Letter from the Other Side

Letter from the Other Side Dramatization of Stefan Zweig’s short story ”Letter from an Unknown” in the form of a chamber play, by Christian Lanciai (2016)

the characters: Max, butler Louis, pianist She Her husband Two seconds

The action is in Vienna after the First World War

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(A fine apartment, tastefully furnished with a grand piano, beautiful art and furniture.

The butler appears, does some cleaning but appears to be worried.)

Max He is worn and torn. It is as if he was chasing his own destruction. He has missed something in life, and he is the more lost for not knowing what it is.

Perhaps this letter might open his eyes to some possibility. But he is later than usual.

Could something have happened? (some noise) Well, there he is! Let’s just hope he isn’t drunk again…

Louis (enters, elegant in dress suit, the butler removes his coat, scarf and hat.)

Max Everything well, Sir? Louis I was detained.

Max Anything serious?

Louis No, a trifle.

Max You still seem inordinately sober tonight.

Louis I am dead sober. But I really should get dead drunk.

Max Why? Has anything happened?

Louis No, nothing has happened, but something will happen.

Max Some new lady?

Louis If only that were the case. No, I presume it’s just a matter of old sins. (falls down into an armchair, worn out, sighs) Max Has it been a tiresome day?

Louis Not at all. I don’t have to work any more, you know.

Max At the same time you should get pulled up.

Louis What do you mean?

Max In those days when you had your career to live for with constant concert tours on your schedule you were always energetic and enthusiastic.

Louis In those days I had energy to work hard. I see no meaning in it any more. I am irrevocably and helplessly past my prime, Max. Max You shouldn’t give up that easily.

Louis Then tell me, Max, what really do I have to live for? I had my career, I had my successes, I could have any lady I wanted, I took all I wanted, but what is the result? Nothing. Just emptiness. I turned out into nothing and will end up in nothing.

Max You can still work.

Louis Why should I? Even Franz Liszt stopped giving concerts at the age of 36.

Even he tired of his audience and his ladies. Even he realized his own limitations. He declined into making arrangements of the music of others and become a lackey to Richard Wagner, the most abominable of all musicians ever, and ended up a decoration in his backyard. Still he was the greatest of all.

Max He was a greater man than Wagner.

Louis Yes, he was, but did that help? Wagner still abused his name and person.

Max Are you thinking of Cosima?

Louis Not even I did ever demonstrate such baseness towards any of my ladies. He stole his best friend’s wife, Hans von Bülow was his prime benefactor who

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most of all promoted his music and produced his “Tristan and Isolde”, and for thanks Wagner stole his wife, Liszt’s only daughter, and thereby outraged both Bülow, Liszt and his king Ludwig II, who also had put his faith and trust in him and done everything for him. None of them ever recovered from Wagner’s extreme meanness.

Max Then you are at least better than Wagner.

Louis No, Max, Wagner was a great composer, no one can deny that, but I was never even a composer. I could have become a leading pianist, but I never became more than a promise and never more than a talent who stagnated into mediocrity. If I had put some strenuous energy to it, I might have become second after Liszt, but just like him I lost myself in all those women…

Max Apropos of that, I think a woman has written to you.

Louis So? Who? Max It looks like it from the handwriting. (gives him a letter) Louis (examines it) I don’t recognize the handwriting. An unknown admirer? Are there still such out there?

Max There are at least old admirers.

Louis Who never again get in touch since they repress me in regretting my decadence and that I never made any major success. (opens the letter) How was it delivered?

Max It came by mail. It has not been posted in Vienna.

Louis Then it’s interesting. Who do I know outside Vienna? (starts reading. Falls silent and benumbed.)

Max (waiting. After a while) Do you need something?

Louis (somewhat confused) No, Max, nothing. You may leave. I must study this letter alone by myself. I will call you. (Max departs with a slight and courteous bow.)

Do I know this woman? Have I ever known her? But she knows me. But how could she know me if I never knew her? What kind of a threateningly strange mystery is this? But this must give the explanation of what happened this evening.

Or else I cannot understand anything. (goes on reading, pours himself a glass of wine, and reads on.)

Her voice When you get this I no longer exist. Perhaps you don’t even know who I am. You forgot me from the beginning, but it doesn’t matter, for all I needed was to live for my memories of you. I asked for nothing more, for I was happy and content with just being able to love you and that unfathomably without reservations, which was allowed me once, and that was enough for me.

Louis (like to the letter) But who are you?

