Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (39 page)

Zweig attracted further criticism from his French friend in regard to a tricky situation that he characterised, in a moment of emotional excess, as his greatest literary success, which had meant more to him than winning the Nobel Prize could ever have done. In 1932 the relatives of Giuseppe Germani, an anti-Fascist arrested and sentenced to death in Italy, turned to Zweig in the hope that he could use his influence as a respected European writer to help them. Germani had been arrested for assisting the relatives of the socialist Giacomo Matteotti, who had been murdered by Fascists. Zweig, who had been in Italy in May of that year to give a lecture on “The historical evolution of the European idea”, decided after some hesitation
and dithering to petition Benito Mussolini personally in a letter. Incredibly, after agonising months of waiting, Germani was indeed pardoned and sent into exile on an island off southern Italy. Zweig penned an effusive letter of thanks to the Duce, and wrote an equally jubilant letter to Rolland. But the latter could not agree with Zweig’s approach, communicating with Mussolini as if he were a normal head of government. In his eyes the pardoning of Germani was nothing more than a clever propaganda trick. Since Mussolini’s power was founded entirely on the use of force, Rolland argued, the only acceptable response was to meet force with force.

Zweig’s books had been appearing with their customary regularity at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. But now work on one of his earlier cherished projects was turning into a total defeat. The long-planned catalogue of his manuscript collection seemed to be under some kind of curse. After Alfred Bergmann had completed his initial preparations in 1926, his time had been so taken up with further work on Kippenberg’s Goethe collection and subsequent projects that he saw little prospect of moving Zweig’s catalogue forward. But despite his workload Bergmann was not keen on handing over this prize project to anyone else. So Zweig had cautiously suggested taking on an assistant to help with the preparatory work and the research, thus ensuring that he, Bergmann, would retain overall supervision of the project and editorship of this important publication. But the student from Munich who was hired for this purpose, Karl Werner Klüber, turned out to be rather too commercially savvy—after spending several months sorting out Zweig’s library and parts of his collection and compiling material for the catalogue, he demanded substantial additional sums of money, over and above his previously agreed payment, in the event that a manuscript based on his preparatory work ever went into print. Zweig battled with Klüber’s demands over a period of weeks and months. He just managed to prevent the dispute escalating and ending up in court, but the tone of his letters in this matter became uncharacteristically sharp.

As Bergmann’s other commitments continued to rule him out, it was agreed in the end that Zweig’s editor Fritz Adolf Hünich would carry on the work. In the meantime Zweig had decided for two reasons not to have the catalogue published by Insel Verlag as originally planned. For one thing, following official publication of a catalogue there was a risk that his entire collection, including the Beethoven desk and all the other precious pieces, would effectively be placed under a preservation order
by the government, which would have meant that he was not allowed to sell, give away or exchange a single item. And this was not a welcome prospect—it would have denied him the freedom to acquire new items and dispose of others, and the collection would no longer have any investment value as a flexible asset that could be realised at some future date. The second reason that had led Zweig to his decision was the sharp increase in poverty during those years, which had affected many of his fellow writers. Although it was an open secret that Zweig had been helping out colleagues with sums of money ever since his early years in Vienna, he felt it would be inappropriate to parade his own wealth, in the form of his valuable collection, before the general public.

So the new plan was for Hünich to complete the catalogue as a monument to the collection, which Zweig would then have privately printed at his own expense for distribution to close friends and fellow collectors on his fiftieth birthday in November 1931. But once again things did not go according to plan. After proving so reliable over the years, Hünich was unable to find the time after work to attend to the continuation of the catalogue—and he certainly had no time to travel to Salzburg to study the manuscripts in more detail. In addition to all his other duties at the publishing house he had taken on the thankless task of compiling a bibliography of Zweig’s works. The idea was to publish this substantial list in lieu of the originally planned catalogue as a little birthday present from Insel for Zweig’s fiftieth birthday. A date was finally fixed for Hünich to visit Zweig in Salzburg, but just before he was due to come he was taken seriously ill. At the last moment Zweig sought to get his trusty assistant Erwin Rieger to take on the work, and asked Hünich to send on the material he had already assembled. It only now transpired that despite all his assurances Hünich had not done a stroke of work on the catalogue for months. Zweig’s anger and disappointment knew no bounds:

