Burning Secret

by Stefan Zweig

  The Baron easily won his confidence. Just half-an-hour, and he had that hot and restless heart in his hands. It is so extraordinarily easy to deceive children, unsuspecting creatures whose affections are so seldom sought. He had only to lose himself in the past, and childish talk came to him so naturally and easily that the boy himself soon thought of him as one of his own kind. After only a few minutes, any sense of distance between them was gone. Edgar was blissfully happy to have found a friend so suddenly in this isolated place, and what a friend! All his companions in Vienna were forgotten, the little boys with their reedy voices and artless chatter, those images had been swept away by this one hour in his life! His entire passionate enthusiasm was now devoted to his new, his great friend, and his heart swelled with pride when, as the Baron said goodbye, he suggested meeting again tomorrow morning. And then his new friend waved as he walked away, just like a brother. That moment was, perhaps, the best of Edgar’s life. It is so very easy to deceive children.

  The Baron smiled as the boy stormed away. He had found his go-between. Now, he knew, the child would pester his mother to the point of exhaustion with his stories, repeating every single word—and he remembered, complacently, how cleverly he had woven a few compliments intended for her into the conversation, always speaking of Edgar’s “beautiful Mama”. He was certain that the talkative boy wouldn’t rest until he had brought his friend and his mother together. He didn’t have to life a finger to decrease the distance between himself and the fair unknown, he could dream happily now as he looked at the landscape, for he knew that a pair of hot, childish hands was building him a bridge to her heart.

  3

  TRIO

  THE PLAN, AS IT TURNED OUT an hour later, was excellent and had succeeded down to the very last detail. When the young Baron entered the dining-room, deliberately arriving a little late, Edgar jumped up from his chair, greeted him eagerly with a happy smile, and waved. At the same time he tugged his mother’s sleeve, speaking to her fast and excitedly, and unmistakably pointing to the Baron. Blushing and looking embarrassed, she reproved him for his over-exuberant conduct, but she could not avoid satisfying her son’s demands by glancing at the Baron once, which he instantly took as his chance to give her a respectful bow. He had made her acquaintance. She had to respond to the bow, but from now on kept her head bent further over her plate and was careful not to look his way again all through dinner. Edgar, on the contrary, kept looking at him all the time, and once even tried to call something over to the Baron’s table, a piece of bad manners for which his mother scolded him soundly. When they had finished their meal Edgar was told it was time for him to go to bed, and there was much whispering between him and his Mama, the final outcome being that his ardent wish to go over to the other table and pay his respects to his friend was granted. The Baron said a few kind things that made the child’s eyes sparkle again, and talked to him for a few minutes. But suddenly, with a skilful move of his own, he rose and went over to the other table, congratulated his slightly embarrassed fellow-guest on her clever and intelligent son, spoke warmly of the morning he had passed so pleasantly with him—Edgar was scarlet with pride and delight—and finally inquired after the boy’s state of health in such detail and with so many questions that the mother was bound to answer him. And so, inevitably, they drifted into a conversation of some length, to which the boy listened happily and with a kind of awe. The Baron introduced himself, and thought that his resounding name had made a certain impression on the woman’s vanity. At least, she was remarkably civil to him, although observing all decorum; she even left the table soon for the sake of the boy, as she apologetically added.

  Edgar protested vigorously that he wasn’t tired, he was ready to stay up all night. But his mother had already given the Baron her hand, which he kissed respectfully.

  Edgar slept badly that night, full of a mixture of happiness and childish desperation. Something new had come into his existence today. For the first time he had become a part of adult life. Half-asleep, he forgot his own childhood state and felt that he too was suddenly grown up. Until now, brought up as a lonely and often sickly child, he had had few friends. There had been no one to satisfy his need for affection but his parents, who took little notice of him, and the servants. And the strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it only by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that precedes all the great events in the heart’s history. A great, unused capacity for emotion had been lying in wait, and now it raced with outstretched arms towards the first person who seemed to deserve it. Edgar lay in the dark, happy and bewildered, he wanted to laugh and couldn’t help crying. For he loved this man as he had never loved a friend, or his father and mother, or even God. The whole immature passion of his early years now clung to the image of a man even whose name he had not known two hours ago.

