by Stefan Zweig
I am not ashamed to confess that as I pictured all this to myself a curious feeling of self-satisfaction came over me. In all our actions vanity is, after all, one of the most powerful driving forces, and weak natures in particular succumb to the temptation to do something which, viewed superficially, makes them appear strong, courageous and resolute. For the first time in my life I had an opportunity of showing my comrades that I was someone with some self-respect, in fact no end of a fellow! Writing more and more quickly and, as I thought, more and more resolutely, I completed the twenty lines or so of my resignation, and what at first had been merely an irksome duty had suddenly become a positive pleasure.
Now for the signature — and the whole thing would be finished. A glance at the clock: half-past six. Call the waiter and pay the bill. Then once more, for the last time, parade my uniform in the Ringstrasse, and take the night train home. Hand in the scrap of paper tomorrow morning, so that my decision should be irrevocable and a new existence be ushered in.
Taking the fateful document, I folded it first lengthwise and then across, so as to stow it away carefully in my breast pocket. At this moment an unexpected thing happened.
It was like this: during that half-second when, assured, self-confident, even happy (for every task accomplished makes one happy), I pushed the somewhat bulky envelope into my breastpocket, I became aware of a crackling resistance within. Whatever is this? I thought, feeling inside the pocket. But even as I did so my fingers shrank back as though they had realized before my brain what this forgotten packet was. It was Edith’s letter, her two letters, of yesterday.
I cannot accurately describe the emotion that overwhelmed me at this sudden recollection. I believe it was not so much a feeling of horror as of boundless shame; for at this moment a fog seemed to lift within me. In a flash I realized that all I had done, thought, and felt in the last few hours had been completely unreal: my rancour at having been reprimanded no less than my pride in my heroic manner of leaving the army. If I were clearing out, it was not because the Colonel had cursed me (after all, that happened to someone every week). In reality I was running away from the Kekesfalvas, from my own dishonesty, my responsibilities. I was running away because I could not bear to be loved against my will. Just as a man in the throes of a mortal illness forgets his torturing, agonizing pangs because of a chance toothache, so had I forgotten (or tried to forget) what was really tormenting me, what was turning me into a cowardly runaway, and had advanced as the motive for my resignation that trivial mishap on the parade-ground. But now I realized that this was no heroic farewell I was taking out of a sense of wounded honour. This was cowardly, contemptible flight.
But there is a certain finality about any act once it is carried out, and now that I had written my letter of resignation I did not want to go back on it. What the devil does it matter to me, I said angrily to myself, if she’s waiting and whining? They’ve worried me quite enough, upset me quite enough. What does it matter to me if some strange woman is in love with me? With all her millions she’ll soon find someone else, and if she doesn’t it’s not my business. It’s quite bad enough that I should have to chuck up everything, throw up my commission! What concern of mine is all this hysterical speculation as to whether she’s going to get well or not? Damn it, I’m not a doctor!
But at this significant word ‘doctor’ my thoughts stopped dead, just as a furiously whirling machine comes to a halt at a given signal. At that word ‘doctor’ the thought of Condor came into my mind. It’s his business, his affair, I said to myself. He’s paid to cure the sick. She’s his patient, not mine. He must reap what he has sown. The best thing will be to go straight to him and tell him that I am washing my hands of the whole business.
I glanced up at the clock. A quarter to seven, and my train didn’t leave till after ten. Plenty of time, then. I shouldn’t need to say very much; simply that I personally had finished with the whole thing. But where did he live? Hadn’t he given me his address, or had I forgotten it? But surely, as a doctor, he must be in the telephone directory. I flew across the road to a telephone booth and hurriedly turned over the pages. Be ... Bi ... Bu ... Ca ... Co ... there they all were, the Condors: Condor Anton, general dealer ... Condor Dr Emmerich, general practitioner, Vienna VIII, Florianigasse 97, and no other doctor on the whole page — that must be he. As I ran out I repeated the address twice, three times, to myself — I hadn’t a pencil on me, I had forgotten everything in my tearing haste — shouted it to the driver of the nearest cab, and while it bowled off smoothly and rapidly on its rubber-tyred wheels, I worked out my plan. The great thing was to be brief, to go straight to the point. On no account must I behave as though my mind were not entirely made up. I must not let him suspect for a moment that I was decamping because of the Kekesfalvas, but simply refer to my resignation from the start as a fait accompli. The whole thing had been planned months ago, I should say, but this excellent job in Holland had only just turned up. If, nevertheless, he went on cross-examining me, I must hedge and say nothing further. After all, had he been entirely frank with me? I must put a stop to all this business of eternally considering other people.
