Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (35 page)

His collection
Sternstunden der Menschheit,
originally published in 1927, is perhaps the best example of Zweig’s ability to develop a complete story from a single document or a single incident in the life of a historical figure—or to put it another way: to condense their whole life and achievement into a telling moment in their life story. Here he tells us, for example, how Goethe came to write his
Marienbader Elegie,
how Scott succumbed in the
Battle for the South Pole,
and how Napoleon had to learn his lesson in the
Minute That Changed the World at Waterloo.
Subtitled
Five Historical Miniatures,
this volume, No 165 in the Insel-Bücherei, soon became one of Zweig’s best-selling books.

During the 1920s he wrote a whole series of essays about the items in his collection and about collecting manuscripts in general, which appeared both in specialist journals and in popular magazines; and in 1923 the members of the Society of Friends of the National Library in Vienna were able to hear him deliver a lecture entitled
The World of Autograph Manuscripts.
As well as providing ideas and inspiration for new works, Zweig’s manuscript collection also afforded him a welcome opportunity to escape into a world of his own, from which the ladies of the house were excluded.

The growing number of Zweig’s biographical essays, many of them the product of his passion for manuscripts, was matched by a steady growth in his output of prose fiction, which was largely unrelated to his collecting interests. Hugely popular with the reading public, Zweig’s collections of novellas had been published or reissued by Insel Verlag over the last few years in a new series of uniform cloth-bound editions in different colours. The series was known as
Die Kette
[
The Chain
]. The first “link” was a reprint of the
Vier Geschichten aus Kinderland,
originally published before the First World War under the title
Erstes Erlebnis,
followed by
Amok—Novellen einer Leidenschaft.
The third link in the chain was to be
Verwirrung der Gefühle
in 1926, for which Zweig was working intensively on the novellas
Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau, Untergang eines Herzens
and the title story
Verwirrung der Gefühle.

The books sold extremely well. Newspaper reviews such as the one printed earlier by the
Neue Freie Presse
when the collection
Amok
was originally
published now proved very useful to Insel, which gratefully quoted from them in its publicity blurb for the new edition:

Breathtaking excitement, pent-up emotion, passionate intensity, the whole suggestive power of Zweig’s diction, which, resist it though we might, draws us in, takes hold of us, compels us and holds our attention right up to the final word. And then those unforgettably vivid images: a tropical night on the deck of an ocean steamer, the brooding and oppressive heat of a landscape in the Dolomites as a storm is about to break, big-city settings teeming with a life and an abundance that often recall the work of Frans Masereel, to whom this book is dedicated.
⁸

His stories were indeed exciting and emotive, and almost entirely devoid of the irony and sarcasm that he was quite capable of in letters. The prime audience for his books was widely known, and Kurt Tucholsky put it in a nutshell in
Der schiefe Hut
: “Frau Steiner was from Frankfurt am Main, no longer in the first flush of youth, quite alone and dark-haired. She wore a different dress every evening, and sat quietly at her table reading refined books. In a word, she belonged to the readership of Stefan Zweig. Enough said? Enough said.”
⁹

For all that Zweig’s colleagues liked to scoff or ridicule behind his back, he seemed to be a child of fortune. Writing evidently came easy to him, and the sales figures for his books often broke all records within a week of their publication. He seemed in no danger of running out of ideas, and his list of contacts, whether cultivated by letter or in person, included virtually every contemporary figure of importance, certainly within the literary world. And yet he frequently questioned his success and his method of production, which he likened to an unstoppable machine in perpetual motion. At the beginning of 1927 he wrote to Richard Specht, who was then working on a short biography of Zweig commissioned as the introduction to a planned edition of his works in Russia: “My dear friend, [ … ] How well I understand your feelings of fatigue, for I am no stranger to them myself. I wonder at all those who write easily, freely and gladly. My own weariness is sometimes hard to bear, and yet I am younger.” Before this Zweig had told Specht how much it would please him if the latter’s essay on him did not focus solely on his literary work, which everybody knew about, but also stressed his achievements as an activist. The joint reading he had given with Pierre-Jean Jouve in Zurich
in 1917, when the Frenchman was officially his enemy in time of war, as a symbol of their future striving for peace and international understanding still retained a very special importance for him. Similarly he was anxious that his work as a champion of foreign literature, most notably the work of Verhaeren, should be more than just a footnote in Specht’s account. And lastly he wanted particular emphasis to be placed on his intensive study of Dostoevsky’s life and work, not least with an eye to his Russian readership. In his next letter to Specht Zweig cast a self-critical eye over his literary work of recent years:

