than she because her happiness was paid for by others whereas any pain this liaison causes me is my own. In the autumn the chestnuts lining the Ringstrasse send down their bronze and russet leaves … But now, in May, the slanting sun turned the laburnums into a shower of gold - and it was all for me, the beauty of the evening: my Royal Triumph.

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The Triumph lasted till I alighted at the Bristol, walked across the richly carpeted foyer, smelled the cigars from the Smoking Room - and then there was a moment of panic, for after all any kind of disaster could have overtaken the Feldherr von Lindenberg since the early hours of today. But it was all right. I gave the name I always gave, the porter handed me a key. No smile of complicity, no recognition though I was here less than two months ago. The Bristol isn't intimate like Sachers; no naked archdukes come whooping out of the Salles Privees. Here is complete discretion, anonymity. No wonder the nice fat English King Edward liked it best of all the hotels in the city. My room was perfect. I could see over the roofs to a garden with a swing and pond with pin-sized children who should have been in bed. I took off my hat and put it on the hatstand. I sat down on the bed.

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He left us at the entrance to the Kreuzer Hof and we made our way through an archway into a sunless courtyard and up an outside staircase to the third floor. The smell of sauerkraut and drains accompanied us; on the dank, arcaded passage that ran right round the building, aproned women with crying children filled buckets at the communal taps.

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Then one morning I found my employers' newspaper and in it an advertisement for a seamstress in the teeming textile quarter north of the Hohermarkt. I worked for Jasha Jacobson for three years. He came from Russian Poland and ran a typical sweat shop - overcrowded, noisy, ill-ventilated. I knew nothing about Jews: their religion, their habits - being there was as strange to me as if I'd gone to work in an Arabian souk. We worked unbelievably long hours and my pay was low, but I've never ceased to be grateful for my time there. I learnt everything there was to know about tailoring: choosing the cloth, cutting, repairing the ancient, rattling machines. At first I was a freak - a schickse set down in the midst of this close knit immigrant community - but gradually, I became a kind of mascot. People passing smiled and waved at the blonde girl sitting in the window beside the cross-legged men sewing their button holes. And I was never molested - I might have been a girl of their own faith by the care they took of me.

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By this time I was sharing a flat with Alice: three rooms and a kitchen in a pretty, arcaded courtyard behind the Votiv Church.

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With the reference Jasha wrote for me I got a job in a fashionable dress shop in the Herrengasse. I started in the sewing room, but soon I was modelling and helping with the designs, and at the end of two years the proprietress hinted at the possibility of a partnership, for she was getting on in years.

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Once, quite by myself, I went to the Prater. Sometimes I think that of all the days of my life, that's the one that I'd most like to have back: the day I tested the dappled horses of the carousels, travelled the magic Grottenbahn, sailed high over the city on the ferris wheel with my imagined daughter.

