Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

  At Brünn, the next station, I jumped out of the train and rushed to the telegraph office on the platform. But whatever was the matter? Outside the door was a surging throng, a black, clustering, excited mass of people, all reading a notice. I had to elbow my way roughly through to the little glass door in the post-office. Quickly, quickly, a telegraph form. What should I say? The great thing was to be brief. ‘Edith von Kekesfalva, Kekesfalva. Thousand greetings and best wishes. Called away on duty. Back soon. Condor explaining everything. Writing on arrival. Your devoted Anton.’

  I handed in the telegram. How slow the postmistress was, what a lot of questions she asked: name and address of sender, one formality after another! And my train was leaving in two minutes. Again I had to employ a good deal of force in order to push my way through the curious mob which was standing round the notice and had in the meantime swelled considerably. Whatever was the matter? I was just about to ask, when the whistle blew shrilly, and I just had time to leap into the carriage. Thank God, I had settled that, she could not be suspicious now, could not be uneasy! I was just beginning to realize how exhausted I was after those two nerve-wracking days, those two sleepless nights. And when, that evening, I arrived in Czaslau, I had to rally all my strength in order to stagger up to my hotel bedroom on the first floor, where I plunged into sleep as into an abyss.

  I think I must have fallen asleep the moment my head touched the pillow — it was like sinking with numbed senses into a dark, deep flood, deep, deep down into depths of dissolution never otherwise reached. Only much later did I find myself dreaming a dream, of which I no longer remember the beginning. All that I can remember is that I was once more standing in a room, I think it was Condor’s waiting-room, and suddenly I could hear that dread wooden sound that for days had been hammering at my temples, the rhythmic sound of crutches, that terrible tap-tap, tap-tap. At first I could hear it in the distance as though it were coming from the street, then it came nearer — tap-tap, tap-tap — and then quite near, loud and insistent — tap-tap, tap-tap — and finally so horribly close to the door of my room that I started up out of my dream and awoke.

  Wide-eyed, I stared into the darkness of the strange room. But there it was again: tap-tap — the vigorous rapping of knuckles on hard wood. No, I was not dreaming now, someone really was knocking on my door. I jumped out of bed and hastily opened the door. The night porter was standing there.

  ‘The Herr Leutnant is wanted on the telephone.’

  I stared at him. I? Wanted on the telephone? Where ... where was I, then? A strange room, a strange room ... ah yes ... I was in ... Czaslau. But I didn’t know a single soul here, so who could be ringing me up in the middle of the night? Absurd! It must be midnight at least. But ‘Please hurry, Herr Leutnant,’ insisted the porter. ‘It’s a trunk call from Vienna. I couldn’t quite catch the name.’

  In an instant I was wide awake. It could only be Condor. He must have some news for me.

  ‘Go down quickly,’ I barked at the porter. ‘Tell them I’m coming in a moment.’

  The porter disappeared, and throwing my great-coat as quickly as possible over my night-shirt, I hurried after him. The telephone was in a corner of the office on the ground floor; the porter was holding the receiver to his ear. I thrust him aside impatiently, although he was saying, ‘They’ve been cut off,’ and listened.

  But I could hear nothing ... nothing. Nothing but a distant buzzing and humming ... bzz ... bzz ... brrr, a metallic droning as of mosquitoes’ wings. ‘Hallo, hallo!’ I shouted, and waited, waited. No reply. Nothing but that contemptuous, meaningless buzz. Was I shivering because I had nothing on over my shirt but my great-coat, or was it sudden fear that was making my teeth chatter? Perhaps there had been a crisis. Or perhaps ... I waited, I listened, the hot rubber ring pressed close up against my ear. At last — krrx, krrx — the line was changed, and I could hear the voice of the operator:

  ‘Did you get your call?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were through a moment ago. A call from Vienna! Just a moment, please.’

  Again that krrx, krrx. Then the line was changed again, and there was a squeaking, a clicking, a clucking, a gurgling, followed by a roaring and a whistling, which gradually died away into the faint humming and singing of the wires. Suddenly a voice, a harsh raucous bass:

  ‘Headquarters, Prague, speaking. Is that the War Ministry?’

