Adepts in Self-Portraiture

by Stefan Zweig

DIARY

  October 28, 1910, towards six o’clock in the morning; under the trees it is still pitch dark, so that the figures of three or four persons moving stealthily close to the manor house of Yasnaya Polyana are barely visible. One can just hear the clink of keys, the rattle of wards, but doors are being opened as noiselessly as possible, as if by thieves. The coachman, who is putting the horses to, is no less careful to avoid making a clatter. In two of the rooms of the house, shadows move to and fro, carrying dark lanterns, picking up parcels, opening and shutting drawers, all with the utmost precaution. They glide out through the doors, and speak only in whispers as they tumble over roots in the pleasance. Then, avoiding the front of the house, the carriage drives away through a postern gate.

  What is afoot? Have burglars been breaking in? Have the tsar’s police, at long last, made a night raid upon the suspect’s dwelling? No, all that has happened is that Leo Tolstoy has been escaping from the prison of his everyday life. The call has come to him, irresistible, decisive — an unmistakable sign. Once more he has detected his wife at dead of night, rummaging among his papers, and on the instant his determination has become fixed to leave the woman “who has abandoned me in the spirit,” to flee away, anywhere, to God, to himself, to the death which has been allotted him. Slipping a cloak over his working blouse, wearing a rough cap and rubber overshoes, he departs, taking no belongings with him beyond what he needs to commit his thoughts to paper — diary and pen. At the station, he scribbles a line to his wife, and sends it back by the coachman: “I have done what men of my age are apt to do, have left this worldly life, that I may pass my last days in tranquility and seclusion.” Then, with one companion, Dushan the friend and physician, he takes his seat in a third-class compartment, Leo Tolstoy, running away to God.

  But he no longer calls himself Leo Tolstoy. Just as Charles V, the lord of two worlds, voluntarily renounced the insignia of power that he might bury himself in the cloister at Yuste in Estremadura, so Tolstoy, ridding himself of money, house, and fame, wants to rid himself also of the well-known name. He calls himself T. Nikolaev, the new name of a man who wants to enter upon a new life and to find the way to a worthy death. All ties have been snapped now, he can pursue his pilgrimage along unfamiliar roads, become a faithful servant of the true word. In the monastery of Shamardino he says farewell to his sister the abbess; two old folk, surrounded by gentle monks. Here, a few days later, he is joined by the daughter who was born in the night following his first flight from home, twenty-six years earlier. But he cannot tarry to enjoy the quiet of Shamardino, for he dreads being followed hither, and dragged back into the false existence of his home. On October 31st, having once more felt the touch of an unseen finger, he arouses his daughter Aleksandra at four in the morning, and resumes his flight. Where is he going? Anywhere! Bulgaria, the Caucasus, no matter where, so long as it is to some place where his name is unknown, where he can enjoy the luxury of solitude, can find himself — and God.

  Fame, however, the dread familiar of his life, the tormentor and tempter, will not abandon its prey so readily. The world will not allow Tolstoy to follow his own bent, to obey unchallenged the promptings of his elemental will. As soon as the hunted man is in the train once more, as inconspicuous as possible with his cap drawn well down over his eyes, a fellow passenger recognizes the famous author, and passes on the news. Men and women throng the corridor, eager to catch a glimpse of him. Many of them have newspapers, in which column after column contains accounts of the costly beast which has escaped from its cage. He has been betrayed, is surrounded; for the last time, fame bars Tolstoy’s road towards perfection. The telegraph wires beside the train that roars on its way are humming with messages about the distinguished passenger; every station is in touch with the police; the railway officials have been mobilized; the family at Yasnaya Polyana is ordering a special train to bring him home; from Moscow, from St. Petersburg, from Nijni Novgorod, from all quarters of the compass, reporters are tracking their quarry. The Holy Synod is sending a priest to catch the penitent. Now a stranger boards the train, and walks past the compartment several times, each time in a new disguise — a detective. No, no, fame will not let the victim escape. Leo Tolstoy must not be left alone with himself. People will not admit that he belongs to himself, and is entitled to seek salvation in his own way.