She It doesn’t matter. Let me remain nameless. Love has no name and needs no name, and since I will soon no longer exist I will transcend completely into only this nameless love, which will be all of me that will last and which was all that meant anything to me, since we after all were allowed to love once.

Louis (like before) I am sorry, but I have no idea as to who you are.

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She Still we have known each other for so long. I loved you from the start. I was just a small girl then, when you moved into our house, where I lived on the ground floor, but the fact of a pianist moving into our house was something great and sensational and would become the serial story of my life. You had no more faithful listener than me, when you kept practising for hours every day. (gradually starts becoming visible and entering simultaneously with the music: Franz Liszt’s ”Un sospiro”.)

I could hang out for hours in the stairs and just adore all the beauty that flowed out and drowned the entire house in lustful pleasure. It did not matter that you made mistakes and got stuck sometimes, you always got on with it and never gave up, which filled me with admiration. All this beauty that just a piano could offer like out of a golden cornucopia was new to me and captured me in a spell for life. And naturally I became curious about who the man could be who could so freely open up this new world of beauty and be so generous in his offering.

Once when I was still young and your apartment was in repairs, and the workers temporarily had left, I dared to steal inside and have a look around. (She does so, walks around carefully in admiration to study everything in enraptured enchantment.) Everything was so beautiful, and then I understood that the man responsible for all this could also only be equally beautiful in his soul. I had already seen you but only at some distance, but I knew that you could only be the most beautiful being in the world. – Naturally I dared stay no longer than just some minute and sneaked out again as fast as I could, afraid of being found out as a Peeping Tom or something worse… (steals out again) Louis (calling) Max! (He enters.) Do you have any idea of who this person is? (shows him the letter) Max Yes. She lived here in the house.

Louis What happened to her?

Max The family moved out, I think to Linz.

Louis And then?

Max Don’t you know?

Louis How could I know? I still have no idea of who she is! I don’t know what she might have looked like!

Max She was here several times.

Louis Was she?

Max At least twice.

Louis And where is she now?

Max How could I know?

Louis You always managed to keep better record of all my ladies, while I seldom could separate one from the other…

Max She was one of them.

Louis Yes, I understand, but who?

Max Hasn’t she revealed herself?

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Louis Only by the letter. It tells me nothing, since it hasn’t pleased her to give me any closer information by for example any photo.

Max Have you read the letter to the end? I can see there are many pages.

Louis No, I have only just begun.

Max Then I advise you to go on reading it.

Louis But the mystery only grows worse the deeper I enter it.

Max Mysteries usually do. Or else they are no mysteries.

Louis Very well, I will be patient and go on reading it. But keep within hearing!

Max Of course. (retires prudently anew.)

Louis What girl could this have been? I can’t understand anything! (resumes his reading) She Although we had moved out I used to visit our old house almost daily to perhaps catch a glimpse of you or hear you play. One evening I happened to be here, and at that moment you arrived home from some concert and caught sight of me.

You probably mistook me for some street nymph, but I gladly accepted that role if it pleased you. And it pleased you so much that you couldn’t tear yourself away from me, you brought me to a coffee house, you brought me to a fair and a dancing palace where we waltzed to tunes by Strauss, and then you took me with you to your home.

You couldn’t tear away from me, and I didn’t even have to make an effort to please you, you found pleasure in everything, and I just followed and did as you pleased. I was in paradise, it was like dancing on sweet clouds in a ball that never would end, and all I had to do was to follow you.

I had my life’s only consummately wonderful night, we had it together, I felt atrociously spoilt by being able to stay at home with you and treated as if I lived there, but the following morning you had to go away with your orchestra. You parted from me and asked me to take it easy the whole morning and only ask Max for whatever I needed, and then I had to go. That night never returned, but you gave me a memory for life and more than that, for rather soon I discovered I had been endowed with an extra life.

Louis (reading) Great heavens! I made her gravid on the spot!

She This became my life’s meaning. With you unreachable beyond the horizon I still had your life to live for and entertain, and I withheld no sacrifices.

What did it matter if I had problems at my work and was discharged? I was enough well educated to be able to work with anything. I didn’t lack suitors either, but I refused them all, for I knew I had to come back to you one day. But you were always on concert tours, it was the busiest period of your life, you were always gone on some journey, no one knew when you would be back, and if you did come back it was only temporarily to immediately be gone the next day again. Gradually I started to realize that I could never hope for you as the father of the child.

He turned out a good and handsome son, and I did everything for him, as I would have done for you. I kept him for you with all my love and gave him everything, but he had to have a father. Finally I accepted the protection of a

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nobleman. He was extremely cultivated and prudent, and his noble generosity as he made an offer to accept my son as his own compelled me to accept him for the sake of our son. Thereby he had a safe home and adolescence, as my husband had unlimited means and placed everything at our disposal.

