Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (38 page)

Dear Dr Zweig,

Of the many congratulations that the Goethe Prize has brought me, none has so moved me as the one you have penned in defiance of your poor eyesight—not that your handwriting shows any sign of it—and this is plainly because I can scarcely think of another instance where I feel so certain that my affection is truly reciprocated.
⁵

Arnold Zweig, who was also in Austria at the time, staying at the Hotel Drei Mohren in Leermoos, replied soon afterwards and could not resist pointing out an error that Freud had made. The latter had addressed his correspondent as “Dear Dr” when in fact Arnold Zweig did not have a doctorate. So he responded by summarily “stripping” the Professor of his academic honours:

Dear Mr Freud,

This removal of your academic title is the direct consequence of your appointing me to a doctorate, an honour that I would rather receive from your hand than from any other, but one that I fear I am not legally entitled to accept.
⁶

Freud wrote back from Lake Grundlsee by return, apologising for his error and proffering an explanation:

Dear Arnold Zweig,

I hasten to confess how acutely embarrassed I am by my mistake. I did have a feeling of uncertainty as I was writing the title down, but as unknown forces were plainly at work here it is not surprising that I quickly silenced the warning voice. The analysis I immediately carried out on this slip of mine naturally led onto delicate ground; it revealed the disturbing factor to be the other Zweig, whom I know to be in Hamburg at this time working me up into an essay, which he plans to place before the public in company with Mesmer and Mary Eddy Baker [sic]. During the last six months he has given me great cause for annoyance; my initial strong desire for vengeance has now been completely banished to the unconscious, and so it is entirely possible that I wished to draw a comparison and effect a substitution.
⁷

The “other Zweig”, meanwhile, assisted by a specially hired secretary, was busy trying to knock the Freud essay into shape. After the weeks of concentrated work in Hamburg under rainy skies he made a firm decision to
spend the coming winter with Friderike in the warm south. He even toyed with the idea of travelling to India again. And he spoke with increasing frequency of wanting to go to London again for an extended stay in the coming years—but for work rather than recreation.

In February 1931—by which time Zweig was actually in Spain—
Die Heilung durch den Geist
was finally printed and published. Freud received his copy from the publishers and wrote to Zweig by return to thank him. He let the author know that he thought the essay on Mesmer the most successful, while the piece on Mary Baker Eddy had impressed him somewhat less from a scientific point of view. Zweig’s essay on him, Freud, and his work was the most difficult for the master to judge. His comments indicate no great enthusiasm, it has to be said: “I could object that you overemphasise the element of petit-bourgeois rectitude in me—the fellow is a little more complicated than that!” And he goes on: “I am probably not wrong in assuming that you were a stranger to psychoanalytical theory prior to the writing of this book. It is all the more to your credit, therefore, that you have absorbed so much of it since.”
⁸
Freud’s strictures did not affect the book’s commercial success in the slightest degree. As expected, the sales figures quickly climbed to the level that was usual for Zweig’s books, and the only complaint heard from booksellers was that the publishers had put the staff of Aesculapius on the front cover instead of the author’s name and the title. The rod and entwined snake made for a very attractive motif, but also created problems with window displays: it was hard to tell from the cover that this was the latest best-seller from Stefan Zweig.

Zweig’s continuing success meant that he had to deal with ever larger quantities of correspondence in Salzburg and numerous visitors (including some who arrived unannounced, to his great chagrin). There was nothing for it but to accept the inevitable and make arrangements for handling the correspondence and visitors as efficiently as possible. As well as Zweig’s secretary, various chambermaids and gardeners had been employed over the years to take care of the large amount of work in the house and garden. Since 1928 Johann Thalhuber had been in service on the Kapuzinerberg. When she filled in the registration card Friderike had described his occupation as ‘gentleman’s manservant’—a somewhat flattering description, given that he was a “maid of all work”, who was quite capable of using the washing machine in the house’s laundry. But he was responsible first and foremost for carrying out the wishes of the master of
the house. When guests were expected, Johann was normally required to be there to receive them.