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Herr Schumacher was not in the Central. He had been there and the proprietor remembered him well, and the party of sympathizers with which he'd been surrounded. 'Seven daughters, poor gentleman,' he said - and recoiled from my basilisk glare. He was not in the Blue Boar either, but in the Regina the trail grew warm again. An inebriated gentleman, supported by two friends, had lurched past half an hour earlier, asking the passers-by what he had done to deserve his fate. 'He went on about goldfish, too. Someone had killed his goldfish,' said the landlord. 'He went off towards the Graben. You could try the Three Hussars.' And in that ancient hostelry full of antlers and oak panelling I found him. He was sitting between his faithful henchmen, the bank manager and the dentist, the centre of a veritable Pieta. Herr Schumacher's moustaches were limp with grief, glasses and a half empty bottle of wine littered the table. The dentist's heavy hand lay on the stricken father's arm; the bank manager's pince-nez glittered as he shook a commiserating head. 'Good evening.' 'Frau… Susanna!' Herr Schumacher recognized me, tried to rise. 'Herr Schumacher, I have just come from your house.' 'Eh… what ?' Tipsily he pulled out a chair which I ignored. 'Is there anything wrong? My wife's all right?' 'Physically she's all right. Emotionally she's not. She is very much upset.' 'Well, yes; anyone would be. I'm very much upset… my friends are too.' He waved his arm at his companions, knocking over a glass. 'I'll have to take in my brother's boy from Graz now. It's a disaster; its -' I now lost my temper. 'Herr Schumacher, you make me ashamed to be a human being. Your daughter has a large birthmark on her right cheek. It is a serious and permanent blemish with which she will have to live. Your wife is exhausted and wretched - and you sit here like a sot; drooling with self-pity and drinking with your so-called friends.' 'What… ? What did you say?' He sat down heavily. 'A birthmark ? A big one, you say.' 'Yes.' The dentist had now grasped the nature of the calamity. 'Hey, that's terrible, Schumacher. Terrible! Not just a girl but disfigured!' 'Dreadful, quite dreadful,' murmured the bank manager. 'You'll have her on your hands all your life.' Herr Schumacher shook his head, trying to surface from his drunkenness. 'You say she's healthy?' he demanded. 'The baby?' 'Yes, she's perfectly healthy. In fact she's a very sweet baby otherwise. She has the most distinguished eyebrows.' 'Still, if she's got a strawberry mark no one'll look at her. Or rather everyone'll look at her!' The dentist, still bent on consolation, tried to put an arm round Herr Schumacher's shoulders. The arm was removed. Herr Schumacher rose and managed to stay upright. 'Idiot!' he spat at the dentist. 'Half-wit!' He opened his mouth very wide and jabbed a finger at one of his back molars. 'Do you see that tooth ? You filled it a month ago and since then I've had nothing but trouble! Every time I drink something hot it's like a dagger!' 'Come, come Schumacher,' said the bank manager. 'He was only trying to -' Herr Schumacher swung round to confront his comforter. 'And you shut up too or I'll knock you down. I'm surprised you've got the nerve to look me in the face! Two per cent on a simple loan with collaterals! Two per cent!' He threw some money down on the table, staggered to the coat rack, jammed his hat on his head.

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Reports of Herr Schumacher's progress through the day did nothing for my state of mind. He had been seen in the Golden Hind at lunchtime, already considerably inebriated. There was a second sighting on the terrace of the Hotel Meissner. By early evening he was said to be in the Central having been assisted there by his dentist and his bank manager who'd stayed to join in the grief and lamentation.

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God, who was so unenthusiastic about 167 Augustiner Strasse, has approved entirely of 14a, The Graben, which Herr Huber is turning into a temple of charcuterie.

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'How is the psychoanalysis?' I asked her. 'Does it help?' Leah has been getting so depressed and having such bad dreams, that her husband has sent her to Professor Freud in the Berggasse for treatment. 'Well, it doesn't help my depression - but then I know why I'm depressed. It's because I don't want to go to the Promised Land and dig holes for orange trees. But I must say it's simply marvellous for the feet! You know how my ankles kept swelling after Benjamin, and an hour on the couch is simply bliss!'

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Outwardly the Capuchin Church is a narrow, faded building, squeezed in between others on the west side of the Neuermarkt. Inside, too, it is austere with only the dark brown of the marquetry work behind the altar for decoration. But to walk down the aisle of the Capuchin Church is to walk on the whole history of the Empire, for below in the crypt lie the bodies of all the Habsburgs who have ruled over Austria. Maria Theresia lies there in a vast sarcophagus, entwined in statuary with her husband, and Leopold I who saved us from the Turks. Crown Prince Rudolf sleeps in the crypt, wept over by parties of tourists; and Napoleon's sad little son, the King of Rome whose cradle they adorned with a thousand golden bees to bring him luck and happiness, but to no avail.

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'On the sixth of October I'm going to Trieste to meet the Colonel of the Southern Division. It's only a brief meeting -no inspections - no reviews - and after that I'll be free for three days. This is what I want you to do. Take the night train - the 18.35 from the Südbahnhof. I shall be in the front of the train with my aides, but don't look for me. When you get to Trieste go to the Hotel Europa; you'll be booked in there and as soon as I've finished I'll come for you. We shall go on to Miramare where, at long last, I shall keep my promise. I may die unshriven but you shall - I swear it - see the sea.'

