Invisible Collection, The [S.S. Col.] by Zweig Stefan

Author:Zweig, Stefan [Zweig, Stefan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9781782271505
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2015-04-15T03:00:00+00:00

He had to stay here, she told him, he mustn’t show himself by day, but he could walk around at night. And she’d bring him food, she assured him of that. As usual, Karel obeyed her. He didn’t understand, but he obeyed her. She would bring him food and tobacco in the middle of the day, she said. And then she went away, feeling relieved. Thank God, she had saved him. The house was cleared of his traces, so now let them come.

And come they did, quite a large troop of them. They knew their trade, they had studied it. Wondrak had done well to warn her. At five in the morning, when she had gone to bed and had been there for two hours (they must have been marching all night), the dog began to bark. She lay awake with her heart thudding. They were here. The enemy had come. But she did not stir, even when a harsh voice downstairs shouted, “Open up there!” Slowly, very slowly she dragged herself to the door, muttering in a deliberately loud voice, as if she had just been woken from deep sleep. Slow-witted she might be thought, but deception came naturally to her.

She yawned, a loud yawn. Then she opened the door. A military police officer stood outside in the wan, misty light of early morning with dew on his cap, a stranger. He had four soldiers and a dog with him, and he immediately stuck his foot in the door.

Did her son Karel Sedlak live here, he asked.

“Oh mercy me, he left long ago. He went to Budweis to join the army, all our town knows that,” she was quick to answer. A little too quick—noticeably quick. As she spoke, she did not forget that she should look these men in the eye. She had worked that out for herself.

“We’ll see,” grunted the officer through his red moustache, which was moist from the mist. Then he barked out an order in German. Two men stationed themselves outside the door, two more went round behind the house, unslinging the guns from their shoulders. The dog leaped around sniffing at her own Horcek, who distrustfully avoided him. As soon as the soldiers had taken up their positions, the officer told them something else in German and then, turning to her, addressed her in Czech.

“Let’s see the house now.”

She followed him, feeling both fear and angry glee. There’s nothing in the house, look as long as you like, she thought. You won’t find anything.

He stepped briskly into her living-room, pushed open the shutters so that grey light fell on everything inside, and looked around. He opened the chest, looked under the bed, raised the bolster—nothing. “The other rooms,” he ordered.

As if to trying to fool him and make him tired of all this, she replied, “I don’t have any. The others all belong to His Excellency the Count. And His Excellency just has me here to keep house for him. I had to swear my oath on it.

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