The Last Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart hardened to such an extent? Stefan was eager to leave New York because he had found all of Berlin and Vienna in its streets, run into a world of exiles who had lost all their splendour and who limited their talk to tales of woe and complaints. A defeated race wandering amidst the skyscrapers looking for kindred souls to commiserate with. Stefan was leaving New York because he had become a sort of Maecenas there, the person people turned to for support with their visa applications. He was routinely harangued by people wanting money or letters of recommendation. Even though the American authorities had only seen fit to give him a temporary visa, Stefan had been obliged to draft dozens of affidavits, certificates and documents—as well as undertake solemn commitments—just in order to act as a guarantor for a single exile coming out of Germany. He had become a virtual employee of the immigration department. The exiles thoughtof him as the Messiah. He had sent wads of cash to Roth, that poor Weiss, as well as Bergmann, Fischer, Masereel and Loerke. He’d fought tooth and nail to obtain an Argentinian visa for Landshoff and two Brazilian passports for Fischer. The phone never stopped ringing. People begged for his help, an affidavit, an affidavit, for Scheller and Friedmann, for those who were still waiting in Marseilles or Portbou. An old woman, whose son was living in Warsaw and whom Stefan had promised to help, had kissed his hand. His intercessions had saved four or five of his friends. Hundreds of people were asking for his support. He had become the First Consul of Stateless Jews.
    His energies were beginning to flag at the same time as his premonition that the worst was yet to come was growing exponentially . 1941 was going to be the most frightening year in human history, and 1942 would be more frightening still. How could they possibly hope that a stateless writer could obstruct the machinery of death?
    The world he had known lay in ruins: the people he had loved were dead; their memory plundered and looted. He had wanted to be a witness, the biographer of humanity’s richest hours; he couldn’t bring himself to serve as the scribe of a barbaric era. His memory took up too much room, and fear occupied too large a suite in his mind. His writing was fed only by nostalgia. He only wrote about the past.
    People ensnared in the mousetrap on the other side of the Atlantic had placed their hopes in his hands. As soon as one survivor was granted a visa thanks to Stefan’s efforts, he or she spread the word that Zweig’s powers were limitless, that a single appeal on his part had saved an entire family, that the great Zweig will reply, so long as you write to him, Zweig will help you. Dozens of Jews hung around in front of his hotel. Zweig holds out hishand, Zweig shelters and supports, he frees and saves. One day, he will heal all the sick and restore sight to the blind. Enough! He wasn’t the Chief Rabbi of all Oppressed Jews, he was simply a writer. He hadn’t chosen to be a Jew, neither did he claim to be one. He didn’t believe in any god, he never prayed, he condemned Zionism, just like he did all forms of nationalism. Hadn’t he already endured enough because of an identity he didn’t even associate with? He had lost everything. He wanted them to leave him be! He was fed up of hearing people talk about their miseries, tired of dispensing alms, tired of stories of murders and tortures, of internment camps, of queues of starving people, of legions of exiles, of men who gave themselves over to death, of hearing of souls on the brink of falling apart. He yearned for the peaceful immensity of valleys and plains, for mountains rising from the living earth, the green froth of the sea, the enormousness of the starry sky. He yearned for Brazil.
    He had to tell those beggars, lost in their torments, to go and find themselves another Zweig, all enquiries addressed to Stefan Zweig would now be poste restante. They