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At the end of September there is always an Operetta Night in the Stadtpark Kursalon. Singers come from the Volksoper; they have electric lights now, strung between the trees, and after supper (which is taken out of doors if the weather is fine) there is dancing to an orchestra which plays on the bandstand from which Strauss himself so often conducted with his fiddle.

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The treasure I'd discovered when I came here with my little phantom daughter was still there: I could see the brightly coloured sign above a clump of bushes. GROTTENBAHN, it said - and I moved resolutely towards it, paid, led the child into the first of the wooden coaches, painted a brilliant red and blue. 'What is it?' he whispered. 'You'll see.' Only a few people got in behind us; it was late in the year for the Prater. The bell rang and we lurched forwards into the darkness. There was time to be properly afraid - and then the train stopped. We were opposite the first of the lighted caves. It showed Cinderella stooping by the embers, her golden hair brushing the hearth. Everything that would later transform her life was there: the pumpkins, the mice… One baby mouse playing beneath the dresser was half the size of the rest, with tiny crooked whiskers. The clock ticked in the corner, hams and salami hung from the rafters. She was utterly forlorn, poor Cinderella, and as we leaned out of the train (which we were not supposed to do) we could see the tears glitter on her cheeks. 'Who is she?' whispered the boy beside me, and I realized that he had never heard of Cinderella; never in his life. Yet he was transfixed, as I was too. For we were entirely in the kitchen, sharing her loneliness, her rejection - but at least I knew the future as did the children in the coaches behind me. That the old woman visible through the window was coming… that as soon as the train moved on she would be there, the fairy godmother under whose cloak one could see the glimmer of silver. The train surged forwards and beside me Sigismund sighed. It was too soon, always too soon, that jerk of the train, one never had time enough. Another journey into the darkness, and then we stopped once more. Snow White this time, and the glass coffin and the dwarves clustered round in mourning. And how they mourned! They held their heads in their hands, they clutched their handkerchiefs, one lay prostrate among the lilies of the valley on the ground. White doves hung above the bier, white roses sprouted from the earth and she lay with her raven hair streaming across her face. And again for the other children in the coaches the sadness was almost pleasurable because they knew, as I knew, that the prince would come (one could see his painted horse, his handsome head on a distant hill), the poisoned apple be dislodged, the grief-stricken dwarves rise to their feet and dance. But not Sigismund. 'Why is she dead?' came his hoarse little voice beside me. 'Who killed her ?' 'I'll tell you later. But it's all right. She comes alive again.' Another plunge into the darkness and the giant Rubezahl, our special Austrian giant and wholly benevolent. He was holding a cow in the hollow of his hand and chiding it for not giving milk while tiny people in the field below looked pleased. And on again to the Sleeping Beauty. She lay back in a swoon holding her spindle and she had the richest, fattest plait of flaxen hair you have ever seen. A great hedge of thorns grew across the window and all around her lay the palace servants overcome as she was by sudden sleep. There was a sleeping dog, a sleeping chef in a tall hat - and a sleeping kitchen boy still holding aloft the cutlet he had been about to eat. 'A sleeping chop!' said Sigismund, pointing, and for the first time since I had known him, I heard him giggle. He had made a joke. There were twelve stories depicted in the Grottenbahn and Sigismund knew none of them. The Little Mermaid, walking on her sore new feet towards her prince, Mother Holle trying to shake down the sky, Little Red Riding Hood carrying her basket between marvellously spotted toadstools while the great wet tongue of the wolf lolled between the pines… The last but one of the lighted grottos was almost the best: Thumbelina landing in Africa, held in the beak of her swallow. And what an Africa! Swirling scarlet lilies, fruit hanging from palm trees - and in the petals of a flower as golden as the sun, Thumbelina's tiny princeling awaiting her. In the last of the caves, Hansel and Gretel lay asleep in the forest, pillowed on leaves, while above them an arc of angels in white nightdresses with pink bare feet and glittering halos, held out protecting hands. And here at last Sigismund was able to make a connection through his music, and in his husky voice he hummed the theme of the 'Angel's Ballet' from Humperdinck's opera. Then we were out in the daylight, blinking, trying to adjust to the shock of daylight and ordinariness. The train stopped. The other people got out. Sigismund made no move whatsoever. 'Where would you like to go next?' I asked. A stupid question. He sat absolutely immobile, grasping the rail in front of him. 'Again,' he said. I bought two more tickets. We went round again. Cinderella, Snow White, the great giant Rubezahl… When we got to the Sleeping Beauty he made his joke about the sleeping chop, when we got to Hansel and Gretel he crooned the ballet music from Humperdinck, and each and every time the train moved on, he sighed. 'What about one of the roundabouts?' I suggested when we were out once more. He shook his head. 'Please, again,' he said. You can believe it or not, but we went seven times round the Grottenbahn. Seven baby mice, seven benevolent giants, seven jokes about sleeping chops, seven golden princes waiting for Thumbelina …