Furious with Hünich, who has just forgotten all about the bibliography and catalogue. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me—and this is important for the M A [Marie Antoinette] book—that weakness is the greatest vice, because it corrupts others. Instead of motivating Klüber, Hünich and the rest of them by indulging and accommodating them and putting my confidence in them, I’ve only succeeded in weakening them, corrupting them morally. And the resentment wells up from the subconscious and falls back on me—and rightly so: weakness is a fault.
¹⁴

As a small compensation for the lost pleasure of the catalogue, Zweig was at least able to regale his circle of friends with another privately printed memento, albeit on a much more modest scale. At the beginning of 1931 he had managed to acquire four original letters written by Mozart to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, affectionately known as “Bäsle”. As usual Zweig had initially declined to purchase letters for his collection, but then he discovered that Mozart’s letters contained material that was thoroughly indecent, and for that reason had never been published in their entirety. On learning this he promptly changed his mind, and before long he was able to add the four new manuscripts to the collection in his display cabinet. For his birthday Zweig now had one of the letters reprinted in facsimile, together with a translation of the text and a brief commentary, in a limited edition of just fifty numbered copies. The production work was undertaken by the Viennese publisher Herbert Reichner, whose journal for book collectors
Philobiblon
, to which Zweig had already contributed a few articles, was highly regarded. The reproduction of the Mozart letter went down very well indeed with Zweig’s friends. Sigmund Freud evinced a lively interest in the composer’s coarse language, and Richard Strauss was another delighted recipient, who added a postscript to his letter of thanks: “You will be interested to know that I possess an original letter from the divine one—likewise written to Bäsle—which is so decent, alas, that it can safely be read out in a Mozart Society meeting.”
¹⁵

The sending of the Mozart facsimile to Strauss was the first contact Zweig had had with him, and the background to this was significant. With the death of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Strauss the opera composer had lost his librettist, and so far he had not found a replacement. Anton Kippenberg had tentatively mentioned the name of his best-selling author Stefan Zweig, and so the next thing was to arrange a meeting between the composer and the putative new librettist. The two men met for the first time in November at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich, and Zweig was able to outline his plans. For some time past he had been working on sketches for a ballet to be called
Marsyas und Apoll,
but this was not quite what Strauss had in mind; he was thinking more in terms of a comic opera. At all events Zweig was delighted to have the opportunity of embracing a genre—musical theatre—in which he had not previously worked at all.

The whole project also represented a triumph of a very different kind for him. Following Hofmannsthal’s death Zweig had heard credible rumours to the effect that the deceased, when agreeing years earlier to collaborate
with Max Reinhardt on the Salzburg Festival, had insisted that the local author Stefan Zweig should have absolutely no involvement in the event. But the saga of envy and resentment did not end with Hofmannsthal’s death. When Zweig gave the commemorative address for him at the Burgtheater in Vienna, his widow had pointedly declined to attend. And now he, Zweig, of all people was to become Hofmannsthal’s successor as Richard Strauss’s librettist.

In the end it was agreed that Zweig should write a libretto based on another play by Ben Jonson, whose
Volpone
had brought him so much success. The original was called
Epicoene, or The Silent Woman
, and Zweig planned to use the existing translation by Ludwig Tieck. The work would be called
Die schweigsame Frau
—and the lady in question was destined to cause him a good deal of trouble.

