Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

Then she did interrupt me sharply, waving aside all my reassuring talk.

‘That’s not what worries me, doctor. When my son was born I was in a better state of health, but now I’m not all right any more… I have a heart condition…’

‘Ah, a heart condition,’ I repeated, apparently concerned. ‘We must look into that at once.’ And I made as if to stand up and fetch my stethoscope.

But she stopped me again. Her voice was very sharp and firm now—like an officer’s on a parade ground.

‘I do have a heart condition, doctor, and I must ask you to believe what I tell you. I don’t want to waste a lot of time with examinations—I think you might show a little more confidence in me. For my part, I’ve shown sufficient confidence in you.’

Now it was battle, an open challenge, and I accepted it.

‘Confidence calls for frank disclosure, with nothing held back. Please speak frankly. I am a doctor. And for heaven’s sake take that veil off, sit down, never mind the books and the roundaboutation. You don’t go to visit a doctor in a veil.’

Proud and erect, she looked at me. For one moment she hesitated. Then she sat down and lifted her veil. I saw the kind of face I had feared to see, an impenetrable face, hard, controlled, a face of ageless beauty, a face with grey English eyes in which all seemed at peace, and yet behind which one could dream that all was passion. That narrow, compressed mouth gave nothing away if it didn’t want to. For a moment we looked at each other—she commandingly and at the same time inquiringly, with such cold, steely cruelty that I couldn’t hold her gaze, but instinctively looked away.

She tapped the table lightly with her knuckles. So she was nervous too. Then she said, quickly and suddenly, ‘Do you know what I want you to do for me, doctor, or don’t you?’

‘I believe I do. But let’s be quite plain about it. You want an end put to your condition… you want me to cure you of your fainting fits and nausea by… by removing their cause. Is that it?’

‘Yes.’

The word fell like a guillotine.

‘And do you know that such attempts are dangerous… for both parties concerned?’

‘Yes.’

‘That I am legally forbidden to do such a thing?’

‘There are cases when it isn’t forbidden but actually recommended.’

‘They call for medical indications, however.’

‘Then you’ll find such indications. You’re a doctor.’

Clear, fixed, unflinching, her eyes looked at me as she spoke. It was an order, and weakling that I am, I trembled with admiration for her demonically imperious will. But I was still evasive, I didn’t want to show that I was already crushed. Some spark of desire in me said: don’t go too fast! Make difficulties. Force her to beg!

‘That is not always within a doctor’s competence. But I am ready to ask a colleague at the hospital…’

‘I don’t want your colleague… I came to you.’

‘May I ask why?’

She looked coldly at me. ‘I have no reservations about telling you. Because you live in seclusion, because you don’t know me—because you are a good doctor, and because,’ she added, hesitating for the first time, ‘you probably won’t stay here very much longer, particularly if you… if you can go home with a large sum of money.’

I felt cold. The adamant, commercial clarity of her calculation bemused me. So far her lips had uttered no request—she had already worked it all out, she had been lying in wait for me and then tracked me down. I felt the demonic force of her will enter into me, but embittered as I was—I resisted. Once again I made myself sound objective, indeed almost ironic.

‘Oh, and you would… would place this large sum of money at my disposal?’

‘For your help, and then your immediate departure.’

‘Do you realise that would lose me my pension?’

‘I will compensate you.’

‘You’re very clear in your mind about it… but I would like even more clarity. What sum did you envisage as a fee?’

‘Twelve thousand guilders, payable by cheque when you reach Amsterdam.’

I trembled… I trembled with anger and… yes, with admiration again too. She had worked it all out, the sum and the manner of its payment, which would oblige me to leave this part of the world, she had assessed me and bought me before she even met me, had made arrangements for me in anticipation of getting her own way. I would have liked to strike her in the face, but as I stood there shaking—she too had risen to her feet—and I looked her straight in the eye, the sight of her closed mouth that refused to plead, her haughty brow that would not bend, a… a kind of violent desire overcame me. She must have felt something of it, for she raised her eyebrows as one would to dismiss a trouble-maker; the hostility between us was suddenly in the open. I knew she hated me because she needed me, and I hated her because… well, because she would not plead. In that one single second of silence we spoke to each other honestly for the first time. Then an idea suddenly came to me, like the bite of a reptile, and I told her… I told her…

But wait a moment, or you’ll misunderstand what I did… what I said. First I must explain how… well, how that deranged idea came into my mind.”

Once again the glass clinked softly in the dark, and the voice became more agitated.

“Not that I want to make excuses, justify myself, clear myself of blame… but otherwise you won’t understand. I don’t know if I have ever been what might be called a good man, but… well, I think I was always helpful. In the wretched life I lived over there, the only pleasure I had was using what knowledge was contained in my brain to keep some living creature breathing… an almost divine pleasure. It’s a fact, those were my happiest moments, for instance when one of the natives came along, pale with fright, his swollen foot bitten by a snake, howling not to have his leg cut off, and I managed to save him. I’ve travelled for hours to see a woman in a fever—and as for the kind of help my visitor wanted, I’d already given that in the hospital in Europe. But then I could at least feel that these people needed me, that I was saving someone from death or despair—and the feeling of being needed was my way of helping myself.

But this woman—I don’t know if I can describe it to you—she had irritated and intrigued me from the moment when she had arrived, apparently just strolling casually in. Her provocative arrogance made me resist, she caused everything in me that was—how shall I put it?—everything in me that was suppressed, hidden, wicked, to oppose her. Playing the part of a great lady, meddling in matters of life and death with unapproachable aplomb… it drove me mad. And then… well, after all, no woman gets pregnant just from playing golf. I knew, that is to say I reminded myself with terrible clarity—and this is when my idea came to me—that this cool, haughty, cold woman, raising her eyebrows above her steely eyes if I so much as looked at her askance and parried her demands, had been rolling in bed with a man in the heat of passion two or three months ago, naked as an animal and perhaps groaning with desire, their bodies pressing as close as a pair of lips. That was the idea burning in my mind as she looked at me with such unapproachable coolness, proud as an English army officer… and then everything in me braced itself, I was possessed by the idea of humiliating her. From that moment on, I felt I could see her naked body through her dress… from that moment on I lived for nothing but the idea of taking her, forcing a groan from her hard lips, feeling this cold, arrogant woman a prey to desire like anyone else, as that other man had done, the man I didn’t know. That… that’s what I wanted to explain to you. Low as I had sunk, I had never before thought of exploiting such a situation as a doctor… and this time it wasn’t desire, the rutting instinct, nothing sexual, I swear it wasn’t, I can vouch for it… just a wish to break her pride, dominate her as a man. I think I told you that I have always been susceptible to proud and apparently cold women… and add to that the fact that I had lived here for seven years without sleeping with a white woman, and had met with no resistance… for the girls here, twittering, fragile little creatures who tremble with awe if a white man, a ‘master’ takes them… they efface themselves in humility, they’re always available, always at your service with their soft, gurgling laughter, but that submissive, slavish attitude in itself spoils the pleasure. So can you understand the shattering effect on me when a woman full of pride and hostility suddenly came along, reserved in every fibre of her being, glittering with mystery and at the same time carrying the burden of an earlier passion? When such a woman boldly enters the cage of a man like me, a lonely, starved, isolated brute of a man… well, that’s what I wanted to tell you, just so that you’ll understand the rest, what happened next. So, full of some kind of wicked greed, poisoned by the thought of her stripped naked, sensuous, submitting, I pulled myself together with pretended indifference. I said coolly, ‘Twelve thousand guilders? No, I won’t do it for that.’