Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

There was a faltering note in her voice when at last she asked, “Have they told you to go to the Consulate?”

“Yes.”

“And will you go?”

He was trembling. “I don’t know. But I have to.”

“Why do you have to? They can’t order you about here in Switzerland. You’re a free man here.”

“Free!” he said savagely, through gritted teeth. “Who’s still free today?”

“Anyone who wants to be. You most of all. What is this?” Contemptuously, she snatched away the sheet of paper that he had placed in front of him. “What power does this scrap of paper have over you, scribbled by some wretched clerk in an office—what power does it have over you? You’re a free, living man! What can it do to you?”

“In itself it can’t do anything, but the people who sent it can.”

“So who sent it? What human being does it come from? It’s from no one but a machine, a vast, murderous machine. But it can’t touch you.”

“It’s touched millions, so why not me?”

“Because you don’t want to go?”

“Nor did all the others.”

“But they weren’t free. They were caught between the guns, that’s why they went. Not of their own free will, not one of them. No one would willingly have left Switzerland to go back to that hell.”

But when she saw how he was tormenting himself, she checked her wildness. Pity welled up in her, as if for a child. “Ferdinand,” she said, leaning against him, “try to think perfectly clearly now. You’re afraid, and I understand how distressing it is to have this evil beast suddenly pouncing on you. But remember, we were expecting this letter. We’ve discussed what to do in this event hundreds of times, and I was proud of you because I knew you’d just tear it to pieces, you wouldn’t give yourself up to go and murder people. Don’t you remember?”

“I know, Paula, I know, but…”

“Don’t say any more now,” she urged him. “Somehow or other, this thing has got its teeth into you. But think of our conversations, of the statement you drew up—it’s there in the left-hand drawer of the desk—saying that you would never carry arms. You had firmly decided…”

He reacted to that. “No, I hadn’t firmly decided! I was never sure! All that was lies. I was hiding from my own fear. I intoxicated myself with those words. But it was all true only as long as I was free, and I always knew that if I was summoned I’d be weak. Do you think I trembled before them? They’re nothing as long as their ideas aren’t really in my heart, otherwise they’re just air, words, nothing. But I trembled before myself, because I always knew that as soon as they called me up I’d go.”

“Ferdinand, do you want to go?”

“No, no, no,” he cried, stamping his foot, “I don’t want to, I don’t, nothing in me wants to. But I shall go, against my own will. That’s the terrible part of these people’s power, you serve them against your will, against your own convictions. If you still had a will of your own—but the moment you have a letter like that in your hands, your free will is gone. You obey. You’re a schoolboy, the teacher’s calling to you, you stand up and tremble.”

“But Ferdinand, who’s calling you? The Fatherland? Some clerk in an office! Some bored bureaucrat! And what’s more, even the state has no right to force a man to commit murder, no right…”

“I know, I know. Why not quote Tolstoy too? I know all the arguments: don’t you understand, I myself don’t believe they have any right to call me up, I don’t believe it’s my duty to obey them. I acknowledge only one kind of duty: to act as a human being and to work. I have no Fatherland beyond mankind in general, no ambition to kill other people, I know all that, Paula, I see it as clearly as you do—except that they’ve caught me already, they’re summoning me and I know, in spite of everything, I shall go.”

“But why? Why? I ask you, why?”

He groaned. “I don’t know why. Perhaps because madness is stronger than reason in the world these days. Perhaps it’s just because I’m no hero and I daren’t run away… there’s no explaining it. It’s a kind of compulsion; I can’t break the chain that is throttling twenty million people. I can’t do it.”

He hid his face in his hands. The clock above them ticked on and on, a guard on duty outside the sentry-box of time. She was trembling slightly. “It’s calling to you, yes, I can understand that, although… well, I don’t really understand it. But can’t you hear anything here calling to you as well? Is there nothing to keep you here?”

He flared up. “My pictures? My work? No! I can’t paint any more. I realized that today. I’m already living over there, not here any more. It’s a crime to work for your own pleasure now while the world falls into ruin. You can’t feel and live for yourself alone!”

She stood up and turned away. “I never thought you lived for yourself alone. I thought… I thought I was part of your world too.” She couldn’t go on; her tears were forcing their way out along with her words. He tried to soothe her. But there was anger behind her tears, and he shrank from that. “Go, then,” she said, “you’d better go! What do I mean to you? Less than a scrap of paper. So go if you want to.”

“I don’t want to!” He struck the table with his fists in helpless rage. “I don’t want to. But they want me to. They are strong and I’m weak. They’ve forged their iron will over thousands of years, they’re well-organized and subtle, they’ve made preparations and now it breaks over us like a thunderstorm. Their will is strong and my nerves are weak. It’s an unequal battle. You can’t fight back against a machine. You could resist men, yes, but this is a machine, a slaughtering machine, a soulless tool without a heart or mind. There’s nothing you can do to oppose it.”

“Yes, you can if you must.” She was shouting like a madwoman now. “I can do it if you can’t. If you’re weak I’m not, I don’t knuckle under to a piece of paper, I don’t give up any living creature for a word. You won’t go as long as I have any power over you. You’re sick, I can swear it. You’re highly strung. If a plate so much as clinks you jump nervously. Any doctor must see that. Get yourself examined here, I’ll go with you, I’ll tell the doctor everything. He’s sure to say you’re unfit. You just have to defend yourself, take the bit between your teeth—the bit of your own will. Remember your friend Jeannot in Paris, who had himself put under observation in the psychiatric hospital for three months—and how they tormented him with their investigations, but he held out until they discharged him. You just have to show that you’re not going along with them. You can’t give up. This means everything; don’t forget, they want your life, your liberty, everything. You have to fight back.”

“Fight back! How can I fight back? They’re stronger than anyone, they’re stronger than anything in the whole world.”

“That’s not true! They’re only strong as long as the world allows it. The individual is always stronger than any idea, he just has to be true to himself and his own will. He just has to know that he’s a human being and wants to stay human, and then those words they use to anaesthetize people these days—the Fatherland, duty, heroism—then they’re simply phrases stinking of blood, warm, living human blood. Be honest, is your Fatherland as important to you as your life? Is a province that will switch overnight from one Serene Highness to another as dear to you as the hand you paint with? Do you believe in some kind of justice beyond the invisible knowledge of what’s just and right that we build into ourselves with our thoughts, our blood? No, I know you don’t, no! You’re lying to yourself if you say you want to go…”