I grant your objections completely. I know that in
Amok
, especially, the writing is somewhat overheated. And now I know the real reason for that: I found
Erstes Erlebnis
a touch too soft and sugary, not taut enough. And then came my work on Dostoevsky, and a more manly and impassioned sensibility coming from within since the war: and I threw myself into it with gusto. I told myself (or at least I felt) that from now on everything had to be vehement, intense, hardhitting. There’s no room any more for the little things, the delicate feelings: in at the deep end, and no holding back! So I may perhaps have gone at it a little too hard without realising it. In
Verwirrung
(the middle novella [Untergang eines Herzens]) the tone is more controlled again. But all of that—
Jeremias, Der Kampf mit dem Dämon,
etc is a period that I love as a whole, because it was only with Jeremias, under the strain of the war, that I really came out of myself.
¹⁰

Some respite from the exertions of the literary treadmill and their consequences was to come in the summer of 1927 in the shape of a stay at the Kurhaus Castell in Zuoz in the Upper Engadine. Here Zweig made a further attempt to give up his heavy smoking and coffee-drinking—and once again he failed. At home on the Kapuzinerberg, meanwhile, Friderike was supervising the installation of gas pipes throughout the house. In September, following Stefan’s return, it was Friderike’s turn to leave, as she accompanied Suse to Switzerland, where she was to spend six months in a Quaker boarding school in Gland on the shores of Lake Geneva. By now Stefan was already working on a set of new essays for the third part of the series
Baumeister der Welt.
This volume was to be subtitled
Drei Dichter ihres Lebens
—three writers who documented their own lives. Initially he had planned to include essays on Stendhal, Tolstoy and Rousseau, but while assembling his materials Zweig had decided at the last minute to change the line-up. The reason for this was his annoyance at the behaviour of
the Brockhaus publishing family, who had had the original manuscript of Casanova’s memoirs in their possession for decades and refused to allow anyone else to look at it. In a decision that could almost be characterised as an act of defiance, Zweig, who would never have dreamt of denying scholars access to manuscripts in his own collection, dropped the essay on Rousseau in favour of an account of Casanova’s life. In a section of the new essay entitled
Genie der Selbstdarstellung
[
The Brilliant Self-Publicist
] he openly criticised the Brockhaus family—as he did in a newspaper article he wrote for the Berliner Tageblatt under the blunt title
Beschwerde gegen einen Verleger
[
Complaint against a Publisher
].
¹¹

He spent the autumn in Salzburg, working more or less undisturbed on his texts. To Friderike he wrote: “My life carries on here, as you know, untouched by any great commotion, there are no visitors now, and my principal companion is Mr Casanova.”
¹²
His only visitor during these weeks was his fellow collector Geigy-Hagenbach, and together they pored for hours over the folders of manuscripts; but for Zweig this was no imposition but rather a welcome distraction. He wrote to his guest in pleasurable anticipation: “My dear Herr Geigy! I am looking forward immensely to seeing you, [ … ] and my collection, in so far as one may ascribe feelings to inanimate objects, is already bursting with pride at the prospect of your attentions.”
¹³

