Beware of Pity (32 page)
Authors: Stefan Zweig
But I had no choice. Even before I consciously understood the danger, my body had put up its own defences to her abrupt embrace. Our instincts are always wiser than our waking thoughts, and in that first second of horror when I tore myself away from the love she was forcing on me, I already felt a dark premonition of what was to come. I knew I would never have the saintly strength to love the crippled girl as she loved me, probably not even enough pity simply to
bear
her passion. It racked my nerves.
I already guessed, in that first reaction of flight, that there was no way out for me, no middle course that I could take. One or other of us must be made unhappy by this ridiculous love of hers, and perhaps it would be both.
How I got back to the town that evening I shall never be sure. All I know is that I walked very fast, and only one idea repeated itself with every heartbeat—get away, get away! Away from that house, from that dilemma, run for it, take flight, disappear! Never set foot in the villa again, never see those people again, never see anyone at all again! Hide, make myself invisible, refuse any more obligations, never get involved in anything again! I know I tried thinking plans out further—leave the army, get money somewhere or other, and then go out into the world, far, far away, so far that her crazy longing couldn’t reach me. But all that was a daydream rather than clear thought; one word kept hammering in my temples—away, away, get away!
Later, my dusty shoes and the rips torn in my trousers by thistles showed me that I must have run straight across country, through meadows and fields and across roads. At any rate, by the time I finally found myself back on the main road the sun was already sinking behind the rooftops. I started with surprise like a sleepwalker when someone unexpectedly clapped me on the shoulder from behind.
“Hello, Toni, so there you are! And high time too. We’ve been looking for you high and low, we were just about to telephone them up at that castle of yours.”
I saw that I was surrounded by four of my comrades, including Ferencz, Jozsi and Captain Count Steinhübel.
“But never mind that now! Guess what, Balinkay suddenly dropped in, back from Holland or America or God knows where. Anyway, he’s invited all the officers and gentlemen volunteers of the regiment to dinner this evening. The Colonel’s coming, and the Major, and it’ll be quite a spread—this evening at the Red Lion, eight-thirty. A good thing we found you—the Colonel wouldn’t have liked you to be missing. You know how highly he thinks of Balinkay! When he turns up we all have to stand to attention.”
“Who did you say has turned up?”
“Why, Balinkay, of course! Don’t look so blank! Surely you know about Balinkay?”
Balinkay? Balinkay? All my thoughts were still in wild confusion, and I had to search my mind like a lumber room for some recollection of the name. Ah yes, it was
that
Balinkay—the man who’d once been the black sheep of the regiment. Long before I was posted to this garrison he had served here as second lieutenant and then first lieutenant. He had the reputation of being the best horseman and the most congenial companion in the regiment, and also a confirmed gambler and ladykiller. But something embarrassing had happened, I’d never asked exactly what. Anyway, within twenty-four hours he’d resigned his commission and gone off to travel the world. All kinds of strange stories went around about him. In the end he’d retrieved his fortunes by marrying a rich Dutchwoman he’d met at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, a widow worth millions, owner of a shipping line with a fleet of seventeen vessels, as well as large plantations in Java and Borneo. Since then, though he was seldom seen, he’d been regarded as our regiment’s patron saint.
Colonel Bubencic must have helped this Balinkay out of some appalling fix back in the past, because Balinkay’s loyalty to him
and the regiment was nothing short of touching. Whenever he was in Austria he came over here especially to visit the garrison, and he would throw his money about so freely that it was the talk of the town for weeks. He seemed to feel a need to wear his old uniform just for an evening, be one of the lads with his comrades again. When he was sitting at the officers’ regular table, easy-going and relaxed, you felt that he was a hundred times more at home in that smoky, badly whitewashed room in the Red Lion that in his grand feudal palace on an Amsterdam canal; the men of the regiment were, and always would be, his children, his brothers, his real family. Every year he donated prizes for our steeplechase, two or three crates of liqueurs and champagne regularly arrived at Christmas, and every New Year the Colonel could count for certain on a generous cheque to be paid into the bank for the mess funds. Anyone in lancers’ uniform, with our facings on the collar, knew that if he was ever in trouble he could rely on Balinkay—a letter to him, and his problems would be over.
At any other time I would have been genuinely pleased to have the chance of meeting this legendary figure. But just now, in my present dismay, the thought of amusement, loud noise, toasts and speeches seemed to me the most unbearable thing on earth. So I tried to get out of it as quickly as possible, saying that I didn’t feel too well. But with a hearty “Nonsense! No excuses today!” Ferencz had taken my arm, and against my will I had to give way. I listened to him, my mind still elsewhere, as he led me on, telling me about the people Balinkay had already helped out of trouble, saying that he had found his, Ferencz’s, brother-in-law a job at once, and wondering aloud whether we might not make our fortunes faster by boarding a ship and going off to his properties in the East Indies. From time to time our
lanky, grizzled friend Jozsi added a sharper note to tone down Ferencz’s enthusiasm. Would the Colonel so happily welcome his blue-eyed boy back, he mocked, if Balinkay hadn’t hooked his nice fat Dutch trout? She was said to be twelve years his senior, and: “If you’re going to sell yourself,” laughed Count Steinhübel, “you should at least make sure the price is right.”