The cab drew up. Had the driver made a mistake or had I in my haste given the wrong address? Could this fellow Condor really live in such a poor district? He must get colossal fees from the Kekesfalvas alone, and no doctor of standing would live in such a slum. But no, he really did live there, for there in the entrance hall was his name-plate: ‘Dr Emmerich Condor. Second court, third floor. Hours of consultation 2 to 4 p.m.’ Two to four — and now it was getting on for seven! All the same, he’d have to see me. Quickly paying off the cabman, I crossed the ill-paved courtyard. What a dingy staircase it was — worn stairs, peeling walls scribbled all over, a smell of cheap food from the kitchens, the stench of half-open lavatories, women in grubby dressing-gowns who stood gossiping in the corridors and cast suspicious glances at the cavalry officer who went clanking past somewhat sheepishly in the dusk!
At last I reached the third floor, where there was another corridor with doors to right and left and one in the middle. I was about to feel in my pocket for a match, so that I could see which was the right door, when a somewhat slatternly maid came out of the door to the left, an empty jug in her hand. Probably she was on her way to fetch some beer for the evening meal. I asked for Dr Condor.
‘Yes, ’e live ’ere,’ she said, in the broken accents of a Czech, ‘but ’e not ’ome yet. ’E go to Meidling, ’e come back soon. ’E tell the mistress ’e come back for supper. You come in and wait.’
Before I had had time to reflect, she had ushered me into the hall.
‘You put your things there’ — she pointed to an old wardrobe of cheap wood, the only piece of furniture in the dark little hall. Then she opened the door of the waiting-room, which was somewhat more imposing; at any rate there were four or five arm-chairs round the table, and the wall on the left was lined with books.
‘You sit there,’ she said, pointing with a certain condescension to one of the chairs. And I now realized that Condor must have a working-class practice; rich patients were received very differently from this. A rum fellow, I thought, a very rum fellow. He could make pots of money, if he wanted to, out of the Kekesfalvas alone.
Well, I waited. Waited in a state of nerves as you always do in a doctor’s waiting-room. Without really wanting to read, you keep turning over the pages of well-thumbed, long since out-of-date periodicals, so as to conceal your uneasiness under an appearance of being absorbed. You keep getting up and sitting down again and looking up at the clock, which ticks away in the corner with its sleepy pendulum — twelve minutes past, fourteen minutes past, a quarter past, sixteen minutes past seven — and staring as though hypnotised at the door of the consulting-room.
At last — twenty minutes past — I could no longer contain myself; I had already warmed the seats of two chairs. I got up and went to the window. Down below in the courtyard an old man with a limp, evidently a p
orter, was oiling the wheels of a hand-cart; behind the lighted windows of a kitchen a woman was ironing, in another a woman was bathing her child in a tub. Somewhere, I could not make out on which storey it was, either just above me or just below me, someone was practising scales, the same thing over and over again. Again I glanced at the clock — twenty-five past seven, half-past seven. Why didn’t he come? I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, wait any longer. I could feel this waiting sapping my resolution, throwing me into a state of confusion.
At last I heaved a sigh of relief, for a door banged in the next room. I immediately drew myself up. Put a bold face on things, behave easily in front of him, I kept urging myself. Tell him quite nonchalantly that you have just called on him, in passing, to say good-bye and to ask him, incidentally, if he will pay a visit to Kekesfalva in the next few days and, if they should be suspicious, explain to them that you have had to go to Holland and leave the service. Good God Almighty, confound it all, why was he keeping me waiting like this? I could distinctly hear a chair being drawn up in the next room. Had that silly trollop of a maid forgotten to announce me?
I was just about to go out and remind her of my presence when I suddenly faltered, for the person who was walking about next door could not be Condor. I knew his step. I knew exactly — from that night when I had walked to the station with him — how he stumped along, short of leg and short of breath, in his squeaking shoes, whereas those footsteps in the next room, that kept approaching and receding, were quite different, more hesitating, more uncertain, more dragging steps. I don’t know why I listened in such agitation, with such inner intentness, to those strange footsteps. But it seemed to me as though the person in the next room were listening just as uneasily and anxiously as I was. Suddenly I heard a faint rustling at the door, as though someone were turning, or toying with, the handle; and lo! it moved. The thin brass bar moved visibly in the twilight, and the door opened just perceptibly. Perhaps it’s only the draught, the wind, I told myself, for no normal person, unless it be a burglar in the night, opens a door so stealthily. But no, the crack widened. A hand must have been pushing the door very cautiously, and now, even in the darkness, I could make out a human shadow. Spellbound, I stared at it. Then through the crack a woman’s voice asked timidly:
‘Is ... is anyone there?’
The answer died on my lips. I knew at once that only a blind person would talk in that way. Only the blind walked and shuffled and felt their way about so quietly, only the blind spoke in such uncertain tones. And in a flash I remembered. Had not Kekesfalva mentioned that Condor had married a blind woman? It must be she, it could only be she, this woman who stood there behind the crack of the door and questioned, and yet could not see me. I stared hard in the effort to take in her shadow in the darkness, and at last I distinguished a thin woman in a flowing dressing-gown, with grey, somewhat untidy hair. Good God, could this unattractive, plain woman be his wife! Horrible to feel oneself being stared at by those sightless orbs and to know that one was not seen! At the same time I could tell from the way in which she craned her neck to listen that she was straining all her senses to form a picture of the stranger in this room which it was beyond her power to take in. The effort contorted her heavy, large mouth so that it was more unlovely than ever.
