Read Online Amok and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig - Free Book Online
Authors: Stefan Zweig
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grateful. She tried to say something else, but it was too difficult for her. She lay there for a long time, exhausted by the effort, with her eyes closed. Then the terrible part began … the terrible part … she fought for another entire and difficult hour. Not until morning was it all over …”
He was silent for some time. I did not notice until the bell struck from amidships, once, twice, three times—three o’clock. The moon was not shining so brightly now, but a different, faint yellow glow was already trembling in the air, and the wind blew light as a breeze from time to time. Half-an-hour more, an hour more, and it would be day, the grey around us would be extinguished by clear light. I saw his features more distinctly now that the shadows were not so dense and dark in the corner where we sat—he had taken off his cap, and now that his head was bared his tormented face looked even more terrible. But already the gleaming lenses of his glasses were turned to me again, he pulled himself together, and his voice took on a sharp and derisive tone.
“It was all over for her now—but not for me. I was alone with the body—but I was also alone in a strange house and in a city that would permit no secrets, and I … I had to keep hers. Think about it, think about the circumstances: a woman from the colony’s high society,a perfectly healthy woman who had been dancing at the government ball only the evening before, suddenly dead in her bed … and a strange doctor with her, apparently called by her servant … no one in the house saw when he arrived or where he came from … she was carried in by night in a litter, and then the doors were closed … and in the morning she was dead. Only then were the servants called, and suddenly the house echoes with screams … the neighbours will know at once, the whole city will know, and there’s only one man who can explain it all … I, the stranger, the doctor from a remote country station. A delightful situation, don’t you agree?
I knew what lay ahead of me now. Fortunately the boy was with me, the good fellow who read every thought of mine in my eyes—that yellow-skinned, dull-minded creature knew that there was still a battle to be fought. I had said to him only, ‘Your mistress did not want anyone to know what happened.’ He returned my glance with his moist, doglike, yet determined gaze. All he said was, ‘Yes, sir.’ But he washed the blood off the floor, tidied everything —and his very determination restored mine to me.
Never in my life before, I know, was I master of such concentrated energy, and I never shall be again. When you have lost everything, you fight desperately for the last that is left—and the last was her legacy to me, my obligation to keep her secret. I calmly received the servants, told them all the same invented story: how the boy she had sent for the doctor happened to meet me by chance on his way. But while I talked, apparently calmly, I was waiting … waiting all the time for the crucial appearance of the medical officer who would have to make out thedeath certificate before we could put her in her coffin, and her secret with her. Don’t forget, this was Thursday, and her husband would arrive on Saturday …
At last, at nine o’clock, I heard the medical officer announced. I had told the servants to send for him—he was my superior in rank and at the same time my rival, the same doctor of whom she had once spoken with such contempt, and who had obviously already heard about my application for a transfer. I sensed his hostility at once, but that in itself stiffened my backbone.
In the front hall he immediately asked, ‘When did Frau … naming her by her surname—when did she die?’
‘At six in the morning.’
‘When did she send for you?’
‘Eleven last night.’
‘Did you know that I was her doctor?’
‘Yes, but this was an emergency … and then … well, she asked especially for me. She wouldn’t let them
He was silent for some time. I did not notice until the bell struck from amidships, once, twice, three times—three o’clock. The moon was not shining so brightly now, but a different, faint yellow glow was already trembling in the air, and the wind blew light as a breeze from time to time. Half-an-hour more, an hour more, and it would be day, the grey around us would be extinguished by clear light. I saw his features more distinctly now that the shadows were not so dense and dark in the corner where we sat—he had taken off his cap, and now that his head was bared his tormented face looked even more terrible. But already the gleaming lenses of his glasses were turned to me again, he pulled himself together, and his voice took on a sharp and derisive tone.
“It was all over for her now—but not for me. I was alone with the body—but I was also alone in a strange house and in a city that would permit no secrets, and I … I had to keep hers. Think about it, think about the circumstances: a woman from the colony’s high society,a perfectly healthy woman who had been dancing at the government ball only the evening before, suddenly dead in her bed … and a strange doctor with her, apparently called by her servant … no one in the house saw when he arrived or where he came from … she was carried in by night in a litter, and then the doors were closed … and in the morning she was dead. Only then were the servants called, and suddenly the house echoes with screams … the neighbours will know at once, the whole city will know, and there’s only one man who can explain it all … I, the stranger, the doctor from a remote country station. A delightful situation, don’t you agree?
I knew what lay ahead of me now. Fortunately the boy was with me, the good fellow who read every thought of mine in my eyes—that yellow-skinned, dull-minded creature knew that there was still a battle to be fought. I had said to him only, ‘Your mistress did not want anyone to know what happened.’ He returned my glance with his moist, doglike, yet determined gaze. All he said was, ‘Yes, sir.’ But he washed the blood off the floor, tidied everything —and his very determination restored mine to me.
Never in my life before, I know, was I master of such concentrated energy, and I never shall be again. When you have lost everything, you fight desperately for the last that is left—and the last was her legacy to me, my obligation to keep her secret. I calmly received the servants, told them all the same invented story: how the boy she had sent for the doctor happened to meet me by chance on his way. But while I talked, apparently calmly, I was waiting … waiting all the time for the crucial appearance of the medical officer who would have to make out thedeath certificate before we could put her in her coffin, and her secret with her. Don’t forget, this was Thursday, and her husband would arrive on Saturday …
At last, at nine o’clock, I heard the medical officer announced. I had told the servants to send for him—he was my superior in rank and at the same time my rival, the same doctor of whom she had once spoken with such contempt, and who had obviously already heard about my application for a transfer. I sensed his hostility at once, but that in itself stiffened my backbone.
In the front hall he immediately asked, ‘When did Frau … naming her by her surname—when did she die?’
‘At six in the morning.’
‘When did she send for you?’
‘Eleven last night.’
‘Did you know that I was her doctor?’
‘Yes, but this was an emergency … and then … well, she asked especially for me. She wouldn’t let them
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