In retrospect, it seems to me strange now that, even bemused as I was, every word of that conversation stuck in my memory. But when your waking mind is numbed you can feel nervous irritation at the same time, and even when we entered the big room in the Red Lion, thanks to the hypnotic effect of military discipline I was reasonably well able to do the work assigned to me. And there was plenty of it. Our entire stock of streamers, banners and emblems, usually brought out only for the regimental ball, was found, a couple of orderlies hammered noisily and vigorously at the walls, next door Steinhübel was drilling the bugler on when and how to blow his call. Jozsi, who had the neatest handwriting, was told to write out the menu, in which all the dishes were given humorous names with double meanings, and I was to draw up the seating plan. Now and then an inn servant was already arranging chairs and tables neatly, the waiters brought in clinking batteries of bottles of wine and champagne that Balinkay had brought from Sacher’s in Vienna in his car. Curiously enough, all this activity did me good, because the noise drowned out the dull thudding in my temples and the questions in my mind.
Finally, at eight, all was ready. Now we just had to go back to barracks, tidy ourselves and change for dinner. My batman Kusma had been given his orders. My coat and patent-leather boots were ready. I quickly dipped my face in cold water and glanced at the time—ten minutes to go. Our colonel was a
stickler for punctuality. So I quickly got dressed, throwing my dusty shoes into a corner.
But just as I’m standing in front of the mirror in my underwear to comb my hair, there is a knock at the door. “Tell them I’m not available,” I order my batman. He scuttles obediently off, and there is a moment’s whispering outside my room. Then Kusma comes back, holding a letter.
A letter for me? Standing there in shirt and underpants, I take the rectangular blue envelope. It is thick and heavy, almost a small parcel, and at once I know I am holding fire in my hand. I don’t even have to look at the handwriting to see who is writing to me.
Later, later, a quick instinct tells me. Don’t read it, don’t read it now! But against my will I have already opened the envelope, and I am reading and reading the letter. It rustles more and more in my shaking hand.
It was a sixteen-page letter written fast in an agitated hand, a letter such as you write and receive only once in a lifetime, with sentences flowing inexorably on, like blood from an open wound, unparagraphed, without any punctuation to speak of, word overtaking, then outrunning, then tumbling over word. Even now, many years later, I see every line, every letter before me, even now I could recite the contents of that letter from beginning to end by heart at any hour of the day or night, I read it so often. Months and months after that day, I was still carrying the folded blue papers around in my pocket, taking them out again and again, at home, in the barracks, in dugouts and by campfires during the war, and only when the enemy
had attacked our division on both flanks and were retreating to Volhynia did I destroy it, fearing that this confession of one ecstatic moment might fall into the hands of strangers.
I have written to you six times already
, it began
and then I always tore the letter up, because I didn’t want to give myself away, not that. I held out as long as I could. I have struggled with myself for weeks and weeks, hiding my feelings from you. Every time you came to see us, so friendly, guessing nothing, I ordered my hands to keep still, my eyes to seem indifferent, so as not to trouble you, and I’ve often been harsh and haughty on purpose, however much my heart was yearning for you—I tried everything in a human being’s power, and even more. But then that happened today, and I swear it came over me against my will. It attacked behind my back. I can’t understand now how it could have happened—afterwards I would have liked to hit myself, chastise myself, I was so dreadfully ashamed. Because I know, I do know what a mad delusion it would be to force myself on you. A lame creature, a cripple has no right to love—how could I, crushed and afflicted as I am, be anything but a burden to you, when I even disgust myself, I hate myself? I know that someone like me has no right to love anyone, and certainly none at all to be loved. She ought to crawl away into a corner and die, not upset other people’s lives with her presence—yes, I do know that, I know it, and it is killing me to know it. I should never have dared to make advances to you, but who but you made me feel sure that I wouldn’t be the pitiful freak I am now for much longer? That I would be able to move and walk about like other people, like all the millions of people who don’t even know what a blessing every step they take by themselves is, what a wonderful thing. I firmly made up my mind to say nothing until it was all real, until I was a woman like any other and perhaps—perhaps!!!!—worthy of you, beloved. But my impatience, my longing to be well again was so mad that in that second when you bent over me I
actually believed, I honestly believed, I truly but foolishly believed I was that other girl, the new, healthy girl! I’d wanted it and dreamt of it for so long, and now you were close to me—and for a moment I forgot my horrible legs, I saw only you, I felt like the girl I would want to be for you. Can you understand that even in the middle of the day you can dream for a moment, if you always dream the same dream, day and night, year after year? Believe me, my dear one, only the nonsensical delusion that I was already free of my disability confused me, only that impatience not to be an outcast and a cripple any more let my heart carry me away so crazily. Please understand—I had been longing for you so very much and for such a long time.