Louis And what did I do during all these years? She is right. I was constantly out on tours and had mistresses everywhere who almost all were of the same kind.

But how could I fail to observe this one, who must have been different? None of the others gave me any lasting love, they were just fleeting acquaintances and temporary connections, but this one seems to have had no one besides me, perhaps not even her husband… (goes on reading somewhat bewildered) She But I could not conceal to my husband who the real father was of our child, and he noticed with pain how I still went on following your life and career and actually sometimes tried to reach you. This hurt him.

Husband (a proper older gentleman) You know how I adore you, my love. It’s not your fault that you are beautiful and that you for that must be pursued by every natural young man in Vienna, and one of them naturally had to finally give you a child. But he has no right to claim it, for he has not taken care of your love. I have taken care of your love and proved it by also taking care of your son with all my love. Yes, I know, you don’t want him to be adopted, since you want his famous real father to still have the right to own him, but he does not know that your son exists. Have you told him?

She Of course not. We only had one night together.

Husband It must really have been a night of true love.

She It was indeed.

Husband And how could he have forgotten all about it so completely, when you haven’t?

She It was my only one. He had many.

Husband And you had only one?

She No, we met again long afterwards. It was before I had met you. I had customers then. You know how it was. I had to support our little son, and I had many admirers, several wanted to marry me before you, but I resisted as long as I could. But I had rich customers, I only accepted the best ones, and they usually gave me more than the usual price for a night of love. But one evening at a café I suddenly found him at the table next to mine, he was not quite sober and showed some interest in me, and how could I then turn him down? At last there was a chance offered by fate for me to gain him for real! Perhaps he could even remember me!

Husband Well, did he?

She We went out for some pleasures, he then brought me home to his apartment, but he did not recognize me. I desperately hoped that he would, but he didn’t.

Husband Didn’t you refresh his memory?

She How could I? In spite of my prostitution I was an honest woman. How could I then suddenly claim that I had a son by him, when he did not remember me?

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Husband How is it possible? Had he had so many women that he couldn’t separate the best of them from the rest?

She I am afraid that hits the truth rather closely. He was a pianist and famous, all ladies fell for him, and he was handsome and at the same time a very paragon of courtesy. He could have anyone and took anyone on, and they must have been many, so many, that he himself could not count them or remember any of them.

Husband How can you live in such a way and get away with it?

She I am afraid he was punished for it. His agents finally did not want to have anything to do with him any more. He did not decline in his art, but he somehow lost his zest and showed no passion in his playing any more, as if he had become indifferent to it and only played by routine, and then he started to make mistakes and get lost in the score.

Husband I imagine he gave too much thought to women.

She So did Franz Liszt and therefore stopped giving concerts.

Husband Didn’t he start drinking as well?

She Not much, but he grew careless. His mistresses took over from his music, which he forgot, so that sex became more important than art. At the same time he increased the rhythm of his drinking. I followed the course of his life carefully. The press avoided writing about his decline, but there was much talk about it, and I heard it all, since I was his child’s mother.

Husband And that’s why you kept the child away from him.

She That was not the only reason. When we met again and had another night together, I lived that night only for the hope and dream that he would suddenly remember me and at last recognize me. He didn’t. There was no limit to his politeness and amiability, but when finally I had to leave in the morning he gave me money. That was the final humiliation. He would never recognize me and never know that I had carried his child.

Husband And still you cling to him and never want to let him go, so that you risk your and your son’s safety with me by continuing to live for the hope that he one day might recognize you.

She What else is there for me to live for? He was my first and my only love! I can never have another! My only honour is that I always remained faithful to it. And my only happiness is that it actually gave me a son.

Husband But you risk it all in your delusion that this man whom you always loved is not that rotten egg and that irresponsible scoundrel he is.

She He is not more than a man, and no matter how irresponsible he is, he is human, and if only you are human as a man, there is no higher dignity on earth.

Husband But in your blind idealism and faithfulness to this worthless rogue, you constantly hurt me and make my position more untenable. Don’t you understand that I am the one who loves you and not he?

She But I loved him before you found me. He has the right of way, and by his child that right of way is not negotiable.

Husband Will you go to him?

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She I must regard it my duty to explain to him that he has a son by me.

Husband If you do that I can no longer protect you.

She Thank you for everything you have given me, but I can’t fail my duty as a mother and human being.

