And 1919—twenty-one. The war has in fact ended, but poverty has not. It only ducked beneath the barrage of ordinances, crawled foxily behind the paper ramparts of war loans and banknotes with their ink still wet. Now it’s creeping back out, hollow-eyed, broad-muzzled, hungry, and bold, and eating what’s left in the gutters of the war. An entire

As she anxiously and reverentially hides the bills like loot in her suitcase, shivers of dread and pleasure run down her spine. Her conscience can’t grasp this contradiction: at home money has to be saved so patiently, coin by dark heavy coin, while here it casually flutters into your hand. A violent, fearful shudder runs through her entire

Names have a mysterious transforming power. Like a ring on a finger, a name may at first seem merely accidental, committing you to nothing; but before you realize its magical power, it’s gotten under your skin, become part of you and your destiny. During the first few days Christine heard the new name von Boolen with secret glee. (Oh, they don’t

My God, the times we used to sneak out at technical school. We’d oil up the keys to keep them from rattling, take our shoes off, and slip out through the entrance hall. An evening like that was seven times as much fun as an official holiday. So! Synchronize watches!” Christine has to smile; the way everything is settled here so easily and casually,

Zweig’s own death involved a suicide pact—he was found lying hand-in-hand with his second wife—and perhaps he simply never succeeded in imagining what a different ending could have looked like. On the other hand, by 1942, Christine and Ferdinand’s future would have been all too clear. The rage, the feelings of betrayal, the sense of wasted talent:

Again and again she returns to these Alps sprung overnight from her sleep, an incredible sight to someone leaving her narrow world for the first time. These immense granite mountains must have been here for thousands of years; they’ll probably still be here millions and millions of years from now, every one of them immovably where it’s always been,

One feeling drowns out all the others, a boundless rage, a dull, clenched, impotent rage without outlet or object (her aunt, her mother, fate), the rage of someone who has suffered an injustice. All she knows is that something has been taken from her, that now she must leave that blissfully winged self to become a blind grub crawling on the ground;

I put up with it all because I believed that eventually it would be over, eventually I’d get a job, climb the first rung and the second. But I always got knocked back down. I’ve gotten to the point now that I’d rather kill someone, gun him down, than beg from him. I can’t go on now. I can’t go on lingering in outer offices and standing around

Confidences are always risky: a secret entrusted to a stranger makes him less of one. You’ve given away something of yourself, given him the advantage.