Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (10 page)

The Insel catalogue included authors such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Ricarda Huch, whose commitment to the house Anton Kippenberg now sought to strengthen. So the prospects for publishing important new titles over the coming years were good. At the same time Kippenberg was keen to develop and extend Insel’s list of classical-literature titles, with the main emphasis firmly on the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The focus on Goethe is hardly surprising, not only because of his unrivalled importance as a literary figure, but also because of Anton Kippenberg’s own private interests. While still a student he had started to collect Goethe memorabilia, including original manuscripts, first and special editions, paintings, drawings and
objets d’art.
In the intervening decades this had grown to become the most important private collection of its kind.

For Zweig it was particularly gratifying to find that Insel was not only going to be publishing his own books, but also showed interest in his suggestions for extending the list into new areas or developing new book series. Moreover, questions of book design were always accorded their due. As an author one could discuss with the publishing director such minutiae as the exact shade of the printer’s ink, and special requests such as “I would ask that in the matter of the paper—lightweight but thick paper, so-called featherweight paper—my wishes are respected”
⁶
did not fall on deaf ears. This was a working environment where someone like Stefan Zweig could feel very much at home.

Shortly before his birthday he was informed that he had been nominated for an award from the Bauernfeld Prize fund for 1906 in Vienna. The jury had decided to present him with the award for his published poetry. A number of newspaper articles even published portraits of the winners. Naturally Zweig’s publisher was gratified to read such reports about one of his authors, and in his next letter to Hugo von Hofmannsthal he enquired in passing if he had heard about Zweig’s prize award. Clearly Kippenberg had no idea that he was touching on a very sore point: “As far as the so-called Bauernfeld Prize is concerned”, Hofmannsthal wrote back loftily,

your distant location doubtless makes it difficult for you to see this matter in its proper perspective. This foundation has thoroughly compromised itself by associating itself with a peculiarly foolish arts policy here in Vienna, and besides, Mr Z has not won the B Prize, which was not even awarded, but has simply received a bursary from the prize fund, the which modest distinction he shares with eight other sixth-rate talents. So contrary to what may appear, there is no occasion to reappraise the merits of this littérateur. I also believe, in the light of our conversation, that you and I are of one mind about the principle at stake here, and that you will not fail to appreciate the serious damage that was done to the prestige of the publishing house under the direction of Pöllnitz. Prestige is an indefinable thing, which can only be discussed between people who understand each other. I believe we understand each other perfectly.
⁷

As was mentioned earlier, Hofmannsthal never warmed to Zweig’s style or works, nor to the man. The fact that Zweig, on top of everything else, had achieved success with the same publishing house that had published some of his own works did not make matters any easier. He did not express his dislike openly to Zweig, of course, and it will have taken the latter some time to work out Hofmannsthal’s true opinion of him. Hofmannsthal had even invited him to tea in Rodaun on several occasions, taking the trouble, in one letter, to tell him the best train and bus connections for the journey out from Vienna, while another time he thanked Zweig warmly, on behalf of his wife, for the flowers their guest had brought with him. Beyond such minor courtesies Hofmannsthal also let it be known, following the publication of the twelve-volume series
Die Erzählungen aus den tausendundein Nächten,
for which he had written an introduction, how much he had appreciated Zweig’s favourable review of the books. After that Zweig felt obliged to send Hofmannsthal a copy of each of his own new publications, but this did not lead to the recipient taking a closer interest in his work. The postscript that Hofmannsthal appended to one of his letters to Zweig—“Strangely, we have been so taken up with Balzac lately that we quite forgot your novella!”
⁸
—hardly suggests that he particularly regretted the oversight.

Much less problematic were Zweig’s relations with his colleagues in France and Belgium. He was back in Paris again by the end of 1904, but to his great disappointment was not able to meet up with Verhaeren, who was attending his dying mother-in-law. In mid-February of the following year Zweig set off for warmer southern climes and travelled down through
Spain to Algiers. A planned excursion to the Balearics fell through. To Franz Karl Ginzkey he wrote: “You wanted to hear about Spain. It’s quite
splendid
—and that’s all that one can say about it in a letter.”
⁹
He gave a more detailed account of his travels in the now-customary manner by writing a number of articles for the newspapers back home.

From southern Europe he came back to Paris, and remained there until mid-June. On the return journey to Vienna he travelled via Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, where, following a long exchange of letters, he planned to meet Hermann Hesse in person at last. When Zweig arrived in the small village he strode up to his host so jauntily that he hit his head on the low door frame of Hesse’s farmhouse, and it took a while before he was in a fit state to converse again. Over the next few days the two colleagues went for walks along the shore of Lake Constance, conversing at great length and getting to know each other better. The contrasting lifestyles of the two men—self-consciously cultivated to some degree on both sides—excited their mutual interest; on the one hand Hesse, a man with simple needs, who did not even have running water in his house, on the other Zweig, a
bon vivant
who liked to travel and had no financial worries. So they had many professional and personal experiences to share and compare. Zweig took many photographs during his visit and later sent the pictures to Hesse. And he had brought home a present to add to his collection—the manuscript of Hesse’s story
Heumond
, running to more than eighty pages.

Back home in Vienna again, Zweig decided to try his hand at a new genre and write a play, following his work in poetry and prose. Thersites, an ugly troublemaker in the Greek army camped outside Troy, who had acquired a degree of notoriety for his inflammatory speeches and was finally slain by Achilles, was to be the central character of the work that bore his name. Although beset by doubts about the concept and the merits of the work, Zweig had started planning the play in the autumn of 1905. In form as well as theme he envisaged something very much in the style of the classical drama. During a stay in Italy he wrote down the text in a series of school exercise books he bought locally. By the time the work was completed in the following spring, his self-doubts were somewhat allayed. He even opined that the three-act play was the finest thing he had yet written. But he found it hard to imagine that the work would ever be performed on stage.