It had turned out to be an adroit move when, just after the war, Zweig had not only kept the authorities at bay when they were threatening to commandeer living quarters in what must have seemed to them a very large house, but had also turned the situation to practical advantage. In the first instance Zweig had sought to prevent the compulsory billeting of total strangers on them by listing all the rooms that he needed for the practice of his profession, adding them to the various living rooms and bedrooms used by the family. It was not just a domestic residence, after all, but also a place of work. But by 1921 they had decided to let out a side wing of the house to lodgers, which doubtless averted any risk that even now they might be forced to share their house with strangers. Their first lodger, briefly, was police officer Johann Trauner, who was soon followed in the spring of 1922 by the couple Franz and Maria Schirl, who stayed until 1940. Initially Franz Schirl is also recorded as a police officer, but by 1935 he had risen up the career ladder to the rank of captain of police. With neighbours such as these the Zweigs could feel reasonably safe in their somewhat isolated house, with all the valuables that it contained. And from their earliest days
on the Kapuzinerberg their domestic establishment had also included a dog, an Alsatian called Rolf, of whom Zweig was particularly fond. He even referred on occasion to his “son” when he meant Rolf, and was greatly distressed when he had to be put to sleep in the autumn of 1927. During Rolf ’s lifetime they also acquired a spaniel named Kaspar, who together with the bitch Henny was to found an entire dynasty. Zweig soon lost his heart to him too. When the Jewish religious community in Salzburg sent a reminder about alleged non-payment of dues, he wrote to Friderike: “I’m sure I sent the payment. [ … ] They can seize all my worldly goods, as long as they leave me Kaspar.”
¹⁴

It comes as no surprise to learn that in contrast to Stefan the two girls, Suse and Alix, cared little for the dogs and were devoted instead to their cats, whom Stefan disliked and tolerated at best. To his irritation it was Romain Rolland of all people who had paraded him in front of the ladies of the house during his visit, shaking his head and asking how it was possible for a poet not to like cats—“
Un poète, qui n’aime pas les chats!
”
¹⁵
; and to top it all he would pick up Suse’s favourite cat at every opportunity and stroke it.

In order not to disturb the working atmosphere on the Kapuzinerberg, not only was listening to the radio frowned upon, but they didn’t even have a newspaper delivered—although Zweig, somewhat illogically, would go to the café every evening to read the paper there. At the same time the “Adolf Schustermann Newspaper Cuttings Service” in Berlin was contracted to comb the German-language press for any mention of Zweig and his works and to send the cuttings to Salzburg. This meant that after every reading tour he would also receive copies of the reviews that had appeared in the local press at each venue. These newspaper articles contain interesting details about Zweig’s demeanour as a public speaker—not to mention some bizarre passages, such as this introduction to a review in the
Wiesbadener Fremdenblatt
of 26th November 1926: “Yesterday evening Stefan Zweig read from his own works in the Casino. [ … ] By far the majority of the audience were ladies, which was very noticeable, but not really relevant. Stefan Zweig himself, a man ‘in the prime of life’, is very reminiscent in his outward appearance (at least when viewed from the tenth row back) of Hermann Löns. Just so that our readers have a point of reference here.”
¹⁶

Many an audience member present at Zweig’s public readings will have noticed what Friderike had already observed back in 1912, when
she saw him take the stage to receive the applause of the audience at the premiere of
Das Haus am Meer
: “He was not comfortable with public acclamation.”
¹⁷
Indeed, even at the age of nearly fifty he could still come across as shy and a little unsure of himself at large gatherings. He had his own explanation for this, at least in respect of one particular appearance:

Once when they had booked me into the large lecture hall of the university on a reading tour and I suddenly discovered that I would be talking down to the audience from a lectern, while my listeners sat down there on benches, just like we did as schoolchildren, all well-behaved and not allowed to speak, I suddenly felt very ill at ease. I remembered how much I had hated being lectured at in this unfriendly, authoritarian, doctrinaire way throughout my school years, and I was overcome by the fear that I might appear just as impersonal, talking down from a lectern, as our old schoolteachers did to us. And because I felt inhibited, this particular reading turned out to be the worst I have ever given.
¹⁸