Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

“Yes, sir,” he uttered now, breathing deeply, and in quite a different voice, a deep voice that seemed to come from a gentler world within him, “yes, she was very good… to me too, she was very grateful to me for saving her from poverty… and I knew that she was grateful, too, but… but I wanted to hear her say so… again and again, again and again… it did me good to hear her thank me… sir, it was so good, so very good, to feel… to feel that you are a better human being, when… when you know all the same that you’re not… I’d have given all my money to hear it again and again… and she was very proud, so when she realised that I was insisting she must be grateful, she wanted to say so less and less. That’s why… that, sir, is the only reason why I always made her ask… I never gave anything of my own free will… I felt good, making her come to beg for every dress, every ribbon… I tormented her like that for three years, I tormented her more and more… but it was only because I loved her, sir… I liked her pride, yet I still wanted to make her bow to me, madman that I was, and when she wanted something I was angry… but I wasn’t really, sir… I was glad of any chance to humiliate her, for… for I didn’t know how much I loved her…”

He stopped again. He was staggering as he walked now, and had obviously forgotten me. He spoke mechanically, as if in his sleep, in a louder and louder voice.

“And I didn’t know… I didn’t know it until that dreadful day when… when I’d refused to give her money for her mother, only a very little money… that is, I had it ready for her, but I wanted her to come and ask me once again… oh, what am I saying?… yes, I knew then, when I came home in the evening and she was gone, leaving just a note on the table… ‘Keep your damned money, I want no more to do with you,’ it said… nothing more… sir, I was like a lunatic for three days and three nights. I had the river searched and the woods, I gave the police large sums of money, I went to all the neighbours, but they just laughed and mocked me… there was no trace of her, nothing. At last a man came with news from the next village… he said he’d seen her… in the train with a soldier, she’d gone to Berlin. I followed her that very day… I neglected my business, I lost thousands… they stole from me, my servants, my manager, all of them… but I swear to you, sir, it was all the same to me… I stayed in Berlin, I stayed there a week until I found her among all those people… and went to her…” He was breathing heavily.

“Sir, I swear to you… I didn’t say a harsh word to her… I wept, I went on my knees… I offered her money, all my fortune, said she should control it, because then I knew… I knew I couldn’t live without her. I love every hair on her head… her mouth… her body, everything, everything… and I was the one who thrust her out, I alone… She was pale as death when I suddenly came in… I’d bribed the woman she was staying with… a procuress, a bad, vicious woman… she looked white as chalk standing there by the wall… she heard me out. Sir, I believe she was… yes, I think she was almost glad to see me, but when I mentioned the money… and I did so, I promise you, only to show her that I wasn’t thinking of it any more… then she spat… and then… because I still wouldn’t go… then she called her lover, and they both laughed at me… But, sir, I went back again day after day. The people of the house told me everything, I knew that the rascal had left her and she was in dire need, so I went once again… once again, sir, but she flew at me and tore up a banknote that I’d secretly left on the table, and when I next came back she was gone… What didn’t I do, sir, to find her again? For a year, I swear to you, I didn’t live, I just kept looking for her, I paid detective agencies until at last I found out that she was in Argentina… in… in a house of ill repute…” He hesitated a moment. The last words were spoken like a death rattle. And his voice grew deeper yet.

“I was horrified… at first… but then I remembered that it was I, no one else, who had sent her there… and I thought how she must be suffering, the poor creature… for more than anything else she’s proud… I went to my lawyer, who wrote to the consul and sent money… not telling her who it came from… just so that she would come back. I received a telegram to say it had all succeeded… I knew what the ship was, and I waited to meet it in Amsterdam… I was there three days early, burning with impatience… at last it came in, I was so happy just to see the smoke of the steamer on the horizon, and I thought I couldn’t wait for it to come in and tie up, so slowly, so slowly, and then the passengers came down the gangplank and at last, at last she was there… I didn’t know her at first… she was different, her face painted… and as… as you saw her… and when she saw me waiting… she went pale. Two sailors had to hold her up or she’d have fallen off the gangplank. As soon as she was on shore I came up to her… I said nothing, my throat was too dry… She said nothing either, and didn’t look at me… The porter carried her bags, we walked and walked… Then, suddenly, she stopped and said… oh, sir, how she said it… ‘Do you still want me for your wife, even now?’ I took her hand… she was trembling, but she said nothing. Yet I felt that everything was all right again… sir, how happy I was! I danced around her like a child when I had her in the room, I fell at her feet… I must have said foolish things… for she laughed through her tears and caressed me… very hesitantly, of course… but sir… it did me so much good. My heart was overflowing. I ran upstairs, downstairs, ordered a dinner in the hotel… our wedding feast… I helped her to dress… and we went down, we ate and drank and made merry… oh, she was so cheerful, like a child, so warm and good-hearted, and she talked of home… and how we would see to everything again… And then…” His voice suddenly roughened, and he made a movement with his hand as if to knock someone down. “There… there was a waiter… a bad, dishonest man… who thought I was drunk because I was raving and dancing and laughing madly… although it was just that I was happy, oh, so happy. And then, when I paid him, he gave me back my change twenty francs short… I shouted at him and demanded the rest… he was embarrassed, and brought out the money… And then she began laughing aloud again. I stared at her, but her face was different… mocking, hard, hostile all at once. ‘How pernickety you still are… even on our wedding day!’ she said very coldly, so sharply, with such… such pity. I was horrified, and cursed myself for being so punctilious… I went to great pains to laugh again, but her merriment was gone, had died. She demanded a room of her own… what wouldn’t I have given her?… and I lay alone all night, thinking of nothing but what I could buy her next morning… what I could give her… how to show her that I’m not miserly… would never be miserly with her again. And in the morning I went out, I bought a bracelet, very early, and when I went into her room… it… it was empty, just the same as before. And I knew there’d be a note on the table… I went away and prayed to God it wasn’t true… but… but it was there… And it said…” Here he hesitated. Instinctively, I had stopped and was looking at him. He bent his head. Then he whispered, hoarsely:

“It said… ‘Leave me alone. I find you repulsive.’”

We had reached the harbour, and suddenly the roar of the nearby breakers broke the silence. There lay the ships at anchor, near and far, lights winking like the eyes of large black animals, and from somewhere came the sound of singing. Nothing was distinct, yet there was so much to feel, an immensity of sleep, with the seaport dreaming deeply.