Allison Pataki - Sissi 2. - A Empire úrnője

In Vienna, in the halls of the Imperial Palace, the waltz is playing and the champagne is flowing, but behind the glittering scenery, competition and murderous intrigue are raging. Sissi, the wife of Ferenc József, the "fairy queen" of her people, is strangled by strict court etiquette and the tension of a cold marriage, and her restlessness is growing. The woman longing for freedom finds peace on her estate in Gödöllő. Here she rides her beloved horse, here she enjoys the joys of motherhood through her beloved daughter, Valéria - and here she receives the visits of the Hungarian statesman, Count Andrássy, the man whom she has loved with all her heart for years. However, the idyll ends with tragic news: for the sake of his little son, Rudolf, he must immediately return to the capital, to the world of gossip, envy and sorrow.

Love and loss, devotion and defiance - Sissi is torn between conflicting desires: keep her family together or escape her suffocating marriage and the storms of history, the ominous portents of the collapse of great empires? The empress eventually claims her place on the throne at her husband's side, wins the love of her people and the world, and saves the empire. But can he save himself?

And suddenly there it is; she is what they say: beauty not of this world... She marches down the stairs of the elegant hotel, the Beau Rivage, holds her umbrella, bright early autumn sunlight floods the boulevard. A crowd gathers around him when they realize they see the Empress.

- Here he comes!
- Empress Elizabeth!
- Sissy!

He walks along the wharf toward the boardwalk and the waiting steamer, his single female attendant busily picking her feet to keep up with him. Her appearance reveals that she is not a commoner: her pearl-colored skin, her queenly figure in the tight and high-necked little coat, her long black skirt, and her black hat on her rich auburn hair. Her hair - so famous that even the man read about it - is dark and wavy, with tiny silver glitters in it. The man looks over his ragged self, looks disapprovingly at the half-moons of dirt under his fingernails, at the rips on his worn pants.

He stares closely at the woman's face, sees her blinking, frightened, like a chased animal. After all, it is, of course: persecuted. It's not just him who's chasing him, everyone's chasing him. She, like the man, flees...

He steps behind her, his blood is pounding, the intoxicating mixture of recognition and enthusiasm gallops through his body. A few hundred meters away, the steamer, at a nearby dock, belches black smoke into the blue sky. The man reaches into his pocket, his fingers touch the blade...