by Stefan Zweig
‘But afterwards ... when she is cured?’
He had turned to me abruptly. His eyes, but a moment ago frozen and dead, were phosphorescent in the dark.
I was horrified. Instinctively I was aware of the danger that threatened me. Were I to promise anything now, I should have committed myself. But at that moment I remembered that all her hopes were illusory. She would not be cured as quickly as all that. It might take years and years. Don’t think too far ahead, Condor had said; the thing to do is to pacify her, console her, for the moment. Why not leave her a shred of hope, why not make her happy, if only for a brief spell?
‘Why, when she is cured,’ I said, ‘then I shall of course ... come and ask you ...’
He stared at me. A tremor shook his body; it seemed to me that some inner force imperceptibly urged him on.
‘May I ... may I tell her that?’
Again I scented danger. But I no longer had the strength to withstand his supplicating look.
‘Yes, tell her that,’ I replied in a firm tone, and held out my hand.
His eyes sparkled, and filled with tears of gratitude. So must Lazarus have looked when he rose dazed from the grave and once more beheld the sky and the blessed light of day. I felt the hand that was in mine tremble more and more violently. Then the old man bowed his head, lower and yet lower. I remembered just in time how on a former occasion he had stooped down and kissed my hand. Hurriedly I withdrew it.
‘Yes,’ I repeated, ‘tell her that, please tell her that. Tell her not to worry. And above all — she must get well, soon, for herself, for all of us.’
‘Yes,’ he echoed ecstatically, ‘she must get well, get well soon. She’ll go away at once now, oh, I’m sure of that! She’ll go away at once and get well, well because of you, for you ... From the very first moment I knew that God had sent you to me ... No, no, I can’t thank you. May God reward you! I’m going now ... No, stay where you are, please don’t trouble. I’m going.’
And with quite a different gait from the one I knew, a light, springy step, he positively ran, his black coat-tails swinging behind him, to the door, which banged behind him with a clear, almost joyous sound. I stood alone in the dark room, slightly bewildered, as one always is when one has taken a decisive step without having made up one’s mind to it beforehand. But what it was that I had actually promised in my weakness and my pity became clear to me in all its implications an hour later, when my batman, knocking timidly on the door, brought me a letter, written on the familiar blue paper.
‘We’re leaving tomorrow. I have given Papa my word. Forgive me for the last few days, but I was distracted by the fear that I was a burden to you. Now I know for what and for whom I must get well. Now I no longer have any fear. Come tomorrow as early as you can. Never have I waited your coming with more impatience. Always, your E.’
‘Always.’ I shuddered as I read that word, which binds a person irrevocably and for all eternity. But there was no turning back now. Once more my pity had been stronger than my will. I had yielded myself up. I no longer belonged to myself.
Pull yourself together, I told myself. That is the very utmost that she can force from you, that half-promise that will never have to be fulfilled. One more day, two days, and they will go away, and you’ll belong to yourself again. But the nearer the afternoon approached, the more I fretted, the more tormenting became the thought of having to meet her tender, trusting gaze with a lie in my heart. It was in vain that I tried to chatter unconcernedly with my comrades — I felt a hammering at my temples, my nerves tingled, and there was a sudden dryness in my mouth as though a half-extinguished fire were smouldering and flickering up within me. On a sudden impulse I ordered a cognac and gulped it down. It was of no use, my throat was still parched. And so I ordered a second, and not until I had drunk a third did I become aware of my subconscious motive: I was drinking to inspire myself with courage so that when I reached Kekesfalva I should be neither cowardly nor sentimental. There was something in myself that I wanted to anaesthetize beforehand — perhaps fear, perhaps shame, perhaps some very good, perhaps some very evil, emotion. Yes, that was it, that was all it was — that was why soldiers were given a double ration of rum before going into battle; I wanted to deaden, to blunt my senses so as not to be too clearly aware of the equivocal, perhaps critical, situation I was going to face. But the first effect of those three glasses was merely that my feet felt as heavy as lead and that there was a humming and vibrating in my head like that made by a dentist’s drill before the last agonizing thrust. It was by no means a self-confident, clear-headed, still less joyful, young man who made his way hesitatingly, with pounding heart, along the interminable high-road — or was it merely that it seemed so to me today? — towards the dreaded Schloss.
