The Invisible Collection
by Stefan Zweig

An Episode From Post-War Inflation

Two stations beyond Dresden an elderly gentleman entered our compartment, greeted us courteously and then, looking at me, nodded again to me especially as to an acquaintance. At first I could not remember him, but as soon as he gave me his name, with a little smile, I knew at once who he was - one of the best-known art dealers and antiquarians of Berlin, at whose shop before the war I had frequently examined and bought old books and autographs. At first we talked of indifferent things. Suddenly, without any transition, he said:

"I must tell you where I have just been. For the experience I have had is about the queerest one that I, an old art-peddler, have met with in my thirty-seven years of business. You yourself probably know how the art trade is going nowadays, since the value of money has evaporated like gas. The newly rich have suddenly discovered their interest in Gothic Madonnas and incunabula, in old engravings and pictures. One cannot find enough for them. One must even take care that they do not empty your house and room entirely. If they could, they would like to buy the cuff links from your shirt sleeves and the lamp from your desk. Consequently it becomes more and more difficult to replenish the merchandise. Pardon me for thoughtlessly calling these things which used to be revered by our class 'merchandise' - but these terrible people have made one used to considering a wonderful Venetian fifteenth century book merely as the equivalent of so and so many dollars and a drawing by Guercino as a reincarnation of a few one thousand franc bills. Against the importunate urging of these suddenly eager buyers no resistance avails. As a result I was entirely sold out from one day to another and should have liked to have closed up the shop. I was so ashamed of seeing in our old business, which my father had inherited from my grandfather, nothing but miserable stuff which in former times no peddler in Northern Germany would have put in his cart.

"In this difficult situation it occurred to me to look over our old ledgers, to hunt up old customers from whom I might perhaps get back a few of their duplicates. Such an old customers' list is always a kind of morgue, especially in these times, and it really didn't tell me much that was new. Most of our former clients had long since had to dispose of their possessions at auction, or had died, and from the few steadfast ones nothing was to be hoped. But then I suddenly found a whole bundle of letters from perhaps our oldest customer, whom I had only forgotten to think of because since the beginning of the World War, since 1914, he had never addressed any order or inquiry to us. Strange to say, the correspondence extended back over almost sixty years. He had bought even from my father and grandfather, and yet I did not remember that he had ever entered our shop in the thirty-seven years of my own connection with the business. And everything pointed to the fact that he must be a strange, old-fashioned, eccentric person, one of those forgotten Menzel or Spitzweg Germans who as rare specimens have survived down to the present day in small provincial towns. His long-hand letters were like copper-plate, beautifully written, the amounts underlined with ruler and red ink. Besides, he always repeated the figures, so as to be sure of avoiding errors. This, as well as the exclusive use of detached blank pages and economical envelopes, pointed to the pettiness and fanatical economy of a hopeless provincial. Moreover, the strange documents were always signed both with his name, and with the clumsy title: Retired Councillor of Forestry and Agriculture, retired Lieutenant, decorated with the Iron Cross of the first class. As a veteran of the war of 1870, he must be at least eighty years old, if he were still living. But this eccentric, ridiculous cheese-paring miser showed as a collector of the old graphic arts a quite unusual prudence, knowledge, and excellent taste. As I was putting his orders together, one by one, covering almost sixty years, the first of which was still billed in Silbergroschen, I became aware that, at the time when it was still possible to buy a great number of the most beautiful wood engravings for a few marks, this little provincial had quietly brought together a collection of engravings which could probably take a very honorable stand beside the much advertised ones of the newly rich. For even what he had bought from us alone in little amounts, in marks and pfennigs, in the course of half a century would represent today an astounding value, and besides it was likely that he must have bought no less advantageously at auction sales and from other dealers. Since 1914 no new order had arrived from him; but, on the other hand, I was so familiar with all events in the art trade that the auction or the sale of the whole collection of such a size could not have escaped my attention. Therefore, it was probable that this strange man was still alive or else that the collection was in the hands of his heirs.

