The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig Read Free Page B

pain, a pain beyond words, has brought them all together like brothers.
    Deep silence descends. But now and then a great sob can no longer be suppressed. And then comes the heavy, numbing voice of the messenger telling his tale again.
    “They are all at rest with the Lord. Not one of them escaped, only I, through the providence of God…”
    “Praise be to his name,” murmurs the whole circle with instinctive piety. In the mouths of these broken, trembling people, the words sound like a worn-out formula.
    “I came home late from a journey, and the Jewish quarter was already full of looters. I wasn’t recognized, I could have run for it—but I had to go in, I couldn’t help going to my place, my own people, I was among them as they fell under flailing fists. Suddenly a man came riding my way, struck out at me—but he missed, swaying in the saddle. Then all at once the will to live took hold of me, that strange chain that binds us to our misery—passion gave me strength and courage. I pulled him off his horse, mounted it, and rode away on it myself through the dark night, here to you. I’ve been riding for a day and a night.”
    He stops for a moment. Then he says, in a firmer voice, “But enough of all that now! First of all, what shall we do?”
    The answer comes from all sides.
    “Escape!”—“We must get away!”—“Over the border to Poland!”
    It is the one way they all know to help themselves, age-old and shameful, yet the only way for the weaker to oppose the strong. No one dreams of physical resistance. Can a Jew defend himself or fight back? As they see it, the idea is ridiculous, unimaginable; they are not living in the time of the Maccabaeans now, they are enslaved again. The Egyptians are back, stamping the mark of eternal weakness and servitude on the people. Even the torrent of the passing years over many centuries cannot wash it away.
    Flight, then.
    One man did suggest, timidly, that they might appeal to the other citizens of the town for protection, but a scornful smile was all the answer he got. Again and again, their fate has always brought the oppressed back to the necessity of relying on themselves and on their God. No third party could be trusted.
    They discussed the practical details. Men who had regarded making money as their sole aim in life, who saw wealth as the peak of human happiness and power, now agreed that they must not shrink from any sacrifice if it could speed their flight. All possessions must be converted into cash, however unfavourable the rate of exchange. There were carts and teams of horses to be bought, themost essential protection from the cold to be found. All at once the fear of death had obliterated what was supposed to be the salient quality of their race, just as their individual characters had been forged together into a single will. In all the pale, weary faces, their thoughts were working towards one aim.
    And when morning lit its blazing torches, it had all been discussed and decided. With the flexibility of their people, used to wandering through the world, they adjusted to their sad situation, and their final decisions and arrangements ended in another prayer.
    Then each of them went to do his part of the work.
    And many sighs died away in the soft singing of the snowflakes, which had already built high walls towering up in the shimmering whiteness of the streets.

    The great gates of the town closed with a hollow clang behind the last of the fugitives’ carts.
    The moon shone only faintly in the sky, but it turned the myriad flakes whirling in their lively dance to silver as they clung to clothes, fluttered around the nostrils of the snorting horses, and crunched under wheels making their way with difficulty through the dense snowdrifts.
    Quiet voices whispered in the carts. Women exchanged reminiscences of their home town, which still seemed so close in its security and self-confidence. They spoke in soft, musical and melancholy tones. Children had a