Stefan Zweig is a writer who dissects emotions until his sharp knife forces us to see them to be other than we thought them to be, however reluctant we are to shake off our denial. He took his knife to Pity in “Beware of Pity” and showed it to be a horrible emotion that bound us to our pity-object and took away our freedom.
In “Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman” he unpicks Gratitude with a different result. He shows how the appearance of gratitude can deceive, how it can be rather the delight that a selfish person takes in having something done for or to them and not at all the hoped for, free, return of love to the donor of the gift that inspired the emotion.
The scene is set in a small hotel on the French Riveria, and is populated by a genteel crowd of turn-of-the-century Europeans. The crowd includes a married couple and their children. The wife scandalises the assembled guests when she elopes with a young French man she has barely met. Only the narrator does not judge her. Irritated by the smug judgements of the remaining married couples, who are quite sure that nothing so unsuitable could befall a lady worthy of that name, the narrator aggressively argues that we deny our true natures if we believe that a “coup de foudre” attraction more powerful than her will and her intelligence cannot overtake even a good woman. It is, he argues, a fallacy for the remaining guests to believe that they are stronger, more moral, more pure than the Madame Bovary who succumbed.
One other member of the group has remained silent, an elegant older English woman. Subsequently the novel shifts to make this distinguished, aristocratic English woman the narrator as she haltingly relates twenty four hours in her life. We are taken back in time. She has been widowed and joyless for several years. Nothing has been able to pierce the veil of her depression. For no good reason she finds herself in Monte Carlo, watching the gaming tables. She has been taught to watch the hands of the players – for these give away the secrets that the players have long since learned to hide in their faces. She is transfixed by the beautiful, long fingers of one man.
You will have to read the book to find out what happens next, though it rather obviously illustrates the original narrator’s premise that a thunderbolt may overcome even the most virtuous. Suffice it, then, to say that the young man’s gratitude to the English woman who rescues him from ruin one evening (and who would have given up everything for him) turns out to be something else entirely. His gratitude which she experiences like balm from heaven for her soul is nothing of the kind. the English woman has been deceived by the young man’s narcissism, by the addictive passion with which he leads his life. Not before he has abused her verbally, derided her compassion, and humiliated her in front of hundreds, does she find the strength to tear herself away. Beware gratitude.
Stefan Zweig was a Jew who fled Austria to escape from the Nazis, though he had always been a rolling stone, never staying in one place long. The Nazis burned his library in 1938 but he had already set up home in Bath, England in 1934. It was here that he wrote Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman and, incidentally, gave the address at Freud’s funeral in 1939. He became a British citizen in 1940 but left England almost immediately, moving first to New York. In 1942, having finally settled in Brazil, he committed suicide by poisoning himself. His wife, too, killed herself. The Europe he had loved had destroyed itself, and he, a committed humanist and pacifist, could not bear to see the destruction. He left behind a string of novels, many of which are out of print in English, and notable translations of works by Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud, as well as essays about Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Freud. His memoirs were published posthumously, though the optimism expressed in this short passage must have been only fitful.
“Even in the abyss of despair in which today, half-blinded, we grope about with distorted and broken souls, I look again and again to those old star patterns that shone over my childhood, and comfort myself with the inherited confidence that this collapse will appear, in days to come, as a mere interval in the eternal rhythm of the onward and onward.”
More:
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 7, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Stavros
M,
As if I did not have enough books to read, now you’ve added another to my ever expanding list, that and a haunting, yet moving image that will occupy my thoughts for awhile.
May 7, 2008 at 11:30 pm
adifferentvoice
You might prefer the chilling “Beware of Pity” which the IE also enjoyed. I was shocked by the image, but it is moving, as you say.
June 24, 2008 at 3:29 pm
sami
Dear Adifferentvoice, your article is so clever and informative like Zweig’s writings. In his novel “chess” he also writes with an intense deep psychological insight. He is a distinguished writer. I am happy that I knew about him, and about your wonderful post too. Thank you again.