The painter Ludwig Schwerin visited Zweig in the autumn of 1930. He describes his first impressions in the following terms:

A servant wearing a white apron, with three tail-wagging, black-and-white pointer puppies milling around him, opened the door to me and led me straight to the library. Stefan Zweig welcomed me warmly. He had just lit a large gas fire and apologised for the fact that the room was still rather chilly—it would soon warm up. The library looked magnificent, its walls lined with books from floor to ceiling. A large bureau stood in the middle of the room, with fine books lying on top and drawers holding large reproductions, one of them completely filled with woodcuts by Masereel. Hanging on the wall was a picture by Masereel depicting the port of Marseilles. On the window wall were three original drawings by Goethe. In one corner, in front of a large round table, were some deep leather armchairs. Here we took our seat, and Zweig offered me a cigar. As we were lighting up, the servant placed a silver tray with two cups of mocca, a coffee pot, liqueur bottles and glasses on the table and then left us.

Not quite five weeks previously Zweig’s Rumanian translator, Eugen Relgis, had visited him on the Kapuzinerberg. Zweig had come through the garden to open the gate to him in person: “In his green suit, the uniform of the seasoned traveller, and his little Tyrolean hat, with a long thin cigar between his teeth, he has a natural and open manner that belies his great gifts as a poet, critic, essayist, dramatist and novelist. He welcomes you warmly, but you can feel his penetrating gaze examining you closely. His slightly flushed cheeks evoke the innocence of youth on the threshold of the unknown.” Relgis too was ushered into the library by Zweig, where he recalls: “Next to the door that leads onto the terrace there is a visitors’ book lying open on the table—it contains the signatures of the hundreds of visitors who have ascended the Kapuzinerberg and stayed here briefly.”

After receiving his guests in the library Zweig took both of them on a tour of the rest of the house. Schwerin recounts the experience:

We went up to the first floor. A portal flanked by Baroque pillars leads into the spacious music room. The wall facing the windows is decorated with an antique wallpaper depicting figures frolicking in a landscape. Hanging on the wall are a number of Russian icons, including one of rare beauty. [ … ] Zweig then led me to a desk. Stroking it lovingly, he told me: “This is our family shrine. It used to belong to Beethoven.” [ … ] We went into the neighbouring rooms, even into his bedroom—“You’ll have to excuse me, but there’s a picture in here I really want you to see.” It was a charcoal drawing by a Frenchman, depicting Zweig in his younger years. Between the music room and the bedroom was his small, simply furnished study.
⁹

Eugen Relgis adds some details about this room in his account—he saw “tables along the wall, on which paperwork lay arranged in piles or scattered about, like materials on a building site: open books with marginal comments, journals with little notes inserted, sheets of paper with red or blue writing on them, documents, newspaper cuttings. Somebody once called Zweig the ‘critic without quotations’, but all this material was waiting to be filed away in meticulous order.”
¹⁰

Visitors who were granted an audience on the Kapuzinerberg (as opposed to the local café, where Zweig met visitors when he wanted to keep the meeting short) sometimes encountered a man who bore little resemblance to the figure portrayed in the familiar portrait photographs. Gone were the dark suits of fine cloth, the highly polished shoes and the elegant ties with the ever-present pearl tiepin. To the astonishment of many a visitor, Zweig often wore short lederhosen at home during the summer months, teamed with an open-necked white shirt. This attire was not some kind of folksy vernacular affectation, but had been adopted as the latest fashion in Salzburg, not least among the upper echelons of society. Not all his guests were aware of this, however, and as a result Zweig attracted the unflattering sobriquet of
Salontiroler
in some quarters—roughly, “Alpine tourist”. Even Carl Zuckmayer, who had settled a few years earlier in the nearby small town of Henndorf, was given to teasing his fellow writer about his exotic choice of dress. Ahead of a planned meeting in Berlin he wrote to Zweig about the chances of him making the headlines in the local Berlin press on account of his attire: “I am looking forward immensely to your visit, although I find it difficult to imagine what kind of figure you will cut with your lederhosen and your fine red and black jacket. The Virginia cigar, too, is likely to cause a stir, and be reported in the local press as an exotic touch.”
¹¹

Zuckmayer was one of the relatively small circle of people whom Zweig was not only bound to meet up with, but actually liked having around him. In a high-spirited moment one day the pair of them even sketched out a
farce together about the peculiarities of Salzburg, and in particular the annual transformation of the dull provincial town into the Festival capital decked out in all its finery. One of the main comic themes was the way the locals vied with each other to get their hands on the dollars of visiting American Jews (though the piece went on to show how the Salzburgers promptly reverted to their normal anti-Semitic ways as soon as the rich visitors had left town).

