Authors: Stefan Zweig
“Well … then what?” She snapped that quite impatiently.
“Then … well, perhaps you’ll feel I’m being impertinent for saying this so honestly … then I persuade myself that you like to see me, I belong in your company, I feel a hundred times more at home here than anywhere else. Whenever I look at you like this, I have the feeling that …”
Something instinctively stopped me short. But she
immediately
said firmly, “Well, what is it about me?”
“I have the feeling that here is someone to whom I’m not so useless as I am to my comrades in the regiment … of course, I know I’m nothing much, sometimes I’m astonished that all of you here didn’t get tired of me long ago. Often … you don’t know how often I’ve been afraid that I’ve been boring you for ages. But then I always think of you yourself, sitting here in this huge, empty house, and how you could be glad of someone coming to see you. And—do you understand?—that always gives me courage … whenever I see you here on top of your tower, or in your room, I persuade myself it’s a good thing I came, so that you didn’t have to sit all day on your own. Can’t you understand that?”
Here something that I hadn’t expected happened. Her grey eyes glazed over. It was as if something in what I said had turned them to stone. Meanwhile, her fingers began to fidget restlessly, rising and falling on the arms of her chair, drumming first faintly and then harder on the wood. There was a slight, wry twist to her mouth. She suddenly said abruptly, “Oh yes, I understand. I entirely understand what you mean … I think … yes, I think that you really have told the truth now. You put it very, very politely and with a great deal of circumlocution. But I understood you perfectly. I understood exactly what you meant. You come, you say, because I’m so lonely—meaning in plain language that I’m stuck in this chair. That’s the only reason
why you come out here every day, to act the Good Samaritan to a poor sick child—I expect that’s how everyone speaks of me when I’m not within earshot. I know, I know. You come out of pity, yes, oh yes, I believe you—why bother to deny it? You’re what they call a good person, you like to hear my father say so. ‘Good people’ like you feel sorry for every beaten dog and mangy cat—why not feel sorry for a cripple too?”
And suddenly a convulsion ran through her cramped body.
“Well, thank you very much! I can do without the kind of friendship that’s only because I’m crippled … Oh, don’t look so upset! Of course you’re sorry the truth slipped out, you wish you hadn’t admitted that you come only because you’re so sorry for me, like that new maid the other day, only she meant it and said so straight out. But as a good person you put it much more tactfully, with more delicate feeling. You beat about the bush because I’m so lonely here all day long. It’s only out of pity, I’ve felt that for a long time, you only come here out of pity, and you’d like to be admired for your kind self-sacrifice—but I’m sorry, I don’t want anyone sacrificing himself for me! I can’t stand it, not from anyone, least of all you … I forbid you to pity me, do you hear, I forbid you! Do you think I really depend on having you sit here with your ‘sympathetic’ looks and your tactful conversation? No, thank God, I don’t need any of you … I can manage on my own, I can see this through for myself. And if one day I can’t, then I know how to be rid of you all … here!” She suddenly flung her hand out to me, palm upwards. “Do you see that scar? I’ve tried it once already, but I was clumsy, the scissors were blunt and didn’t cut the vein. So stupid—they came in time to bandage me up, or I’d be rid of you all and your despicable pity. I’ll do it properly next time, you can be sure of that. Don’t think I’m handed over to you
defenceless, because I’m not! I’d sooner die than have people pitying me. There!” And she suddenly laughed out loud, a sharp, edgy laugh, rough as a saw. “There, you see that’s something my dear father forgot when he had this tower converted for me … just so that I could have a nice view, he thought. Sunlight, plenty of sunlight and fresh air, that’s what the doctor ordered. But this terrace will come in very useful some day, that didn’t occur to any of them, not my father, not the doctor or the architect … look down there!” She had suddenly braced herself and, with an abrupt jerk, forced her swaying body towards the balustrade, clutching it grimly with both hands. “It’s four or five storeys down from up here, and hard stone when you reach the bottom … that will do. And thank God I have enough strength in my muscles to haul myself over this balustrade. Walking with crutches develops your arm muscles. One good effort and I’ll be rid of your wretched pity once and for all, and you’ll all be glad, my father and Ilona and you, because I’m a nightmare weighing you all down. It’s quite easy, you see … I just have to lean over a little way and then …”
I had jumped up in great alarm when she leant dangerously far over the balustrade, her eyes flashing, and I quickly took her arm. But as if fire had touched her skin, she flinched, screaming at me.
