by Stefan Zweig
I made haste to assure Dr B. that we were all extremely glad to owe the pleasure of his acquaintance to this incident, and said that after all he had told me I would now be doubly interested to see him playing in tomorrow’s improvised match. Dr B. made an uneasy movement.
‘No, you really mustn’t expect too much. It will be only a kind of test for me … a test to see if … if I’m even capable of playing a normal game of chess, a game on a real chessboard with actual chessmen and a living partner … for I doubt more and more whether those hundreds, perhaps thousands of games I played were genuine games of chess and not just a kind of dream chess, delirious chess, a game played in a fever, missing out certain stages as you do in a dream. I hope you don’t really expect me to get anywhere against a chess champion – in fact the world champion. What interests and intrigues me is just a retrospective curiosity to find out whether I was really playing chess in my cell or whether it was mere delusion, if I was on the edge of the dangerous precipice at the time or already over it – that’s all, nothing more.’
At that moment the gong summoning us to dinner was struck at the far end of the ship. We must have talked for almost two hours – Dr B. had told his story to me at much greater length than I have set it down here. I thanked him with all my heart and took my leave. But I had not walked all the way along the deck before he followed me to add, obviously nervous, even stammering slightly, ‘And one more thing! In case I should appear uncivil later, would you tell the gentlemen in advance that I will play only one game … it’s to be the final line drawn under an old account, a last goodbye, not a new beginning. I wouldn’t want to fall into that frantic passion of chess-playing a second time. I think of it now only with horror, and moreover … moreover, the doctor warned me too, expressly warned me. A man who has once fallen victim to a mania is always at risk, and in a case of chess poisoning, even if you’re cured, it’s better not to go near a chessboard. So you’ll understand … just this one game, as a test for myself, no more.’
We assembled in the smoking-room next day punctually at the appointed hour, three o’clock. Our party had been increased by two enthusiasts for the royal game, ship’s officers who specially asked for time off their duties so that they could watch the match. Czentovic did not keep us waiting as on the previous day either, and after the usual draw for colours the remarkable match between this unknown man and the famous world champion began. I am sorry that it was played only for us amateur spectators, and any record of it is lost to the annals of the art of chess, just as Beethoven’s piano improvisations are lost to music. On the following afternoons we did try to reconstruct the match from memory, but in vain; during the game itself we had probably all been paying too much rapt attention to the players rather than the course of play. For the intellectual contrast between their bearing became more and more obvious as the game went on. Czentovic, the experienced player, remained motionless as a block throughout, his eyes lowered to the chessboard with a stern, fixed gaze. In him, thought seemed to be an actual physical effort requiring the utmost concentration of all his organs. Dr B., on the other hand, was relaxed and natural in his movements. As a true dilettante in the best sense of the word, one to whom, when he plays a game, it is the game itself that brings diletto, joy, he was entirely relaxed, talked to us during the first few pauses, explaining points, lit himself a cigarette with a light hand, and when it was his turn just looked straight at the board for a minute. Every time he seemed to have been expecting his opponent’s move in advance.
The obligatory opening moves went by quite quickly. Only at the seventh or eighth did something like a definite plan appear to emerge. Czentovic spent longer thinking between moves, from which we sensed that the real battle for the upper hand was beginning. But to be perfectly honest, the gradual development of the situation was something of a disappointment to us laymen, as it is in every real tournament game. For the more the chessmen became interlocked in a strange, intricate formation, the more impenetrable did the real state of affairs seem to us. We couldn’t tell what either of the opponents intended, or which of the two really held the advantage. We just noticed individual pieces being advanced like levers to break through the enemy front, but we were unable – since with these first-class players every movement was always combined several moves in advance – to see the strategic intention in all this toing and froing. And in addition a numbing weariness gradually set in, mainly because of Czentovic’s endless pauses to think, which were visibly beginning to irritate our friend too. I noticed uneasily that as the game went on he began shifting more and more restlessly in his chair, now nervously lighting cigarette after cigarette, now reaching for his pencil to note something down. Then again he ordered mineral water and hastily drank glass after glass; it was clear that he could combine a hundred times faster than Czentovic. Every time the latter, after endless deliberations, decided to move a piece forward with his ponderous hand, our friend just smiled like someone who sees something long expected happen, and he quickly riposted. With his rapidly working mind, he must have worked out all the possibilities open to his opponent in advance; the longer Czentovic’s decision was delayed, therefore, the more impatient he became, and as he waited a displeased, almost hostile look hovered around his lips. But Czentovic was not to be hurried. He thought hard and silently, and paused for longer and longer intervals the fewer pieces were left on the board. At the forty-second move, after they had been playing for two and three-quarter hours, we were all sitting wearily and almost indifferently around the tournament table. One of the ship’s officers had already gone off, the other had picked up a book to read, and looked up for a minute only whenever there was a change on the board. But then suddenly, at a move of Czentovic’s, the unexpected happened. As soon as Dr B. saw that Czentovic was taking hold of the knight to move it forward, he crouched like a cat about to pounce. His whole body began to tremble, and no sooner had Czentovic made his move with the knight than he quickly moved his queen and said, in a loud and triumphant voice, ‘There! Done it!’ leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked challengingly at Czentovic. A fiery light suddenly glowed in his pupils.