In the month before Zweig’s fiftieth birthday Arthur Schnitzler died in Vienna. Zweig wrote that the death of people as such did not greatly affect him, unless the circumstances for the family were particularly tragic. But he had many good memories of Schnitzler, and the news of his death was one reason for starting to keep a diary again after a long interval. The main reason, however, was a sense that critical times lay ahead, which he should be chronicling—and he was also mindful of his own personal “dark day”, which was drawing inexorably closer on the calendar. In order to avoid the worst of the excitement that his fiftieth birthday was certain to generate, Zweig decided to escape to Munich a few days beforehand and lie low there. He was right in the middle of his work on the biography of Marie Antoinette, and even managed to make some progress on it in his Bavarian refuge. Apart from that he met up with old friends, went to the opera, where they were doing Beethoven’s
Fidelio
(which he found mildly disappointing in its impact, hearing it again for the first time in ages), and also had an opportunity to gauge his own impact as a man in his late forties—as he records in his diary: “Spent the evening with the nice girl from the café. The demands of the job are appalling: working for more than twelve hours with no chance to sit down, then an hour’s journey home. It completely wrecks your life. Very nice sitting with her in the bar, astonishing how she confided in me.”
¹⁶

Finally the evening of 27th November 1931 came round: “I looked at the clock, tomorrow, no, in a quarter of an hour, I’ll be fifty (ghastly thought!). Is there ever going to be something new coming into my life again? Will my reserves of strength, my resilience hold out?
Vederemo
. As long as I
never cross myself superstitiously or feel myself blessed, just because of the date on the calendar. Onwards and upwards! Hopefully not too far, as long as I do it in style.”
¹⁷

The first letters of congratulation had been sent on from Salzburg by Friderike. Among the flood of letters was the following from Carl Zuckmayer, who wrote from Henndorf to convey his own congratulations and those of his family:

Dear Maestro,

I can well understand why you would have taken flight to escape the honours prepared in celebration of your birthday—the torchlight parade of the Salzburg Home Guard, the telegram boys hammering at your door, the delegation from the Association of Purebred Cocker Spaniel Breeders, etc etc [ … ]

However, you will not escape the guard of honour provided by the Henndorf League of Maidens (complete with leg show). The preparations are already in hand. It’s been a long time since I emerged from my retreat [ … ]. But now I am hoping to see you soon.

With very best wishes,

                                          Yours ever, Zuck
¹⁸

The hoped-for reunion came about sooner than Zuckmayer had expected. At very short notice Zweig invited him to come to Munich to have lunch with him on his birthday at the Jewish Restaurant Schwarz. The pleasures of the table—“the champagne was on Herr Schwarz, and there was much good cheer”—combined with the presence of his good friend to make it an enjoyable birthday celebration after all.
¹⁹
When Zweig returned to Salzburg he found a huge pile of mail and presents waiting for him. The only surviving letter from Stefan to his brother Alfred is the reply that he now wrote to Alfred’s fiftieth birthday congratulations. More than just a look back at the past, it is shot through, once again, with his premonitions about the future, which grew darker with every passing year:

Dear Alfred,

Thank you so much for your letter. It is not necessary for us to exchange many words; we have always stuck together in everything with absolute trust, never ever telling one another a lie or keeping anything from one another, and I can think of no reason why such a brotherly relationship, cemented by half a century of being thoroughly tried and tested, should ever falter. It is likely that the times ahead hold all manner of surprises and trials in store for us, when such a strong bond will prove to be more necessary than ever before. I have no worries on that score, and I thank you for all the love you have shown me. [ … ]

I have just been reading some fairly barefaced things in the German press. But I feel that I am still young enough to ditch the whole household baggage if necessary and start again: as our father’s sons we have inherited a certain modesty in our personal needs. I could happily live in two rooms, with a few cigars and a daily visit to the café, I don’t really need anything more than that. So we don’t need to worry too much, and we shall be able to see that Mama’s last years are spent in peace, whatever happens, and the fact that neither you nor I have children is something that I have long regarded as a piece of good fortune. One thing that sometimes troubles me, namely that Fritzi’s children are two persons with whom I have nothing at all in common, in a sense also relieves me of responsibility, because it means that the only duty we have is to ourselves, to live out our lives decently to the end, and that we shall surely do while we have this inviolable bond. I am actually not afraid of anything any more. [ … ]