But now you know what you ought never to have known until I was really better again, and you also know for whose sake I want to be cured, for just one person on earth—for you, only for you! Forgive me, my very dearly beloved, for this love, and I will ask you just one thing—don’t be afraid, do not feel horror of me! Don’t think that because I once made advances I will ever trouble you again, or that frail and repellent to myself as I am, I will try to cling to you. No, I swear it—you will never hear anything like that from me again, I won’t show you my feelings. I will just wait, wait patiently for God to take pity on me and make me better. So please, I beg you, don’t be afraid of my love, dearest, remember that you felt more pity for me than anyone else, think how terribly helpless I am, fixed to my chair, unable to take a step on my own, powerless to follow you or hurry to meet you. Remember, please remember, that I am a prisoner who must wait in her dungeon, wait patiently or impatiently until you come and give me an hour of your time, until you let me see you, hear your voice, feel that you are there in the same room—be aware of your presence, the first and only happiness that has been granted to me for years. Think of that, think how I lie and lie waiting day and night, and every hour stretches out to such length, I can hardly bear the strain. And then you come, and I can’t jump up like anyone else, I can’t
run to meet you, I can’t touch and hold you. I have to sit and tame my feelings, dam it all up and keep quiet, I have to guard every word I say, every glance, every note in my voice just so that you couldn’t think I am being bold enough to love you. But believe me, beloved, even that happy torture has always meant happiness to me, and I praised myself and liked myself better every time I managed to control myself and you went away, guessing nothing, free and easy in your mind, knowing nothing about my love. The pain was all mine—the pain of knowing how hopelessly in love with you I was.
But now it has happened. And now, my dear one, now that I can’t deny what I feel for you any more, now I do beg you don’t be cruel to me. Even the poorest, most pitiful creature has its pride, and I couldn’t bear it if you despised me because I couldn’t silence my heart. I am not asking you to return my love—no, by God who I hope will cure and save me, I would not dare to be so bold. Not even in dreams do I dare to hope that you could love me as I am today—you know I don’t want any sacrifice or any pity from you. I want nothing except for you to tolerate my waiting in silence until at last the time has come! I know that even that is a great deal to ask of you. But is it really too much to give another human being the small, pitiful happiness that you would willingly give to any dog—the happiness of being able to look up at its master with a silent gaze from time to time? Must the dog be rejected at once, whipped away with scorn? It is only this one thing, I do assure you, just this one thing that I couldn’t bear—if, pitiful as I am, I repelled you because I gave myself away. If you were to punish me even beyond the punishment of my own shame and despair, then there would be only one way for me to go—and you know what that is, because I showed you.
Don’t be afraid—that isn’t a threat! I don’t want to alarm you, extort pity from you instead of your love—pity, the one thing your heart has yet given me. I want you to feel entirely carefree—I do not, for God’s sake, want to unload my own burden on you, weigh you down with guilt when
you are guilty of nothing—I only want this one thing, for you to forgive what happened and forget it entirely, forget what I said, forget what I let slip. Please just give me that reassurance, that one poor little certainty! Tell me at once—a single word will do—that I am not repellent to you, that you will come and see us again as if nothing had happened. You cannot guess how dreadful I feel at the thought of losing you. Since the door closed behind you I have been tormented by the fear, I don’t know why but it is a mortal fear, that it was closing for the last time. You looked so pale at that moment, there was such fear in your eyes when I let go of you that I suddenly felt icy cold in the midst of my burning heat. And I know—Josef has told me—that you went straight out of the house. All of a sudden you were gone, with your sword and your cap. He looked for you in vain, in my boudoir and everywhere, so I know that you fled from me as if I were the plague or some other dreadful infection. But no, my dearest, I am not blaming you, I understand you entirely! I of all people, afraid of myself when I see those heavy things on my feet, I know how horrible, moody, tormenting, impossible I have become in my impatience. I of all people can understand why you would be afraid of me—oh, I can understand it only too well if people run from me, shudder to think of such a monster near them. And yet I beg you to forgive me, because there is no day or night without you, only despair. Just a note—send me a quick note, or a blank sheet of paper, a flower, any kind of sign! Just something to show me that you are not rejecting me entirely, I have not become a horror to you. Remember that I shall be gone in a few days’ time, gone for months—so in ten days’ time your troubles are over. And if mine then begin again a thousand times over, don’t think of that, think of yourself, just as I am always thinking of you. Another week and you are released—so come to see us just once more, and first send me a word, give me a sign! I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t feel until I know that you have forgiven me. I will not, cannot go on living if you refuse me the right to love you.