Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

“A lie, false, impossible!”

I was startled. His voice interrupted me harshly, hoarse and shaking, almost menacing. I had never seen my companion so agitated before. Instantly I realized what note I had incautiously struck in him. And when he stopped suddenly, I was painfully moved to see his white hair in the moonlight.

I wanted to change the subject quickly, broach another. But then he spoke again, this time warmly and softly in his calm, deep voice, pleasantly tinged with slight melancholy. “Or you may be right. Yes, it’s more interesting: L’amour coûte cher aux vieillards —I think that was the title of one of Balzac’s most moving stories, and many could be written on the subject. But the old people who know most about it are happy to talk only about their successes, not their failures. They are afraid of looking ridiculous in circumstances that only, so to speak, illustrate the pendulum of eternity swinging. Do you really think it was chance that the ‘lost’ chapters of Casanova’s memoirs are those describing him in later life, when the cockerel becomes a cuckold, the betrayer the betrayed? Maybe his hand was too reluctant and his heart too heavy to write about that.”

He offered me his own hand. Now his voice was cool, calm and placid again. “Goodnight! I see it’s dangerous to tell young people stories on summer nights. It easily leads to foolish thoughts and all kinds of unnecessary dreams. Goodnight to you!”

And he walked back into the dark, his step still with a spring in it, but slower now. It was late, but the weariness that usually came over me early in the warmth of these mild nights had been dispersed today by the agitation that rings in the blood when something strange happens, or for a moment you feel another man’s experience as if it were your own. So I went along the quiet, dark path to the Villa Carlotta with its marble stairway leading down to the lake, and sat on the cool steps. It was a wonderful night. The lights of Bellagio that had been sparkling among the trees like fireflies earlier now seemed endlessly far away across the water, and slowly, one by one, they fell back into the deep darkness. The lake lay there silent, shining like a black jewel, yet edged with sparkling fire. And the splashing waves, like white hands on the pale keys of an instrument, moved up and down the marble steps with a slight swell. The pale sky seemed endlessly high above, decked with thousands of sparkling stars. They stood there calmly, in bright silence; only occasionally did one suddenly break free of that diamantine dance and fall into the summer night, into the dark, into valleys, ravines, mountains or distant water, knowing nothing of it, slung like a human life into the steep depths of unknown destinies.

THE TWO CHILDREN are alone in their room. The light has been put out; they are surrounded by darkness except for the faint white shimmer showing where their beds are. They are both breathing so quietly that you might think they were asleep.

One of them speaks up. “I say…” she begins. It is the twelve-year-old, and her voice is quiet, almost anxious in the dark.

“What is it?” asks her sister from the other bed. She is only a year older.

“Good, you’re still awake. I… there’s something I want to tell you.”

No answer from across the room, only a rustle of bedclothes. The elder sister is sitting up, looking expectant. Her eyes are sparkling.

“Listen… I wanted to ask you… but no, you tell me first, haven’t you noticed anything about our Fräulein in the last few days?”

The other girl hesitates, thinking it over. Then she says, “Yes, but I’m not sure what it is. She isn’t as strict as usual. I didn’t do any school homework for two whole days recently, and she never told me off. And then she’s so… oh, I don’t know exactly how to put it. I don’t think she’s bothering about us any more. She sits somewhere all the time, she doesn’t play with us the way she used to.”

“I think she’s feeling sad, she just doesn’t want to show it. She doesn’t even play the piano any more.”

Silence descends again.

“You wanted to tell me something,” the elder girl reminds her sister.

“Yes, but you mustn’t tell anyone else, really not anyone, not Mama and not your best friend.”

“No, no, I won’t!” She is impatient now. “Come on, what is it?”

“Well, when we were going to bed just now, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t said goodnight to Fräulein. I’d taken my shoes off, but I went to her room all the same, ever so quietly, to give her a surprise. And I opened the door of her room very carefully too. I thought at first she wasn’t there. There was a light on, but I couldn’t see her. Then all at once—it gave me a terrible fright—I heard somebody crying, and I suddenly saw her lying on the bed with all her clothes on and her head in the pillows. She was sobbing so hard that it made me jump. But she didn’t notice me. And then I closed the door very quietly again. I had to stand there outside it for a little while because I was trembling so much. And then that sobbing sound came through the door again, quite clearly, and I ran back down here.”

The girls keep quiet for a while. Then one of them says, very softly, “Oh, poor Fräulein!” The words linger in the air of the room like a lost, low musical phrase, and then die away again.

“I do wish I knew why she was crying,” says the younger sister. “She hasn’t quarrelled with anyone these last few days. Mama’s leaving her in peace at last instead of scolding her all the time, and I’m sure we haven’t done anything bad, not to her. So why was she crying like that?”

“I can think of a reason,” says the elder girl.

“What is it? Go on, tell me.”

Her sister hesitates, but at last she says, “I think she’s in love.”

“In love?” The younger girl is baffled. “In love? Who with?”

“Haven’t you noticed anything?”

“You don’t mean in love with Otto!”

“Oh, don’t I? And isn’t he in love with her? He’s been staying with us for three years while he studies at the university, so why do you think he’s suddenly taken to going out with us every day these last few months? Did he ever bother with you or me before Fräulein came to be our governess? He’s been hanging around us all the time lately. We keep meeting him by accident in the People’s Garden or the City Park or the Prater when we go out with Fräulein. Didn’t you notice?”

Startled, the younger girl stammers, “Yes… yes, of course I noticed. Only I always thought it was…”

Her voice fails her. She doesn’t go on.

“So did I at first,” says her elder sister. “You know how people always say girls are silly. Then I realised that he was only using us as an excuse.”

Now they are both silent. It sounds as if the conversation is over. Both girls seem to be deep in thought, or already far away in their dreams.

Then the younger sister breaks the silence in the darkness again. Her voice sounds helpless. “But then why was she crying? He likes her, doesn’t he? And I always thought being in love must be wonderful.”

“I don’t know,” says her elder sister, dreamily. “I thought it must be wonderful too.”

And once again sleepy lips say, softly and sorrowfully, “Oh, poor Fräulein!”

Then all is quiet in the room.

Next morning they do not discuss the subject again, and yet they are both aware that their thoughts are circling around it. They walk past one another, avoid each other, yet their eyes involuntarily meet when they are glancing surreptitiously at their governess. At mealtimes they watch their cousin Otto as if he were a stranger, although he has been living here with them for years. They do not talk to him, but they keep looking at him from under lowered eyelids to see if he is communicating with Fräulein in some way. Both sisters feel uneasy. They do not play today, and instead do useless, unnecessary things in their nervous anxiety to fathom the mystery. That evening, however, one of them asks the other in a cool tone, as if it were of no importance to her, “Did you notice anything else today?” To which her sister says, “No,” and turns away. They are both somehow afraid of talking about it. And so it goes on for a few days, both children silently observing as their minds go round in circles, feeling restlessly and unconsciously close to some sparkling secret.