  But he was clever enough not to let the unexpected, unique nature of his new friendship distress him. What bewildered him so much was his sense of his own unworthiness, his insignificance. Am I good enough for him, he wondered, tormenting himself, a boy of twelve who still has to go to school and is sent to bed before anyone else in the evening? What can I mean to him, what can I give him? It was this painfully felt inability to find a means of showing his emotions that made him unhappy. Usually, when he decided that he liked another boy, the first thing he did was to share the few treasures in his desk with him, stamps and stones, the possessions of childhood, but all these things, which only yesterday had seemed full of importance and uncommonly attractive, now suddenly appeared to him devalued, foolish, contemptible. How could he offer such things to this new friend whom he dared not even call by his first name, how could he find a way, an opportunity to show his feelings? More and more, he felt how painful it was to be little, only half-grown, immature, a child of twelve, and he had never before hated childhood so violently, or longed so much to wake up a different person, the person he dreamed of being: tall and strong, a man, a grown-up like the others.

  His first vivid dreams of that new world of adulthood wove their way into these troubled thoughts. Edgar fell asleep at last with a smile, but all the same, the memory of tomorrow’s promise to meet his friend undermined his sleep. He woke with a start at seven, afraid of being late. He quickly dressed, went to his mother’s room to say good morning—she was startled, since she usually had some difficulty in getting him out of bed—and ran downstairs before she could ask any questions. Then he hung about impatiently until nine and forgot to have any breakfast; the only thing in his head was that he mustn’t keep his friend waiting for their walk.

  At nine-thirty the Baron came strolling nonchalantly up at last. Of course he had long since forgotten about the walk, but now that the boy eagerly went up to him he had to smile at such enthusiasm, and showed that he was ready to keep his promise. He took the boy’s arm again and walked about in the lobby with the beaming child, although he gently but firmly declined to set out on their expedition together just yet. He seemed to be waiting for something, or at least so his eyes suggested as they kept going to the doors. Suddenly he stood up very straight. Edgar’s Mama had come in, and went up to the two of them with a friendly expression, returning the Baron’s greeting. She smiled and nodded when she heard about the planned walk, which Edgar had kept from her as something too precious to be told, but soon agreed to the Baron’s invitation to her to join them. Edgar immediately looked sullen and bit his lip. What a nuisance that she had to come in just now! That walk had been for him alone, and if he had introduced his friend to his Mama it was only out of kindness, it didn’t mean that he wanted to share him. Something like jealousy was already at work in him when he saw the Baron speaking to his mother in such a friendly way.

  So then the three of them went out walking, and the child’s dangerous sense of his own importance, his sudden significance, was reinforced by the obvious interest both the adults showed in him. Edgar was
almost exclusively the subject of their conversation, in which his mother expressed a rather feigned concern for his pallor and highly-strung nerves, while the Baron, smiling, made light of these ideas and praised the pleasant manners of his new “friend”, as he called him. This was Edgar’s finest hour. He had rights that no one had ever allowed him in the course of his childhood before. He was permitted to join in the conversation without being immediately told to keep quiet, he was even allowed to express all kinds of bold wishes which had always met with a poor reception before. And it was not surprising that his deceptive feeling of being grown up himself grew and flourished. In his happy dreams, childhood was left behind, like a garment he had outgrown and thrown away.

  At lunch the Baron accepted the invitation of Edgar’s increasingly friendly mother and joined them at their table. They were now all together, not sitting opposite each other, acquaintances had become friends. The trio was in full swing, and the three voices of man, woman, and child chimed happily together.

  4

  INTO THE ATTACK

  THE IMPATIENT HUNTSMAN now felt that it was time to approach his prey. He did not like the informal, harmonious tone that they had adopted. It was all very well for the three of them to talk comfortably together, but talk, after all, was not his intention. And he knew that the element of companionship, a masquerade hiding his desire, kept delaying the erotic encounter between man and woman, depriving his words of their ardour and his attack of its fire. He did not want their conversation to make her forget his real aim, which, he felt sure, she had already understood.

  It was very likely that he would not pursue his quarry in vain. She was at that crucial age when a woman begins to regret having stayed faithful to a husband she never really loved, when the glowing sunset colours of her beauty offer her one last, urgent choice between maternal and feminine love. At such a moment a life that seemed to have chosen its course long ago is questioned once again, for the last time the magic compass needle of the will hovers between final resignation and the hope of erotic experience. Then a woman is confronted with a dangerous decision: does she live her own life or live for her children? And the Baron, who had a keen eye for these things, thought he saw in her just that dangerous hesitation between the fire of life and self-sacrifice. She kept forgetting to bring her husband into the conversation. He obviously appeared to satisfy only her outer needs, not the snobbish ambitions aroused in her by an elegant way of life, and deep inside her she really knew very little about her child. A trace of boredom, appearing as veiled melancholy in her dark eyes, lay over her life and muted her sensuality. The Baron decided to move fast, but at the same time without any appearance of haste. On the contrary, he himself intended to be outwardly indifferent to this new friendship; he wanted her to court him, although in fact he was the suitor. He planned to display a certain arrogance, casting a strong light on the difference in social station between them, and he was intrigued by the idea of gaining possession of that beautiful, opulent, voluptuous body merely by means of exploiting that arrogance, outward appearances, a fine-sounding aristocratic name and cold manners.

