by Stefan Zweig
Then she calmed down. But the barrier between them was high and dark again, no longer irradiated by supernatural light. Her eyes were cold, restless and ashamed, no longer angry, but no longer full of mystic awe; only reality was in them. Her hands hung limp like wings broken in soaring too high. Life was still a mystery of strange beauty to her, but she dared not love the dream from which she had been so shatteringly woken.
The old painter too felt that his hasty confidence had deceived him, but it was not the first disappointment in his long and questing life of faith and trust. So he felt no pain, only surprise, and then again almost joy to see how quickly she felt ashamed. He gently took her two childish hands, still feverishly burning as they were. “Esther, your sudden outburst almost alarmed me. But I do not hold it against you… is that what you are thinking?”
Ashamed, she shook her head, only to raise it again next moment. Again her words were almost defiant.
“But I don’t want to be a Christian. I don’t want to. I—” She choked on the words for some time before saying, in a muted voice. “I… I hate Christians. I don’t know them but I hate them. What you told me about love embracing everything is more beautiful than anything I have ever heard in my life. But the people in the tavern say that they are Christians too, although they are rough and violent. And… I don’t even remember it clearly, it’s all so long ago… but when they talked about Christians at home, there was fear and hatred in their voices. Everyone hated the Christians. I hate them too… when I was little and went out with my father they shouted at us, and once they threw stones at us. One of the stones hit me and made me bleed and cry, but my father made me go on, he was afraid, and when I shouted for help… I don’t remember any more about all that. Or yes, I do. Our alleys were dark and narrow, like the one where I live here. And only Jews lived there. But higher up, the town was beautiful. I once looked down at it from the top of a house… there was a river flowing through it, so blue and clear, and a broad bridge over the river with people crossing it in brightly coloured clothes like the ones you showed me in the pictures. And the houses were decorated with statues and with gilding and gable ends. Among them there were tall, tall towers, where bells rang, and the sun shone all the way down into the streets there. It was all so lovely. But when I told my father he ought to go and see the lovely town with me he looked very serious and said, ‘No, Esther, the Christians would kill us.’ That frightened me… and ever since then I have hated the Christians.”
She stopped in the middle of her dreams, for all around her seemed bright again. What she had forgotten long ago, leaving it to lie dusty and veiled in her soul, was sparkling once again. She was back there walking down the dark alleys of the ghetto to the house she was visiting. And suddenly everything connected and was clear, and she realised that what she sometimes thought was a dream had been reality in her past life. Her words came tumbling out in pursuit of the images hurrying through her mind.
“And then there was that evening… I was suddenly snatched up out of my bed… I saw my grandfather, he was holding me in his arms, his face was pale and trembling… the whole house was in uproar, shaking, there was shouting and noise. Oh, now it’s coming back to me. I hear what they were shouting again—it’s the others, they were saying, it’s the Christians. My father was shouting it, or my mother, or… I don’t remember. My grandfather carried me down into the darkness, through black streets and alleys… and there was always that noise and the same shouting—the others, the Christians! How could I have forgotten? And then we went away with a man… when I woke up we were far out in the country, my grandfather and the man I live with now… I never saw that town again, but the sky was very red back where we had come from… and we travelled on…”
Again she stopped. The pictures seemed to be disappearing, getting slowly darker.
“I had three sisters. They were very beautiful, and every evening they came to my bedside to kiss me goodnight… and my father was tall, I couldn’t reach up to him, so he often carried me in his arms. And my mother… I never saw her again. I don’t know what happened to them, because my grandfather looked away and wouldn’t tell me when I asked him. And when he died there was no one I dared to ask.”