June 25, 2008 at 8:03 am
adifferentvoice
Thank you, Sami. It is one of those posts that I re-read and think “Did I write that?”. I must have been very inspired by the book! I’ll try to find a copy of Chess.
I hope some of my other readers have made the trip over to your blog. I’d yet to catch up with the name change, but have now changed my link in the side bar – Skies it is. I liked Colors of Mind, so I’ve left that in brackets.
Your writing about your life as a young psychiatrist in Iraq makes me at the same time feel very responsible (ashamed) for the actions of the US and the UK in deciding that they had had enough of Saddam Hussein, and yet awed that the Iraqi people are continuing to make the best of their lives often in very difficult circumstances.
And I never take my broadband connection for granted now.
June 27, 2008 at 6:55 am
sami
Dear Adifferentvoice, I am always thinking about what should my blog be named. I am not satisfied with “skies” and I agree with you that “colors of mind” was better. Can you propose a name for me? I am not saying that I will use it for sure, but I will take your advice, because from the way you write your blog, I can see how much I like what you do, and that your idea of a “blog” and what we can do with a “blog” is like mine. Just propose some names for me Adifferentvoice, if you like. I won’t be surprised if you cannot find one, because I cannot find one right now. Thank you again for letting me know about your wonderful blog. sami.
June 27, 2008 at 7:44 am
adifferentvoice
Sami, “Colors of Mind” seemed just fine to me, though, of course, being British, I would have preferred “Colours of Mind” …
Naming a blog is difficult – a bit like naming a child, but probably more difficult since there are more options. Then again, it’s easier to change than a child’s name. Terribly personal, too. I think you’re the only one who knows what feels right.
The name of my blog was taken from a book by a feminist writer called Carol Gilligan. Several other people have had the same idea – you’ll find other blogs with the same name. I’m still happy with it, though.
You may be interested to follow these links about her writing – I think they are important.
http://acypher.com/BookNotes/Gilligan.html
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/classes/handbook/Gilligan.html
Thanks for your kind comments.
Margaret
June 29, 2008 at 3:25 pm
sami
Thank you Margaret for your advice about chosing a title for a blog. It is really difficult. And thank you for this link about Gilligan. And I got a nice memory about reading morality theory. I remember there was a test to know whether you have preconventional, conventional or postconventional morality. The test was this way:
Your wife/husband is deseased and the doctor told you that her/his life would be safed with this injection. You went to the pharmacy to find that the drug injection is above all the money you have at that time. The pharmacist disagree that you take the drug with less money than s/he said. The pharmacist leave the drug in front of you and go inside his pharmacy. What would you do? Steal the drug? leave it? or something else?
I kept thinking about that test for one long day. Then my colleauges visited me. They were 4 males. I read the test for them. All of we agreed that we should steal the drug. One of us disagreed and said that we should not because this is against God’ laws.
My sister who was 10 years old was sitting near by. Her eyes were narrowly opened. this is her way of saying “do you really mean what you are saying?”
We looked at her when she took a breath then said:
Look, you should put all your money on the pharmacist desk and take the drug, then when you got enough money you came back to him and gave him the rest of money and say that you are sorry but you got to do what have you done.
She is a female.
June 29, 2008 at 6:01 pm
adifferentvoice
Sami,
I know the problem well that you mention, and, like you, have tried it out at home – most memorably in a group of five children aged 9-14. We had three very bright children (two boys, one girl) visiting (extreme abilities especially in maths and music … and elective mutism in most environments). We had a fascinating discussion which evolved much as yours did. My younger daughter’s brain is at the opposite end of the spectrum and her approach was completely different from the two boys. The two other girls occupied the middle ground.
I’m glad that the world is made up of many different types of brain. We need most of them, but for different, equally important, things.
I regret that I have spent so many years wishing my brain was different (because I had swallowed a myth that one sort was better than another).