We involuntarily bent over the board, trying to understand the move so triumphantly announced. At first sight there was no obvious direct threat. Our friend’s remark must therefore refer to some development that we amateurs, with our limited powers of thought, could not work out yet. Czentovic was the only one among us who had not moved at the challenging statement; he sat there as imperturbably as if he had entirely failed to hear that offensive ‘Done it!’ Nothing happened. As we were all instinctively holding our breath, you could suddenly hear the ticking of the clock which had been put on the table for timing the moves. Three minutes passed, seven minutes, eight minutes – Czentovic did not stir, but I felt as if his thick nostrils were even further dilated by some inner exertion. Our friend seemed to find this silent waiting as intolerable as we did. Suddenly he rose to his feet and began pacing up and down the smoking-room, first slowly, then faster and faster. Everyone looked at him in some surprise, but no one with more uneasiness than I did, for it struck me that for all the vigour of his tread, his steps always measured out exactly the same amount of space; it was as if he kept coming up against an invisible cupboard in the middle of the empty floor, and it obliged him to turn. With a shudder, I realized that this pacing back and forth unconsciously reproduced the dimensions of his former cell; in the months of captivity he must have marched up and down like a caged animal in exactly the same way, he must have clasped his hands and hunched his shoulders exactly like that; he must have gone up and down that cell in precisely this manner a thousand times, with the glint of madness in his fixed yet feverish gaze. However, his powers of thought still seemed entirely intact, for from time to time he impatiently turned to the table to see if Czentovic had made up his mind yet. But the wait drew out to nine and then ten minutes. Then, at last, something none of us had expected happened. Slowly, Czentovic raised his
heavy hand, which until now had been lying motionless on the table. We all waited in suspense for his decision. But Czentovic did not make a move. Instead, he slowly but with a determined gesture pushed all the pieces off the board with the back of his hand. Not until the next moment did we understand: Czentovic had resigned the game. He had capitulated so as to avoid being visibly checkmated in front of us. The improbable had happened; the world champion, the grandmaster who had won countless tournaments, had lowered his colours to an unknown, a man who hadn’t touched a chessboard for twenty or twenty-five years. Our anonymous and obscure friend had beaten the greatest chess player on earth in open battle!
Without noticing it, we had risen to our feet one by one. We all felt we had to say or do something to express our delighted amazement. The one man who kept still and unmoved was Czentovic. Only after a measured pause did he raise his head and look stonily at our friend.
‘Another game?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ replied Dr B., with an enthusiasm that I did not like, and before I could remind him of his resolve to play only a single game he sat down and began setting up the chessmen again with feverish haste. He assembled them so rapidly that a pawn twice slipped through his shaking fingers and fell to the floor; the painful discomfort I had already felt at his unnatural excitement grew to a kind of fear. For an obvious mood of elation had come over the previously calm and quiet man; the tic played around his mouth more and more often, and his body trembled as if shaken by a sudden fever.
‘No!’ I whispered quietly to him. ‘Not now! Let that be enough for today! It’s too much of a strain on you.’
‘A strain! Ha!’ he laughed out loud, not pleasantly. ‘I could have played seventeen games in that time, instead of dawdling along! The only strain I feel is in not going to sleep playing at this pace! There! You begin!’
He had spoken these last words to Czentovic, in a vigorous, almost rough tone. Czentovic looked at him, a calm and measured look, but his fixed, stony gaze had something of a clenched fist about it now. Suddenly there was something new between the two players: a dangerous tension, a passionate hatred. They were no longer two partners wanting to try out their skill on each other in play, but enemies mutually sworn to destroy one another. Czentovic hesitated for a long time before making the first move, and I had a clear feeling that he was waiting so long on purpose. Trained tactician that he was, he had obviously found out that his slow tempo itself wearied and irritated his opponent. So it took him no less than four minutes to make the simplest, most normal of all openings by moving his king’s pawn the usual two squares forward. Immediately our friend countered with his own king’s pawn, but once again Czentovic paused for an endless, almost intolerable time; it was like a bright lightning strike when you wait, heart thudding, for the thunder, but the thunder doesn’t roll and still doesn’t roll. Czentovic did not move. He thought quietly, slowly, and I became even more certain that he was thinking slowly with malice aforethought. However, that gave me plenty of time to observe Dr B. He had just drunk his third glass of water; involuntarily, I remembered how he had told me about his raging thirst in his cell. All the signs of abnormal excitement were clearly present; I saw perspiration stand out on his brow, while the scar on his hand was redder and stood out more sharply than before. But he was still in control of himself. Only when Czentovic yet again thought endlessly about the fourth move did his composure give way, and he suddenly snapped at him, ‘Come along, make your move, can’t you?’
