Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (11 page)

Added to all the aforementioned reasons and personal preferences that deterred Zweig from entering into any long-term relationships with women was the fact that his work remained the most important thing in his life. Focusing intently on his work was not only a means of escaping reality, but also part of the continuing attempt to consolidate his own talent and establish himself fully as a writer. With such an attitude, any protracted involvements would have been far too time-consuming—a view that still dominated the way Zweig saw his life years later, when he was about to embark on a steady relationship with a woman.

In his new apartment he now began to do physical exercises every morning, something that would have been unthinkable before. As soon as the weather permitted, he went outside to work, and even took riding lessons. In the gardens of Schönbrunn, in the Prater or on the Kahlenberg he would work away on his own books or on translations from the French. He had found pacing up and down to be particularly conducive when working on new texts. By his own admission he was now discovering the great outdoors for the first time, having seen hardly anything of the countryside outside Vienna during his first twenty years.

He now added a further touch of refinement to his lifestyle with a new letterhead featuring the signet designed by Lilien. Printed on fine-quality writing paper, it was to be one element in a
Gesamtkunstwerk
in which the poetic writings of the author obviously took pride of place, but which also had to meet the highest standards in design, finish and materials. He also had a bookplate designed by Lilien for the many volumes that made up his library, but only a few of these were ever pasted into his books. The walls of his apartment were hung with photographs that Zweig had acquired or requested from friends and acquaintances, including portraits of Rodin, Verhaeren, Constantin Meunier, Wilhelm von Scholz, Hugo Salus, van der Stappen, Börries von Münchhausen, Franz Evers and Karl Klammer. And strategically placed so that every visitor could see them were William Blake’s
King John,
Goethe’s
Im May
and also—“I am beside myself with joy!”
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—a drawing by Goethe, all neatly framed under glass.

Alongside the volume
Rimbaud: Leben und Dichtung
with translations by Karl Klammer and an introduction by Zweig, Insel Verlag now published his
Tersites
. The publication of the play at least took him one step closer to a stage performance, and critical reaction to the book, while not effusive, was very appreciative. The big surprise was a letter from Ludwig Barnay, who had been sent a copy of the play as Director of the Berlin Schauspielhaus. Not only did he offer to premiere the work at his theatre, but he had also lined up Adalbert Matkowsky, one of the most celebrated actors of the age, to play the part of Achilles. Having accepted with delight, Zweig now set about the time-consuming task of reworking the play to accommodate the substantial cuts and changes suggested by Barnay. While Zweig was working on the stage version the Berlin theatre was hit by a series of internal disputes, the effect of which was to push back the date for the first performance, to his annoyance, from March 1908 to April, and then to May.

Despite these delays Zweig was keen to promote his new work, and at the beginning of May, hoping that the premiere was now finally imminent, he sent a telegram to his publishers: “Please send thirty copies tersites to big newspapers excl. Berlin papers. If review copies all gone please charge extra copies my account. Best wishes—Stefan Zweig.”
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It was then that he learnt, not from the theatre but from the newspaper, that Matkowsky could not take on one of the major roles as planned because he had fallen seriously ill. Furious and disappointed, he promptly telegraphed the theatre to withdraw the play, and he had not calmed down when he wrote a letter to Barnay immediately afterwards, with many words underlined two or three times for emphasis. To
his horror Zweig learnt a little later that Matkowsky really had been seriously ill (initially he had thought this just a pretext for dropping the play), and had died shortly afterwards. His only consolation was that the theatres in Kassel and Dresden now agreed to collaborate in staging first performances of the play. His constantly recurring doubts about the work and his choice of subject had been further allayed by a recommendation from his countryman Josef Kainz, who suggested the play for the Burgtheater in Vienna and, as an actor himself, wanted to play not the heroic part of Achilles, but the unfortunate Thersites himself, on whose character Zweig’s play hinges.