She stopped once more, and a painful, violent sob burst from her throat. Very quietly, she added, “But now I know it all. How could it all be so dark to me? I feel as if my father were standing beside me saying the words he used to say at that time, it is all so clear in my ears. I won’t ask anyone again…”
Her words turned to sobs, to silent, miserable weeping that died away in deep, sad silence. Only a few minutes ago life had shown her an enticing image; now it lay dark and sombre before her again. And the old man had long ago forgotten his intention of converting her as he watched her pain. He stood there in silence, feeling as sad himself as if he must sit down and weep with her, for there were some things that he could not put into words, and with his great love of humanity he felt guilty for unknowingly arousing such pain in her. Shuddering, he felt the fullness of blessing and the weight of a burden to be borne, both coming at the same hour; it was as if heavy waves were rising and falling, and he did not know whether they would raise his life or drag it down into the menacing deeps. But wearily, he felt neither fear nor hope, only pity for this young life with so many different paths opening up before it. He tried to find words; but they were all as heavy as lead and had the ring of false coin. What was all they could express, in the face of such a painful memory?
Sadly, he stroked the hair on her trembling head. She looked up, confused and distracted; then mechanically tidied her hair and rose, her eyes wandering this way and that as if getting used to reality again. Her features became wearier, less tense, and there was only darkness now in her eyes. Abruptly, she pulled herself together, and quickly said, to hide the sobs still rising inside her, “I must go now. It’s late. And my father is expecting me.”
With a brusque gesture of farewell she shook her head, picked up her skirts and turned to leave. But the old man, who had been watching her with his steady, understanding gaze, called after her. She turned back reluctantly, for there were still tears in her eyes. And again the old man took both her hands in his forceful manner and looked at her. “Esther, I know that you want to go now and not come back again. You do not and will not believe me, because a secret fear deceives you.”
He felt her hands relax in his gently, softer now. He went on more confidently, “Come back another day, Esther! We will forget all of this, the happy and the sad part of it alike. Tomorrow we will begin on my picture, and I feel as if it will succeed. And don’t be sad any more, let the past rest, don’t brood on it. Tomorrow we will begin a new work with new hope—won’t we, Esther?”
In tears, she nodded. And she went home again, still timid and uncertain, but with a new and deeper awareness of many things.
The old man stayed there, lost in thought. His belief in miracles had not deserted him, but they had seemed more solemn before; were they only a case of a divine hand playing with life? He abandoned the idea of seeing faith in a mystical promise light up a face when perhaps its owner’s soul was too desperate to believe. He would no longer presume to bring God and his own ideas to anyone, he would only be a simple servant of the Lord painting a picture as well as he could, and laying it humbly on God’s altar as another man might bring a gift. He felt that it was a mistake to look for signs and portents instead of waiting until they were revealed to him in their own good time.
Humbled, his heart sank to new depths. Why had he wanted to work a miracle on this child when no one had asked him to? Wasn’t it enough that when his life was taking bleak and meaningless root, like the trunk of an old tree with only its branches aspiring to reach the sky, another life, a young life full of fear, had come to cling trustfully to him? One of life’s miracles, he felt, had happened to him; he had been granted the grace to give and teach the love that still burnt in him in his old age, to sow it like a seed that may yet co
me to wonderful flower. Hadn’t life given him enough with that? And hadn’t God shown him the way to serve him? He had wanted a female figure in his picture, and the model for it had come to meet him, wasn’t it God’s will for him to paint her likeness, and not try converting her to a faith that she might never be able to understand? Lower and lower sank his heart.
Evening and darkness came into his room. The old man stood up, feeling a restlessness unusual to him in his late days, for they were usually as mild as cool rays of autumn sunlight. He slowly kindled a light. Then he went to the cupboard and looked for an old book. His heart was weary of restlessness. He took the Bible, kissed it ardently, and then opened it and read until late into the night.
