Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
How I reached home that night I no longer know. All I remember is wrenching open the cupboard in which I kept a bottle of slivovitz for visitors and tossing down three half-tumblersful to get rid of the horrible feeling of nausea in my throat. Then I threw myself down on the bed, fully dressed, and tried to think things out. But just as flowers grow in more tropical luxuriance in a hothouse, so do wild and frenzied ideas flourish in the darkness. Confused and fantastic, they shoot up out of the sultry soil into garish lianas which choke the breath out of one’s body, and with the swiftness of dreams the most fantastic hallucinations take shape and chase hither and thither round the overheated brain. Disgraced for life, I thought to myself, hounded out of society, sneered at by my fellow-officers, gossiped about all over the town! Nevermore would I be able to set foot outside my room, nevermore venture out into the streets, for fear of meeting one of the people who knew of my crime (for it was as a crime that in that first night of emotional tension I looked upon my simple blunder; myself I looked upon as hunted and pursued by universal ridicule). When, eventually, sleep came, it can only have been a light, fitful sleep, during which my fears were still feverishly at work within me. For directly I opened my eyes I was confronted by the angry childish face, I could see the twitching lips, the hands convulsively clawing at the table, I could hear the noise of falling pieces of wood, which I now realized must have been her crutches, and I was overcome by an insane fear that the door might suddenly open and — black coat, white-edged waistcoat, gold-rimmed spectacles — the girl’s father with his scanty, neatly trimmed goatee come stumping up to my bed. In my fear I jumped up. And as I stared at myself in the mirror, and saw the sweat of sleep and fear upon my features, I felt like smacking in the face the blundering fool behind the pale glass.
But fortunately by now it was day; steps clattered along the corridor and carts rattled on the cobble-stones below. And when daylight comes in at the window you think more clearly than when you are muffled up in the malignant darkness that delights in creating spectres. Perhaps, I said to myself, it’s not such a bad business after all. Perhaps no one noticed it. She, of course, that poor pale creature, the helpless cripple, she will never forget it, never forgive. Suddenly a consoling thought flashed across my mind. Hurriedly combing my tousled hair, I struggled into my uniform and rushed past my dumbfounded batman, who called after me plaintively in his halting Ruthenian German: ‘Herr Leutnant, Herr Leutnant, coffee ready.’
I tore down the steps of the barracks, and shot so quickly past some Uhlans who were standing about half-dressed in the courtyard that they had no time to spring to attention. At one bound I had left them behind and was outside the gate; from there I ran straight to the flower-shop in the Rathausplatz. In my impetuosity I had, of course, entirely forgotten that shops did not open at half-past five in the morning, but fortunately Frau Gurtner dealt in vegetables as well as flowers. A cart of potatoes stood half-unloaded before her door, and no sooner had I rapped briskly on the window than I could hear her pattering down the stairs. I invented a hasty excuse. Yesterday, I said, I had completely forgotten that today was the birthday of a very dear friend of mine. In half an hour’s time the regiment would be riding out, and so I should like some flowers to be sent at once. Flowers, quickly, then, the finest that she had! Whereupon the plump shop-woman, still in her night-jacket, shuffled off in her worn-out bedroom slippers, opened the shop, and displayed her crown jewel, an enormous cluster of long-stemmed roses. How many did I want? All, all of them, I said. Should she just tie them up as they were, or would I prefer her to put them in a nice basket? Yes, yes, a basket. All that was left of my month’s pay went on this magnificent purchase; at the end of the month I should have either to go without my evening meal and my visits to the café or else to borrow money. But at this moment that was a matter of indifference to me; if anything, I was actually glad that my foolishness was going to cost me dear, for all the time I felt a kind of malicious desire to punish myself thoroughly, blunderer that I was, to make myself pay through the nose for my twofold doltishness.
So now all was well, wasn’t it? The most lovely roses, beautifully arranged in a basket, to be delivered without fail. But at this point Frau Gurtner came running excitedly after me down the street. Where, then, and to whom, was she to send the flowers? The Herr Leutnant had said nothing about that. Oh yes, threefold dunderhead that I was, in my agitation I had forgotten all about that! To the Villa Kekesfalva, I instructed her, remembering, fortunately, thanks to that horrified exclamation of Ilona’s, the Christian name of my wretched victim: Fräulein Edith von Kekesfalva.
‘Ah yes, of course, the Kekesfalvas,’ said Frau Gurtner with pride. ‘Our best customers.’
And, one more question — I had already turned to rush off — did I not want to send a few words with them? A few words? Oh, I see! The name of the sender. Of the donor. How else was she to know who had sent the flowers?