  He has already been surrounded by his enemies, and there is no cover, not a thicket in which he can hide. When the train reaches the frontier, an official will, with the utmost politeness, inform him that he is not allowed to leave Russia. Wherever he may pause, his fame will be awaiting him, the clamor of innumerable tongues. He is in the toils, and cannot escape. As he turns these thoughts over in his mind, he becomes aware that there is something amiss with him physically, that he feels very ill.

  Aleksandra notices that her father is shivering, that he is leaning wearily against the hard wooden back of the seat. The cold stage is followed by a hot one, and soon he is dripping with sweat. A kindly access of fever has come to his rescue. Death is making ready to hide him from his pursuers.

  When the train stops at the little wayside station of Astapovo, Tolstoy is obviously too ill to go farther on his journey. There is no hospitable mansion near at hand, no hotel, not even the poorest of inns. Nothing, but the one-storied station building, a wooden structure containing two rooms, the public waiting room and the stationmaster’s private quarters. Diffidently, the official offers the use of the latter. Tolstoy is led within, and sees the realization of his dream. A poor little room, low ceilinged, dimly lighted by a kerosene lamp, a small iron bedstead — the antipodes of the luxuries and conveniences from which he has fled. He will pass his last hours in surroundings that conform to his most ardent desires; his death will be a worthy one, purified from dross, symbolic.

  In a few days the great edifice of this death has been built up, a sublime exemplification of his teaching, fundamentally simple, imperturbable, on foundations which nothing can sap. No matter that just outside the door fame lies in wait for him, panting and licking her lips; no matter that hot upon his trail come reporters, sensation-mongers, spies, detectives, policemen, priests sent by the Holy Synod, army officers dispatched by the tsar; they may not enter, their shameless curiosity is barred away from the dying man, who is left to the solitude which he has craved. His daughter tends him; she, Dushan the physician, and one other friend: their quiet affection surrounds his deathbed with an atmosphere of peace. On the bedside table lies the diary, the speaking tube through which he converses with God, but his hands are now too weak to hold a pencil. He dictates to his daughter. Though his breathing is difficult, and though his voice falters at times, he communicates his last thoughts, saying that God is “that infinite all, of which man feels himself to be a finite part, the revelation of God in matter, time, and space”; and he declares that only through love can earthly beings enter into communion one with another. Two days before his death, he is still able to collect his forces in the attempt to grasp the essence of truth, to attain the unattainable; for only by slow degrees are the radiations of this tireless brain dimmed at the oncoming of death.

  Outside is the throng of the curious; he is no longer aware of their presence. Sofia Andreevna is there, humbled and penitent, eager to catch a glimpse of him through the window, but his mind is otherwise occupied than with the woman who has been his companion for forty-eight years. More and more hazy grow the things of this world to the most clear-sighted of men; sluggish and yet more sluggish is the current of his blood. In the night of November 4th, rousing himself once more, he says with a groan: “But the peasants — how do peasants die?” This titanic life is still combating the titan, death. Not until November 7th does the life of the man who will live forever come to an end. The white head sinks into the pillow, and the light dies out of the eyes that have seen more clearly than any others. Now at length does the indefatigable seeker know the true meaning of life.

  ENVOY

  The man is dead, but
his relationship to the world continues to influence his fellows, not only as when he was alive but far more powerfully. That influence is magnified by his reasonability and by his love, and, like all that is alive, it goes on growing for ever and ever.

  FROM A LETTER

  Maxim Gorky once called Tolstoy “a human-kindly man,” and the phrase is an apt one. Tolstoy is our human brother, molded out of the same friable clay and affected with the same earthly inadequacies, though more plainly aware of them than the rest of us, more painfully afflicted by them. Leo Tolstoy was not a man of loftier type than others of his generation, did not differ from them in kind. He was only more human than most, more intensive, keener sighted, more perfectly awake, more passionate — like an artist’s proof, a first and wonderfully sharp impression from the unseen original kept in the master-craftsman’s workshop.