Czentovic looked up coolly. ‘As far as I’m aware, we agreed on ten minutes between moves. I don’t play with any shorter time span, on principle.’
Dr B. bit his lip; I saw the sole of his shoe rocking restlessly, more and more restlessly up and down on the floor under the table, and I myself was made progressively more nervous by the ominous foreboding that something beyond reason was brewing in his mind. In fact there was a second incident at the eighth move. Dr B., who had been waiting with less and less composure, could no longer restrain his tension; he moved back and forth and began unconsciously drumming his fingers on the table. Once again Czentovic raised his heavy, rustic head.
‘May I ask you not to drum your fingers like that? It disturbs me. I can’t play in this way.’
‘Ha!’ barked Dr B., laughing. ‘So we see.’
Czentovic’s forehead reddened. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked sharply and unpleasantly.
Dr B. laughed briefly again, maliciously. ‘Nothing. Only that you are obviously very nervous.’
Czentovic said nothing, but looked down. Not until seven minutes later did he make the next move, and the game dragged on at this deadly pace. You felt as if Czentovic were turning to stone; in the end he paused each time to think for the maximum period agreed before making up his mind on a move, and from one interval to the next our friend’s behaviour became ever more bizarre. It looked as if he had lost interest in the game and was thinking about something else entirely. He stopped pacing rapidly up and down, and sat motionless in his place. Staring into space with a fixed, almost mad look, he kept muttering incomprehensible remarks to himself; either he had lost himself in endless combinations or else – and this was my own suspicion – he was working out completely different games, for every time Czentovic finally made his move he had to be reminded to come back to the here and now. Then it took him several minutes to find his way around the situation again, and I began to suspect ever more strongly that he had really forgotten Czentovic and all of us long ago in a cold form of derangement that might suddenly vent itself in violence. And sure enough, at the nineteenth move the crisis came. Czentovic had hardly moved his piece before Dr B. suddenly, and without looking properly at the board, pushed his bishop three squares forward, crying so loud that we all jumped, ‘Check! Your king’s in check!’
We immediately looked at the board, expecting to see some exceptional move. But after a minute something that none of us expected happened. Czentovic raised his head very, very slowly, and looked – as he had never done before – from one to another of us as we sat there. He seemed to be enjoying something hugely, for gradually a satisfied and clearly derisive smile began to appear on his lips. Only after he had enjoyed this triumph of his to the full – we still didn’t understand it – did he turn with mock civility to address our party.
‘I’m sorry, but I see no check. Do any of you gentlemen think that my king is in check?’
We looked at the board, and then we looked in concern at Dr B. The square where Czentovic’s king stood was indeed, as any child could see, shielded from the bishop by a pawn, so no check to the king was possible. We became uneasy. Could our friend, in his haste, have moved a piece the wrong way, one square too far or too near? Now Dr B. himself, alerted by our silence, was staring at the board, and began stammering heatedly, ‘But the king should be on f7 … it’s in the wrong place, quite the wrong place. You made the wrong move! Everything’s wrong on this board … the pawn should be on g5, not g4 … this is a completely different game. This is …’
He suddenly stopped. I had taken him firmly by the arm, or rather pinched his arm so hard that even in his feverish confusion he was bound to feel my grip. He turned and stared at me like a sleepwalker.
‘What … what do you want?’
All I said was, ‘Remember!’ at the same time running my finger over the scar on his hand. Instinctively, he followed my movement, and his glazed eyes stared at the blood-red line of it. Then he suddenly began to tremble, and a shudder ran through his whole body.
‘For God’s sake,’ he whispered, his lips pale. ‘Have I said or done something absurd … can I after all have gone … ?’
‘No,’ I whispered quietly. ‘But you must break this game off at once. It’s high time. Remember what the doctor told you!’
Dr B. rose abruptly. ‘I do apologize for my stupid mistake,’ he said, in his old, courteous voice, and he bowed to Czentovic. ‘Of course what I said was pure nonsense. Naturally the game is yours.’
Then he turned to us. ‘I must apologize to you gentlemen too. But I did warn you in advance not expect too much of me. Forgive the awkwardness of it … this is the last time I ever try to play a game of chess.’
He bowed and walked off, in the same inconspicuous, mysterious way as he had first appeared. Only I knew why the man would never touch a chessboard again, while the others were left, slightly confused, with the uncertain feeling of having only just avoided something uncomfortable and dangerous. ‘Damned fool!’ growled the disappointed McConnor. Last of all, Czentovic rose from his chair, and cast another glance at the half-finished game.
‘A pity,’ he said magnanimously. ‘It wasn’t a bad attack at all. For an amateur, that gentleman really is uncommonly gifted.’