With these words she had suddenly risen, and I felt that she had reached the end. Rather awkwardly, I sought for something to say. But she must have felt my emotion, and quickly waved it away.
“No, please, don’t speak… I’d rather you didn’t reply or say anything to me. Accept my thanks for listening, and I wish you a good journey.”
She stood opposite me, holding out her hand in farewell. Instinctively I looked at her face, and the countenance of this old woman who stood before me with a kindly yet slightly ashamed expression seemed to me wonderfully touching. Whether it was the reflection of past passion or mere confusion that suddenly dyed her cheeks with red, the colour rising to her white hair, she stood there just like a girl, in a bridal confusion of memories and ashamed of her own confession. Involuntarily moved, I very much wanted to say something to express my respect for her, but my throat was too constricted. So I leant down and respectfully kissed the faded hand that trembled slightly like an autumn leaf.
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About the Author
STEFAN ZWEIG was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and first became known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only finished novel, Beware of Pity, and later on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. He had posted the manuscript of The World of Yesterday to his publisher the previous day. Much of Stefan Zweig’s work is available from Pushkin Press.
Copyright
Pushkin Press
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London WC2H 9JQ
‘A Conversation with Wes Anderson’ © Wes Anderson and George Prochnik 2014
The World of Yesterday first published in German as Die Welt von Gestern in 1942
This translation first published by Pushkin Press in 2009
English translation © Anthea Bell 2009
Beware of Pity first published in German as Ungeduld des Herzens in 1939
This translation first published by Pushkin Press in 2011
English translation © Anthea Bell 2011
Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman first published in German as Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau in 1927
This translation first published by Pushkin Press in 2003
English translation © Anthea Bell 2003
First published by Pushkin Press in 2014
This ebook edition published in 2014
ISBN 978 1 782271 09 3
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