Three Lives by Matuschek Oliver Blunden Allan

Author:Matuschek, Oliver, Blunden, Allan [Oliver Matuschek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906548957
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2012-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

A few months later Zweig was on a reading tour in Germany—to “sing for his supper”, as he himself liked to put it—and he had left home in the best of spirits. Victor Fleischer, whom he had met in Frankfurt, reported back to Friderike on Stefan’s reading there: “He sang beautifully, and didn’t get thrashed.”25 The next day, however, when he was in Stuttgart, Stefan received an express letter from Alfred with the news that their father had collapsed in the street. As so often, Alfred had immediately become overwrought, and his agitation threatened to infect his brother. Friderike sought to find out what was happening and updated Stefan with the latest news, doing all she could to reassure him: “Mama says it was just ‘a little passing stroke’, as she put it. But I don’t think it was, since Marie [the parlour maid] told me that Papa was his usual self, and was talking normally and walking about, but just felt a little weak. [ … ] You know how it is with the elderly and infirm, my dear—you have to go through this kind of thing for years.”26 Nevertheless Stefan tried to cancel the remaining dates on his tour so that he could get back home as soon as possible. His worries about his parents now weighed increasingly on his mind, not least because it was on his conscience that he had left Alfred to shoulder this burden more or less alone.

Friderike did her best to counter the pessimism of the two Zweig sons by persistently emphasising the good news. When she was in Vienna the following year she visited her in-laws and wrote to her “Dear Stefferl” that they were very well, that his father was now using a wheelchair, but was also able to walk a few steps. She went on:

Both parents are very loving towards me, both pay me all kinds of attentions (it would make you blush). Papa even kissed my hand when I was leaving, and is really sweet in every way. [ … ]

I wasn’t expecting it, but everything here is peace and harmony, as never before. Is it the effect of the summer break, or just the fact that Alfred’s agitation, well-meant though it is, has not been picked up by your parents!?

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