Husband Farewell, my love. (kisses her hand sincerely with love and leaves.)

Louis Max! Come here!

Max (shows up instantly) Yes! Louis You seem to have known this lady better than I did. Did you know anything more about her?

Max No. Louis You are lying!

Max What could I have known?

Louis I have only perused half of this interminable letter, and I can’t for my life understand who she might have been, but you say she was here at least twice. Did you know she had a child by me?

Max No. Louis But you knew that she loved me?

Max I feared the worst.

Louis What do you mean?

Max Sir, during our sixteen years here you have constantly invited new ladies to spend the night with you. I would never have dared to even dream about entertaining any curiosity or in any way speculate in their stories.

Louis Yes, I know you are innocent, but you must have suspected something concerning her, since evidently she stuck in your memory?

Max I am just your butler. Your business has never been mine. That’s why I was employed.

Louis Yes, I know you are the perfect butler, you never gave me the slightest reason for any complaint, but don’t you think your discretion in this case perhaps went a little too far, especially if she apparently had a child by me?

Max I couldn’t know. Even if you had made all your ladies pregnant, I would have refused to know anything about it. That was my duty.

Louis Of course. You can go. (dismisses him) But it irritates me so outrageously that I haven’t the slightest idea of who is speaking to me, and still she claims to have lived only for me and my child with her.

Max Now I recall something.

Louis Well?

Max It’s your birthday today. Don’t you miss something?

Louis What would I miss?

Max (indicates an empty vase) Louis (gasps) Max, you are right. There was always someone sending me white roses for my birthday. I never learned who it was. Could she have been the one?

Max Allow me to suspect, that it could hardly have been anyone else.

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Louis But today there were no white roses, for the first time in I don’t know how many years! What could it mean?

Max I advise you to read the letter to the end.

Louis You are right. I have no choice. (gets absorbed again in his reading. Max disappears discreetly.)

She Yes, Louis, I was the one who always sent you white roses for your birthday, but now I can’t do it any more, no matter how fain I would have kept on doing it, for our son has died from me, and I suffer from the same influenza. I don’t charge you with anything, for you are not to blame for what has happened, on the contrary, our son and that you gave him to me was my life’s greatest joy, but destiny didn’t want me to keep him. There are many thousands who after the war have been afflicted by this horrible Spanish disease, and they are all innocent – most of them didn’t even have any part in the war, and yet they had to be brutally snatched away from life, as if the war hadn’t harvested enough millions dead already. Why this tremendously unfair and extreme punishment for nothing? Neither you nor I can answer that, and all these millions of innocents must forever put that question to the accountable divinity, if there is such a one, which this disaster seems to confirm that there isn’t, while my son, our poor little son, was the most innocent of all. But I follow him gladly. All I still want and demand from life is time enough to be able to finish this my only letter to you in the hope of at last being able to express my love and the truth of that passion for you that filled and led my entire life since I was a little girl. It was not the music that seduced me, but I started to love you for your personality from the first day I was enabled to see what the person looked like who played so exquisitely beautifully and soft and only kept to the most beautiful piano music that has been created, and your outward appearance exceeded my wildest expectations, as that was exactly what you must look like. All the beauty of your music was obvious in the revelation of your being, and since then I have loved you unreservedly and no one else.

Yes, I am aware that I am writing to you from the other side, for when you receive this letter I am already dead, but I shall live on in my lines and the declaration of my love, which will remain for all times, for even if you burn my letter, which I don’t think you will, the fact that I wrote it and expressed my life’s truth in it will remain forever as part of that universal love which rules our entire world and all life. I am yours forever, have always been, and by writing it down I bring you forever into my life and my heart in order to keep you there. And my words from the other side will reach you as if I stood in front of you as you are reading them.

(She has come closer and is now standing in front of him quite visible to him but not within reach.)

Louis (recovers from his reading and looks up a moment with some afterthought) If it is true as you write you might really be standing in front of me and studying my reactions to the lecture. I am sorry, dearest friend, whoever you might have been, but I still have no idea of who you could have been. I can only observe, that for the first time in

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years I have not received any anonymous white roses for my birthday, which seems to confirm that what you have written is true and that you now must be dead. And there is nothing I can do. I still don’t know who you are. (rises) But I can tell you one thing. An elderly gentleman looked me up the other day and accused me of the death of his wife. I sincerely expressed my regrets and condolences and swore myself innocent of her death, since I did not know who she was. Then he told me, that he had married her out of pity and mercy since she was a deserted mother with a child, whose father he asserted was me. Still less I knew who she was and dared accuse him of lying and to be out of his mind.

