Stefan Zweig - The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig

‘Of course not,’ I said helpfully, to strengthen his will—only move fast, move fast, said the tingling sensation in my temples—‘but now that you know you would only be hurting a living man and doing a terrible injury to a dead woman, I am sure you will not hesitate.’

He nodded. We approached the table. A few minutes later the certificate was made out; it was published later in the newspaper, and told a credible story of a heart attack. Then he rose and looked at me.

‘And you’ll leave this week, then?’

‘My word of honour.’

He looked at me again. I realised that he wanted to appear stern and objective. ‘I’ll see about a coffin at once,’ he said, to hide his embarrassment. But whatever it was about me that made me so… so dreadful, so tormented—he suddenly offered me his hand and shook mine with hearty good feeling. ‘I hope you will be better soon,’ he said—I didn’t know what he meant. Was I sick? Was I… was I mad? I accompanied him to the door and unlocked it—and it was with the last of my strength that I closed it again behind him. Then the tingling in my temples returned, everything swayed and went round before my eyes, and I collapsed beside her bed… just as a man running amok falls senseless at the end of his frenzied career, his nerves broken.”

*

Once again he paused. I shivered slightly: was it the first shower carried on the morning wind that blew softly over the deck? But the tormented face, now partly visible in the reflected light of dawn, was getting control of itself again.

“I don’t know how long I lay on the mat like that. Then someone touched me. I came to myself with a start. It was the boy, timidly standing before me with his look of devotion and gazing uneasily at me.

‘Someone wants come in… wants see her…’

‘No one may come in.’

‘Yes… but…’

There was alarm in his eyes. He wanted to say something, but dared not. The faithful creature was in some kind of torment.

‘Who is it?’

He looked at me, trembling as if he feared a blow. And then he said—he named a name—how does such a lowly creature suddenly come by so much knowledge, how is it that at some moments these dull human souls show unspeakable tenderness?—then he said, very, very timidly, ‘It is him .’

I started again, understood at once, and I was immediately avid, impatient to set eyes on the unknown man. For strangely enough, you see, in the midst of all my agony, my fevered longing, fear and haste, I had entirely forgotten ‘him’, I had forgotten there was a man involved too… the man whom this woman had loved, to whom she had passionately given what she denied to me. Twelve, twenty-four hours ago I would still have hated him, I would have been ready to tear him to pieces. Now… well, I can’t tell you how much I wanted to see him, to… to love him because she had loved him.

I was suddenly at the door. There stood a young, very young fair-haired officer, very awkward, very slender, very pale. He looked like a child, so… so touchingly young, and I was unutterably shaken to see how hard he was trying to be a man and maintain his composure, hide his emotion. I saw at once that his hands were trembling as he raised them to his cap. I could have embraced him… because he was so exactly what I would have wished the man who had possessed her to be, not a seducer, not proud… no, still half a child, a pure, affectionate creature to whom she had given herself.

The young man stood before me awkwardly. My avid glance, my passionate haste as I rushed to let him in confused him yet more. The small moustache on his upper lip trembled treacherously… this young officer, this child, had to force himself not to sob out loud.

‘Forgive me,’ he said at last. ‘I would have liked to see Frau… I would so much have liked to see her again.’

Unconsciously, without any deliberate intention, I put my arm around the young stranger’s shoulders and led him in as if he were an invalid. He looked at me in surprise, with an infinitely warm and grateful expression… at that moment, some kind of understanding existed between the two of us of what we had in common. We went over to the dead woman. There she lay, white-faced, in white linen—I felt that my presence troubled him, so I stepped back to leave him alone with her. He went slowly closer with… with such reluctant, hesitant steps. I saw from the set of his shoulders the kind of turmoil that was ranging in him. He walked like… like a man walking into a mighty gale. And suddenly he fell to his knees beside the bed, just as I had done.

I came forward at once, raised him and led him to an armchair. He was not ashamed any more, but sobbed out his grief. I could say nothing—I just instinctively stroked his fair, childishly soft hair. He reached for my hand… very gently, yet anxiously… and suddenly I felt his eyes on me. ‘Tell me the truth, doctor,’ he stammered. ‘Did she lay hands on herself?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘And… I mean… is anyone… is someone to blame for her death?’

‘No,’ I said again, although a desire was rising in me to cry out, ‘I am! I am! I am! And so are you! The pair of us! And her obstinacy, her ill-starred obstinacy.’ But I controlled myself. I repeated, ‘No… no one is to blame. It was fate!’

‘I can’t believe it,’ he groaned, ‘I can’t believe it. She was at the ball only the day before yesterday, she waved to me. How is it possible, how could it happen?’

I told a lengthy lie. I did not betray her secret even to him. We talked together like two brothers over the next few days, as if irradiated by the emotion that bound us… we did not confess it to each other, but we both felt that our whole lives had depended on that woman. Sometimes the truth rose to my lips, choking me, but I gritted my teeth, and he never learned that she had been carrying his child, or that I had been asked to kill the child, his offspring, and she had taken it down into the abyss with her. Yet we talked of nothing but her in those days, when I was hiding away with him—for I forgot to tell you that they were looking for me. Her husband had arrived after the coffin was closed, and wouldn’t accept the medical findings. There were all kinds of rumours, and he was looking for me… but I couldn’t bear to see him when I knew that she had suffered in her marriage to him… I hid away, for four days I didn’t go out of the house, we neither of us left her lover’s apartment. He had booked me a passage under a false name so that I could get away easily. I went on board by night, like a thief, in case anyone recognised me. I have left everything I own behind… my house, all my work of the last seven years, my possessions, they’re all there for anyone who wants them… and the government gentlemen will have struck me off their records for deserting my post without leave. But I couldn’t live any longer in that house or in that city… in that world where everything reminded me of her. I fled like a thief in the night, just to escape her, just to forget. But… as I came on board at night, it was midnight, my friend was with me… they… they were just hauling something up by crane, something rectangular and black… her coffin… do you hear that, her coffin? She has followed me here, just as I followed her… and I had to stand by and pretend to be a stranger, because he, her husband, was with it, it’s going back to England with him. Perhaps he plans to have an autopsy carried out there… he has snatched her back, she’s his again now, not ours, she no longer belongs to the two of us. But I am still here… I will go with her to the end… he will not, must not ever know about it. I will defend her secret against any attempt to… against this ruffian from whom she fled to her death. He will learn nothing, nothing… her secret is mine alone…