So once more I entered the shop. Taking a visiting-card, I wrote on it: ‘With apologies.’ No — that was impossible. That in itself would be a fourth piece of folly. Why should I remind her of my blunder? But what else was I to write? ‘With sincere regrets.’ No, that wouldn’t do, either; she might think I was sorry for her. Best to write nothing, nothing at all.
‘Just put my card with the flowers, Frau Gurtner, just the card.’
Now I felt relieved. I hurried back to barracks, gulped down my coffee and got through the morning’s drill somehow, perhaps a little more absently and less calmly than usual. But in the army no one pays much attention if a lieutenant comes on duty in the morning with a bit of a hang-over. How many there are who come back, after a riotous night in Vienna, so tired out that they can scarcely keep their eyes open, and fall asleep while trotting briskly along! As a matter of fact, it suited my book very well just then to have my whole time taken up with shouting words of command, inspecting my men and then riding out. For my military duties to some extent kept at bay my uneasiness; the disquieting memory was still, it was true, drumming behind my temples, and I still felt as though an acrid sponge were lodged in my throat.
But at noon, just as I was about to go over to the officers’ mess, my batman came running after me with an eager ‘Panje Leutnant!’ He held in his hand a letter, a longish rectangle — English paper, blue, delicately scented, a coat of arms elegantly embossed on the back, the envelope addressed in a fine pointed hand, a woman’s hand. Hastily tearing it open, I read: ‘Sincere thanks, my dear Herr Leutnant, for the undeserved present of lovely flowers, with which I was, and still am, delighted. Do please come to tea with us on any afternoon that suits you. Do not trouble to let us know. I am — alas! — always at home. — EDITH V. K.’
A delicate hand. Involuntarily I recalled how the slender childish fingers had gripped the edge of the table, remembered how the pale face had suddenly flushed purple, as though claret had been poured into a glass. I read the few lines again, and then a second and a third time, and breathed a sigh of relief. How discreetly she had glossed over my gauche behaviour! At the same time how skilfully, how tactfully, she herself had alluded to her infirmity! ‘I am — alas! — always at home.’ It would be impossible to grant forgiveness more tastefully. Not a hint of annoyance. A load fell from my mind. I felt like a prisoner in the dock who has fully expected to be sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, when the judge rises and announces, ‘Discharged.’ I should have to go there soon, of course, to thank her. Today was Thursday — so I should pay my call on Sunday. Or no, better make it Saturday.
But I did not keep my word. I was too impatient. I was haunted by the desire to know that my guilt was once and for all wiped out, to put as speedy an end as possible to the disquietude aroused in me by the uncertainty of the situation. I was still racked by the fear lest in the officers’ mess, at the café, or elsewhere, someone would broach the subject of my mishap, ‘Well, and how did things go off at the Kekesfalvas’?’ I wanted to be able to retort in calm superior tones, ‘Charming p
It was not a particularly long walk to the Kekesfalvas’, half an hour at the most if one stepped out briskly. First five tedious minutes through the town, then along the somewhat dusty high-road which led also to our parade-ground, and every inch of which our horses by this time knew so well that we could let the reins hang slackly. Half-way along this road, by a little chapel on a bridge, a narrower, shady avenue of old chestnut trees branched off to the left — a private avenue which was little used either by pedestrians or carriages and which followed without impatience the leisurely meanderings of a sluggish little stream.
But, oddly enough, the nearer I approached the little Schloss, the white walls and the wrought-iron gate of which were by now visible, the more quickly did my courage evaporate. Just as, on arriving at the very door of the dentist’s, one seeks for some excuse to retreat before ringing the bell, so now did I long to make a hurried escape while there was yet time. Must it really be today? Should I not regard the whole disagreeable affair as finally settled by the young girl’s letter? Involuntarily I slowed down my pace; there was, after all, still time to turn back. One is always glad to make a detour when one shrinks from going straight to one’s objective, and so, crossing the little stream by a rickety plank, I turned off from the avenue into the fields, with the idea of first walking round the house from the outside.
The house behind the high stone wall revealed itself as a two-storeyed, rambling edifice in late Baroque style; it was painted, after the old Austrian fashion, a so-called Schönbrunn yellow, while the windows were furnished with green shutters. Separated from it by a courtyard, a few smaller buildings, obviously the servants’ quarters, the estate offices and the stables, abutted on the park, of which I had seen nothing at all that first evening. Only now, peering in through the oval openings in the vast wall, did I realize that the house was not, as I had been led to believe by the interior, a modern villa, but a regular country-house, a nobleman’s country-seat of the old style, such as I had now and again seen in Bohemia when riding past on manœuvres. The only remarkable feature of the house was the curious square tower, slightly reminiscent in its shape of an Italian campanile, which thrust itself up into the sky in somewhat incongruous fashion — perhaps the remains of an earlier schloss. I now remembered that I had frequently noticed this watch-tower from the parade-ground, but had taken it to be the church tower of some village or other, and only now did it occur to me that the usual ‘bulb’ of the tower was missing and that the curious cubic structure had a flat roof, which served either as a sun terrace or an observatory. The more certain I became of the feudal, traditional character of this country-seat, the more uncomfortable did I feel; it was in this house of all houses, where the conventions must undoubtedly be rigidly observed, that I had gone and made such an ass of myself on my first appearance.
