The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig (25 page)

But once, when she went to town to sell a kid, Wondrak suddenly barred her way, which he was well able to do, for in these seven years his good Bohemian belly had grown even bigger and broader. It was a good thing he’d happened to meet her, he growled, that would save him another trek into the woods. He had a bone to pick with her. Didn’t Ruzena Sedlak know that at the age of seven a
boy ought to be at school? And when she said angrily it was none of his business how old her boy was, or where he ought to be, then Wondrak tightened his braces and his broad moon-face assumed a menacing expression of official dignity. Now the town clerk spoke forcefully; he didn’t give a damn for her impertinence. Hadn’t she ever heard of the law on elementary schooling for all? Why did she think the expensive new schoolhouse had been put up two years ago? She must go the Mayor at once, he’d soon make her understand that a Christian child in the Imperial state couldn’t be allowed to grow up like the beasts of the field. And if she didn’t like it, he supposed there was still a place in the lockup for her, and the child would be taken away and put in the orphanage.

At this last threat Ruzena turned pale. Of course the thought of school had long ago occurred to her, but she had always hoped they would forget. This was all because of that wretched book in the Mayor’s office. Anyone whose name was written in it didn’t own himself any more. And they were already beginning to take him away from her. For Karel, sturdy as his legs were, couldn’t spend eight hours a day walking to school, and what was she to live on in the town? Finally, yet again, Father Nossal came to the rescue. He would have the boy to live with him during the week, he said, and he could go home to her every Saturday and Sunday and in the school holidays. His housekeeper would look after Karel very well. Ruzena stared angrily at the kindly, plump woman, who assured her in friendly tones that Father Nossal was right. She would have liked to strike the housekeeper—a woman who would now have more of her Karel than she did herself. But she was afraid in front of Father Nossal, so there was nothing she could do but agree. However, her skin was pale as stone, and in her hatred those terrible holes looked so black in her ruined face that the housekeeper hastily crossed herself in the kitchen, as if she had seen the Devil.

After that Ruzena often went to town. She had to walk all night, for eight hours, just to get a glimpse from the corner of her Karel and feel proud of him: neatly dressed, sponge dangling from his
slate, walking to school with the other boys. He was strong, lively, and better-looking than most of them, not a fright like her, shunned by everyone. She would walk eight hours there and eight hours back for that sight of him, she brought eggs and butter with her out of the forest, and she worked harder and did more business than ever simply so that she could pay to have new clothes made for him. And now, too, she understood for the first time that Sundays were a God-given gift to man. Karel studied hard and did well, and the priest even spoke of sending him to high school in the big city at his own expense. But she balked frantically at this: no, no, he must stay here, and she found him a job with a woodcutter in the forest where she lived. It was hard work but closer to her, only four hours from her part of the woods, in a place where they were cutting rides through the forest. She was sometimes able to take him his mid-day meal and sit with him for an hour. And even when she didn’t see him but just heard the firm, ringing axe strokes in the distance, they echoed cheerfully in her heart. It was her own blood she heard, her own strength.

Only Karel mattered to her. She even neglected the animals. There was no one else in the world. So she hardly noticed that a war began in the year 1914, and when she did notice it seemed to her, oddly enough, rather a good thing. The boys were paid better wages now, because the men were away, and when she took her eggs and chickens to town she didn’t feel she must wait humbly for the women to arrive, as she used to, but went further and further down the road to meet them, and soon sold her shining eggs for shining coins, haggling with her customers. She already had a whole hidden drawer full of money and banknotes; another three years like this, and she would be able to move into town with her Karel. That was all she knew about the war, and all she thought of it.

But one day in this period that could hardly be measured in months, when she took her son’s meal to the workmen’s hut, he said, bending his head and swallowing the words along with his soup, that he couldn’t come out to see her this Sunday. She was dumbfounded.
Why not? It was the first time since she had given birth to him that he wouldn’t be spending Sunday with her. Well, it was like this, he said, chewing, he had to go off to Budweis with the others for acceptance. Acceptance? She didn’t know what he was talking about. Acceptance for military service, he explained, eighteen-year-olds were soon going to be called up, it had been in the newspapers for a long time, and yesterday they’d had official notification.