He began work on the picture. Esther sat leaning thoughtfully back in a soft, comfortable armchair, sometimes listening to the old man as he told her all kinds of stories from his own life and the lives of others, trying to while away the monotonous hours of sitting still for her. Sometimes she just sat calmly dreaming in the large room where the tapestries, pictures and drawings adorning the walls attracted her gaze. The painter’s progress was slow. He felt that the studies he was doing of Esther were only first attempts, and had not yet caught the final conviction that he wanted. There was still something lacking in the idea behind his sketches; he could not put it into words, but he felt it deep within him so clearly that feverish haste often drove him on from sketch to sketch, and then, comparing them with each other, he was still not content, faithful as his likenesses of Esther were. He did not mention it to the girl, but he felt as if the harsh set of her lips, a look that never entirely left them even when she was gently dreaming, would detract from the serene expectation that was to transfigure his Madonna. There was too much childish defiance in her for her mood to turn to sweet contemplation of motherhood. He did not think any words would really dispel that darkness in her; it could change only from within. But the soft, feminine emotion he wanted would not come to her face, even when the first spring days cast red-gold sunlight into the room through every window and the whole world stirred as it revived, when all colours seemed to be even softer and deeper, like the warm air wafting through the streets. Finally the painter grew weary. He was an experienced old man, he knew the limits of his art, and he knew he could not overcome them by force. Obeying the insistent voice of sudden intuition, he soon gave up his original plan for the painting. And after weighing up the possibilities, he decided not to paint Esther as the Madonna absorbed in thoughts of the Annunciation, since her face showed no signs of devoutly awakening femininity, but as the most straightforward but deeply felt symbol of his faith, the Madonna with her child. And he wanted to begin it at once, because hesitation was making inroads on his soul, again now that the radiance of the miracle he had dreamt of was fading, and had almost disappeared entirely into darkness. Without telling Esther, he removed the canvas, which bore a few fleeting traces of over-hasty sketches, and replaced it with a fresh one as he tried to give free rein to his new idea.
When Esther sat down in her usual way next day and waited, leaning gently back, for him to begin his work—not an unwelcome prospect to her, since it brought inspiring words and happy moments into the bleakness of her lonely day—she was surprised to hear the painter’s voice in the next room, in friendly conversation with a woman whose rough, rustic voice she did not recognise. Curious, she pricked up her ears, but she could not hear what they were saying distinctly. Soon the woman’s voice died away, a door latched, and the old man came in and went over to her carrying something pale in his arms. She did not realise at once what it was. He carefully placed a small, naked, sturdy child a few months old on her lap. At first the baby wriggled, then he lay still. Esther stared wide-eyed at the old man—she had not expected him to play such a strange trick on her. But he only smiled and said nothing. When he saw that her anxious, questioning eyes were still fixed on him, he calmly explained, in a tone that asked her approval, his intention of painting her with the child on her lap. All the warm kindliness of his eyes went into that request. The deep fatherly love that he had come to feel for this strange girl, and his confidence in her restless heart, shone through his words and even his eloquent silence.
Esther’s face had flushed rosy red. A great sense of shame tormented her. She hardly dared to look timidly sideways at the healthy little creature whom she reluctantly held on her trembling knees. She had been brought up among people who had a stern abhorrence of the naked human body, and it made her look at this healthy, happy and now peacefully sleeping baby with revulsion and secret fear; she instinctively hid her own nakedness even from herself, and shrank from touching the little boy’s soft, pink flesh as if it were a sin. She was afraid, and didn’t know why. All her instincts told her to say no, but she did not want to respond so brusquely to the old man’s kindly words, for she increasingly loved and revered him. She felt that she could not deny him anything. And his silence and the question in his waiting glance weighed so heavily on her that she could have cried out with a loud, wordless animal scream. She felt unreasonable dislike of the peacefully slumbering child; he had intruded into her one quiet, untroubled hour and destroyed her dreamy melancholy. But she felt weak and defenceless in the face of the calm old man’s kindly wisdom. He was like a pale and lonely star above the dark depths of her life. Once again, as she did in answer to all his requests, she bowed her head in humble confusion.