  To depict this archetypal man, whose image (often recognizably enough) is hidden away within us all, to disclose his figure as clearly as possible and as completely as possible amid the complexities of our world; this was Tolstoy’s primary aim as a writer, an aim that could never be fully attained, and one that was all the more heroic for that. He was able to seek out and describe Everyman thanks to the unrivalled veracity of his senses; he sought and questioned Everyman in the hidden recesses of his own consciousness, probing into depths which can be reached only through self-inflicted wounds. With ferocious zeal, with pitiless severity, this moral genius explored his own soul, in the endeavor to free the archetypal man from earthly incrustations, and to show us our own selves ennobled to become true images of God and models of what we must endeavor to be. Never resting, never satisfied, never debasing his art to formalism, he devoted his whole life to an attempt to achieve self-perfection through self-portraiture. Not since Goethe has any imaginative writer been so successful in thus revealing both himself and the archetypal man.

  Only to outward seeming has Leo Tolstoy passed away. He is still at work among us. Many of us have looked into his piercing eyes, have felt the brotherly clasp of his hand; and yet already he has become a legendary figure, and his struggle against himself is an example to our generation.

  For unceasingly we strive, in the flux of time, to find anchorage upon certain emblematic and typical figures, as symbols of our undying purpose; we fix our eyes on the greatest, as witnesses to our own latent powers. Thus Tolstoy the indefatigable worker is the embodiment of Everyman’s will, and Tolstoy the incomparably sincere is the embodiment of Everyman’s search after knowledge and truth.

  The seeking mind can only recognize the limits and laws of its own functioning through a study of the truths that are quickening within itself. It is only through the self-portraiture of great artists that the genius of mankind becomes comprehensible to earthbound mortals.

  ~ A Chronology of Stefan Zweig’s life ~

  1881: Born in Vienna on November 28, the second son of textile manufacturer Moritz Zweig and Ida Brettauer Zweig, the daughter of an Italian banking family from Ancona. Both parents are secular Jews who travel a lot. Zweig soon speaks fluent German, French, and Italian.

  1887-1900: Zweig attends the Akademisches Gymnasium and publishes his first poems at 15 under a pseudonym.

  1900: Stefan’s older brother Alfred enters his father’s business, freeing the younger brother to write. At 18, he enrolls in the faculty of philosophy and literature at the University of Vienna

  1901: At 19, his first book of poetry, Silberne Saiten (Silver Strings) is published.

  1902: At 20, he meets editor, journalist and Zionist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904). He begins writing for the Neue Freie Presse, continuing until 1938. He corresponds with the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren (1855-1916) and translates his work into German. Writes his first short biography of Paul Verlaine conceived as an introduction to the German translation of his poetry.

  1904: Receives doctoral degree, with dissertation on French literary historian and critic Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893). Publishes his first short story Die Liebe der Erika Ewald (The Love of Erika Ewald) and a translation of poems by Émile Verhaeren. Meets and befriends Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin in Paris.

  1905: Travels to Spain and Algeria. Publishes monograph on French poet Paul Verlaine.

  1906: Publishes second volume of poetry, Die frühen Kränze (Early Wreaths). Travels to London and stays there for four months.

  1907: At 25, establishes household at Kochgasse 8, Vienna VIII, where he employs a part-time secretary and full-time valet. Publishes Tersites, a play produced in Dresden the following year. Works on translating Rimbaud. Discovers the novels of Romain Rolland.

  1908: Contacts Sigmund Freud. Travels to India, Ceylon and Burma.

  1910: Publishes two volumes of Émile Verhaeren’s poetry in German, culminating eight years of championing the Belgian poet. The volume is introduced by an essay that presages the form of his later biographies. Meets and befriends French novelist Romain Rolland (1866-1944).