  ‘No,’ I shouted in desperation. The voice rumbled on somewhat indistinctly and then faded out, was lost in the void. Once more that stupid singing and murmuring, and then once again a confused buzz of distant voices. Then I could hear the operator.

  ‘Excuse me, I have been making inquiries. The line has been cleared. An urgent official call. I’ll give you a ring the moment the subscriber calls again. Hang up your receiver, please.’

  I hung up the receiver, exhausted, disappointed, infuriated. There is nothing more exasperating than to have succeeded in capturing a voice from a distance and to be unable to hold it. My heart was pounding in my chest as though I had climbed up a mountain too quickly. Who could it have been? It could only have been Condor. But why was he telephoning me at half-past twelve at night?

  The porter came up to me politely. ‘The Herr Leutnant can perfectly well wait in his room. I’ll rush up the moment the call comes through.’

  But I refused his offer. I mustn’t miss the call a second time. I wasn’t going to lose a single minute. I must know what had happened, for something — I could feel — had happened many kilometres away. It could only have been Condor or the Kekesfalvas. He was the only one who could have given them the address of my hotel. In any case it must have been something important, something urgent, or I should not have been fetched out of my bed at midnight. My tingling nerves told me that I was wanted, that I was needed. Someone wanted something of me. Someone had something extremely important to tell me, something that was a matter of life and death. No, I could not go away, I must remain at my post. I did not want to miss a minute.

  And so I sat down on the hard wooden chair which the somewhat surprised porter brought for me, and waited, my bare legs hidden under my great-coat, my gaze riveted on the instrument. I waited for a quarter of an hour, half an hour, shivering with anxiety and, I expect, with cold, again and again wiping away with my shirtsleeve the sweat that kept breaking out on my forehead. At last — rrr — a ring. I rushed to the instrument, snatched off the receiver. Now, now I should hear everything.

  But I had made a stupid mistake, to which the porter immediately drew my attention. It was not the telephone that had rung, but the hotel bell, and a pair of late arrivals was admitted. A captain came bustling through the door with a girl, and they threw an astonished look in passing at the strange individual in the porter’s lodge who, bare-necked and barelegged, stared at them from out of an officer’s great-coat.

  And now I could bear it no longer. I turned the handle and asked the operator, ‘Hasn’t my call come through yet?’

  ‘Which call?’

  ‘From Vienna ... I think from Vienna ... over half an hour ago.’

  ‘I’ll make inquiries. Just a moment.’

  That moment lasted an eternity. At last a ring. But the operator merely said reassuringly:

  ‘I’m still making inquiries. Just a moment. I’ll ring you again shortly.’

  Wait! Wait another few minutes? Minutes? Minutes? In the space of a second a human being can die, a fate be decided, a world collapse! Why were they making me wait, wait such a criminally long time? This was martyrdom, madness! It was already half-past one by the clock. I had been sitting about here, shuddering and shivering and waiting, for an hour.

  At last, at last, another ring. I strained all my senses to listen, but the operator only said:

  ‘The call has been cancelled.’

  Cancelled? What did that mean? Cancelled? ‘One moment, Fräulein.’ But she had already rung off.

  Cancelled? Why cancelled? Why did they ring me up at hal
f-past twelve at night and then cancel the call? Something must have happened of which I knew nothing and which I yet must know. How awful, how horrible, not to be able to penetrate time and distance! Should I ring Condor up myself? No, not now in the middle of the night. His wife would be frightened. Probably it was too late for him, and he had decided to ring up first thing in the morning.

  Oh that night, I cannot describe it! Wild thoughts, confused images, chasing madly through my brain, and I myself dead-tired and yet wakeful, waiting and waiting with every nerve in my body, listening to every step on the stairs and in the corridor, to every ring and clatter in the street, to every movement and every sound, and at the same time reeling with weariness, washed out, worn out, and then, at last, sleep, far too deep, too long a sleep, timeless as death, abysmal as nothingness.

