Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

Shame made him rough. Tearing himself free, he pushed the desperate woman away. What a fuss she was making! Thousands and thousands of men had marched away for the Emperor, and none of them had uttered a squeak of protest. The doctors would soon find out if the lad was sick. She should be glad he wasn’t put up against the wall at once as a deserter. A fellow who makes off like that ought by rights to be shot, and if it was up to him, the officer, he said, he knew what he’d do with him, he would…

He got no further. In the middle of this speech she leaped at him. Suddenly, from down on the floor at his feet, she sprang at him and made him stagger, both hands going for his throat like claws. He was a strong man, but he rocked back on his heels. Hitting out, he struck her, punching her flesh, her forehead. Then he seized her in his two hard hands and twisted a joint until she writhed in pain. But although she was defenceless now, she bit, snapping like an animal, bit his arm and hung there with her teeth in it. He yelled. And now his men came up, tore her away, got her down on the ground and kicked her.

The officer was shaking with pain and anger—to be shamed like this in front of his soldiers! “Handcuff her,” he ordered. “We’ll show you, you bitch.” His arm hurt like hell. Her teeth had gone through his coat and the fabric of his shirt; red blood was running out. He felt it trickling down, but he wasn’t going to show that. As they put the handcuffs on her, he bound up the place under his shirt with his handkerchief, and then, composed again, ordered the men: “Forward march. Two of you go ahead with the lad, two of you follow with her.”

Her hands were fastened behind her back now, and the officer had drawn his revolver. “If either of them moves, shoot them down.”

The soldiers took Karel between them. He twisted and turned, but when they told him, “March!” he marched. He walked on with fixed eyes, mechanically, without resisting; the shock had broken his strength. His mother followed without defending herself either; violence would do no good now. She would have gone anywhere with Karel, she’d have gone to the ends of the earth, just so long as she was with him, could stay with him. So long as she could see him: his fine broad back, his curly brown shock of hair above his firm neck, oh, and his hands, tortured now, bound behind his back, the hands she had known when they were tiny, with small pink nails, with sweet little folds on them. She would have walked on without any soldiers, without any orders, just so as to be with him and not leave him. All she wanted was to know that she was still near him. She felt no weariness in spite of walking for so long—eight hours. She did not feel her sore feet, although they had both gone barefoot all this time, she did not feel the pressure of her hands cuffed behind her back, all she felt was that he was close, she had him, she was with him.

They marched through the forest and along the dusty country road. Bells were pealing out over the town, striking twelve noon, all was at rest when the unusual procession made its way along the main street of Dobitzan, Karel first, with the weary soldiers trotting along to right and left of him to guard him, then Ruzena Sedlak, her eyes glazed, still dishevelled and battered from the blows, with her own hands cuffed behind her back, and bringing up the rear the military police officer, a grave, stern figure, obviously making a great effort to bear himself well. He had put his revolver back into its holster.

The buzz of noise in the marketplace died down. People came out of their doors to look darkly at the scene. Drivers on their carts cracked the whip at their horses angrily and spat, as if by chance. Men frowned and murmured, looked away and then back again, it was a shame, they muttered, first the children, the lads of seventeen, now they were dragging women off too. All the ill will and resentment of a people who had long felt that this Austrian war was nothing to do with them, yet dared not show any violent opposition, stood mute but menacing in hundreds of eyes, the eyes of the people of Dobitzan.

No one said a word; they were all silent. The steps of the marching soldiers could be heard in the street.

Somehow or other, Ruzena’s animal nature must have sensed the magnetic force of that embitterment, for suddenly, in the middle of the road, the handcuffed woman flung herself down flat among the soldiers, her skirts flying, and began shouting at the top of her voice, “Help me, brothers! For God’s sake help me! Don’t let them do this.”

The soldiers had to seize her, and then she cried out again, to Karel, “Throw yourself down! They’ll have to drag us to the slaughter! Let God see this!” And Karel obediently lay down in the middle of the wet road too.

The furious military police officer intervened. “Get them up!” he shouted at his startled men. They tried to haul Ruzena and her son to their feet. But she twisted and turned, flung herself about with her bound hands like a fish landed on the bank, uttering shrill cries. She snapped and bit; it was a terrible sight. “God must see this,” she howled, “God must see this.” Finally the soldiers had to drag both of them away like beasts going to be butchered. But she went on shouting, her voice cracking horribly, “God must see this, God must see this!”

She was forced away as they waited for reinforcements, and was taken off to a cell under arrest, half-naked now, with her greying hair coming down. It was high time; the townsfolk were gathering together. Their looks were even darker than before. One farmer spat. Several women began talking angrily out loud. There was whistling, you could see men nudging the women and warning them; children stared, wide-eyed and alarmed, at all this tumultuous confusion.

Mother and son were taken off to the cells together, but the hatred in the air for the open display of violence was palpable.

Meanwhile, pacing furiously up and down in his office, his collar, trimmed with gold lace, torn open in his rage, the District Commissioner was bawling out the military police officer. He was a fool, he told the man, he was a godforsaken idiot to bring a deserter in along the road in broad daylight, and a woman in handcuffs with him. This kind of thing would get around the whole region, and then he personally would have trouble with Vienna. Didn’t the officer think there had been quite enough of all this chasing people around here in Bohemia? This evening would have been a better time to bring the young man in. And why the devil had he brought the woman along too?

The officer showed his torn coat, pointing out that the mad bitch had attacked and bitten him. He’d had to have her arrested, he said, if only for the sake of the men’s morale.

But the Commissioner was not mollified, and went on: “So did you have to drag her through the town in broad daylight? You can’t treat women like that. People won’t stand for it. What a mess! It gets folk really annoyed when you start in on women. Much better leave them out of it.”

Finally the police officer asked, in muted tones, what he ought to do now.

“Oh, get the lad sent off tonight, send him to Budweis with the others. What business is all this of ours? Let those…” (he was about to say “bloody bureaucrats”, but thought better of it in time), “let those responsible take care of it, we’ve done our duty. Keep the Sedlak woman under arrest until he’s gone. She’ll calm down in the morning. You can release her as soon as he’s left. After all, women do calm down when they’ve had a good cry. And after that they go to church—or to some other man’s bed.”

The officer protested; he was most unwilling to agree. Had he marched all night for this? To himself, he vowed that this was the last time he’d go to so much trouble.