Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

“Or else?”

He impudently faced her. And it occurred to her that she had no “or else” left. She couldn’t have anyone sent to the Bastille, or reduced to the ranks or dismissed, she couldn’t command or forbid anyone to do or not to do something. She was nothing, only a defenceless woman like hundreds of thousands in France, vulnerable to any insult, any injustice.

“Or else,” she said, fighting for breath, “I’ll have you thrown out by the servants.”

He shrugged his shoulders and turned. He was going to leave.

But she wouldn’t let him. He was not to be the one to throw her over! Another man rejecting her—least of all must it be this one. All her anger suddenly broke out, the accumulated bitterness of days, and she went for him as if she were drunk.

“Get out! Do you think I need you, you fool of a peasant, just because I felt sorry for you? Go away! Don’t soil my floors any more. Go where you like but not to Paris, and not to me. Get out! I hate you, your avarice, your simplicity, your stupid satisfaction—you disgust me. Get out!”

Then the unexpected happened. As she so suddenly flung her hatred at him, he had been holding his fists clenched in front of him like an invisible shield, but now they suddenly came down on her with the impact of falling stones. She screamed and stared at him. But he struck and struck in blind, vengeful rage, intoxicated by the awareness of his strength, he struck her, taking out on her all a peasant’s envy of the distinguished and clever aristocrat, all the hatred of a man despised for a woman, he hammered it all into her weak, flinching, convulsed body. She screamed at first, then whimpered quietly and fell silent. The humiliation hurt her more than the blows. She fell silent, felt his rage, and still preserved her silence.

Then he stopped, exhausted, and horrified by what he had done. A shudder ran through her body. He thought she was about to stand up, and he fled, afraid of her glance. But it was only the weeping that she had held back suddenly tearing convulsively through her body.

And so she broke her last toy herself.

The door had closed behind him long ago, and still she did not move. She lay there like an animal hunted to death, breathing quietly but stertorously, and quite without fear, without feelings, without any sense of pain or shame. She was full of an unspeakable weariness, she felt no wish for revenge, no indignation, just weariness, an unspeakable weariness as if all her blood had flowed out of her together with her tears and only her lifeless body lay here, held down by its own weight. She did not try to stand up, she didn’t know what to do with herself after such an experience.

The evening slowly entered the room, and she did not feel it. For evening comes quietly. It does not look boldly through the window like mid-day, it seeps from the walls like dark water, raises the ceiling into a void, brings everything gently floating down into its soundless torrent. When she looked up, there was darkness around her and silence, except for the sound of the little clock mincing along into infinity somewhere. The curtains fell in dark folds as if some fearful monster were hiding behind them, the doors seemed to have sunk into the wall in some way, making the room look sealed and black around her, like a nailed-up coffin. There was no way in or out any more, it was all boundless yet barred, everything seemed to weigh down, compressing the air so that she could gasp, not breathe.

At the far end of the room shone a path into the unknown: the tall mirror there gleamed faintly in the dark like the nocturnal surface of a marshy pool, and now, as she rose, something white swirled out of it. She got to her feet, went closer, it surged from the mirror like smoke, a ghostly creature: she herself, coming closer and quickly withdrawing again.

She felt dread. Something in her cried out for light, but she did not want to call anyone. She struck the tinder herself, and then one by one lit the candles in the dully glowing bronze candelabrum standing on its marble console. The flames flickered, quivering as they felt their way into the dark, like someone overheated stepping into a cool bath; they retreated, came forward again, and at last a trembling, circular cloud of light rose above the candelabrum and hovered there, casting more and more circles of light on the ceiling. High above, where delicate amoretti with wings of cloud usually rocked in the blue sky, grey, misty shadows now lay, with the soft lightning of the quivering candle-flames flashing fitfully through them. The objects all around seemed to have been roused from sleep; they stood there motionless, with shadows creeping high behind them as if animals had been crouching there, giving them a fearful look.

However, the mirror enticed and allured her. Something was always moving in it when she looked. Otherwise, all around her was silent and hostile, the objects were sleepy, human beings rejected her. She could ask no questions, couldn’t complain to anyone, but there was something in the mirror that gave an answer, did not remain indifferent, moved and looked significantly at her. But what should she ask it? She had seldom asked if she was beautiful in Paris. The bright eyes of the men who desired her had been her mirror. She knew she was beautiful from her triumphs, her passionate nights, from the amazement of the common people when she drove to Versailles in her carriage. She had believed them even when they lied, for confidence in her own power was the secret of her strength. But now, what was she now that she had been humbled?

She looked anxiously into the flickering light in the glass, as if her fate stood in the mirror looking back at her. She started in alarm: was that really herself? Her cheeks looked hollow and dull, a bitter set to her mouth mocked her, her eyes lay deep in their sockets and looked out in fear as if searching for help. She shook herself. This was just a nightmare. And she smiled at the mirror. But the smile was returned frostily, scornfully. She felt her body: no, the mirror did not lie, she had grown thin, thin as a child, and the rings hung loose on her fingers. She felt the blood flow more coldly in her veins. She was full of dread. Was everything over, youth as well? A furious desire came over her to mock herself, celebrated as she was, the mistress of France, and as if in a dream she spoke the lines that Voltaire had written when dedicating his play to her, the lines that her flatterers liked to repeat:

Vous qui possedez la beauté

Sans être vaine et coquette

Et l’extrème vivacité

Sans être jamais indiscrète,

Vous à qui donnèrent les Dieux

Tant des lumières naturelles

Un esprit juste, gracieux,

Solide dans le sérieux

Et charmant dans les bagatelles .*

Every word now seemed to express derision, and she stared and stared into the mirror to see if the woman there was not mocking her too.

She raised the candelabrum to get a better view of herself. And the closer she held it the more she seemed to age. Every minute she spent looking into the mirror seemed to put years on her life, she saw herself grow paler and paler, becoming more wan, sicklier, older all the time, she felt herself aging, her whole life seemed to be passing away. She trembled. She saw her fate horribly revealed in the mirror, the entire story of her decline, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it, but stared and stared at the white, distorted mask of the old woman who was herself.

Then, suddenly, the candles all flickered at once as if in alarm, the flames turned blue and tried to fly up from their wicks. A dark figure stood in the mirror, its hand reaching out to her.

She uttered a piercing scream, and in self-defence flung the bronze candelabrum at the mirror. A thousand sparks sprang from the glass. The candles fell to the floor and went out. There was darkness around her and in her as she collapsed unconscious. She had seen her fate.