Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

It was late when, breathing heavily, he reached the dark wooded slope. The trees stood around him, black and ominous, but high above, in their shimmering crowns, faint, quivering moonlight was caught in the branches that moaned as they embraced the slight nocturnal breeze. Sometimes this hollow silence was broken by the strange cries of night birds. In this alarming isolation, his thoughts froze entirely. He was merely waiting, waiting and straining his eyes to see the red light of the train appearing down by the curve of the first bend. Sometimes he looked nervously at his watch again, counting seconds. Then he listened once more, thinking that he heard the distant whistle of the locomotive. But it was a false alarm. All was perfectly silent again. Time seemed to stand still.

At last, far away, he saw the light. At that moment he felt a pang in his heart, and could not have said if it was fear or jubilation. He flung himself down on the rails with a brusque movement. At first he felt the pleasantly cool sensation of the strips of iron against his temples for a moment. Then he listened. The train was still far off. It might be several minutes yet. There was nothing to be heard but the whispering of the trees in the wind. His thoughts went this way and that in confusion, until suddenly one stopped and pierced his heart painfully, like an arrow: he was dying for her sake, and she would never know. Not a single gentle ripple of his life as it came to its turbulent end had ever touched hers. She would never know that a stranger’s life had depended on her own, and had been crushed by it.

Very quietly, the rhythmic chugging of the approaching engine came through the breathless air from afar. But that idea burned on, tormenting the dying man in his last minutes. The train rattled closer and closer. Then he opened his eyes once more. Above him was a silent, blue-black sky, with the tops of a few trees swaying in front of it. And above the forest stood a shining, white star. A single star above the forest… the rails beneath his head were already beginning to vibrate and sing faintly. But the idea burned on like fire in his heart, and in his eyes as they saw all the fire and despair of his love. His whole longing and that last painful question flowed into the white and shining star that looked mildly down on him. Closer and closer thundered the train. And once more, with a last inexpressible look, the dying man took the sparkling star above the forest to his heart. Then he closed his eyes. The rails were trembling and swaying, closer and closer came the rattling of the express train, making the forest echo as if great bells were hammering out a rhythm. The earth seemed to sway. One more deafening, rushing, whirring sound, a whirlwind of noise, then a shrill scream, the terrifyingly animal scream of the steam whistle, and the screech and groan of brakes applied in vain…

*

The beautiful Baroness Ostrovska had a reserved compartment to herself in the express. She had been reading a French magazine since the train left, gently cradled by the rocking movement of the carriage. The air in the enclosed space was sultry, and drenched with the heavy fragrance of many fading flowers. Clusters of white lilac were already hanging heavily, like over-ripe fruit, from the magnificent farewell baskets that she had been given, flowers hung limp on their stems, and the broad, heavy cups of the roses seemed to be withering in the hot cloud of intoxicating perfumes. Even in the haste of the express as it rushed along, a suffocatingly close atmosphere heated the heavy drifts of perfume weighing oppressively down.

Suddenly she lowered her book with limp fingers. She herself did not know why. Some secret feeling was tearing at her. She felt a dull but painful pressure. A sudden sense of constriction that she couldn’t explain clutched her heart. She thought she would choke on the heavy, intoxicating aroma of the flowers. And that terrifying pain did not pass, she felt every revolution of the rushing wheels, their blind, pounding, forward movement was an unspeakable torment. Suddenly she longed to be able to halt the swift momentum of the train, to haul it back from the dark pain towards which it was racing. She had never in her life felt such fear of something terrible, invisible and cruel seizing on her heart as she did now, in those seconds of incomprehensible, incredible pain and fear. And that unspeakable feeling grew stronger and stronger, tightening its grasp around her throat. The idea of being able to stop the train was like a prayer moaned out loud in her mind…

Then she hears a sudden shrill whistle, the wild, warning scream of the locomotive, the wailing groan and crunch of the brakes. And the rhythm of the flying wheels slackens, goes slower and slower, until there is a stuttering rattle and a faltering jerk.

With difficulty, she makes her way to the window to fill her lungs with fresh air. The pane rattles down. Dark figures are hurrying around… words fly back and forth, different voices: a suicide… under the wheels… dead… yes, out here in the open…

She starts. Instinctively, her eyes go to the high and silent sky and the dark trees whispering above it. And beyond them, a single star is shining over the forest. She is aware of its gaze on her like a sparkling tear. Looking at it, she abruptly feels such grief as she has never known before. A fiery grief, full of a longing that has not been part of her own life…

Slowly, the train rattles on. She leans back in the corner and feels soft tears running down over her cheeks. That dull fear has gone away, she feels only a deep, strange pain, and seeks in vain to discover its source. A pain such as terrified children feel when they suddenly wake on a dark, impenetrable night, and feel that they are all alone…

I SPENT THE MONTH OF AUGUST last summer in Cadenabbia, one of those little places on Lake Como that nestle so charmingly between white villas and dark woods. Probably quiet and peaceful even in the livelier days of spring, when travellers from Bellagio and Menaggio gather in crowds on the narrow strip of beach, in these warm summer weeks the little town was fragrant, sunny and isolated. The hotel was almost entirely deserted: a few occasional guests, each an object of curiosity to the others by virtue of having chosen to spend a summer holiday in this remote place, surprised every morning to find anyone else still here. Most surprising of all to me was the continued presence of an elderly gentleman, very distinguished in appearance and very cultivated—he looked something like a cross between a very correct English statesman and a Parisian man of the world—who, instead of amusing himself by enjoying some lakeside sporting activity, spent his days thoughtfully watching the smoke from his cigarettes dispersing in the air, or now and then leafing through a book.

The oppressive isolation of two rainy days, and his frank, open manner, soon gave our acquaintanceship a warmth that almost entirely bridged the gap in years between us. Born in Estonia, brought up in France and later in England, a man who had never practised any profession and for years had not lived in any one place, he was homeless in the noble sense of those who, like the Vikings and pirates of beauty, have collected in their intellectual raids all that is most precious in many great cities. He was close to all the arts in the manner of a dilettante, but stronger than his love for them was his sublime disdain to serve them. He had them to thank for a thousand delightful hours, but had never devoted a single creative impulse to any of them. He lived one of those lives that seem otiose because they are not linked to any community of interest, because all the riches stored in them by a thousand separate valuable experiences will pass when their last breath is drawn, without anyone to inherit them.