  When I awoke, it was daylight. A glance at my watch: half-past ten. My God, and I had been ordered by the Colonel to report immediately! Once again, before I had time to think of anything personal, the military part of my brain began to function automatically. I struggled into my uniform and rushed down the stairs. The porter tried to waylay me. No — everything else must wait till later. First I must report, as I had promised the Colonel on my word of honour.

  My officer’s sash properly adjusted, I entered the regimental offices. But there was no one there but a little red-haired noncommissioned officer, who stared up at me in dismay when he saw me.

  ‘Please go down at once, Herr Leutnant. The Lieutenant-Colonel has given express orders that all the officers and men of the garrison must parade at eleven sharp. Please go down quickly.’

  I raced down the stairs. There they all were, the whole garrison, drawn up in the courtyard. I just had time to take my place next to the chaplain before the Divisional General appeared. He walked at a curiously slow and solemn pace, unfolded a document, and read out in a ringing voice:

  ‘A terrible crime has been committed which has filled Austria-Hungary and the whole civilized world with horror.’ — What crime? I thought in alarm. Involuntarily I began to tremble, as though I myself were the criminal — ‘The most perfidious murder ...’ — What murder? — ‘of the beloved Heir to the Throne, His Imperial Highness Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess’ — What? The heir to the throne had been murdered? When? Ah, of course — that was why there had been such a crowd round that notice in Brünn — that was it! — ‘has plunged our Imperial house into deep sorrow and mourning. But it is, above all, the Imperial Army which ...’

  I could scarcely hear the rest. I do not know why, but the word ‘crime’ and the word ‘murder’ had been like a stab at my heart. I could not have been more horrified had I myself been the murderer. A crime, a murder — those were the words Condor had used. All of a sudden I could no longer take in what this General in blue uniform with plumes and rows of decorations was babbling and shouting at us. All of a sudden I remembered last night’s telephone call. Why had Condor not got in touch with me this morning? Had something happened, after all? Without reporting to the Lieutenant-Colonel, I took advantage of the general confusion after the General’s address to slip back quietly to the hotel. Perhaps a call had come for me in the meantime.

  The porter handed me a telegram. It had arrived early that morning, but I had rushed past him in such a hurry that he had been unable to give it to me. I tore it open. At first I could make nothing of it. No signature! A completely incomprehensible message! Then I understood: it was merely a communication from the post-office to the effect that it had been impossible to deliver the telegram that I had handed in at 3.58 p.m. in Brünn the day before.

  Impossible to deliver it? I stared at the words. Impossible to deliver a telegram to Edith von Kekesfalva? But everyone knew her in the little place. Now I could no longer bear the tension. I got a call put through to Dr Condor. ‘Urgent?’ asked the porter. ‘Yes, urgent.’

  The call came through in twenty minutes and — melancholy miracle! — Condor was at home and himself answered the ’phone. In three minutes I heard everything — a trunk call doesn’t give one time to mince matters. A devilish freak of fate had frustrated all my plans, and the unfortunate girl had not learned of my remorse, my sincere and honest resolve. All the steps taken by the Colonel to hush the matter up had proved in vain, for Ferencz and the others, instead of going straight home from the café, had gone on to the little bar, where, unfortunately, they had met the apothecary among a crowd of people, and Ferencz, the good-natured bungler, had, out of sheer affection for me, let fly at him. In the presence of everyone he had taken him thoroughly to task and accused him of having spread abominable lies about me. There had been a frightful scene, and the next day it had been all over the town, for the apothecary, feeling his honour called in question, had rushed straight off to the barracks next morning to compel me to bear him out in his story, and on being greeted with the highly suspicious news that I had disappeared, he had driven out to the Kekesfalvas’. Arrived there, he had burst in upon the old man in his office and stormed at him until the window-panes rattled, saying that Kekesfalva had made a fool of him with his idiotic telephone message, and that he, as a respectable citizen, was not going to put up with insults from those impudent young cubs of officers. He knew why I had decamped in such a cowardly way; they couldn’t humbug him into believing that it had merely been a joke; there was some thorough-going knavery on my part at the bottom of it all. Even if he had to go to the Ministry of War he would get the matter cleared up; he wasn’t going to let himself be abused by a lot of snivelling youngsters in a public place.