Ruzena turned pale. All at once the blood drained from her face. She had never thought of that—she had never thought that he too would turn eighteen, her own child, and then they could take him away from her. Now she saw it all: that was why they had written him down in their wretched book in the Mayor’s office all that time ago, so that they could drag him off to their accursed war. She sat perfectly still, and when Karel looked at her in surprise, he was frightened of his mother for the first time, because the figure sitting there was no longer a human being. He himself felt the force of the terrible nickname of ‘the Death’s Head’, as he never had before—he had once punched a friend in the face for thoughtlessly uttering it. Out of a face drained of blood and white as bone, her black eyes stared straight into space, and her mouth had fallen open to show an empty cavern under those two dark holes in her flesh. He shuddered. Then she stood up and took his hand.

“Come over here,” she said. And her voice was brittle as hard bone too. She led him to the nearby barn where the woodcutters kept their tools. No one was there; she closed the door. “Go over there,” she told him sternly, and once again her voice in the dark might have come from the world beyond. Then she unbuttoned her dress. It was some time before her trembling fingers found and took out the silver crucifix that she wore on a thong around her neck. She placed it on the window-sill.

“There,” she told him. “Now swear.”

“What do you want me to swear?”

“Swear on that cross, by God and all his saints and the crucified Christ, that you will do as I say!”

He would have asked questions, but her bony fingers forced his hand down on the crucifix. Outside the sound of plates clattering could be heard, the laughter and talking of the workmen, and over there the grasshoppers were chirping in the grass, but here in the barn all was silent. Only her death’s head shone menacingly out of the shadows. Her dark passion made him shudder. But he swore.

She breathed a sigh of relief, and tucked the crucifix back into place. “You’ve sworn on the crucified Christ to obey me. You will not go to that damned war. Let them find others in Vienna. Not you!”

“But suppose they come looking for me?”

She laughed again, shrill, malicious laughter. “Those donkeys, they won’t get you. If they do come in search of you, you must go out to me in the woods. Now, go back and tell everyone you’re going to Budweis on Sunday, hand in your notice and say you’ll be off to the war.”

Karel obeyed. He had inherited her stubborn cast of mind that could cope with anything. And on Saturday night he stole out to the house in the forest—she had already taken his clothes there little by little—and she showed him a room in the attic. He must stay here during the day, she said. He could come out at night, she said (they wouldn’t come then), but he must not go too close to town, and he must always take Horcek the dog with him. The dog would start barking if anyone moved within a mile of them. And he mustn’t be afraid of the townsfolk, said Ruzena, no one had ever come out to her house yet except for Wondrak and the huntsman. But now the huntsman was buried somewhere in the rocks of Italy, and she could deal with that fat fool Wondrak, ha, ha.

However, she laughed only to give the lad courage. In reality, fear weighed on her breast by night like a great block of stone. Only the Count and the guests at his hunting parties, it was true, had ever made their way out to this remote and isolated house. But small, dull-minded, ignorant creature that she was, she feared the unknown in the shape of the power with which they had begun this war. What did they really have all those books for in Dobitzan,
in Budweis and Vienna? What was in them? Somehow or other, thanks to those accursed books, they must know all about everyone, every single person. They had summoned the tailor Wrba’s brother back from America, and someone had come from Holland too, the bastards had reached everyone. Might they perhaps lay hands on Karel after all? Might they not work out that he hadn’t gone to Budweis, but was hiding here in the forest? Oh, it was so hard to be alone against everyone, without anyone to talk to! Ought she to tell the priest? Perhaps he might advise her; over the years she had become used to that. And while her son’s strong breathing regularly broke the silence, its sound coming through the thin floor above her, she tormented herself: a mother on her own against the monstrosity of the world, how could she deceive all those people in town with their mean-minded books and notes and certificates? She tossed and turned, unable to sleep, and now and then bit her lip so that her child up above, knowing nothing of her fears, would not hear her groans, and then she lay there with her eyes open, a prey to all the cruel torments of dark night and horror until well into the early hours of morning. At last she thought she had an idea, and she immediately leaped out of bed, gathered up her things, and made her way fast to town.

