Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

Suddenly, as if the string of an instrument had broken, the music stopped in the middle of a bar. The German baron jumped up. “ Assez joué pour vous ,” he laughed. “ Maintenant je veux danser moi-même .”—“You’ve had your fun. Now I want to dance myself!” They all cheerfully agreed, the group stopped dancing in couples and moved into an informal, fluttering dance all together.

The old man came back to his senses—how he wanted to do something now, say something! Not just stand about so foolishly, so pitifully superfluous! His wife was dancing by, gasping slightly from exertion but warm with contentment. Anger brought him to a sudden decision. He stepped into her path. “Come with me,” he said brusquely. “I have to talk to you.”

She looked at him in surprise. Little beads of sweat moistened his pale brow, his eyes were staring wildly around. What did he want? Why disturb her just now? An excuse was already forming on her lips, but there was something so convulsive, so dangerous in his demeanour that, suddenly remembering the grim outburst over the lighter just now, she reluctantly followed him.

“ Excusez, messieurs, un instant! ” she said, turning back apologetically to the gentlemen. So she’ll apologise to them , thought the agitated old man grimly, she didn’t apologise to me when she got up from the table. I’m no more than a dog to her, a doormat to be trodden on. But they’re right, oh yes, they’re right if I put up with it.

She was waiting, her eyebrows sternly raised; he stood before her, his lip quivering, like a schoolboy facing his teacher.

“Well?” she finally asked.

“I don’t want… I don’t want…” he stammered awkwardly. “I don’t want you—you and Erna—I don’t want you mixing with those people.”

“With what people?” Deliberately pretending not to understand, she looked up indignantly, as if he had insulted her personally.

“With those men in there.” Angrily, he jerked his chin in the direction of the music room. “I don’t like it… I don’t want you to…”

“And why not, may I ask?”

Always that inquisitorial tone, he thought bitterly, as if I were a servant. Still more agitated, he stammered, “I have my reasons… I don’t like it. I don’t want Erna talking to those men. I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“Then I’m sorry,” she said, flaring up, “but I consider all three gentlemen extremely well-brought up, far more distinguished company than we keep at home.”

“Distinguished company! Those idlers, those… those…” Rage was throttling him more intolerably than ever. And suddenly he stamped his foot. “I don’t want it, I forbid it! Do you understand that?”

“No,” she said coldly. “I don’t understand any of what you say. I don’t know why I should spoil the girl’s pleasure…”

“Her pleasure… her pleasure!” He was staggering as if under a heavy blow, his face red, his forehead streaming with sweat. His hand groped in the air for his heavy stick, either to support himself or to hit out with it. But he had left it behind. That brought him back to his senses. He forced himself to keep calm as a wave of heat suddenly passed over his heart. He went closer to his wife, as if to take her hand. His voice was low now, almost pleading. “You… you don’t understand. It’s not for myself… I’m begging you only because… it’s the first thing I’ve asked you for years, let’s go away from here. Just away, to Florence, to Rome, anywhere you want, I don’t mind. You can decide it all, just as you like. I only want to get away from here, please, away… away, today, this very day. I… I can’t bear it any longer, I can’t.”

“Today?” Surprised, dismissively, she frowned. “Go away today? What a ridiculous idea! Just because you don’t happen to like those gentlemen. Well, you don’t have to mingle with them.”

He was still standing there, hands raised pleadingly. “I can’t bear it, I told you… I can’t, I can’t. Don’t ask me any more, please… but believe me, I can’t bear it, I can’t. Do this for me, just for once, do something for me…”

In the music room someone had begun hammering at the piano again. She looked up, touched by his cry despite herself, but how very ridiculous he looked, that short fat man, his face red as if he had suffered a stroke, his eyes wild and swollen, his hands emerging from sleeves too short for him and trembling in the air. It was embarrassing to see him standing there in such a pitiful state. Her milder feelings froze.

“That’s impossible,” she informed him. “We’ve agreed to go out for that drive today, and as for leaving tomorrow when we’ve booked for three weeks… why, we’d make ourselves look ridiculous. I can’t see the faintest reason for leaving early. I am staying here, and so is Erna, we are not—”

“And I can go, you’re saying? I’m only in the way here, spoiling your… pleasure.”

With that sombre cry he cut her short in mid-sentence. His hunched, massive body had reared up, he had clenched his hands into fists, a vein was trembling alarmingly on his forehead in anger. He wanted to get something else out, a word or a blow. But he turned abruptly, stumbled to the stairs, moving faster and faster on his heavy legs, and hurried up them like a man pursued.

Gasping, the old man went hastily up the stairs; he wanted only to be in his room now, alone, try to control himself, take care not to do anything silly! He had already reached the first floor when—there it came, the pain, as if a burning claw were tearing open his guts from the inside. He suddenly stumbled back against the wall, white as a sheet. Oh, that raging, burning pain kneading away at him; he had to grit his teeth to keep himself from crying out loud. Groaning, his tormented body writhed.

He knew at once what was wrong—it was his gall bladder, one of those fearful attacks that had often plagued him recently, but had never before tortured him so cruelly. Next moment, in the middle of his pain, he remembered that the doctor had prescribed ‘no agitation’. Through the pain he grimly mocked himself. Easily said, he thought, no agitation—my dear good Professor, can you tell me how to avoid agitation when… oh, oh…

The old man was whimpering as the invisible, red-hot claw worked away inside his poor body. With difficulty, he dragged himself to the door of the sitting room of the suite, pushed it open, and fell on the ottoman, stuffing the cushions into his mouth. As he lay there the pain immediately lessened slightly; the hot nails of that claw were no longer reaching so infernally deep into his sore guts. I ought to make myself a compress, he remembered, I must take those drops, then it will soon be better.

But there was no one there to help him, no one. And he himself had no strength to drag himself into the next room, or even reach the bell.

There’s no one here, he thought bitterly, I shall die like a dog sooner or later, because I know what it is that hurts, it’s not my gall bladder, it’s Death growing in me. I know it, I’m a defeated man, no professors, no drinking the waters at spas can help me… you don’t recover from this sort of thing, not at sixty-five. I know what’s piercing me and tearing me from the inside, it’s Death, and the few years I have left will not be life, just dying, dying. But when did I ever really live? Live my own life, for myself? What kind of life have I had, scraping money together all the time, always for other people, and now, what help is it to me now? I’ve had a wife, I married her as a girl, I knew her body and she bore me a child. Year after year we lay together in the same bed… and now, where is she now? I don’t recognise her face any more… she speaks so strangely to me, and never thinks of my life, of all I feel and think and suffer… she’s been a stranger to me for years now… Where has my life gone, where did it go?… And I had a child, watched her grow up, I thought I’d begin to live again through her, a brighter, happier life than was granted to me, in her I wouldn’t entirely die… and now she steals away by night to throw herself at men. There’s only me, I shall die alone, all alone… I’m already dead to those two. My God, my God, I was never so much alone…