Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

The District Commissioner had been right, it seemed. The Sedlak woman did indeed calm down in the cells. She did not move, but lay still on her bed. However, she felt no weariness. She was merely straining her ears to listen. She knew that her child was somewhere in another part of this building. Karel was still here, but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him. She felt his presence, all the same. She knew he was close. Despite her dull nature, she felt a link with him through all these doors. Something could still make it turn out well for them. Perhaps the priest could help; he must have heard them both being dragged off under arrest. Perhaps the war was already over. Somewhere she listened for a sign, for a word. Karel was still there. As long as he was still there, there was hope. That was why everything was so quiet, so breathlessly still. The prison warder went up to see the District Commissioner, who duly noted the fact that the Sedlak woman had calmed down. Just as he’d said she would. Tomorrow they’d send Karel off, and then there would be peace and quiet again.

[ Here ends Zweig’s unfinished manuscript ]

To Pierre J Jouve in fraternal friendship

THE WOMAN WAS STILL fast asleep, her breath coming full and strong. Her mouth, slightly open, seemed to be on the verge of smiling or speaking, and her curved young breasts rose softly under the covers. The first glimmer of dawn showed at the windows, but the light was poor this winter morning. Somewhere between darkness and day, it hovered uncertainly over sleeping things, veiling their forms.

Ferdinand had risen and dressed quietly, he himself did not know why. It often happened these days that, in the middle of working, he would suddenly pick up his hat and hurry out of the house, into the fields, striding faster and faster until he had walked to the point of exhaustion, and all at once found himself somewhere far away, in a place he did not know, his knees shaking and the pulse throbbing at his temples. Or he would suddenly freeze in the middle of an animated conversation and lose track of the words, failing to hear questions, and he would have to force himself back into awareness. Then again, he might forget what he was doing when he undressed in the evening, and would sit perfectly still on the edge of the bed, holding the shoe he had just taken off, until a word from his wife startled him out of his reverie or the shoe fell to the floor with a bang.

As he now left the slightly close atmosphere of the bedroom and stepped out on to the balcony, he shivered. Instinctively he drew his elbows in, closer to the warmth of his body. The landscape deep below him was still enveloped in mist. Dense, milky vapours hovered over the Lake of Zürich, which from his little house, perched high up here, usually looked as smooth as a mirror, reflecting every white cloud that hurried past in the sky. Wherever his eyes looked, whatever his hands felt, it was all damp, dark, slippery and grey. Water dripped from the trees, moisture trickled from the rafters of the house. The world rising from the mists was like a man who has just emerged from a river with water streaming off him. The murmur of human voices came through the misty night, but muted and disjointed like the stertorous breathing of a drunk. Sometimes he also heard hammer blows and the distant chime of the bell from the church tower, but its usually clear tone sounded damp and rusty. Dank darkness stood between him and his world.

He shivered. Yet he stayed there, his hands thrust deeper into his pockets, waiting for the view to clear. The mist began slowly rolling up from below, like a sheet of grey paper, and he longed to see the beloved landscape that, he knew, lay down there in its usual orderly fashion, with its clear lines that normally brought clarity and order to his own life, although now it was hidden by these morning mists. He had so often gone to the window here in a mood of inner turmoil to find reassurance in the peaceful view: the houses over on the opposite bank of the lake, turning to each other as if in friendship, a steamer dividing the blue water with delicate precision, gulls flocking cheerfully over the banks, smoke rising in silver coils from red chimneys as the noonday chimes rang out. Peace! Peace! was the message it conveyed for all to see. At such moments, in the face of his own knowledge and despite the madness of the world, he believed in the beautiful signal it gave him, and for hours could forget his own homeland as he looked at this new one that he had chosen. Months ago, in flight from the present times and from other human beings, coming away from a country at war and arriving in Switzerland, he had felt his soul, crumpled, furrowed and ploughed into disorder as it was by horror and dismay, smoothing out here and growing scar tissue as the landscape softly welcomed him in, and its pure lines and colours called on his art to set to work. As a result he always felt alienated from himself, an exile once again, when the sight was obscured, as it was by the mist hiding everything from him at this time of the morning. He felt infinite pity for everyone shut up down in the dark, and for the people in the world of his old home, far away now—infinite pity, and a longing to be linked to them and their fate.

Somewhere out in the mist, the bell in the church tower gave four strokes and then, telling itself the time of day, chimed eight in clearer tones that pealed out into the March morning. He felt as if he were on top of a tower himself, indescribably isolated, with the world before him and his wife behind him in the darkness of her slumbers. His innermost will strained to tear that soft wall of mist apart and to sense, somewhere, the message of awakening, the certainty of life. And as he sent his eyes out into the mist, so to speak, he thought he did see something, either a man or an animal, moving slowly down there in the grey penumbra where the village ended and the winding path climbed up the hill to this house. Small, softly veiled in mist, it was coming towards him. He felt first pleasure to see something awake besides himself, then curiosity too, an avid and unhealthy curiosity. The grey figure of a man was making its way to a crossroads, with tracks leading to the next village in one direction and up here in the other. For a moment the stranger seemed to hesitate and draw breath at the crossroads. Then, slowly, he began climbing the bridle path.

Ferdinand felt uneasy. Who is this man, he wondered, what compulsion drives him out of the warmth of his dark bedroom and into the morning as mine has driven me? Is he coming up to see me, and if so what does he want? Then, through the mist which was thinner at close quarters now, he recognized the postman. He climbed up here every morning on the stroke of eight, and Ferdinand knew and pictured the man’s rough-hewn face, his red seaman’s beard turning grey at the ends, and his blue-framed glasses. His name was Nussbaum, meaning ‘nut tree’, and to himself Ferdinand called him Nutcracker because of his stiff movements and the ceremony with which he always swung his big, black leather bag over to the right before delivering the post with an air of self-importance. Ferdinand could not help smiling as he saw him trudging up, step by step, bag at the moment slung over his left shoulder, careful to impart great dignity to his short-legged gait.

But suddenly he felt weak at the knees. His hand, which had been shielding his eyes, dropped as if suddenly numb. His uneasiness today, yesterday, all these last weeks was back. He thought he sensed that the man was coming step by step inexorably towards him, coming to him alone. Without knowing just what he was about, he opened the bedroom door, stole past his sleeping wife, and hurried downstairs to intercept the postman on his way up the fenced path. They met at the garden gate.