Husband (has entered) Do you mean that you are so utterly irresponsible and ruthless, that you make women pregnant without being aware of it?

Louis As far as I know I never succeeded in making anyone pregnant. Do you have any proof of your allegations?

Husband Her death and the child’s death is evidence enough, and I hold you responsible for having caused their deaths.

Louis This is going too far. May I at least be informed of how these to me unknown persons died?

Husband They caught the Spanish disease.

Louis And you hold me responsible for that, when millions all over Europe are dying from this disease?

Husband You were the reason for their leaving me. I could not tolerate that she persisted in being faithful to a man who had let her down after having made her pregnant, so I asked her to choose between myself and you.

Louis So you disowned her?

Husband Yes, I disowned her for your sake, but the infection was in that compartment in which she travelled. The boy fell ill, and she caught the same infection. She should have returned to Vienna after having thought the situation over, but she never came. Instead I was notified of her death.

Louis I am very sorry.

Husband No, Sir, I am sorry for you, for I can’t forgive you for having caused my wife’s misfortune.

Louis It was not intentional.

Husband Nevertheless you did it, and I must demand redress.

Louis How? She is dead.

Husband I demand a duel.

Louis Of life and death?

Husband Of life and death.

Louis Pistol?

Husband If you don’t have any better suggestion.

Louis I have never fought a duel.

Husband Then this will be your first.

Louis And last.

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Husband At least your last chance. If you wound me we have at least settled the matter as gentlemen.

Louis You will kill me.

Husband Unless you kill me.

Louis I have no experience. You have.

Husband That may be so, but it’s the only possibility for us to achieve any justice and exoneration. I demand it in the name of my dead wife.

Louis I don’t know who she was, but since I obviously loved her and did not take enough responsibility for the affair I find it my duty to do so now even if it will be too late and with my life at stake. Would that satisfy you?

Husband Sir, it’s your only chance to atone for the sacrifice of my wife.

Louis (bows reservedly) Then I am at your disposal.

Husband I will send you my seconds. (bows and leaves) Louis What do you say about that? Will you be exonerated by such a manly procedure? Perhaps I might see you again there on the other side if I follow you.

Max (enters, somewhat upset) Sir, two gentlemen are waiting outside claiming to be sent here to collect you for a duel. Could this be possible?

Louis It is quite correct, Max. I have violated the wife of a gentleman in a high position.

Mac Has it anything to do with the letter from the unknown woman?

Louis No, Max, but by her letter I have finally understood why I was challenged to a duel and that I am obliged to fight it out.

Max I sincerely hope you will come through it without damages.

Louis I will, Max, for it’s my only possibility to cure the damage that already has been caused by at last getting to know the injured lady in question.

Max You speak in riddles.

Louis All my life has been a riddle, but now I find the solution. (takes on his coat again, which he tossed across an armchair, and gets prepared.)

She I am sorry, Louis.

Louis (turns at last directly to her, but at a distance) No, you sweetest love, I hereby ask your forgiveness. (leaves. Max opens the door to him, and the two seconds stand waiting outside. Max closes the door after him and worriedly wrings his hands and shakes his head. Then he turns out the light and leaves.)

Gothenburg 11 February 2016, translated in May 2020.)

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Post script Stefan Zweig’s short story ”Letter from an Unknown” is one of his most charming and intriguing stories, and it was made a film in 1948 by no one less than Max Ophuls, who already had filmed ”The Sufferings of Young Werther” and made the first filmed opera on Smetana’s ”The Bartered Bride”. In the film he departs from the short story in transforming the leading character, an author, into a pianist and makes considerable additions to the story. In the short story the nameless lady is never married, while Ophuls in the film gives her an ideal husband in a rich aristocratic widower. This has gratefully been taken care of in this brief chamber play. The film also ends in that duel the outcome of which never is revealed but which in the film only could end in one way. We have tried to modify this somewhat.

Also the writer in the short story is without a name, he is only mentioned as ”R”, while he in the film is played by Louis Jourdan, who couldn’t have been more appropriate, why we here found it suitable to call him Louis. Also the butler is without a name both in the story and the film, in the film he is even mute but knows everything, while we have given him a voice.

The film is an enduring masterpiece, perhaps mostly by its tasteful enrichment of Zweig’s already perfect short story, and is called ”Letter from an Unknown Woman” and has been ranked by critics among the 32 best films ever made. The female part is played by Joan Fontaine, who earlier had played the lead in Hitchcock’s only Oscarwinning film ”Rebecca”.

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