Everything, however, went off far more easily than I had expected. Another, a better, kind of intoxication awaited me, a more sublime, a purer form of drunkenness than I had sought in the crude spirits. For vanity, too, inebriates; gratitude, too, intoxicates; tenderness, too, can blissfully confuse the senses. At the door good old Josef started back with an exclamation of delight. ‘Oh, the Herr Leutnant!’ Swallowing hard, he almost pirouetted from one foot to the other in his excitement and looked up furtively — I cannot express it otherwise — as one gazes up at the image of a saint in church. ‘Will the Herr Leutnant kindly step across to the salon. Fräulein Edith has been expecting the Herr Leutnant the whole afternoon,’ he whispered in the flustered tones of one ashamed of his emotion.
Why was the old retainer looking at me so ecstatically? I asked myself in amazement. Why was he so fond of me? Were people really made so kind and happy by seeing others display kindness and pity? If that were so, Condor was right; if that were so, anyone who made a single person happy had fulfilled the purpose of his existence; it was really worth while to devote oneself to others to the very limit of one’s strength, and even beyond. If that were so, every sacrifice was justified, and even a lie that made others happy was more important than truth itself. Of a sudden I felt my step grow firm, for a man who knows that he is bringing happiness with him has a new lightness in his tread.
At this moment Ilona came to meet me. She, too, was radiant. Her dark gaze seemed to embrace me with tender affection. Never yet had she pressed my hand so warmly, so cordially. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and her voice seemed to come through a warm summer shower. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done for the poor child! You’ve saved her, really saved her. But come quickly, I can’t tell you how eagerly she’s awaiting you.’
Meanwhile the other door moved softly. I had a feeling that someone was standing behind it, listening. The old man entered, and his eyes were no longer filled with the deathly horror of yesterday, but with a tender radiance. ‘How good that you’ve come! You’ll be astonished at the change in her. Never in all the years since her illness began have I seen her so gay, so happy. It’s a miracle, a real miracle. Dear God, what you have done for her, for us!’
He broke down as he said these words. He swallowed and sobbed, ashamed of his emotion, which gradually began to affect me too. For who could be unmoved by such gratitude? I don’t believe I have ever been a vain man, one who admires or over-estimates himself, and even today I have little faith either in my own goodness or my own strength. But the wild and frenzied gratitude of these two sent out a warm wave of confidence that carried me away irresistibly. Of a sudden all my fear, all my cowardice, was swept away as by a golden summer wind. Why should I not let myself be loved in all heedlessness, if it made others so happy? I grew positively eager to enter the room which the day before yesterday I had left in such despair.
And behold, there sat a girl in a chaise-longue whom I scarcely recognized, so gaily did she look up, such brightness emanated from her. She was wearing a dress of pale blue silk which made her look more girlish, more childish than ever. In her auburn hair gleamed white blossoms — were they myrtle? — and arranged round her chair were baskets of flowers, a gaily coloured hedge.
She must long since have known that I was in the house, and had doubtless heard the delighted greetings of the others and my approaching footsteps. But this time there was no sign as I entered the room of that restless, inquisitorial gaze which was usually directed at me out of half-closed, suspicious lids. She sat there graceful and upright; and now I completely forgot that the rug concealed a deformity, and that the deep chaise-longue was actually her prison. I could do nothing but marvel at this new girlish creature, who seemed more childish than ever in her joy, yet more womanly in her beauty. She noticed my faint astonishment and accepted it as a gift.
‘At last, at last!’ she said, the old note of carefree comradeship ringing out in her voice. ‘Come and sit over here by me. And don’t say anything. I have something important to say to you.’
I sat down, completely at my ease. For how could one be confused, how remain embarrassed, when she spoke in such clear, friendly tones?