"I was so interested in the affair that I took the train immediately the next day, that is to say last night, straightway into one of the most impossibly Saxon provincial towns that there are in Saxony. As I was strolling from the little depot through the main street, it appeared to me almost incredible that there, in the midst of these trivial, nondescript houses, with their middle class junk, that in any one of these rooms there should live a man who could own the finest of Rembrandt's etchings, besides remarkably complete series of engravings by Durer and others. I was astonished when I was told in the post office, in answer to my question whether a Councillor of Forestry and Agriculture was living here, that the old gentleman was indeed still alive. I went to see him that very morning - not without considerable nervousness, I must admit.

"There was no difficulty in finding his apartment. It was on the second floor of one of those economical, provincial houses which some speculative mason-architect had hastily put up in the eighteen sixties. The first floor was inhabited by an honest merchant-tailor; on the second floor left was the shining nameplate of the postmaster; on the right was a white porcelain plate with the name of the Councillor of Forestry and Agriculture. I rang the bell with some hesitation. Immediately the door was opened by a very old, white-haired lady, with a neat black cap on her head. I handed her my card and asked whether the Councillor of Forestry was at home. Astonished, and with a certain mistrust, she looked first at me and then at the card. In this out-of-the-way town, in this old-fashioned house, a visitor from the outside world seemed to be something of an event. But she told me kindly to wait, took the card and went into the room. First, I heard a low whispering and then suddenly a loud, boisterous masculine voice: 'Oh, Mr. R - , from Berlin, the great antiquarian! Let him come in! Let him come in! I am very glad to meet him!' And then the dear old lady came tripping back and invited me into the parlor.

"I took off my wraps and entered. In the middle of the modest room there stood, very erect, an old but still sturdy man with a bushy mustache, in a braided half-military lounging robe, who cordially held out both hands to me. But in spite of this friendly gesture of obviously joyful and spontaneous greeting there was a strange rigidity in the way he was standing there. He didn't take a single step to meet me and I had to go straight up to him, a little puzzled, in order to grasp his hands. And as I was going to grasp them, I noticed from the immovable horizontal position of these hands that they were not looking for mine, but were expecting them. And in the next moment I understood it all. The old gentleman was blind!

"From my early childhood I had always been uncomfortable in the presence of blind people. I could never quite help feeling ashamed and somewhat embarrassed at realizing that a man was entirely alive and yet knowing at the same time that he did not sense me in the same way as I did him. And then, too, I had first to overcome a shock when I saw those dead eyes under the bristling, white, bushy brows, rigidly staring into empty space. But the blind man did not leave me much time for such embarrassment, for as soon as my hand touched his, he shook it very heartily and renewed the greeting in an impetuous, comfortably boisterous way. 'A rare visit!' he said, laughing heartily. 'Indeed, a miracle, that for once one of those great Berlin men finds his way into our little town! But we have to be cautious when one of you dealers takes the train to come here. In my home they used to say, 'Close your gates and your pockets when the gypsies come.' Yes, I can imagine what you are coming for. Business is going badly now in our poor impoverished Germany. There are no buyers and, therefore, the gentlemen think again of their old customers and look for the lost sheep. But I am afraid you will not have any too much luck with me. We poor old pensioners are glad if we have our crust of bread at the table. We cannot run in the race any more, with the crazy prices that you ask nowadays. People of our class are sidetracked forever.' "I immediately put him right, and told him that he had misunderstood me, that I had not come to sell him something, but that I had just been in the neighborhood and did not want to miss the opportunity to pay my respects to him as an old customer of our firm and one of the greatest collectors of Germany. Scarcely had I said the words 'one of the greatest collectors of Germany' when a strange change took place in the face of the old man. He was still standing upright and rigid in the middle of the room, but now an expression of sudden brightness and innermost pride came into his attitude and he turned in the direction where he supposed his wife was, as if to say: 'Do you hear that?' And his voice full of joy, without a trace of that harsh military tone in which it had pleased him to speak a moment before, but softly, almost tenderly, he turned toward me: That is indeed very kind of you, but you shall not have come in vain either. You shall see something that you do not see every day, not even in your smart Berlin - some items more beautiful than any that can be found in the Albertina or in Paris, curse her! Well, when one collects for sixty years he gets all kinds of things which are not just to be found in the streets! Louise, please get me the key to the cupboard.

