Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

“Here’s someone who understands these things for once,” he rejoiced, turning triumphantly to his family. “At last, at long last a man who can tell you what my prints are worth. You’ve always been so cross with me for putting all the money I had to spare into my collection, that’s the truth of it: over sixty years no beer, no wine, no tobacco, no travelling, no visits to the theatre, no books—I was always saving and saving for these prints. But one day, when I’m gone, you’ll see—you two will be rich, richer than anyone in this town, as rich as the richest in Dresden, then for a change you’ll be glad of my folly. However, as long as I live not a single one of these prints leaves the house—they’ll have to carry me out first and only then my collection.”

And as he spoke, his hand passed lovingly over the portfolios that had been emptied of their contents long ago, as if they were living things—I found it terrible, yet at the same time touching, for in all the years of the war I had not seen so perfect and pure an expression of bliss on any German face. Beside him stood the women, looking mysteriously like the female figures in that etching by the German master, who, coming to visit the tomb of the Saviour, stand in front of the vault, broken open and empty, with an expression of fearful awe and at the same time joyous ecstasy. As the women disciples in that picture are radiant with their heavenly presentiment of the Saviour’s closeness, these two ageing, worn, impoverished ladies were irradiated by the childish bliss of the old man’s joy—half laughing, half in tears, it was a sight more moving than any I had ever seen. As for the old man himself, he could not hear enough of my praise, he kept stacking the portfolios up again and turning them, thirstily drinking in every word I said, and so for me it was a refreshing change when at last the deceitful portfolios were pushed aside and, protesting, he had to let the table be cleared for the coffee things. But what was my sense of guilty relief beside the swelling, tumultuous joy and high spirits of a man who seemed to be thirty years younger now! He told a hundred anecdotes of his purchases, his fishing trips in search of them, and rejecting any help tapped again and again on one of the sheets of paper, getting out another and then another print; he was exuberantly drunk as if on wine. When I finally said I must take my leave, he was positively startled, he seemed as upset as a self-willed child, and stamped his foot defiantly: this wouldn’t do, I had hardly seen half his treasures. And the women had a difficult time making him understand, in his obstinate displeasure, that he really couldn’t keep me there any longer or I would miss my train.

When, after desperate resistance, he finally saw the sense of that, and we were saying goodbye, his voice softened. He took both my hands, and his fingers caressed the joints of mine with all the expressiveness conveyed by the touch of a blind man, as if they wanted to know more of me and express more affection than could be put into words. “You have given me the greatest pleasure—at long, long last I have been able to look through my beloved prints again with a connoisseur. But you’ll find that you haven’t come to see me, old and blind as I am, in vain. I promise you here and now, before my wife as my witness, that I will add a clause to my will entrusting the auction of my collection to your old-established house. You shall have the honour of administering these unknown treasures”—and he placed his hand lovingly on the plundered portfolios—“until the day when they go out into the world and are dispersed. Just promise me to draw up a handsome catalogue: it will be my tombstone, and I couldn’t ask for a better memorial.”

I looked at his wife and daughter, who were holding each other close, and sometimes a tremor passed from one to the other, as if they were a single body trembling in united emotion. I myself felt a sense of solemnity in the touching way the old man, unaware of the truth, consigned the invisible and long-gone collection to my care as something precious. Greatly moved, I promised him what I could never perform; once again his dead pupils seemed to light up, and I felt his inner longing to feel me physically; I could tell by the tender, loving pressure of his fingers as they held mine in thanks and a vow.

The women went to the door with me. They dared not speak, for his keen hearing would have picked up every word, but their eyes beamed at me, warm with tears and full of gratitude! Feeling dazed, I made my way down the stairs. I was in fact ashamed of myself; like the angel in the fairy tale I had entered a poor family’s house, I had restored a blind man’s sight, if only for an hour, by helping him with what amounted to a white lie, when in truth I had gone to see him only as a mean-minded dealer hoping to get a few choice items out of someone by cunning. But what I took away with me was more: I had once again felt a sense of pure and lively enthusiasm in a dull, joyless time, a kind of spiritually irradiated ecstasy bent entirely on art, something that people these days seem to have forgotten entirely. And I felt—I can’t put it any other way—I felt a sense of reverence, although I was still ashamed of myself, without really knowing why.

I was already out in the street when I heard an upstairs window open, and my name was called; the old man had not wanted to miss looking with his blind eyes in the direction where he thought I would be standing. He leant so far forwards that the two women had to support him, waved his handkerchief and called, “ Bon voyage! ” with the cheerful, fresh voice of a boy. It was an unforgettable moment: the white-haired old man’s happy face up at the window, high above all the morose, driven, busy people in the street, gently elevated from what in truth is our dismal world on the white cloud of a well-meant delusion. And I found myself remembering the old saying—I think it was Goethe’s—“Collectors are happy men.”