For a moment I remained silent. Then I stood up and bowed — yes, bowed, although it was quite pointless to bow to a blind person.
‘I ... I’m waiting for Dr Condor,’ I stammered.
She had now opened the door to its full extent. With her left hand she continued to hold on to the handle, as though seeking support in the darkness which enveloped her. Then she groped her way forward, her brows drawn more tautly over the sightless eyes.
‘It’s long past consulting hours,’ she rapped out at me in another, a harsh voice. ‘When my husband comes home he must have a meal and rest. Can’t you come tomorrow?’
At every word her features grew more and more restless. I could tell that she was scarcely able to control herself. A hysteric, I thought at once. I mustn’t provoke her. And so I murmured — stupidly bowing once more into empty space:
‘Forgive me ... naturally I have no intention of consulting your husband professionally at this late hour. I merely wanted to tell him something ... concerning one of his patients.’
‘His patients? Always his patients!’ The exasperation in her tone verged on the tearful. ‘He was called out last night at half-past two, and at seven o’clock this morning he was out again, and ever since his consulting hours he’s not been back again. He’ll be ill himself if he’s given no peace. But I’ll have no more of it. Consulting hours are over for today, I tell you. They’re over at four. You can leave a note for him, or, if it’s urgent, go to another doctor. There are doctors enough in this town, four in every street.’
She groped her way nearer, and with a feeling of guilt I shrank back at the sight of the angry face, in which the wide-open eyes suddenly gleamed like glowing white marbles.
‘Go away, I tell you! Go away! Let him eat and sleep like other people. Take your claws out of him, all of you! In the middle of the night, early in the morning, the whole day long, patient after patient. He’s expected to wear himself out, and all for nothing. Just because you all realize that he’s weak, you cling to him and to him only ... oh, you’re a pack of brutes! You think of nothing but your troubles, your illnesses. But I won’t stand it, I won’t allow it. Go away, I tell you, go away at once! Leave him in peace, let him have one hour to himself in the evening!’
She had groped her way to the table. By some instinct she must have found out more or less where I was standing, for her eyes stared straight at me as though they could see me. There was so much genuine and at the same time so much irrational desperation in her anger that I could not help feeling ashamed.
‘Why, certainly, gnädige Frau,’ I said apologetically, ‘I perfectly understand that the Herr Doktor must have a little peace ... I won’t trouble you any further. Will you allow me just to leave a note, or perhaps to ring up in half an hour’s time?’
‘No,’ she shouted at me in desperation. ‘No, no, no! You mustn’t ring up. The telephone rings the whole day long, everyone wants something of him, asks this and complains of that. No sooner has he taken a bite of food than he has to jump up. Come tomorrow during consulting hours, I tell you. It can’t be as urgent as all that. He must have a little time to himself sometimes. Now be off! Be off, I tell you!’
Feeling and groping her way uncertainly, the blind woman came at me with clenched fists. It was horrible. I felt that she was about to seize me with her outstretched hands. But at that moment the hall door clicked and banged to. That must be Condor. She listened, she started. Immediately her face changed. She began to tremble from head to foot, and the hands, clenched but the instant before, were now clasped imploringly.
‘Don’t keep him now,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t say anything to him. He’s sure to be tired, he’s been on his feet the whole day ... Please have some consideration. Do have pity ...’
The door opened, and Condor entered the room.
He obviously took in the situation at a glance, but not for a moment did he lose his composure.
‘Ah, I see you’ve been ‘entertaining the Herr Leutnant,’ he said in the hearty manner which, I had come to realize, he assumed to conceal violent emotion. ‘How sweet of you, Klara!’
He went up to the blind woman and tenderly stroked her grey, rumpled hair. At his touch her whole expression changed. The anxiety that had distorted her large, heavy mouth was conjured away at this tender caress, and with a helpless, shamefaced, positively coy smile she turned to him; her somewhat protuberant forehead gleamed clear and bright in the electric light. It was breath-taking, this expression of sudden calm and assurance after the outburst of violence. Apparently she had completely forgotten my presence in the joy of feeling him near her. Her hand, attracted as though by a magnet, groped towards him through empty space, and when her gently exploring fing
ers found his coat, they kept stroking his arm, up and down, up and down. Realizing that her whole body was yearning for him, he went nearer, and now she leaned against him, relaxing her limbs as though utterly exhausted. Smilingly he put his arm round her shoulders and repeated, without looking at me:
‘How sweet of you, Klara!’ And even his voice seemed like a caress.
‘Forgive me,’ she said, obviously anxious to excuse herself, ‘but I had to explain to the gentleman that you must have a meal first; you must be dreadfully hungry. Rushing about the whole day long, and while you were away there’ve been at least a dozen telephone calls for you ... Forgive me for telling the gentleman he’d much better come tomorrow, but ...’