In Zuckmayer’s company Zweig revealed hidden comic talents, and in return it was not unknown for the three puppies Flick, Flock and Bonzo, offspring of the Zweigs’ canine family that had found a new home with the Zuckmayers, to address amusing letters to their former master.
¹²

Zweig’s other male friendships were limited in number. In Salzburg he was regularly surrounded by a circle of friends, some of whom he had known since the Vienna days. Nearly all of them were writers themselves, although none of them achieved anything like Zweig’s success. Felix Braun was a member of this circle, as was Erwin Rieger, who often assisted Zweig with the preparation of new books, and of whom Friderike wrote that he possessed “a typically Austrian charm and the character of a nobleman”.
¹³
Neither Braun nor Rieger were strong personalities; there was something childlike about both of them, and Rieger in particular looked upon Zweig with an admiring devotion. Many of Rieger’s letters begin “Dearest Stefan”, and he generally used the same purple ink that Zweig wrote with.

About Emil Fuchs, who was Zweig’s regular evening chess partner at the café (hence the nickname “Schachfuchs”—“Chess Fox”), little is known, although (or precisely because) he was one of Zweig’s closest intimates, and perhaps his only real friend. With Fuchs, so Alfred Zweig tells us, Stefan was able to unburden himself on many an occasion about his domestic troubles with Friderike and her two daughters. And yet not a single letter to or from Fuchs has survived. Much of what they had to say was exchanged by word of mouth only, and any papers that ever existed appear to have been destroyed. Politically Fuchs was on the left of the spectrum, a paid-up member of the Social Democratic Party who worked for the local party organ
Salzburger Wacht
, something that Friderike Zweig will have been a good deal less comfortable with than her husband. But at least she got on better with Fuchs’ wife Rosa, who occasionally did some secretarial work for the Zweigs, than she did with Anna Meingast.

Among the regular visitors to the house in Salzburg were a number of admirers from the younger generation of writers. It was widely known
that Zweig, despite his heavy workload, read with care any manuscripts that were sent to him and on occasion lent his support, both moral and financial, to young writers and their work. Joachim Maass, Walter Bauer and Erich Ebermayer had all made contact with Zweig in this way, and they kept in touch with him through letters and personal meetings over many years. All of them could vouch for the fact that Zweig’s fame had in no way diminished his near-legendary helpfulness. He knew only too well from his own experience how valuable a word of encouragement from an established colleague could be. Walter Bauer, who came from Leuna and was barely twenty when he sent Zweig his collection of workers’ poems entitled
Kameraden zu euch spreche ich
[
Comrades I am Talking to You
], was praised for his efforts and encouraged to continue writing. And Erwin Rieger, who was constantly short of money, received help in the form of new work contacts arranged by Zweig or financial advice dispensed by his brother Alfred. In return Stefan showed himself more than grateful when Ebermayer agreed to take on another hard-to-place scion of the spaniel Kaspar (who in the end was named Fouché, and developed into a real troublemaker).

One of his more recent friendships was with Joseph Roth, who visited him in Salzburg for the first time in the summer of 1929 and soon became a valued correspondent and conversation partner. On the other hand Zweig’s relationship with Rolland, with whom Zweig remained in regular contact, appeared in danger of fracturing. On occasion their views on the common struggle for freedom and pacifism diverged quite markedly. When Zweig travelled to Russia for the Tolstoy celebrations, for example, Rolland had observed that Tolstoy had disapproved of all governments, and that he, Rolland, could never legitimise by an official visit a government that had claimed him of all writers as its own.