Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig

Author:Stefan Zweig [Stefan Zweig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781906548551
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2011-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

9

LIARS

BUT TIME WAS RUNNING OUT. The Baron had only a few days left, and he wanted to make the most of them. Resistance to the angry child’s obstinacy, they both felt, was useless, so they resorted to the last and ignoble way out: flight, just to get away from his tyranny for an hour or two.

“Take these letters to the post office, will you, and send them by registered mail,” Edgar’s mother told him. They were both standing in the hotel lobby while the Baron spoke to a cabby outside.

Suspiciously, Edgar took the two letters. He had noticed a servant delivering some kind of message to his mother earlier. Were they hatching a plot against him after all?

He hesitated. “Where will I find you?”

“Here.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Mind you don’t go away, though! You’ll wait for me here in the lobby until I get back, won’t you?” In his awareness of having the upper hand he spoke imperiously, as if giving his mother orders. Much had changed since the day before yesterday.

Then he went out with the two letters. At the door he met the Baron and spoke to him for the first time in two days. “I’m just taking two letters to the post. My Mama will wait for me here. Please don’t leave before I come back.”

The Baron brushed quickly past him. “No, no, we’ll wait for you.”

Edgar ran to the post office. He had to wait, because a gentleman in front of him had a dozen tedious questions. At last he was able to perform his errand, he ran straight back with the receipts—and arrived just in time to see his mother and the Baron driving away in the cab.

He was rigid with anger. He almost bent down to pick up a stone and throw it after them. So they’d got away from him after all, by means of a lie as mean as it was vile. He had known since yesterday that his mother told lies, but the idea that she could be shameless enough to break a downright promise destroyed the very last of his trust in her. He didn’t understand anything at all about life, not now he knew that the words which he’d thought had reality behind them were just bright bubbles, swelling with air and then bursting, leaving nothing behind. What kind of terrible secret was it that drove grown-up people so far as to lie to him, a child, stealing away from him like thieves? In the books that he had read, people murdered and deceived each other to get their hands on money, or power, or kingdoms. But what was the reason here, what did those two want, why were they hiding from him, what were they trying to hide behind all their lies? He racked his brains. Dimly he felt that the secret was the bolt on the door of childhood, and once he had shot back the bolt and conquered the secret it would mean he was grown up, a man at long last.

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