  It had only with difficulty been possible to calm him down and get him out of the house. In the midst of his consternation Kekesfalva had hoped for only one thing — that Edith should not hear a word of these wild surmises. But, as Fate would have it, the windows of the office had been open, and the apothecary’s words had rung out with terrible distinctness across the courtyard and penetrated to the window of the salon, where she was sitting. She had no doubt decided to put her long-planned resolve into immediate effect, but she knew how to act a part; she had had her new clothes shown to her once more, she had laughed and joked with Ilona, had behaved charmingly to her father, had asked about a hundred and one details, and had inquired if everything was packed and ready. Secretly she had instructed Josef to ring up the barracks to inquire when I was coming back and whether I had not left a message. The fact that the orderly faithfully reported that I had been indefinitely transferred and had left no message for anyone had turned the scales. In her impetuosity she had refused to wait a day, an hour longer. I had disappointed her too profoundly, struck her too mortal a blow, for her to place any more faith in me, and my weakness had endowed her with fatal strength.

  After lunch she had had herself taken up to the terrace. Inspired by some dim foreboding, Ilona had felt disquieted by her unexpected cheerfulness, and had not stirred from her side. At half-past four — at the time when I usually turned up, and exactly a quarter of an hour before my telegram and Condor arrived — Edith had asked her faithful companion to fetch her a certain book, and, as Fate would have it, Ilona had complied with this seemingly innocent request. And the impatient girl, unable to tame her wild heart, had taken advantage of that one brief moment to put into effect her terrible resolve — just as she had told me she would on that very terrace, just as I had seen her put it into effect in my agonized dreams.

  Condor had found her still alive. In some incomprehensible way her frail body had borne no external signs of serious injury, and she had been taken away unconscious in an ambulance to Vienna. Until late at night the doctors had hoped to be able to save her, and at eight o’clock, therefore, Condor had put through an urgent call to me from the sanatorium. But on that night of the 29th of June, the day on which the Archduke was murdered, all State departments were in a state of uproar, and the telephone lines were all engaged without interruption by the civil and military authorities. For four hours Condor had waited i
n vain to get through. Only when, just after midnight, the doctors had decided that there was no more hope, had he cancelled the call. Half an hour later she was dead.

  Of the hundreds of thousands of men called to the war in those August days, few, I am certain, went off so nonchalantly, if not impatiently, to the front as I. Not that I was particularly warminded. For me it was merely a way out, a means of escape. I fled into the war as a criminal flees into the darkness. The four weeks before war was declared I spent in a state of self-loathing, bewilderment and despair which I remember today with even more horror than the most ghastly moments at the front. For I was convinced that through my weakness, my pity, that pity which alternately advanced and receded, I had murdered a human being, the only human being who loved me passionately. I no longer ventured to go out into the streets; I reported sick, I hid away in my room. I wrote to Kekesfalva to express my sympathy (alas, it was really an acknowledgment of my guilt!); he did not reply. I overwhelmed Condor with explanations in self-justification; he did not reply. No word came from my fellow-officers, nor from my father — probably because he was overburdened with work in his department during those critical weeks. I, however, saw in this unanimous silence universal condemnation. I became more and more a prey to the delusion that they had all condemned me, as I had condemned myself, that they all regarded me as a murderer, for that was how I regarded myself. While the whole Empire was quivering with excitement, while all over a distracted Europe the wires vibrated, were white-hot, with news of disaster, while markets tottered, armies mobilized and the prudent were already packing their trunks, I could think of nothing but my cowardly treachery, my guilt. To be called away from myself, therefore, meant release for me; the war that drew into its vortex millions of innocent people saved me, guilt-oppressed, from despair (not that I glorify war on that account).