  The passionate game was already beginning to arouse him, so he forced himself to be cautious. He spent the afternoon in his room, pleasantly aware of being missed and wanted. However, his absence was not felt so much by her, his real target, as by the poor boy, to whom it was a torment. Edgar felt dreadfully lost and helpless, and kept waiting for his friend all afternoon with his own characteristic loyalty. Going out or doing something on his own would have seemed like an offence against their friendship. He wandered aimlessly around the hotel corridors, and the later it grew the fuller his heart brimmed with unhappiness. In his restless imagination he was already dreaming of an accident, or some injury that he had unwittingly inflicted, and he was close to tears of impatience and anxiety.

  So when the Baron appeared at dinner that evening, he met with a joyous reception. Ignoring the admonishment of his mother and the surprise of the other guests, Edgar jumped up, ran to him and stormily flung his thin arms around the Baron’s chest. “Where were you? Where have you been?” he cried, the words tumbling out. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.” His mother blushed at being involved in this unwelcome way, and said rather sternly, “Sois sage, Edgar. Assieds-toi!” (She always spoke French to him, although it was not a language that came naturally to her, and she could easily find herself on shaky ground in a conversation of any length.) Edgar obeyed, but would not stop asking the Baron questions. “Don’t forget,” his mother added, “that the Baron can do as he likes. Perhaps our company bores him.” This time she brought herself into it on purpose, and the Baron was pleased to hear her fishing for a compliment with that reproach to her son.

  The huntsman in him was aroused. He was intoxicated, excited to have found the right trail so quickly, to feel that the game was close to his gun. His eyes gleamed, the blood flowed easily through his veins, the words sprang from his lips with an effervescence that he himself could not explain. He was, like everyone of a strongly erotic disposition, twice as good, twice as much himself when he knew that women liked him, just as many actors find their most ardent vein when they sense that they have cast their spell over the audience, the breathing mass of spectators before them. He had always been a good story-teller, able to conjure up vivid images, but today he excelled himself, while now and then drinking a glass of the champagne that he had ordered in honour of this new friendship. He told tales of hunts in India in which he had taken part, as the guest of an aristocratic and distinguished English friend, cleverly choosing this subject as harmless although, on the other hand, he realized that anything exotic and naturally beyond her reach excited this woman. But the hearer whom he really enchanted with his stories was Edgar, whose eyes were bright with enthusiasm. He forgot to eat and gazed at the story-teller, drinking only the words from his lips. He had never hoped to see someone in the flesh who had known the amazing things he read about in his books: the big game hunts, the brown people, the Hindus, the terrible wheel of the juggernaut crushing thousands under its rim. Until now he had never stopped to think that such people really existed, he knew so little about those fairy-tale lands, and that moment lit a great fire in him for the first time. He couldn’t take his eyes off his friend, he stared with bated breath at the hands that had killed a tiger and were now there before him. He hardly liked to ask a question, and when he did his voice was feverishly excited. His quick imagination kept conjuring up in his mind’s eye the pictures that went with those stories, he saw his friend high up on an elephant with a purple cloth over it, brown men to right and left wearing gorgeous turbans, and then, suddenly, the tiger leaping out of the jungle, fangs bared, plunging its claws into the elephant’s trunk. Now the Baron told an even more interesting tale of a cunning way to catch elephants, by getting old, tame beasts to lure the young, wild, high-spirited elephants into enclosures, and the child’s eyes flashed. And then—Edgar felt as if a knife were suddenly coming down in front of him—Mama suddenly said, glancing at the time, “Neuf heures! Au lit!”

  Edgar turned pale with horror. Being sent to bed is a terrible command to all children, because it means the most public possible humiliation in front of adults, the confession that they bear the stigma of childhood, of being small and having a child’s need for sleep. But such shame was even more terrible at this fascinating moment, when it meant he must miss hearing such wonderful things.

  “Just one more story, Mama, let me listen to one more, let me hear about the elephants!”

  He was about to begin begging, but then he remembered his new dignity as a grown man. He ventured just one attempt, but his mother was remarkably strict today. “No, it’s late already. You go up to bed. Sois sage, Edgar. I’ll tell you all the Baron’s stories afterwards.”

  Edgar hesitated. His mother usually accompanied him when he went to bed, but he wasn’t going to beg in front of his friend. In his childish pride he tried salvaging this pathetic retreat b
y putting a gloss of free will on it.