“Go away! How dare you touch me … go away! I have a right to do what I want! Get away! Let go of me at once!”
And when I did not obey, but tried to force her away from the balustrade, she suddenly swung her upper body round and hit me hard in the chest. As she struck me, she lost her hold and with it her balance. Her knees gave way entirely, as if a scythe had cut through them, and she collapsed. She instinctively tried to grab hold of the table as she fell, and brought
the whole thing down. As I tried to catch her at the last minute in her ungainly fall, I heard the vase clinking as it broke, cups and plates smashed, spoons rattled to the ground and so, with a clang, the big bronze bell. It rolled along the terrace with its clapper still striking.
Meanwhile the crippled girl lay where she had fallen in a miserable little heap on the ground, helpless, shaking convulsively in her anger and sobbing with bitterness and shame. I tried to raise her light body, but she resisted, and shouted at me, “Go away … away … away, you horrible, beastly man!”
And so saying she flung out her arms, trying again and again to get up without my help. Whenever I came close, hoping to assist her, her body distorted in resistance, and she shouted, in her wild, defenceless rage, “Go away … don’t touch me … get out of here!” I had never known anything so appalling.
At that moment there was a faint humming sound behind us. It was the lift coming up. Evidently the clang of the falling bell had alerted the manservant who always waited ready down below. He hurried up in alarm, discreetly casting his eyes down at once, easily raised her twitching body without looking at me—he must be used to helping her up—and carried the sobbing girl over to the lift shaft. Next moment the lift was on its quiet way down again. I was left alone with the toppled table, the smashed teacups, everything scattered in confusion as if a bolt of lightning had struck out of a clear blue sky, wrecking everything around with its force.
I don’t know how long I stood like that on the terrace, surrounded by broken plates and teacups, utterly baffled by Edith’s
elemental outburst. I had no idea what to make of it. What had I said that was so foolish? How had I aroused her inexplicable fury? But behind my back I heard the familiar sound, like a steady breeze blowing, of the lift on its way back up. Once again the manservant Josef appeared, with a curious look of grief on his always well-shaven face. I thought he had simply come to clear up, and felt awkwardly that I was in his way standing there beside the wreck of the tea table. However, he came a little closer to me, eyes still cast down, picking up a napkin from the ground at the same time.
“Forgive me, Lieutenant Hofmiller,” he said in his discreetly lowered voice—he was an Austrian servant of the old school, and always spoke as if he were bowing at the same time. “May I mop you up a little, sir?”
Only now, following his busy fingers, did I see that my uniform tunic and Pejacsevich trousers were very wet. As I bent down to try to help Edith when she collapsed, a teacup swept off the table must have emptied its contents over me, for the servant was carefully rubbing around the wet places with the napkin. As he knelt to attend to me, I looked down on his grey hair with its neat parting. I couldn’t throw off the suspicion that the old man was kneeling down like that so that I would not see how upset he was.
“No, it’s no good,” he said apologetically at last, without looking up. “It will be best if I send the chauffeur to the barracks to fetch you a change of clothes, sir. You can’t go back like that, Lieutenant. But depend on it, sir, it will all be dry in an hour’s time, and I’ll iron your trousers nicely.”
He spoke almost with the matter-of-fact expertise of a valet. But a sympathetic and rather distressed note in his voice gave him away. And when I said that would not be necessary, and could he telephone for a cab instead, because I wanted to go straight
back anyway, he unexpectedly cleared his throat and raised his kindly, rather tired eyes pleadingly.
“Please, Lieutenant Hofmiller, sir, won’t you stay a little longer? It would be terrible if you were to leave now, sir. I know Fräulein Edith would be dreadfully upset if you didn’t wait for a little while, Lieutenant Hofmiller, sir. Fräulein Ilona is with her now and … and has put her to bed. But Fräulein Ilona asked me to say that she will be with you very soon. Please, sir, won’t you wait for her?”
Against my will, I was shaken. How they all loved the invalid! Every one of them treated her tenderly and made excuses for her! I felt an irresistible urge to say something kind to this good old man who, dismayed by his own venturing to plead with me, was very busy putting my tunic to rights again, and I clapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“Never mind that, Josef, it will be none the worse, it’s sure to dry off quickly in the sun. I should hope your tea here isn’t strong enough to leave a lasting stain. So never mind fussing over me, Josef, pick the tea things up instead, and I’ll wait for Fräulein Ilona.”
