Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

“I don’t want to.”

“But you don’t feel that strongly enough! You don’t want to stay any more. You’re letting yourself want to do this thing, that’s your crime. You’re giving yourself up to something you hate and staking your life on it. Why not on something you really believe in? Shedding blood for your own ideas is one thing, but why do it for someone else’s? Ferdinand, don’t forget, if you really want strongly enough to stay free, what are those people over the border but wicked fools? If you don’t want it enough, and they get hold of you, then you’re the fool. You always said…”

“Yes, I said, I said it all, I talked and talked just to give myself courage. I was boasting, the way children sing in a dark wood because they’re afraid of their own fears. It was all a lie, that’s cruelly clear to me now. Because I always knew that if they sent for me I’d go…”

“You’re really going? Oh, Ferdinand, Ferdinand!”

“Not me! Not me! It’s something else in me that’s going—has gone already. Something or other stands up in me like the schoolboy obediently standing up for the teacher, I told you so. It trembles and obeys! Yet at the same time I hear all you say, and I know it’s right and true and human and necessary—it’s the one thing I ought to do, I must do—I know that, I know it, that’s why it’s so despicable of me to go. But I am going, something compels me. Despise me! I despise myself. But there’s nothing else I can do, nothing!”

He hammered on the table with both fists. There was a dull, animal, captive expression in his eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him. In her love, she was afraid that she might indeed despise him. The table was still laid, the meat standing on it was cold now and looked like carrion, the bread was black and crumbling; it might have been slag. The heavy smell of food filled the room. Nausea rose to her throat in her disgust at all this. She pushed the window open to let in some fresh air. Her shoulders were shaking slightly, and above them rose the blue March sky, with its white clouds caressing her hair.

“Look,” she said more quietly, “look out there! Just once, I beg you. Perhaps all I’m saying isn’t entirely true. Words always miss the mark. But what I can see is true all the same. That doesn’t lie. There’s a farmer down there following the plough. He’s young and strong. Why doesn’t he go off to be murdered? Because his country isn’t at war, because his fields lie a little way beyond the border, so the law doesn’t apply to him. And now that you’re in this country it doesn’t apply to you either. Can an invisible law that’s in force only as far as a few milestones and then not beyond them be true? Don’t you feel how senseless it is when you look at the peace here? Look, Ferdinand, look, see how clear the sky is above the lake, see how the colours wait for us to enjoy them, come here to the window and then tell me just once more that you want to go…”

“I don’t want to go! I don’t want to! You know I don’t! Why should I look out at this scene? I know all about it, everything, everything! You’re just tormenting me! Every word you say hurts. And nothing, nothing, nothing can help me!”

She felt weak in the face of his pain. Pity broke her strength. She quietly turned around.

“So when… oh, Ferdinand… when do you have to go to the Consulate?”

“Tomorrow. Well, it ought to have been yesterday, but the letter didn’t reach me in time. They didn’t track me down until today. So I’ll have to go tomorrow.”

“But suppose you don’t go tomorrow? Keep them waiting. They can’t do anything to you here. And there’s no hurry. Let them wait a week. I’ll write and tell them you were ill, you were in bed. My brother did that and gained two weeks’ grace. At the worst they won’t believe you and they’ll send the doctor from the Consulate up here. Perhaps we could talk to him. People are still human beings if they don’t wear a uniform. Maybe he’ll look at your pictures and see that someone like you is right out of place at the front. And even if that doesn’t work we’ll have gained a week.”

He said nothing, and she felt that his silence was opposing her.

“Ferdinand, promise me not to go tomorrow! Let them wait. You need to be well prepared in your mind. At the moment you’re upset, and they’re doing what they like with you. They’d be stronger than you tomorrow, but in a week’s time you’ll be stronger than them. Think of the happy days we’ll enjoy then. Oh, Ferdinand, Ferdinand, are you listening to me?”

She shook him. He looked at her, empty-eyed. That apathetic, lost gaze showed no response to her words, only horror and fear from a depth that she could not plumb. He pulled himself together only slowly.

“You’re right,” he said at last. “You’re right, there’s no hurry. What can they do to me? Has the letter necessarily reached me? Couldn’t I have gone away for a little while? Or I could have been ill. No—I signed a receipt for the postman. But that makes no difference. We have to think things over. You’re right, you’re right.”

He had risen to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. “You’re right, you’re right,” he mechanically repeated, but there was no conviction in his voice. “You’re right, you’re right”—it sounded abstracted, he was repeating the words vacantly. She felt that his thoughts were somewhere else, far away, still with the people over the border, still heading for disaster. She couldn’t bear to hear his constant “You’re right, you’re right” any more. Quietly, she went out of the room, and then heard him walking up and down it for hours on end, like a prisoner in his dungeon.

He did not touch dinner that evening either. There was something far away and frozen in him. It was only that night that she felt her living husband’s fear as he lay beside her, clasping her soft, warm body as if taking refuge in it, embracing her passionately, convulsively. But this, she knew, was not love but escape. It was a spasmodic reaction, and under his kisses she sensed bitter, salty tears. Then he lay in silence again. Sometimes she heard him groan. Then she held her hand out to him, and he took it as if he could cling to it. They did not talk. Only once, when she heard him sob, did she try to comfort him. “You still have a week. Don’t think about it.” But then she was ashamed of herself for advising him to think of something else, for she felt from the chill of his hand, the pulsing of his heart, that this one idea possessed and commanded him. And there was no miracle to release him from it.

Never before had silence and the dark weighed so heavily in this house. The horror of the whole world stood there within its walls, cold and chilly. Only the clock, undeterred, ticked on, an iron sentry marching up, marching down, and she knew that with every marching step of that clock the living man at her side, the man she loved, was moving further away from her. She couldn’t bear it any more; she jumped out of bed and stopped the pendulum. Now there was no time any more, only terror and silence. And they both lay mute and wakeful, side by side, until the new day dawned, with the idea of what was to come marching up and down in their hearts.

It was still wintry twilight. Hoarfrost was hovering over the lake in heavy drifts of mist when he got up, quickly threw on his clothes, hurried hesitantly and uncertainly from room to room and back again, until he suddenly took his hat and coat and quietly opened the front door. Later, he often remembered how his hand had trembled when it touched the bolt, which was cold with frost, and he turned furtively to see if anyone was watching him. Sure enough, the dog rushed at him as if he were a thief stealing in, but on recognizing him got down, responded affectionately to his patting, and then raced around wagging his tail, eager to go for a walk with him. However, he shooed the dog away with his hand—he dared not speak. Then, not sure himself why he was in such haste, he suddenly hurried down the bridle path. Sometimes he stopped and looked back at his house as it slowly disappeared from sight in the mist, but then the urge to go on came over him once more and he ran downhill to the station, stumbling over stones as if someone were after him. Only when he arrived did he stop, warm vapour rising from his moist clothes, sweat on his forehead.