A new discovery brought him rather more pleasure than his preoccupation with this seemingly ill-fated drama. Returning from a visit to France, a buoyant Zweig told his brother—whose interest in literature was really only very marginal—of his plans. After intensive reading he had decided to make a detailed study of the works and life of Honoré de Balzac. Perhaps he would write a biography of the French writer, he announced—there was certainly plenty of material available. From now he found Balzac an inexhaustible subject for his pen. It is hard to think of another writer who held such a deep and lasting fascination for him as the great French novelist, who had died in 1850, and a new edition of whose works Hofmannsthal was now preparing for publication by Insel.

He had found an important kindred spirit in this enterprise in none other than Auguste Rodin, whom he had met several times in France. Commissioned by the Société des Gens de Lettres in 1891, Rodin had worked for seven years on a large-scale statue of Balzac. By way of preparation he had read numerous books, and also talked to contemporaries who had known the writer personally. He even had a replica of Balzac’s housecoat made up, so that he could drape it over his models and see how the effect compared with well-known portrait drawings. Despite the huge amount of work done by Rodin, the commissioning committee rejected the finished statue, on the grounds that it did not conform to their expectations. At the beginning of the new century Rodin had then attempted on various occasions to educate the public—including the public in Germany—about the creative process by exhibiting finished works of art alongside the studies that had preceded them. Needless to say, Zweig was greatly excited to learn that Rodin’s ideas were very much in line with his own concept of the artist’s work and the manner of its presentation. At one of their meetings Rodin talked about making a bust of Zweig, for which some initial sketches were allegedly made, although no trace of them
has ever been found. Richard Friedenthal later reported that Zweig had more than once lamented the fact that the bust had never been made.

He himself commemorated Rodin in a poem entitled
Der Bildner
[
The Sculptor
], which recalls a particular incident in his studio.
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He later described the scene in more detail in
Die Welt von Gestern
. On one of his visits to Meudon Rodin had gone across to his studio with him after they had lunched together in his apartment. The studio was filled with countless studies as well as replicas of works that had already been delivered.

Finally the maestro led me to a pedestal on which his latest work, the portrait of a woman, was concealed under damp cloths. With his big, deeply lined peasant hands he removed the cloths and stepped back. My heart jumped and I blurted out an “Admirable!”, regretting the trite remark as soon as I had said it. Whereupon, studying his own work with calm objectivity in which not a trace of vanity was to be found, he simply murmured in assent: “
N’est-ce pas
?” Then he paused. “Except there on the shoulder … just a minute!” He took off his jacket, put on his white work coat, picked up a palette knife and smoothed the soft and seemingly living and breathing skin of the woman on the shoulder with a single masterly stroke. He stepped back again. “And here,” he murmured. Again the alteration of a tiny detail enhanced the whole effect. Then he fell silent. He stepped forward, stepped back, looked at the figure in a mirror, growled and uttered unintelligible sounds, made changes and adjustments. The look in his eyes, amiably distracted over lunch, now changed, his eyes flashed with a strange light, and he seemed to become taller, younger. He worked furiously, with the whole passion and strength of his powerful, heavy body; every time he lunged forward or back a step, the floorboards creaked. But he did not hear it. He did not notice the young man standing silently behind him with his heart in his mouth, overjoyed at the chance to watch such a unique master at work. He had forgotten all about me. [ … ]

This went on for a quarter of an hour, half an hour, I don’t remember how long. [ … ] His gestures became increasingly fierce, almost angry, and a kind of frenzy or intoxication descended upon him, driving him to work faster and faster. Then his hands grew more hesitant. They seemed to know that there was nothing more for them to do. He stepped back once, twice, three times, without making any changes. [ … ] He breathed a deep sigh of relief. His whole body seemed to become heavier again. The fire had died down. And now came the incredible part for me, and a great lesson: he took off his work coat, picked up his jacket, and turned to leave. He had completely forgotten about me during this hour of intense concentration. He was oblivious to the fact that a young man whom he himself had brought to the studio in order to show him his workplace had been standing behind him with bated breath, spellbound and motionless like one of his statues. [ … ]