"And now something unexpected happened. The dear old lady, who was standing beside him and had taken part politely in our conversation, with a smiling, gently listening kindness, suddenly lifted both hands towards me imploringly, and at the same time made a decided negative movement of the head, a sign that I did not immediately understand. Then she approached her husband and put her two hands gently on his shoulders. 'But Herwarth,' she said warningly, 'you do not ask the gentleman whether he has time to look at the collection now. It is almost noon, you know, and after dinner you must rest for an hour. The doctor has expressly insisted on that. Would it not be better for you to show the gentleman all those things after dinner? We can then have coffee together. Then, too, Anna Marie will be here. She understands everything so much better and can help you.' And again scarcely had she finished these words when she repeated, as it were in front of the unsuspecting man, that imploring and urging gesture which I now understood. I realized that she wanted me to decline an immediate inspection and I improvised an appointment for dinner. I said that it would be a pleasure and an honor for me to be allowed to see his collection, but it would hardly be possible before three o'clock, but that then I should come very gladly.

"Peeved, like a child whose best toy has been taken away from him, the old man turned around. 'Of course,' he grumbled, 'these gentlemen from Berlin never have time, but on this occasion you will have to take time, for this is not merely three or five pieces. This is a collection of twenty-seven portfolios, one for each artist, and none of them half empty. Well, at three o'clock then, but be on time; otherwise we won't get through.'

"Again he extended his hand to me into empty space. 'Look here,' said he, 'you may be glad or vexed, and the more vexed you are the gladder I shall be. That is the way we collectors are. Everything for ourselves and nothing for the others.' And again he shook my hand vigorously.

"The little old lady accompanied me to the door. I had noticed in her all the time a sort of uneasiness and an expression of embarrassed timidity. Suddenly, close to the entrance, she stuttered with a quite depressed voice: 'Might - might - my daughter Anna Marie call for you before you come to our house? It is better for several reasons. I suppose you dine at the hotel?'

" 'Certainly, I shall be glad, and it will be a pleasure for me,' said I.

"And indeed, an hour later, when I had just finished my dinner in the little dining room of the hotel on the market place, an elderly spinster, very plainly dressed, entered the room and looked around. I approached her, introduced myself and said that I was ready to go with her at once to see the collection; but she suddenly blushed and asked me, with the same embarrassed confusion which her mother had shown, whether she could not say a few words to me first. And I saw immediately that it was hard for her. Whenever she wanted to pull herself together and tried to speak, an embarrassed red flush covered her whole face, and her hand played nervously with her dress. At last she began hesitatingly, and she stammered again and again:

" 'Mother has sent me to you - she has sent me to you - she has told me everything and - we want to ask you a great favor - that is, we should like to inform you before you come to see Father - of course, Father will want to show you the collection - and the collection - the collection - is not quite complete any more - a number of pieces are missing - indeed, quite a lot - '