  1911: The year he turns 30, Zweig travels to North America, Cuba, Puerto Rico. Publishes the anthology Erstes Erlebnis (First Experience). Meets French socialist leader Jean Jaurès (1856-1914).

  1912: Begins a relationship with Friderike Maria von Winternitz, née Burger (1882–1971), a well connected, artistic intellectual, married with two small daughters. His play Das Haus am Meer (The House by the Sea), is produced by the Vienna Burgtheater in October. Friderike begins her career as critic and journalist by reviewing it for a Hamburg newspaper.

  1913: Lives in Paris where he has an affair with a Frenchwoman. Publishes the novella Brennendes Geheimnis (Burning Secret)

  1914: on June 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. On August 4, Germany invades Belgium. Zweig volunteers for service in the military archives, writing propaganda for the magazine Donauland.

  1915: Is deployed to the war front in Galicia. Resumes relationship with Friderike.

  1916-1917: Zweig lives with Friderike von Winternitz and her two daughters Kalksburg, near Vienna. Together, they purchase a residence in Salzburg: Kapuzinerberg 5.

  1918: Moves to Switzerland as correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse and lives with Friderike von Winternitz near Zurich, where he composes his essay on Dostoyevsky. He has been in contact with pacifist writers such as James Joyce and Hermann Hesse. His antiwar play, Jeremiah, is produced there. Legenden eines Lebens (Legends of a Life) is produced in Hamburg. He starts translating Romain Rolland.

  Armistice signed November 11.

  1919: Relocates to his new Salzburg residence at Kapuzinerberg 5 in Salzburg. Publishes a volume of essays Fahrten (Journeys).

  June 28: Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles.

  1920: Marries Friderike von Winternitz. Publishes Drei Meister (Three Masters: Dickens, Balzac, Dostoyevsky) that he has been working on for several years and that he envisaged as part of a multi-volume series of biographical essays called Baumeister der Welt (Master Builders of the world), a collection of 12 biographical essays. Writes a short biography of France’s best-known woman poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859) to serve as an introduction to her poems and letters, translated into German by Friderike.

  1922: Publishes monograph on Romain Rolland, an introduction to and translation of Verlaine poems, and the book of short stories Amok (Amok).

  June 24: Germany’s foreign minister Walther Rathenau is assassinated.

  1923-24: Works largely in Salzburg as he will throughout the decade receiving many visitors including author Romain Rolland, conductors Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini and composer Richard Strauss who are mainstays of the music festival there.

  November 9, 1923: Hitler’s Beerhall Putsch, a failed attempt at seizing control of the German government.

  1925: Publishes the second volume of Master Builders, Der Kampf mit dem Dämon (Struggle with a Demon), biographical essays on Hölderlin, Kleist, Nietzsche and goes on book tour through Germany.

  1926: His
father Moritz Zweig dies. At 45, Zweig enjoys his greatest theatrical success, an adaptation of Ben Jonson’s Volpone in Vienna.

  1927: Publishes Sternstunden der Menschheit (Decisive Moments in History) and the anthology Verwirrung der Gefühle (Confusion of Feelings). Ten volumes of Zweig’s collected work are published in the Soviet Union.

  1928: Zweig publishes Drei Dichter ihres Lebens (Adepts in Self-Portraiture), his biographical essays on Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy, the third volume of Baumeister der Welt (Master Builders). His own biography, by friend Erwin Rieger, is published in Berlin.

  1929: Publishes a full-length biography Bildnis eines politischen Menschen: Joseph Fouché, the founder of the modern secret police, and a book of short stories Kleine Chronik.

  October 25: American stock market crash sets off economic crisis.

  1930: Meets Maxim Gorky and Albert Schweitzer, about whom he writes the essay Unvergessliches Erlebnis: Ein Tag bei Albert Schweitzer (Unforgettable Experience: One Day with Albert Schweitzer).

  1931: Turns 50. Composer Richard Strauss asks Zweig for a libretto for the opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman). Publishes the biographical essays Die Heilung durch den Geist (Mental Healers: Franz Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, Sigmund Freud).