Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

Deep silence descends. But now and then a great sob can no longer be suppressed. And then comes the heavy, numbing voice of the messenger telling his tale again.

“They are all at rest with the Lord. Not one of them escaped, only I, through the providence of God…”

“Praise be to his name,” murmurs the whole circle with instinctive piety. In the mouths of these broken, trembling people, the words sound like a worn-out formula.

“I came home late from a journey, and the Jewish quarter was already full of looters. I wasn’t recognized, I could have run for it—but I had to go in, I couldn’t help going to my place, my own people, I was among them as they fell under flailing fists. Suddenly a man came riding my way, struck out at me—but he missed, swaying in the saddle. Then all at once the will to live took hold of me, that strange chain that binds us to our misery—passion gave me strength and courage. I pulled him off his horse, mounted it, and rode away on it myself through the dark night, here to you. I’ve been riding for a day and a night.”

He stops for a moment. Then he says, in a firmer voice, “But enough of all that now! First of all, what shall we do?”

The answer comes from all sides.

“Escape!”—“We must get away!”—“Over the border to Poland!”

It is the one way they all know to help themselves, age-old and shameful, yet the only way for the weaker to oppose the strong. No one dreams of physical resistance. Can a Jew defend himself or fight back? As they see it, the idea is ridiculous, unimaginable; they are not living in the time of the Maccabaeans now, they are enslaved again. The Egyptians are back, stamping the mark of eternal weakness and servitude on the people. Even the torrent of the passing years over many centuries cannot wash it away.

Flight, then.

One man did suggest, timidly, that they might appeal to the other citizens of the town for protection, but a scornful smile was all the answer he got. Again and again, their fate has always brought the oppressed back to the necessity of relying on themselves and on their God. No third party could be trusted.

They discussed the practical details. Men who had regarded making money as their sole aim in life, who saw wealth as the peak of human happiness and power, now agreed that they must not shrink from any sacrifice if it could speed their flight. All possessions must be converted into cash, however unfavourable the rate of exchange. There were carts and teams of horses to be bought, the most essential protection from the cold to be found. All at once the fear of death had obliterated what was supposed to be the salient quality of their race, just as their individual characters had been forged together into a single will. In all the pale, weary faces, their thoughts were working towards one aim.

And when morning lit its blazing torches, it had all been discussed and decided. With the flexibility of their people, used to wandering through the world, they adjusted to their sad situation, and their final decisions and arrangements ended in another prayer.

Then each of them went to do his part of the work.

And many sighs died away in the soft singing of the snowflakes, which had already built high walls towering up in the shimmering whiteness of the streets.

The great gates of the town closed with a hollow clang behind the last of the fugitives’ carts.

The moon shone only faintly in the sky, but it turned the myriad flakes whirling in their lively dance to silver as they clung to clothes, fluttered around the nostrils of the snorting horses, and crunched under wheels making their way with difficulty through the dense snowdrifts.

Quiet voices whispered in the carts. Women exchanged reminiscences of their home town, which still seemed so close in its security and self-confidence. They spoke in soft, musical and melancholy tones. Children had a thousand things to ask in their clear voices, although their questions grew quieter and less frequent, and finally gave way to regular breathing. The men’s voices struck a deeper note as they anxiously discussed the future and murmured quiet prayers. They all pressed close to one another, out of their awareness that they belonged together and instinctive fear of the cold. It blew through all the gaps and cracks in the carts with its icy breath, freezing the drivers’ fingers.

The leading cart came to a halt.

Immediately the whole line of carts following behind it stopped too. Pale faces peered out from the tarpaulin covers of these moving tents, wondering what had caused the delay. The patriarch had climbed out of the first cart, and all the others followed his example, understanding the reason for this halt.

They were not far from the town yet; through the falling white flakes you could still, if indistinctly, make out the tower rising from the broad plain as if were a menacing hand, with a light shining from its spire like a jewel on its ringed finger.

Everything here was smooth and white, like the still surface of a lake, broken only by a few small, regular mounds surmounted by fenced-in trees here and there. They knew that this was where their dear ones lay in quiet, everlasting beds, rejected, alone and far from home, like all their kind.

Now the deep silence is broken by quiet sobbing, and although they are so used to suffering hot tears run down their rigid faces, freezing into droplets of bright ice on the snow.

As they contemplate this deep and silent peace, their mortal fears are gone, forgotten. Suddenly, eyes heavy with tears, they all feel an infinite, wild longing for this eternal, quiet peace in the ‘good place’ with their loved ones. So much of their childhood sleeps under this white blanket, so many good memories, so much happiness that they will never know again. Everyone senses it; everyone longs to be in the ‘good place’.

But time is short, and they must go on.

They climb back into the carts, huddling close to each other, for although they did not feel the biting cold while they were out in the open, the icy frost now steals over their shaking, shivering bodies again, making them grit their teeth. And in the darkness of the carts their eyes express unspeakable fear and endless sorrow.

Their thoughts, however, keep going back the way they have come, along the path of broad furrows left by the horse-drawn carts in the snow, back to the ‘good place’, the place of their desires.

It is past midnight now, and the carts have travelled a long way from the town. They are in the middle of the great plain which lies flooded by bright moonlight, while white, drifting veils seem to hover over it, the shimmering reflections of the snow. The strong horses trudge laboriously through the thick snow, which clings tenaciously, and the carts jolt slowly, almost imperceptibly on, as if they might stop at any moment.

The cold is terrible, like icy knives cutting into limbs that have already lost much of their mobility. And gradually a strong wind rises as well, singing wild songs and howling around the carts. As if with greedy hands reaching out for prey, it tears at the covers of the carts which are constantly shaking loose, and frozen fingers find it hard to fasten them back in place more firmly.

The storm sings louder and louder, and in its song the quiet voices of the men murmuring prayers die away. It is an effort for their frozen lips to form the words. In the shrill whistling of the wind the hopeless sobs of the women, fearful for the future, also fall silent, and so does the persistent crying of children woken from their weariness by the cold.

Creaking, the wheels roll through the snow.

In the cart that brings up the rear, Lea presses close to her fiancé, who is telling her of the terrible things he has seen in a sad, toneless voice. He puts his strong arm firmly around her slender, girlish waist as if to protect her from the assault of the cold and from all pain. She looks at him gratefully, and a few tender, longing words are exchanged through the sounds of wailing and the storm, making them both forget death and danger.