IN THE LITTLE GUEST HOUSE on the Riviera where I was staying at the time, ten years before the war, a heated discussion had broken out at our table and unexpectedly threatened to degenerate into frenzied argument, even rancour and recrimination. Most people have little imagination. If something doesn’t affect them directly, does not drive a sharp wedge straight into their minds, it hardly excites them at all, but if an incident, however slight, takes place before their eyes, close enough for the senses to perceive it, it instantly rouses them to extremes of passion. They compensate for the infrequency of their sympathy, as it were, by exhibiting disproportionate and excessive vehemence.

Such was the case that day among our thoroughly bourgeois company at table, where on the whole we just made equable small talk and cracked mild little jokes, usually parting as soon as the meal was over: the German husband and wife to go on excursions and take snapshots, the portly Dane to set out on tedious fishing expeditions, the distinguished English lady to return to her books, the Italian married couple to indulge in escapades to Monte Carlo, and I to lounge in a garden chair or get some work done. This time, however, our irate discussion left us all still very much at odds, and if someone suddenly rose it was not, as usual, to take civil leave of the rest of us, but in a mood of heated irascibility that, as I have said, was assuming positively frenzied form.

The incident obsessing our little party, admittedly, was odd enough. From outside, the guest house where the seven of us were staying might have been an isolated villa—with a wonderful view of the rock-strewn beach from its windows—but in fact it was only the cheaper annexe of the Grand Palace Hotel to which it was directly linked by the garden, so that we in the guest house were in constant touch with the hotel guests. And that same hotel had been the scene of an outright scandal the day before, when a young Frenchman had arrived by the midday train, at twenty-past twelve (I can’t avoid giving the time so precisely because it was of importance to the incident itself, and indeed to the subject of our agitated conversation), and took a room with a view of the sea, opening straight on to the beach, which in itself indicated that he was in reasonably easy circumstances. Not only his discreet elegance but, most of all, his extraordinary and very appealing good looks made an attractive impression. A silky blond moustache surrounded sensuously warm lips in a slender, girlish face; soft, wavy brown hair curled over his pale forehead; every glance of his melting eyes was a caress—indeed everything about him was soft, endearing, charming, but without any artifice or affectation. At a distance he might at first remind you slightly of those pink wax dummies to be seen adopting dandified poses in the window displays of large fashion stores, walking-stick in hand and representing the ideal of male beauty, but closer inspection dispelled any impression of foppishness, for—most unusually—his charm was natural and innate, and seemed an inseparable part of him. He greeted everyone individually in passing, in a manner as warm as it was modest, and it was a pleasure to see his unfailingly graceful demeanour unaffectedly brought into play on every occasion. When a lady was going to the cloakroom he made haste to fetch her coat, he had a friendly glance or joke for every child, he was both affable and discreet—in short, he seemed to be one of those happy souls who, secure in the knowledge that their bright faces and youthful attractions are pleasing to others, transmute that security anew into yet more charm. His presence worked wonders among the hotel guests, most of whom were elderly and sickly, and he irresistibly won everyone’s liking with the victorious bearing of youth, that flush of ease and liveliness with which charm so delightfully endows some human beings. Only a couple of hours after his arrival he was playing tennis with the two daughters of the stout, thick-set manufacturer from Lyon—twelve-year-old Annette and thirteen-year-old Blanche—and their mother, the refined, delicate and reserved Madame Henriette, smiled slightly to see her inexperienced daughters unconsciously flirting with the young stranger. That evening he watched for an hour as we played chess, telling a few amusing anecdotes now and then in an unobtrusive style, strolled along the terrace again with Madame Henriette while her husband played dominoes with a business friend as usual; and late in the evening I saw him in suspiciously intimate conversation with the hotel secretary in the dim light of her office. Next morning he went fishing with my Danish chess partner, showing a remarkable knowledge of angling, and then held a long conversation about politics with the Lyon manufacturer in which he also proved himself an entertaining companion, for the stout Frenchman’s hearty laughter could be heard above the sound of the breaking waves. After lunch he spent an hour alone with Madame Henriette in the garden again, drinking black coffee, played another game of tennis with her daughters and chatted in the lobby to the German couple. At six o’clock I met him at the railway station when I went to post a letter. He strode quickly towards me and said, as if apologetically, that he had been suddenly called away but would be back in two days’ time. Sure enough, he was absent from the dining room that evening, but only in person, for he was the sole subject of conversation at every table, and all the guests praised his delightful, cheerful nature.