‘Listen to me just for a moment. And don’t interrupt me, please.’ I could tell that this time she had weighed every word. ‘I know everything you have told my father. I know what you mean to do for me. And now, please believe me, believe me word for word when I promise you that I shall never — never, do you hear! — never ask why you have done this, whether it is merely for my father’s sake or really for me. Whether it is merely out of pity or ... no, don’t interrupt me, I don’t want to know, I refuse to know ... I will not go on worrying and tormenting myself and others. It’s enough to know that it is only because of you that I am alive again and can go on living ... that only since yesterday have I begun to live. If I am cured, I shall have only one person to thank — you, you alone.’
She hesitated for a moment and then went on: ‘And now listen to what I for my part am going to promise. I thought everything out last night. For the first time I weighed everything up as clearly as though I were quite well, and not in a fever of impatience as I used to when I was still uncertain. It’s wonderful — I’ve only just realized it — to think without being afraid — wonderful! For the first time I have an idea what it will be like to be a healthy, normal person, and it is you, you alone, whom I have to thank for that. I mean, therefore, to do whatever the doctors ask of me — everything, everything, so as to become a human being instead of the impossible creature I now am. I shall never give in, never stop trying now that I know what depends upon it. I shall strive with every fibre, every nerve of my body and every drop of my blood, and I can’t help thinking that when one wants a thing as desperately as I do, one can wrest it from God. All this I shall do for you — that is to say, so as to exact no sacrifice from you. But if things should not turn out well — please don’t interrupt me — or not as well as we hope, if I should not be as completely well, as able to get about as other people — then have no fear. In that case I shall go through with it all by myself. There are sacrifices, I know, that one cannot accept, least of all from the person one loves. If, therefore, this treatment, upon which I base all my hopes — all! — should be a failure, then you will never hear from me again, never see me again. In that case I shall never be a burden to you, I swear to you, for I shall no longer let myself be a burden to anyone, least of all to you. There — that’s all. And now not another word. There are only a few hours left to us of each other’s company, and I want them to be really happy.’
This was a different voice in which she spoke to me, an adult voice, as it were. These were different eyes that gazed at me, no longer the restless eyes of a child or the fevered, avid eyes of an invalid. This, I felt, was a different love with which she loved me, not the reckless, the greedy, the tortured love of the early days. And I, too, looked at her with different eyes. It was not pity for her misfortune that moved me now; I no longer had any need to be anxious, to be cautious, I could be friendly and frank. Without being really aware of it myself, I felt for the first time real tenderness towards this frail girl who was so radiant in the anticipation of happiness to come. Without knowing what I was doing, without any conscious intention on my part, I moved my chair nearer to her and seized her hand. She did not, as before, quiver sensuously to my touch. Still and compliant, the cool slender wrist yielded itself to my grasp, and it was with delight that I felt how placidly the little pulse was beating.
We talked without constraint of the journey and of little everyday things; we chatted about what had been going on in the town, in the barracks. I could no longer understand how it was that I had tortured myself when everything, after all, was so simple. You just sat together and held hands, there was no need for you to force yourselves or to hide your real feelings, you showed that you were fond of one another, you did not struggle against your tender feelings, you accepted the other’s love for you without shame and with sheer gratitude.
Then we went in to dinner. The silver candelabra gleamed in the candle-light, and the flowers rose up out of the vases like coloured flames. The light of the crystal chandelier was reflected from mirror to mirror, and around us, like an arching shell that holds in its depths a gleaming pearl, was the silent house. Sometimes I thought I could hear the trees breathing tranquilly outside and the wind playing, warm and voluptuous, over the lawns, for a sweet fragrance was wafted in through the open windows. Everything was lovelier and better than ever. The old man sat there like a priest, erect and solemn, and never had I seen Edith or Ilona so gay and so young, never had Josef’s shirt-front shone so white, never had the smooth skin of the fruit glowed so colourfully. And we sat and ate and drank and talked, revelling in our new-found harmony. Blithe as a twittering bird, the laughter flew from one to the other, the merriment ebbed and flowed in playful ripples. Not until Josef filled the glasses with champagne and I raised my glass to Edith to drink her health was there a sudden silence.
