Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

However, this disappointment could not daunt the power of her longings, and they all streamed back towards the two living beings she knew who spanned the morning and evening of human life. She desperately counted the lonely night hours still separating her from morning, and then she counted the morning hours separating her from her visit to the painter. Her ardent longings showed in her face. And once out in the street she abandoned herself entirely to her passion like a swimmer plunging into a foaming torrent, and raced through the hurrying crowd, stopping only when, with flushed face and untidy hair, she reached the door of the house she longed to see. In this time of the change in her, she was overcome by an instinctive urge to make free, passionate gestures, and it gave her a wild and desirable beauty.

That greedy, almost desperate need for affection made her prefer the baby to the old man, in whose friendly kindness there was a serenity that rejected stormy passion. He knew nothing about the feminine change in Esther, but he guessed it from her demeanour, and her sudden ecstatic transports made him uneasy. Sensing the nature of the elemental urge driving her on, he did not try to rein it in. Nor did he lose his fatherly love for this lonely child, although his mind had gone back to contemplation of the abstract interplay of the secret forces of life. He was glad to see her, and tried to keep her with him. The picture was in fact finished, but he did not tell Esther so, not wishing to part her from the baby on whom she lavished such affection. Now and then he added a few brushstrokes, but they were minor details—the design of a fold, a slight shading in the background, a fleeting nuance added to the play of light. He dared not touch the real idea behind the picture any more, for the magic of reality had slowly retreated, and he thought the dual aspect of the painting conveyed the spiritual nature of the wonderful creativity that now, as the memory of his execution of it faded, seemed to him less and less like the work of earthly powers. Any further attempt at improvement, he thought, would be not only folly but a sin. And he made up his mind that after this work, in which his hand had clearly been guided, he would do no more paintings, for they could only be lesser works, but spend his days in prayer and in searching for a way to reach those heights whose golden evening glow had rested on him in these late hours of his life.

With the fine instinct that the orphaned and rejected harbour in their hearts, like a secret network of sensitive fibres encompassing everything said and unsaid, Esther sensed the slight distance that the old man who was so dear to her had placed between them, and his mild tenderness, which was still the same, almost distressed her. She felt that at this moment she needed his whole attention and the free abundance of his love so that she could tell him all that was in her heart, all that now troubled it, and ask for answers to the riddles around her. She waited for the right moment to let out the words to express her mental turmoil, but the waiting was endless and tired her out. So all her affection was bent on the child. Her love concentrated on that helpless little body; she would catch the baby up and smother him with warm kisses so impetuously, forgetting his vulnerability, that she hurt him and he began to cry. Then she was less fiercely loving, more protective and reassuring, but even her anxieties were a kind of ecstasy, just as her feelings were not truly maternal, but more of a surge of longing erotic instincts dimly sensed. A force was trying to emerge in her, and her ignorance led her to turn it on the child. She was living out a dream, in a painful dazed state; she clung convulsively to the baby because he had a warm, beating heart, like hers, because she could lavish all the tenderness in her on his silent lips, because with him, unconsciously longing for a human touch, she could clasp another living creature without fearing the shame that came over her if she said a single word to a stranger. She spent hours and hours like that, never tiring, and never realising how she was giving herself away.

For her, all the life for which she longed so wildly was now contained in the child. These were dark times, growing even darker, but she never noticed. The citizens of Antwerp gathered in the evenings and talked of the old liberties and good King Charles, who had loved his land of Flanders so much, with regret and secret anger. There was unrest in the city. The Protestants were secretly uniting. Rabble who feared the daylight assembled, as ominous news arrived from Spain. Minor skirmishes and clashes with the soldiers became more frequent, and in this uneasy, hostile atmosphere the first flames of war and rebellion flared up. Prudent people began to look abroad, others consoled and reassured themselves as well as they could, but the whole country was in a state of fearful expectation, and it was reflected in all faces. At the tavern, the men sat together in corners talking in muted voices, while the landlord spoke of the horrors of war, and joked in his rough way, but no one felt like laughing. The carefree cheerfulness of easy-going folk was extinguished by fear and restless waiting.

Esther felt nothing of this world, neither its muted alarms nor its secret fevers. The child was contented as always, and laughed back at her in his own way—and so she noticed no change in her surroundings. Confused as she was, her life followed a single course. The darkness around her made her fantastic dreams seem real, and it was a reality so distant and strange that she was incapable of any sober, thoughtful understanding of the world. Her femininity, once awakened, cried out for a child, but she did not know the dark mystery involved. She only dreamt a thousand dreams of having a child herself, thinking of the simple marvels of biblical legends and the magical possibility conjured up by her lonely imagination. If anyone had explained this everyday miracle to her in simple words, she might perhaps have looked at the men passing her by with the bashful but considering gaze that was to be seen in the eyes of girls at that time. As it was, however, she never thought of men, only of the children playing in the street, and dreamt of the miracle that might, perhaps, give her a rosy, playful baby some day, a baby all her own who would be her whole happiness. So wild was her wish for one that she might even have given herself to the first comer, throwing aside all shame and fear, just for the sake of the happiness she longed for, but she knew nothing about the creative union of man and woman, and her instincts led her blindly astray. So she returned, again and again, to the other woman’s baby. By now she loved him so deeply that he seemed like her own.

One day she came to visit the painter, who had noticed with secret uneasiness her extreme, almost unhealthily passionate love of the child. She arrived with a radiant face and eagerness sparkling in her eyes. The baby was not there as usual. That made her anxious, but she would not admit it, so she went up to the old man and asked him about the progress of his picture. As she put this question the blood rose to her face, for all at once she felt the silent reproach of the many hours when she had paid neither him nor his work any attention. Her neglect of this kindly man weighed on her conscience. But he did not seem to notice.

“It is finished, Esther,” he said with a quiet smile. “It was finished long ago. I shall be delivering it tomorrow.”

She turned pale, and felt a terrible presentiment that she dared not consider more closely. Very quietly and slowly she asked, “Then I can’t come and see you any more?”

He put out both hands to her in the old, warm, compelling gesture that always captivated her. “As often as you like, my child. And the more often that is the happier I shall be. As you see, I am lonely here in this old room of mine, and when you are here it is bright and cheerful all day. Come to see me often, Esther, very often.”