Read Online Letter From an Unknown Woman and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - Free Book Online Page B

them all could be so deceptive?
    Slowly, that insistent question drives the frenzy out of his blood. It is late now, the lights in the hall where guestswere playing cards are out, he is the only guest in the castle still awake, he—and perhaps also that unknown woman. Slowly, weariness comes over him. Why go on thinking about it? A glance, a spark glimpsed between someone’s eyelids, the secret pressure of his hand must surely tell him everything tomorrow. Dreamily, he climbs the steps, as dreamily as he climbed down them, but he feels so very different now. His blood is still slightly agitated, but the warm room seems to him clearer and cooler than it was.
    When he wakes next morning, the horses down outside the castle are already stamping and scraping their hooves on the ground; he hears voices, laughter, and his name is called now and then. He quickly leaps out of bed—he has missed breakfast—dresses at high speed and runs downstairs, where the rest of the party cheerfully wish him a good morning. “What a late riser you are!” laughs Countess E., and there is laughter in her clear eyes as well. His avid look falls on her face; no, it couldn’t be the Countess, her laughter is too carefree. “I hope you had sweet dreams,” the young woman teases him, but her delicate build seems to him too slight for his companion last night. With a question in his eyes, he looks from face to face, but sees no smiling reflection answering it on any of them.
    They ride out into the country. He assesses each voice, his eyes dwell on every line and undulation of the women’s bodies as they move on horseback, he observes the way they bend, the way they raise their arms. At the luncheon table he leans close to them in conversation, to catch thescent of their lips or the sultry warmth of their hair, but nothing, nothing gives him any sign, not a fleeting trail for his heated thoughts to pursue. The day draws out endlessly towards evening. If he tries to read a book, the lines run over the edge of the pages and suddenly lead out into the garden, and it is night again, that strange night, and he feels the unknown woman’s arms embracing him once more. Then he drops the book from his trembling hands and decides to go down to the little pool. But suddenly, surprised by himself, he finds that he is standing on that very spot again. He feels feverish at dinner that evening, his hands are distracted, moving restlessly back and forth as if pursued, his eyes retreat shyly under their lids. Not until the others—at last, at last!—push back their chairs is he happy, and soon he is running out of his room and into the park, up and down the white path that seems to shimmer like milky mist beneath his feet, going up and down it, up and down hundreds, thousands of times. Are the lights on in the great hall yet? Yes, they come on at last, and at last there is light in a few of the first-floor windows. The ladies have gone upstairs. Now, if she is going to come, it can be only a matter of minutes; but every minute stretches to breaking point, fuming with impatience. Up and down the path, up and down, he is moving convulsively back and forth as if worked by invisible wires.
    And then, suddenly, the white figure comes hurrying down the steps, fast, much too fast for him to recognize her. She seems to be made of glinting moonlight, or a lost, drifting wisp of mist among the trees, chased this way by thewind and now, now in his arms. They close firmly as a claw around that wild body, heated and throbbing from her fast running. It is the same as yesterday, a single moment with this warm wave beating against his breast, and he thinks he will faint with the sweet throbbing of her heart and flow away in a stream of dark desire. But then the frenzy abruptly dies down, and he holds back his fiery feelings. He must not lose himself in that wonderful pleasure, give himself up to those lips fixed on his, before he knows what name to give this body pressed so