"Again she had to stop for breath. Then she suddenly looked at me and said hastily: 'I must talk to you quite openly. You know these hard times. You will understand everything. After the beginning of the War, Father became completely blind. Even before that time his eyesight was somewhat impaired and the excitement has robbed him of it entirely. You know that, in spite of his seventy-six years, he still wanted to join the army in France and when the army did not make headway immediately, as it did in 1870, he became terribly excited and from then on his eyesight failed very rapidly. Otherwise he is still quite hearty. Until a short time ago he was able to walk for hours, even to follow his favorite sport, hunting. But now his walks are all over, and his collection is his only joy. He looks at it every day. Of course, he does not actually see it. You know he does not see anything any more. But every afternoon he gets out all of his portfolios so as to at least handle the prints, one after another, always in the same order as he has known them by heart for decades. He is no longer interested in anything else and I must read to him from the paper about all the auction sales, and the higher the prices he hears of the happier he is - for that really is the most terrible thing, that Father does not understand the prices and our times any more. He does not know that we have lost everything and that it is impossible to live on his pension for more than two days in the month. Then too, the husband of my sister was killed in the War and she was left behind with four little children. But Father does not know anything at all of our financial difficulties. At first we economized, economized even more than before, but that did not answer. Then we began to sell - of course, we did not touch his beloved collection. We sold the little jewelry that we had, but that certainly was not much, for during sixty years Father had spent on nothing but his prints every cent that we could save. And one day there was nothing left. We did not know what to do. And then - then - Mother and I sold one print. Father would never have allowed it. He does not know how badly off we are. He does not know how hard it is to get a little food through illicit trade. Nor does he know that we have lost the War and that Alsace-Lorraine has been ceded to France. We do not read such things to him any more from the paper, so that he will not get excited.'

" 'The first piece which we sold was a very valuable specimen, a Rembrandt etching. The dealer offered us many thousand marks for it and with that we hoped to be free from worry for years. But you know how the money melts away! We had put the balance in the bank, but after two months it was all gone. So we had to sell another specimen, and then another one, and the dealer always sent the money so late that it had depreciated by the time it arrived. Then we tried auction sales and there too we were cheated, in spite of the millions they paid us. Before the millions reached us they were always nothing but worthless pieces of paper. In this way gradually the best part of his collection dwindled away, except for a few good pieces, just enough to pay for the barest necessities, and Father has no idea of it. That is why my Mother was so frightened when you came today. For if he opens his portfolios to you everything will be betrayed. In the old portfolios, each of which he knows by the touch, we have put facsimiles of other specimens in place of the ones sold, so that he does not notice it when he handles them. And if he can only touch them and count them (he remembers the order exactly) he has precisely the same pleasure as before when he saw them with his open eyes. There is nobody in this little town whom Father would have considered worthy of showing his treasures to. And he loves every single copy with such a fanatical love that I believe his heart would break if he knew that all that has long since disappeared from under his hand. Since the former curator of the Dresden Print Department died, you are the first one in all these years to whom he has offered to show his portfolios. Therefore, let me ask you - '

"And suddenly the aging spinster lifted her hands, and tears came into her eyes.

" ' - Let me beg of you, don't make him unhappy! Don't make us unhappy! Don't destroy his last illusion! Help us to make him believe that all these specimens, which he will describe to you, are still there! He would not live through it if he even suspected it! Perhaps we have done him a wrong, but we could not do otherwise. Didn't we have to live? And human lives, four orphan children such as those of my sister's, are after all more important than printed sheets. And then, up to this day we have not robbed him of any pleasure. He is happy that he can go over his portfolios, every afternoon for three hours, and speak to every specimen as if he were talking to a human being. And today might be his happiest day, for he has been waiting for years to have an opportunity to show his favorite prints to a connoisseur. Please, I implore you with uplifted hands, do not take this joy from him!'

"All this had been said in such a pathetic way that my story cannot of course do justice to it. Goodness knows we dealers have seen many of these people who have been cruelly robbed, relentlessly cheated by the inflation, whose most precious family property, centuries old, has been pilfered away from them for a song. But here destiny willed a special situation which touched me deeply. Of course, I promised her to be silent and to do what I could.

"We went to the house together. On the way I learned, full of resentment, with what ridiculous amounts they had cheated these poor ignorant women; but that only strengthened my resolution to help them in their extremity. We went upstairs and as soon as we opened the door we heard from inside the room the joyfully boisterous voice of the old man: 'Come in! Come in!' With the acute hearing of a blind man he must have recognized our steps on the stairs.