She had eggs with her, a great many eggs, and a few young chickens, and she hurried with those from house to house. One woman wanted to buy all she had, but she would let her have only two chickens, because she wanted to talk to a large number of people—that was her cunning trick. She wanted to talk to everyone in town so that the news would spread rapidly. So everywhere she went, from house to house, she complained bitterly. It was a shame, she said, taking her child off to Budweis, her Karel. They were dragging all the young fellows off to war these days, oh, surely God couldn’t suffer them to take a poor woman’s breadwinner away from her. Couldn’t the Emperor see that it was all over if they needed such children, wouldn’t he do better to stop the war? People listened to her, sad and sympathetic, frowning gloomily. Many cautiously
turned and put a finger to their lips to warn her to be careful. For long ago the whole Czech people had broken away in their hearts from the Habsburgs, those strange gentlemen in Vienna, they had been surreptitiously keeping banners and candles ready to receive the Russians and set up their own kingdom. In secret and mysterious ways, passing the news from mouth to mouth, they all knew that their leaders Kramarc and Klopitsch were in jail, that Masaryk, who was on their side, was in exile, and the soldiers had brought back from the front vague news of German legions forming in Russia and Siberia. So there had been a secret understanding at work in people’s minds all over the country for a long time before any individuals ventured to take action, and by mutual consent they approved of any kind of resistance and indignation. The townsfolk therefore gave Ruzena a sympathetic hearing, and looked regretful, and with secret delight she felt that the whole town believed her lying tale. When she passed, she heard them talking behind her back: they’ve taken even that poor woman’s son away, folk said. And good Father Nossal himself spoke to her and said, with a strange twinkle in his eye, she mustn’t worry too much, because he’d heard that this business wouldn’t last much longer. The poor silly creature’s heart beat high when she heard people talking like that: how stupid they were! Now she had fooled the whole town, all by herself, and they would pass the news that Karel had been called up on to Budweis, and then it would go from Budweis to Vienna. So he would be forgotten, and afterwards, when the war was over, she would take the consequences on herself. And to hammer the lie home, to make other people feel sure of it, she came to town week after week and went on spinning her tale: he had written, she said, saying he had to go to Italy, and telling her how bad the food was in wartime. She sent him butter every week, she said, but God knew if it wasn’t stolen on the way. Oh, if he were only back from the war, if only she had him home again!

This went on for several weeks, but one day when she had come to town yet again, and was embarking on the litany of her woes,
Wondrak accosted her in a rather strange way and said, “Come along to my house and let’s drink a glass of something.” She dared not say no. But she felt cold all the way to her knees when she was alone with Wondrak in his parlour, and realized that he wanted to talk about one particular subject. He began by walking up and down, apparently undecided, and then he carefully closed the windows and sat down facing her.

“Well, and how’s your Karel?”

She stammered that he knew Karel had joined the army, his regiment had marched off to Italy yesterday. Oh, if only the war were over, she said, she prayed for her child daily.

Wondrak did not reply, but just whistled quietly to himself. Then he rose and checked that the door was well closed. She concluded from this that he meant her no ill, although he so persistently avoided looking at her.

Well, that’s all to the good, he muttered, but he, Wondrak, had just been wondering whether Karel hadn’t secretly made off? No business of his, of course, and after all, you could understand a fellow who didn’t want to throw his bones into another man’s soup—let the Germans manage this stupid war of theirs on their own. But (and here he turned to the door again) three days ago an armed troop had arrived, a contingent of military police from Prague with Carinthian soldiers, and they were searching the houses now for lads who hadn’t obeyed the call-up to join the army. There was Jennisch the locksmith, who after all had sprained his forefinger, they’d taken him out of his house and led him over the marketplace in handcuffs. It was a shame, such a good, honest man. And in the neighbouring village they were said to have shot a man who ran away, a shocking thing, it really was! They hadn’t finished yet either, said Wondrak. They had brought a whole list from Budweis or Prague or somewhere, a list of the names of all the men who hadn’t joined. Well, his lips were sealed on account of his official position, but maybe a number of men shouldn’t be on that list at all.