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We went then to the roundabouts. He chose to ride not on a dappled horse - I had noticed already his dislike of horses -but on a swan. He enjoyed it, but he didn't want to go round again. It was an experience complete in itself. Then came the Wurschtlmann. He's so famous the Prater is named for him and you can see why. A hideous rubber man with a red nose who, for a few kreutzer one can thump and pound and wallop to one's heart's content, knowing that he will right himself undamaged and come up for more. Give him a name - that of your mean-minded boss, your bullying commanding officer - and you can punch him insensible and walk away, purged. 'Would you like to have a go, Sigismund?' Even before he shook his head I saw him instinctively shield his hands, hiding them behind his back - and that was the first time I remembered the concert. In the end, though, the Prater is about the ferris wheel whose fame has spread throughout the Empire. It towers over everything else, its carriages take you a hundred metres into the sky. To be up there and look down on the city is to ride with the gods. So I asked him: 'What about the giant wheel? Would you like to go on it ?' His hand tightened in mine. A tremor passed over his face. She had not been frightened even at six years old, but the boy was scared. 'The view is very beautiful from the top. You can see all Vienna.' He stood still in the middle of the path. He tilted his head and gave a small sniff. 'I want very much to be brave,' he said in his low, cracked voice. 'I very much want it.' And suddenly it all dissolved - my long antagonism, my restraint, the resentment that I felt at being asked for what belonged only to my daughter. I saw him sitting beside his dead mother in the Polish forest, waiting for her to wake … Saw him wobbling on the Encyclopedia of Art, playing and playing because he could no longer talk. I remembered the silent patience with which he'd endured his uncle's bullying, saw the graze on his forehead of which he'd said no word. And I knelt beside him and took him in my arms. 'You are brave, Sigi. You're very brave, my darling,' I said - and kissed him. So now I can tell you this. They are entirely exact descriptions of what happens, those ones in the fairy tales which tell you what occurs when you kiss an ugly frog, a hairy beast, with proper love.Sigi didn't kiss me back or cling to me. He just straightened his shoulders and then in a calm, almost matter-of-fact voice, he said: 'Now we will go up,' - and then led me to the brightly painted carriages swaying high above our heads.

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We carried him off to lunch at the Landtmann, but he was a broken man, able to swallow only a couple of schnitzels and a slab of oblaten torte.

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That he was playing at the Redoutensaal shows how important he has become since his debut. It's the most beautiful of our concert halls, in a wing of the Hofburg itself, and perhaps the best loved by the Viennese. I thought there would not be a seat; I've never trusted Van der Velde to keep his word, but when I gave my name I was handed a ticket straight away. The hall was full. Many in the audience were the usual fashionable, gushing women in Chez Jaquetta's clothes, but not all. I found myself next to an old man with a full beard like Brahms', and remembered that I'd had him pointed out to me as Hans Klepstedt, the Director of the Liszt Academy of Music.

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