He said no more, but set about beginning the picture. First he only sketched the outline, for Esther was still far too uneasy and bewildered to embody the meaning of his work. Her dreamy expression had entirely disappeared. There was something tense and desperate in her eyes as she avoided looking at the sleeping, naked infant on her lap, and fixed them instead in endless scrutiny on the walls full of pictures and ornaments to which she really felt indifferent. Her stiff hand showed that she was afraid she might have to bring herself to touch the little body. In addition, the weight on her knees was heavy, but she dared not move. However, the tension in her face showed more and more strongly what a painful effort she was making. In the end the painter himself began to have some inkling of her discomfort, although he ascribed it not to her inherited abhorrence of nakedness but to maidenly modesty, and he ended the sitting. The baby himself went on sleeping like a replete little animal, and did not notice when the painter carefully took him off the girl’s lap and put him down on the bed in the next room, where he stayed until his mother, a sturdy Dutch seaman’s wife brought to Antwerp for a while by chance, came to fetch him. But although Esther was free of the physical burden she felt greatly oppressed by the idea that she would now have to suffer the same alarm every day.
For the next few days she both came to the studio and left it again uneasily. Secretly, she hoped that the painter would give up this plan as well, and her decision to ask him to do so with a few calm words became compelling and overwhelming. Yet she could never quite bring herself do it; personal pride or a secret sense of shame kept the words back even as they came to her lips like birds ready to take flight. However, as she came back day after day, even though she was so restless, her shame gradually became an unconscious lie, for she had already come to terms with it, as you might come to terms with an unwelcome fact about yourself. She simply did not understand what had happened. Meanwhile the picture was making little progress, although the painter described it cautiously to her. In reality the frame of his canvas contained only the empty and unimportant lines of the figures, and a few fleeting attempts at choosing shades of colour. The old man was waiting for Esther to reconcile herself to his idea, and as his hope that she would verged on certainty he did not try to hurry matters along. For the time being, he made her sittings shorter, and talked a great deal of unimportant matters, deliberately ignoring the presence of the baby and Esther’s uneasiness. He seemed more confident and cheerful than ever.
And this time his confidence was well-founded. One morning it was bright and warm, the rectangle of the window framed a light,
translucent landscape—towers that were far away, yet the golden gleam on them made them look close; rooftops from which smoke rose in a leisurely fashion, curling up into the deep damask blue of the sky and losing itself there; white clouds very close, as if they were about to descend like downy fluttering birds into the darkly flowing sea of roofs. And the sun cast great handfuls of gold on everything, rays and dancing sparks, circles of light like little clinking coins, narrow strips of it like gleaming daggers, fluttering shapes without any real form that leapt nimbly over the floorboards as if they were bright little animals. This dappled, sparkling play of light had woken the baby from sleep as it tapped at his closed eyelids, until his eyes opened and he blinked and stared. He began moving restlessly on Esther’s lap as she reluctantly held him. However, he was not trying to get away from her, only grabbing awkwardly with his clumsy little hands at the sparkling light dancing and playing around them, although he could not seize them, and his failure only made him try harder. His fat little fingers tried to move faster and faster. The sunny light showed the warm flow of blood shining rosily through them, and this simple game made the child’s clumsy little body such a charming sight that it cast a spell even on Esther. Smiling with her superior knowledge at the baby’s vain attempts to catch and hold the light, she watched his endless game without tiring, quite forgetting her reluctance to hold the innocent, helpless infant. For the first time she felt that there was true human life in the smooth little body—all she had felt before was his naked flesh and the dull satisfaction of his senses—and with childish curiosity of her own she followed all his movements. The old man watched in silence. If he spoke he feared he might revive her truculence and the shame she had forgotten, but his kindly lips wore the satisfied smile of a man who knows the world and its creatures. He saw nothing startling in this change, he had expected and counted on it, confident of the deep laws of nature that never fail. Once again he felt very close to one of those miracles of life that are always renewing themselves, a miracle that can suddenly use children to call forth the devoted kindness of women, and they then give it back to the children, so the miracle passes from being to being and never loses its own childhood but lives a double life, in itself and in those it encounters. And was this not the divine miracle of Mary herself, a child who would never become a woman, but would live on in her child? Was that miracle not reflected in reality, and did not every moment of burgeoning life have about it an ineffable radiance and the sound of what can never be understood?