In that hour I had seen the eternal secret of all great art, and indeed of every earthly accomplishment, laid bare before me: concentration, the drawing together of all one’s strength, all one’s senses, the ability that every artist has to step outside of himself and leave the world behind. I had learnt something that stayed with me all my life.
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The insight that Zweig had gained from this crucial encounter became the basis for many observations that he would later make in connection with his various biographies and his manuscript collection. Yet in many ways what he had learnt from being with Rodin that day was only a rerun of his first encounter with Verhaeren in van der Stappen’s studio. Notwithstanding his unbounded admiration for the Belgian writer, Zweig had also studied the sculptor at work on that occasion, describing his concentration on the work in hand in very similar language: “Van der Stappen stepped forward, looked at his work and then at Verhaeren, and for minutes on end he was looking from one to the other. Then he stepped back with a decisive air. His gaze hardened, his muscles tensed. The work began.”
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When Zweig was in Vienna, he continued to cultivate his contacts with other writers. At the invitation of Eugenie Hirschfeld, for example, he took part in readings with other authors, even though he did not find it easy to read aloud from his own works in public. In the evenings he would often sit in the café, doing what he always used to do—studying the latest literary journals. It was over coffee in 1905 that he looked through the manuscripts of René Fülöp-Miller, then a schoolboy of fourteen, who had run away from home to try his hand at poetry. There was no doubt about it: at the tender age of nearly twenty-five Zweig had himself become one of those “older” and successful writers to whom the younger generation looked up.

At this time he gathered a circle of young authors around him in the Café Beethoven, which continued to meet from time to time up until the First World War in order to present and discuss new works. These meetings were very different from those dissolute artistic gatherings that Zweig had attended when he was a student in Berlin. Over the years the composition of the group changed, but most of the meetings were attended by around a dozen members.

One evening Zweig brought Arthur Schnitzler along with him, in whose presence—to the surprise of all the regulars at the meeting—his tone was a good deal more mocking and sarcastic than they were otherwise used to. As well as writers, actors and painters occasionally swelled the numbers and broadened the conversational spectrum, although artistic matters were always at the heart of their discussions. Politics and religion tended to be relegated to the margins—Zweig had his fill of endless discussions about Judaism when he met up with his friends Lilien and Brod. As an aspiring citizen of the world Zweig disagreed strongly with their Zionist aims, arguing that the Jews should seek to be more universal and cosmopolitan in outlook, instead of pursuing the misguided idea of founding their own state.

These evening gatherings were well-attended and very informal. The circle had no official name and there were no committees or minutes; it was not an academic society, and they did not wish to become one. The disadvantage of this informality is that we know little about these meetings. Whenever Zweig went on his travels, the group seems at least not to have met in his absence. As a good host he was always careful in such instances to send postcards prior to his departure, or from somewhere en route, suggesting a date for their next meeting.

At these meetings Zweig was not only an attentive observer of his own milieu, but also, as the focal point of the group, the object of others’ observations. It was not a role that he felt comfortable in, since he involuntarily gave away more about himself than he intended. Oskar Maurus Fontana, a member of the coffee-house group, penned a telling description of the situation. During the carnival season

he [Stefan Zweig] once came with us when we left the café and went to one of the dances out in the suburbs, which were very fashionable at the time. Some of us danced with the girls, but he was one of those who stood and watched. Then we all sat down at a table with the girls who had been dancing, ate and drank, laughed and joked. He joined in with gusto, but his bright, beady eyes never left us for a moment, they drank us in, every one of us, the girls, the swaying mass of dancers, the waiters running back and forth, the strolling couples, the flower girls begging for trade. His gaze was animated, hungry almost, but also a little sad, a little disappointed. We left soon afterwards. That evening he had not been able to take root in life. He remained the detached voyeur. And that was probably the source of his restlessness back then, a restlessness that tipped over into melancholy.
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