After his extended visits to France and Belgium, from where Zweig had also visited the Netherlands, and after the periods he had spent in Spain
and Italy, the latter familiar to him since his childhood, the time had come to leave the Continent and spend a few months in England. This exploratory trip was to take place in the summer of 1906, immediately after the now-obligatory stay in Paris. Zweig compared the change from Paris to London with stepping out of the bright summer sunshine into the cool shade. He was talking about the weather—but also about the people: “I’m living here in London a little reluctantly, because I like the sun very much and find the overcast skies weighing upon me, like a lead ring about my heart. And I have very few people here who are close to me. There are too many here who are cool and distant, and too few who are open and warm-hearted.”
¹⁰

As well as some public readings, where he heard William Butler Yeats and Arthur Symons, the city fortunately had more than enough to offer him in the way of diversion. From his lodgings, a boarding house at 84 Kensington Gardens Square, situated to the north-west of Hyde Park, he betook himself on many days to the Reading Room at the British Museum, where he perused rare books and manuscripts. A new artistic relationship of an unusual kind now developed following a visit to an exhibition of drawings by the poet and graphic artist William Blake, who had died in 1827. The art historian Archibald G B Russell, author of a number of books on Blake, conducted parties of visitors through the galleries and supplied a fascinating commentary on the exhibited works. Zweig was bowled over by Blake’s work, and as a result of this new discovery he set about translating one of Russell’s texts into German; it appeared later that year under the title
Die visionäre Kunstphilosophie des William Blake
. But his new passion did not end there. Through Russell’s contacts he was able to buy a pencil drawing by Blake—a portrait of King John. Zweig himself ranked the drawing among the most important items in his collection, even comparing it, somewhat extravagantly, to a work by Leonardo da Vinci. Although, surprisingly, he never wrote at length about Blake himself, he retained a lifelong fascination with his drawings. In later years he bought a second drawing depicting the figure of Job, and when, in the mid-1930s, he saw some more pictures in the Morgan Library in New York, his old enthusiasm was undiminished: “Until you have seen them in these glorious pastel colours, you have never seen them.”
¹¹

During the summer weeks Zweig made a number of excursions outside London, one of which took him to Oxford, which he wrote about in a newspaper article. A more extended tour took him into the far north,
beyond York and all the way up to Scotland. It was all exciting enough, and brought with it all manner of new discoveries; but he was unable to connect with the landscape and the people in the same way that had come so easily to him in Belgium and France. Conversation about topical subjects was made impossibly difficult because all the locals referred to politicians by their first name only. Not knowing any of the details, Zweig could barely follow the conversation, let alone contribute to it. And the fact that by his own admission the difference between hockey and polo remained a mystery to him, while the sports section of the newspaper, with all its baffling jargon, might as well have been written in Chinese, will not have contributed to a better understanding of the British way of life.

So while this country had much of interest to offer, it was never going to become dear to his heart. Writing a feature article about Hyde Park, in which he sought to fathom the country’s soul, Zweig ended with the comment: “The true stuff of England’s dreams is not Hyde Park, but a place called Italy”
¹²
—a sentiment with which he could heartily concur. Not for nothing did he choose Merano and Rome as his destinations when he arranged a few weeks’ working holiday at the end of the year.

Although Zweig spent several months of each year abroad, Vienna remained the focal point of his life. So it made sense to try and set up a more permanent home here. In February 1907 he moved to new quarters in Vienna’s 8th District, a modest three-room apartment at Kochgasse 8. This was easily affordable, as were all his expensive travels, because on reaching his majority he had received the sum of 40,000
kronen
from his grandmother’s bequest. In addition he received what his brother termed a “generous monthly allowance”
¹³
from the profits of his parents’ factory, which amounted to another 20,000
kronen
a year, approximately equivalent to the value of Alfred’s own share in the business.

The furnished rooms from his student days, and living with his parents, were now finally consigned to the past. Having more presentable accommodation was desirable not least because it meant he could now entertain guests at home. And the prospect of
not
having parents or landladies in the next room was another consideration of no small importance. Shortly before the move Zweig’s friend and colleague Victor Fleischer had suggested that they might rent a larger apartment together, but Zweig discouraged the idea—for various reasons:

About your suggestion. Will you mind terribly if I decline from the outset? I think that living together is not always the best thing for a friendship, and—why shouldn’t I be frank with you?—I wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with it on account of my love life. And then there’s the fact that I often need to be completely on my own. It just wouldn’t work if I had a dear friend in the next room that I could go and see, because I would be doing it all the time. That’s why the idea of marriage often seems so strange to me, as someone who often travels alone for weeks on end, never saying a word to anyone, and just enjoying the feeling of things growing and stirring within me. I hope you don’t mind me speaking frankly: if I wasn’t so sure of your friendship I would have hidden behind some excuse, when all that is so unnecessary.
¹⁴

Alfred Zweig remembered his brother as sensitive and sometimes dreamy, but not at all as someone of a romantic nature. He could not recall Stefan ever being in love during his youth, as nearly all his friends had been at one time or another. His brother had never had a steady girlfriend in all those years, he claimed, which did not rule out brief (and for the most part very brief) liaisons, none of them remotely significant. According to Alfred’s account, Stefan was a stranger to passionate love himself, merely observing it in others and then depicting it often enough in his work.