Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

The officer climbed the stairs and she followed. There was his empty bed. And only now did it strike her that some of his clothes still lay there; she ought to have cleared them away, she should have stowed them in a chest. The straw was untidy too; she’d forgotten about that.

He noticed it himself. Who, he asked, slept here?

She made herself out simple-minded. “Oh, it’s only the servant ever sleeps here—that’s the Count’s huntsman when there’s a hunting party. Sometimes he has a couple of others with him.”

“There’s no hunting parties these days. Who last slept here?”

No one, she assured him. But the straw, he pointed out, was all churned up. Oh, she replied, the dog often lay down there to sleep in winter.

“Indeed?” said the man sharply. “The dog.” And he reached for the table. There lay a pipe, half knocked-out. There were ashes on the floor. “So the dog smokes a pipe too, eh?”

Ruzena did not answer. She was lost for words. He did not wait for her to reply, but opened the chest and took out clothes. Whose, he asked, were these?

“My Karel’s. He left them there when he went away to join the army.”

The officer stood there, thwarted. She seemed to have an answer for everything. He knocked on the walls here too, searched the floor, but there was nothing there, only the straw. At last he had finished his inspection, and her heart leaped up with relief. He stood up, adjusted his braces, and when he turned to the stairs she thought, now he’ll go. Saved! And her blood began flowing again.

However, the officer stopped in the doorway, raised two fingers to his mouth, and gave a shrill whistle.

Ruzena started in alarm. The whistle went right through her ear and penetrated deep inside her. What did it mean? She was overcome by fear of the unknown. And now along came the dog, wagging his tail, carrying himself proudly because his master had called him. His paws danced on the ground, padding on it with fast, light sounds.

He was a kind of German shepherd dog, with intelligent eyes and a bushy tail. He pressed close to the officer’s leg and looked up at him, thumping his tail on the floor.

“Here, Hektor,” said the officer. He took clothes out of the chest, a pair of shoes, a shirt, and threw them all down. “Here, seek!”

Hektor came up, his pointed muzzle reaching a little way forward to burrow into the clothes, and sniffing a shoe as well. His nose quivered as he sniffed, and he uttered a short, sharp yelp as he took a deep breath, his sides quivering, wagging his tail hard. He was excited, his movements rapid, his flanks were heaving. He had picked up the scent, and now he had a job to do. The officer called something to him, raised his arm to point at the bed, and the dog padded over to it, sniffing. Then he put his head down and ran back and forth.

The devil must be in that dog, she thought. His eyes sparkled. He had picked up a scent on the floor and was now sniffing its trail, which led him to the top of the stairs. The officer followed him. “Seek, seek!” he encouraged the dog. Now Hektor was in the attic doorway, still following the trail, and it led him downstairs. The military police officer was following him.

Once he was down again, he shouted an order to his men. The four soldiers all assembled and followed the dog. Hektor moved swiftly from bush to bush, then back into the house. Finally he followed the scent slowly out of the door again, and at last towards the forest. Ruzena’s heart missed a beat. She ran down the stairs herself and instinctively went to the door; she wanted to follow the dog, run ahead of him, scream, warn Karel, stop them… she herself didn’t know just what she could do. But the officer in command of the party of military police snapped at her, standing at the door to bar her way, “You stay there! Sit down!” And he pointed to the bench around the stove. She dared not reply, she simply huddled there.

She heard the soldiers’ steps, she heard the snapping sound of straps being fastened. And then she was alone with the officer, who sat down at the table as if she were not there at all. He calmly knocked out his own tobacco pipe, refilled it and began to smoke, drawing on it very slowly. He could wait patiently, he was sure of himself. It was very quiet now. Ruzena heard only the way he puffed smoke from his lungs into the air. His calm composure made her tremble. She sat and stared at him, her cold hands hanging down, feeling that her blood had congealed inside her, was frozen there. Yet everything in her was stretched to breaking point. She felt numb. She forced herself to hold her breath to listen for any sounds from the forest, then she heard her own breathing coming louder than the throbbing in her ears, and in her numb brain she wondered whether he might yet escape. Suddenly she raised her hands and felt through her blouse for the place where the crucifix hung. She clutched it and began praying, reciting the Lord’s Prayer and all the intercessions she knew. Involuntarily, she uttered one word out loud. The officer half turned, looking at her sharply and, as she thought, with derision. Got you, Death’s Head, just you wait, he was thinking. For at that moment she did indeed resemble a skull, with her forehead white as bone below her falling hair, her mouth open to show her white teeth, and then there were the black holes that were her eyes and her nose. He turned away again, instinctively spat on the floor, and then trod out the slimy spittle from his pipe with his foot, slowly, without haste or any agitation.

She felt as if she must scream. She couldn’t bear this; time and eternity weighed down on her. She trembled, she wanted to fall down before him, beg him on her knees, plead with him, kiss his feet. He was a human being, after all, but unapproachable in his uniform, in the impregnability of his power, sent out by the enemy. But doing any such thing would surely give her away. After all, they might not find Karel. She strained her ears again, listening as if she were nothing but her sense of hearing. She listened for an eternity. This was more cruel than anything she had borne in all her forty years.

It seemed to her a longer time than the whole nine months when she was carrying her child, but in fact she waited for only half-an-hour. Then there was a clinking outside, and a footstep. More footsteps were heard, and finally a small sharp sound. The officer stood up and glanced at the door. He uttered a brief laugh, and patted the dog, who came leaping up to him. “Good dog, Hektor, good dog.” Then, without looking back, he went out. Ruzena was stunned by horror.

She stood perfectly still like that for a moment. Then, with a sudden movement, she banished the leaden feeling from her legs and rushed out. Oh, how terrible, they had him! Karel, her Karel stood between them, his hands cuffed behind his back, stooping, bent, his eyes lowered in shame. They had caught him just as he was going to the stream to wash and had brought him back as he was, barefoot, in his trousers and loose shirt. His mother cried out in shrill tones, and she was already making for the officer. She fell on her knees in front of him and clutched his feet. Let her son go, she cried, he was her child, her only child! Let him go for the Saviour’s sake, he was only a child still, her Karel, not yet seventeen. He was sixteen, only sixteen, she pleaded, they had made a mistake. And he was sick too, very sick, she could swear it, everyone knew, he had spent all this time lying sick in bed.

The military police officer, feeling uncomfortable (and his men were looking darkly at him too), tried to free his feet. But she only clung even more firmly, weeping and raving. The Saviour would reward him, she cried, if he spared her innocent child. Why in heaven’s name take her child, who was so weak? Have pity, she begged the officer, there were others around here, tall, powerful, strong young fellows, so many of them in the country round about, why take Karel, why him? Let him leave her child to her, she begged the officer, for the Saviour’s sake—God would reward him for his good deed, she herself would pray for him every day. Every day. And for his mother. She would kiss his feet—and indeed, in her frenzy she actually did fling herself down to kiss the officer’s dirty, muddy shoes.