But at length, having walked right round the outer wall and reached the gate again from the other side, I screwed up my courage, walked along the gravel path between a double row of pollarded trees to the front door and lifted the heavy chased bronze knocker, which, in accordance with old custom, served the purpose of a bell. A moment later the butler appeared. Strange, he did not seem at all taken aback by my unannounced visit. Without inquiring further or taking the visiting-card which I held in my hand, he invited me, with a polite bow, to wait in the salon, saying that the ladies were still in their room, but would come in a moment; there seemed to be no doubt, then, of my being received. He led me into the house as though my visit were expected; with renewed uneasiness I recognized the red-tapestried salon in which we had danced that first evening, and a bitter taste in my mouth reminded me that next door must be that room with the fateful corner.
At first, it is true, cream-coloured folding-doors, with delicate gold ornamentation, hid from sight the scene, so vivid in my memory, of my gaffe, but after a few moments I could hear, on the other side of the door, chairs being drawn up, hushed whispers, and a discreet coming and going which betrayed the presence of several people. I tried to employ the time of waiting in surveying the salon: rich furniture, Louis Seize, to the right and left old Gobelin tapestries and, between the French windows that gave directly on to the garden, old pictures of the Grand Canal and the Piazza San Marco, which seemed to me, novice though I was in these matters, to be extremely valuable. It is true that I did not form a very clear picture of any single one of these art treasures, for I was listening with eager attentiveness to the noises in the next room. There was a faint clatter of plates, a door banged, and now I fancied too — a cold shudder ran down my spine — that I could hear the unrhythmical dry tap-tap of crutches.
At last an as-yet invisible hand pushed open the folding-doors from inside. It was Ilona, who now came towards me. ‘How nice of you to come, Herr Leutnant!’ she said, and conducted me straight into the only-too-familiar room. In the same corner, on the same chaise-longue, behind the same malachite-green table (why repeat a situation so painful to me?), sat the crippled girl, a voluminous white fur rug spread over her lap so that her legs were invisible — evidently I was not to be reminded of ‘it’. With obviously studied friendliness Edith smiled me a greeting from her invalid’s corner. Nevertheless it was a painful moment for both of us, this renewal of our acquaintance, and I could tell at once, from the constrained manner in which, with some effort, she held out her hand to me across the table, that she too was thinking of ‘it’. Neither of us succeeded in finding the first word to break the ice.
Fortunately Ilona hurriedly interjected a question into the suffocating silence.
‘What may we offer you, Herr Leutnant? Tea or coffee?’
‘Oh, just whichever you like,’ I replied.
‘No — whichever you prefer, Herr Leutnant! Please don’t stand on ceremony, it’s all the same to us.’
‘Well, then, coffee, if I may,’ I decided, and was glad to find that my voice did not sound too husky.
Damned clever, that, of Ilona to have bridged the first moment of tension with such a practical question! But it was ruthless of her to leave the room now to order tea, for I, to my discomfiture, was left alone with my victim. It was high time now to say something, to make conversation at all costs. But there was a lump in my throat and there must have been a trace of embarrassment in my gaze; I did not venture to look in the direction of the sofa, for fear she might think I was staring at the rug which concealed her crippled legs. Fortunately she showed herself to be more composed than I, and she opened the conversation with a certain excitable vehemence of manner which I remarked in her for the first time.
‘Won’t you sit down, Herr Leutnant? There, draw up that arm-chair. And why don’t you take off your sword — we’re going to keep the peace, aren’t we? Put it on the table or the window-ledge ... wherever you wish.’
I drew up a chair somewhat formally. I still found it impossible to look about me quite freely. But she came energetically to my rescue.
‘I really must thank you again for the exquisite flowers ... they’re wonderful. Just see how lovely they look in the vase! And then ... and then ... I must apologize too for my stupid outburst. It was frightful the way I behaved ... I couldn’t sleep the whole night, I was so ashamed. You meant it so kindly ... how could you possibly have had any idea? And besides,’ — she suddenly gave a shrill, nervous laugh — ‘besides, you really had guessed my inmost thoughts ... I had sat down there purposely to watch the dancers ... and just as you came up to me I was longing for nothing so much as to join in ... I’m quite crazy about dancing. I can watch o