“Oh, how good of you to wait, sir!” He breathed a sigh of relief. “And Herr von Kekesfalva will soon be back, I know he will be glad to see you, sir. He specially asked me to say …”
But here I heard light footsteps coming up the stairs. It was Ilona. She too, like Josef a moment ago, kept her eyes cast down as she came towards me.
“Edith asks if you would come down to her bedroom for a moment. Just for a moment! She says I’m to tell you that she would be very glad of that.”
We went down the spiral staircase together, saying not a word when we reached the house, crossed the reception room and
the room next to it, and came to the long corridor obviously leading to the bedrooms. Sometimes our shoulders touched by chance in this narrow, dark passage, and that may also have been because I felt so agitated and uneasy as I walked along. Ilona stopped at the second door leading off the corridor and whispered earnestly to me.
“You must be kind to her now. I don’t know what happened up on the terrace, but I do know those sudden outbursts of hers. We all do. You mustn’t take offence, though, really you mustn’t. None of us here can imagine what it must be like, lying around helpless from morning to evening. She’s bound to feel the nervous tension building up, and then it will break out sometime whether she wants or not, whether or not she even knows what she’s doing. Only believe me, no one feels worse about it afterwards than Edith herself. We have to be twice as kind to her, just because she is so ashamed afterwards and torments herself.”
I didn’t reply, and there was no need. Ilona must have noticed how shaken I was anyway. Now she knocked cautiously at the door, and as soon as an answer came from the other side of it, a shy, soft “Come in”, she warned me quickly, “Don’t stay too long. Just for a moment.”
The door opened without a sound, and I went in. At first glance all I could see in the large room, its windows darkened on the garden side by orange curtains drawn over them, was a reddish twilight. Only then could I make out the rectangular shape of a bed in the background. Diffidently, Edith’s familiar voice spoke.
“Please sit down on the stool. I won’t keep you more than a moment.”
I went closer. Her small face was pale on the pillows under the shadow of her hair. A brightly coloured bedspread with a pattern of embroidered flowers came almost up to her slender,
childish throat. With a certain timidity, Edith waited for me to sit down. Only then did she raise her shy voice again.
“Forgive me for asking you to visit me in here, but I felt quite dizzy … I ought not to have sat out in the strong sunlight so long, it always confuses my mind. I really think I wasn’t quite in my senses when I … but … but you’ll forget all about it, won’t you? You won’t bear me a grudge for losing my temper so stupidly?”
There was so much anxious pleading in her voice that I was quick to interrupt her. “Why, what are you thinking of? … It was all my fault … I ought not to have kept you sitting out in all that heat.”
“So you really, really won’t … won’t think too badly of me? Really not?”
“Of course not—not a bit.”
“And you’ll come to see us again … the same as ever?”
“Exactly the same. But on one condition, though.”
She looked uneasy. “What condition?”
“That you’ll trust me a little more, and not keep wondering whether you’ve hurt my feelings or injured me in some way! Who thinks of such nonsense among friends? If only you knew how different you look when you let yourself feel really happy, and how happy that makes all of us—your father, and Ilona, and me and everyone in the house! I wish you could have seen yourself on our outing the day before yesterday, when you were so cheerful, and the rest of us with you—I was thinking about that all evening.”
“You were thinking of me all evening?” She looked at me a little uncertainly. “Really?”
“All evening. Oh, what a day that was! I’ll never forget it. Wonderful, the whole drive, wonderful!”
“Yes,” she repeated dreamily. “It was wonderful … won-derful … first driving through the fields, then the little foals, and the party in the village … all of it wonderful from beginning to end! Oh, I ought to go out like that more often! Perhaps it was really just all that stupid sitting at home, that silly habit of shutting myself away that got on my nerves so much. But you’re right, I’m always too distrustful … or rather I have been since the accident. Before that, oh, my God, I can’t remember ever feeling afraid of anyone … it’s only since I’ve been so terribly unsure of myself … I always think that everyone’s looking at my crutches and pitying me. I know how silly that is, silly childish pride, and it can make me horrible to myself … I know there’s bound to be an effect, it will wear my nerves down. But how can I
not
be distrustful when it goes on for ever and ever? Oh, if only it could all be over at last, and then I wouldn’t be so cross, so bad-tempered and angry!”