‘Yes, health — I must get well,’ she breathed, looking at me trustingly, as though my wish had power over life and death. ‘Well for you.’
‘God grant it!’ Her father had risen, unable to contain himself. His spectacles were misty with tears; he took them off and polished them slowly and deliberately. I could tell that he could scarcely keep his hands off me, and I for my part was ready to respond. I too felt impelled to show some sign of my gratitude, and I went up to him and embraced him. As he returned to his seat, I could feel Edith’s eyes upon me. Her lips trembled slightly; I realized how much her parted lips were yearning for the same fond touch. I quickly bent over her and kissed her on the mouth.
This was our betrothal. I had not kissed her upon conscious reflection, but upon a sudden impulse. It had happened without my knowledge or will. But I did not repent of the little gesture of sheer affection, for this time she did not wildly strain her heaving breast towards me, did not hold me fast in an ecstasy of happiness. Her lips accepted mine humbly as though receiving some precious gift. The others were silent. Then from the corner came a faint, shy noise. It sounded at first as though someone were clearing his throat in embarrassment, but when we looked up we saw that it was Josef, who was sobbing quietly in the corner. He had put down the champagne and turned away so that we should not notice this unseemly emotion on his part, but we all felt as though his clumsy tears were trickling warm from our own eyes. Suddenly I felt Edith’s hand on mine. ‘Give me your hand for a moment.’
I had no idea what she was going to do. Something cool and smooth was slipped on to my fourth finger — it was a ring. ‘Just to remind you of me when I am away,’ she said, by way of excuse. I did not look at the ring; I merely took her hand and kissed it.
On that evening I was God. I had created the world, and lo! it was full of goodness and justice. I had created a human being, her forehead gleamed like the morning and a rainbow of happiness was mirrored in her eyes. I had spread the table with riches and plenty, I had brought to maturity the fruit, the wine and the food. Piled up gloriously, these witnesses of my superabundance were offered up to me like sacrificial gifts, they came in glittering dishes and overflowing baskets; the wine sparkled, the fruit shimmere
d — sweet and delicious, they offered themselves to my mouth. I had brought light into this room and light into the heart of mankind. The chandelier, a glowing sun, was reflected in the glasses, the white damask tablecloth gleamed like snow, and I felt with pride that mankind loved the light that went forth from me, and I took its love and grew drunk on it. They offered me wine, and I drained my glass to the dregs. They offered me fruits and all manner of good things, and I rejoiced in their gifts. They offered me reverence and gratitude, and I accepted their homage as meat-offerings and drink-offerings.
On that evening I was God. But I did not look down coldly from an exalted throne upon my works and deeds. Kindly and mild, I sat there in the midst of my creatures, and perceived their countenances dimly as through the silvery mist of my clouds. On my left sat an old man; the great light of kindliness that emanated from me had smoothed out the wrinkles on his furrowed brow, chased away the shadows that darkened his eyes; I had removed death from him and he spoke in the voice of one resurrected, gratefully aware of the miracle that I had wrought in him. On my right sat a young girl, and she had been a cripple, chained and enslaved and ensnared beyond hope in her own chaotic misery. But now the light of returning health shed its rays upon her. With the breath of my lips I had raised her up out of the hell of her fears into the heaven of love, and her ring sparkled on my finger like the morning star. Opposite me sat another young girl. She too was smiling in gratitude, for it was I who had given her that beauty of countenance, set the dark fragrant forest of hair about her shimmering forehead. It was I who had bestowed upon them all that they had, and raised them up through the miracle of my presence. They all bore my light in their eyes; and when they looked at one another, I was the radiance in their gaze. When they talked together, I and I alone gave their speech meaning; and even when we were silent, I lingered in their thoughts. For I and I alone was the beginning, the focal point and the origin of their happiness; when they extolled one another, they were extolling me, and when they loved one another, they thought of me as the creator of all love. But I sat in their midst and beheld my works and saw that it was good to have dealt kindly with my creatures. And, in my generosity, with the wine I drank their love and with the food enjoyed their happiness.
