Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

His heart begins to thud. Is it Margot? It must be. He senses it, but it is sweeter, wilder, more exciting, a secret, intriguing pleasure not to open his eyes yet but merely guess at her presence beside him. What will she do now? The seconds seem to him endless. She is only looking at him, listening to him sleeping, and that idea sends an electric tingling through his pores, the uncomfortable yet intoxicating sense of being vulnerable to her observation, blind and defenceless, to know that if he opened his eyes now they would suddenly, like a cloak, envelop Margot’s startled face in tender mood. But he does not move, although his breath comes unsteadily from a chest too constricted for it, and he waits and waits.

Nothing happens. He feels as if she were bending down closer to him, as if he sensed, closer to his face now, her faint perfume, a soft, moist lilac scent that he knows from her lips. And now she has placed her hand on the chaise longue and is gently stroking his arm above the rug spread over him—the blood surges from that hand in a hot wave through his whole body—stroking his arm calmly and carefully. He feels that her touch is magnetic, and his blood flows in response to it. This gentle affection, intoxicating and intriguing him at the same time, is a wonderful feeling.

Slowly, almost rhythmically, her hand is still moving along his arm. He peers up surreptitiously between his eyelids. At first he sees only a crimson mist of restless light, then he can make out the dark, speckled rug, and now, as if it came from far away, the hand caressing him; he sees it very, very dimly, only a narrow glimpse of something white, coming down like a bright cloud and moving away again. The gap between his eyelids is wider and wider now. He sees her fingers clearly, pale and white as porcelain, sees them curving gently to stroke forward and then back again, dallying with him, but full of life. They move on like feelers and then withdraw; and at that moment the hand seems to take on a life of its own, like a cat snuggling close to a dress, a small white cat with its claws retracted, purring affectionately, and he would not be surprised if the cat’s eyes suddenly began to shoot sparks. And sure enough, isn’t something blinking brightly in that white caress? No, it’s only the glint of metal, a golden shimmer. But now, as the hand moves forward again, he sees clearly that it is the medallion dangling from her bracelet, that mysterious, giveaway medallion, octagonal and the size of a penny. It is Margot’s hand caressing his arm, and a longing rises in him to snatch up that soft, white hand—it wears no rings—carry it to his lips and kiss it. But then he feels her breath, senses that Margot’s face is very close to his, and he cannot keep his eyelids pressed together any longer. Happily, radiantly, he turns his gaze on the face now so close, and sees it retreat in alarm.

And then, as the shadows cast by the face bent down to him disperse and light shows her features, stirred by emotion, he recognizes—it is like an electric shock going through his limbs—he recognizes Elisabeth, Margot’s sister, that strange girl young Elisabeth. Was this a dream? No, he is staring into a face now quickly blushing red, she is turning her eyes away in alarm, and yes, it is Elisabeth. All at once he guesses at the terrible mistake he has made; his eyes gaze avidly at her hand, and the medallion really is there on her bracelet.

Mists begin swirling before his eyes. He feels exactly as he did when he fainted after his fall, but he grits his teeth; he doesn’t want to lose his ability to think straight. Suddenly it all passes rapidly before his mind’s eye, concentrated into a single second: Margot’s surprise and haughty attitude, Elisabeth’s smile, that strange look of hers touching him like a discreet hand—no, there was no possible mistake about it.

He feels one last moment of hope, and stares at the medallion; perhaps Margot gave it to her, today or yesterday or earlier.

But Elisabeth is speaking to him. His fevered thinking must have distorted his features, for she asks him anxiously, “Are you in pain, Bob?”

How alike their voices are, he thinks. And he replies only, without thinking, “Yes, yes… I mean no… I’m perfectly all right!”

There is silence again. The thought keeps coming back to him in a surge of heat: perhaps Margot has given it to her, and that’s all. He knows it can’t be true, but he has to ask her.

“What’s that medallion?”

“Oh, a coin from some American republic or other, I don’t know which. Uncle Robert gave it to us once.”

“Us?”

He holds his breath. She must say it now.

“Margot and me. Kitty didn’t want one, I don’t know why.”

He feels something wet flowing into his eyes. Carefully, he turns his head aside so that Elisabeth will not see the tear that must be very close to his eyelids now; it cannot be forced back, it slowly, slowly rolls down his cheek. He wants to say something, but he is afraid that his voice might break under the rising pressure of a sob. They are both silent, watching one another anxiously. Then Elisabeth stands up. “I’ll go now, Bob. Get well soon.” He shuts his eyes, and the door creaks quietly as it closes.

His thoughts fly up like a startled flock of pigeons. Only now does he understand the enormity of his mistake. Shame and anger at his folly overcome him, and at the same time a fierce pain. He knows now that Margot is lost to him for ever, but he feels that he still loves her, if not yet, perhaps, with a desperate longing for the unattainable. And Elisabeth—as if in anger, he rejects her image, because all her devotion and the now muted fire of her passion cannot mean as much to him as a smile from Margot or the touch of her hand in passing. If Elisabeth had revealed herself to him from the first he would have loved her, for in those early hours he was still childlike in his passion; but now, in his thousand dreams of Margot, he has burnt her name too deeply into his heart for it to be extinguished now.

He feels everything darkening before his eyes as his constantly whirling thoughts are gradually washed away by tears. He tries in vain to conjure up Margot’s face in his mind as he has done in all the long, lonely hours and days of his illness; a shadow of Elisabeth always comes in front of it, Elisabeth with her deep, yearning eyes, and then he is in confusion and has to think again, in torment, of how it all happened. He is overcome by shame to think how he stood outside Margot’s window calling her name, and again he feels sorry for quiet, fair-haired Elisabeth, for whom he never had a word or a look to spare in all these days, when his gratitude ought to have been bent on her like fire.

Next morning Margot comes to visit him for a moment. He trembles at her closeness, and dares not look her in the eye. What is she saying to him? He hardly hears it; the wild buzzing in his temples is louder than her voice. Only when she leaves him does he gaze again, with longing, at her figure. He feels that he has never loved her more.

Elisabeth visits him in the afternoon. There is a gentle familiarity in her hands, which sometimes brush against his, and her voice is very quiet, slightly sad. She speaks, with a certain anxiety, of indifferent things, as if she were afraid of giving herself away if she talked about the two of them. He does not know quite what he feels for her. Sometimes he feels pity for her, sometimes gratitude for her love, but he cannot tell her so. He hardly dares to look at her for fear of lying to her.

She comes every day now, and stays longer too. It is as if, since the hour when the nature of their shared secret dawned on them, their uncertainty has disappeared as well. Yet they never dare to talk about those hours in the dark of the garden.