Read Online Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig - Free Book Online Page B

followed me and was standing in the doorway, feeling a need to thank me. But I did not want to be put to shame. I acted as if I didn’t notice him there behind me. Quickly, my pulse beating fast, I left that house of tragedy.
     
    Next morning—with a pale mist still hanging over the houses, and the shutters over the windows all closed so that good citizens can sleep soundly—our squadron rides out to the parade ground as it does every day. First we cross the cobblestones, uncomfortable going for the horses; at a brisk walking pace, my lancers, still drowsy from sleep, stiff and morose, sway in their saddles. Soon we have gone down the four or five streets to the broad main road, where we change pace to a light trot, andthen we turn off right to the open meadows. I give my squadron the command “Gallop!” and away go the horses, snorting in unison. They know the soft, green, broad fields, clever animals; there is no need for us to urge them on now, we can hold the reins loosely, because as soon as they feel the pressure of their riders’ thighs the horses will be off as fast as they can go. They too feel the pleasure of excitement and physical relaxation.
    I am in the lead. I am passionately fond of riding. I feel a rush of blood rising from my waist as it carries the warmth of life circulating through my relaxed body, while cold air whistles around my face. Wonderful morning air; you can still taste last night’s dew in it, the breath of the turned soil, the scent of fields in flower, and at the same time you are surrounded by the warm, sensuous moisture from the horses’ nostrils as they breathe out. I always love this first morning gallop that does the lethargic, still sleepy body such good, shaking it up, snatching away drowsiness like a dull mist. Instinctively, my parted lips drink in the air rushing by as a sense of being weightless carries me forward and my chest expands. “Gallop! Gallop!” I feel that my eyes are brighter, my senses livelier, and behind me the men’s swords clink in a regular rhythm, the horses snort, there’s a soft squeal and squeak from the saddles, the beat of hoofs falling in time. This swift group of men and horses is a single centaur-like body, carried away by the same verve. On, on, on, gallop, gallop, gallop! Oh, to ride like this to the ends of the earth! With the secret pride of being master and creator of this pleasure, I sometimes turn in the saddle to look back at my men. And suddenly I see that the faces of all my fine lancers have changed. Gone is their heavy Ruthenian air of morose depression, they are wide awake now, the drowsiness wiped from their eyes as if it were soot.Aware that I am observing them, they straighten themselves in the saddle and smile back, in response to the pleasure in my own gaze. I sense that even these dull-witted peasant lads are full of the joy of swift movement, a dreamlike anticipation of human flight. All of them feel as blessed as I do in the animal pleasure of youth, in exerting and releasing their strength.
    But then I suddenly order them, “Haaalt! Trot!” Surprised, they all rein in their horses with a sudden jolt. As if an engine had been sharply braked, the whole column falls into the more sedate pace of a trot. They glance at me, slightly puzzled, for they know me well, and my delight in riding headlong, and we usually race across the meadows at a rapid gallop until we reach the area marked off as a parade ground. But I feel as if a strange hand had suddenly seized my reins; I have remembered something . I must unconsciously have caught sight of the rectangular white wall around the Kekesfalva villa on the rim of the horizon over to the left, the trees in its garden, the tower on the roof, and a thought has flashed into my mind—perhaps someone is watching you from there! Someone whose feelings you hurt with your pleasure in dancing, and you may be hurting them again now with your pleasure in riding. Someone immobilised by her lame