" 'Herwarth has not been able to sleep today; he is so impatient to show you his treasures,' said the little old mother smilingly. A single glance from her daughter had already reassured her about my agreement. All the piles of portfolios were spread out waiting on the table and, as soon as the blind man felt my hand, he took hold of my arm without further formality and pushed me down into the arm chair.

" 'All right, let us begin at once. There is much to be seen and the gentlemen from Berlin never have time. This first portfolio here is Master Durer and, as you will see, rather complete, - and, at that, one copy more beautiful than the other! Well, you will see for yourself. Look here!' He opened to the first sheet of the portfolio. 'The big horse.'!

"And now he took from the portfolio, with that same tender care which people use to touch fragile things, with extremely cautious, highly considerate finger tips, a passepartout in which there was framed an entirely blank yellow sheet of paper, and he held the worthless scrap before himself, full of enthusiasm. He looked at it for minutes, without really seeing, but he held the blank sheet with his hand spread out ecstatically at eye level. His whole face expressed magically the strange attitude of a keen observer. And in his eyes, staring with their dead pupils, I suddenly saw - was it a reflection of the paper or a gleam from within? - a mirrored brightness, a knowing light.

" 'Well,' he said proudly, 'have you ever seen a more beautiful copy? How sharply, how clearly every detail stands out in relief there! I have compared this copy with the one in Dresden, but that has a flat and dull look in comparison. In addition, the pedigree! Look there!' - and he turned the sheet around and pointed with his finger nail to a place on the back of the blank sheet, so that I had to look involuntarily to see whether the signs were not actually there. - 'There you have the stamp of the Nagler collection. Here are the ones of Remy and Esdaille. They would never have thought, those illustrious former owners, that their copy would ever get here into this little room.'

"A chill went up my spine when the unsuspecting man praised so enthusiastically an entirely blank sheet. And it was ghastly to see how he pointed with his finger nail, with minute exactness to the invisible collectors' signs which no longer existed except in his imagination. I felt choked with horror. I did not know what to answer. But as I looked up confused to the two women I saw again the hands of the trembling and excited old lady lifted up imploringly. Then I regained my self-possession and began to play my part.

" 'Incredible!' I finally managed to stammer. 'A wonderful copy!' And immediately his whole face began to glow with pride. 'But that is nothing,' he said triumphantly, 'you should see the Melancholia, or the Passion, a colored specimen which is hardly to be found elsewhere in the same state. Look here!' - and again his fingers moved tenderly over an imaginary picture - 'This freshness, this rough, warm tone! Berlin, with all its art dealers and museum professors, would go wild over this!' "And in this fashion the rushing talking triumph continued for fully two hours. No, I cannot describe to you how ghastly it was, to look with him at these one or two hundred blank scraps of paper or poor reproductions which were so incredibly real to the memory of this tragically unsuspecting man that he praised and described every one of them with the most precise details, without mistake, in perfect order. The invisible collection, which long since must have been dispersed all over the world, still existed unimpaired for this blind man, so pathetically cheated, and the passion of his vision was so overpowering that I almost began to believe in it too. Only once the somnambulist assurance of his examining enthusiasm was terribly interrupted by the danger of an awakening. Looking at an Antiope (a proof copy which indeed must have had an immeasurable value) he had again praised the distinctness of the print and at the same time his nervously sensitive finger had followed affectionately the lines of the impression, but without the refined tactile nerves finding that familiar depression on the entirely different sheet. Then, suddenly, a shadow seemed to glide over his forehead; his voice became confused. 'Isn't that - the Antiope?' he murmured, a little embarrassed. Whereupon I started up at once, hastily took the mounted sheet out of his hands, and enthusiastically described the etching, with which I too was familiar, in all possible details. Then the face of the blind man lost its tension and its expression of embarrassment, and the more I praised the more a jovial cordiality, a jolly warmth began to blossom forth in this sturdy, old-fashioned man. 'Here at last is somebody who knows something about it,' he said joyfully, turning triumphantly to his family. 'At last, somebody from whom you hear also how much these prints are worth. You, always full of distrust, have scolded me because I have invested all my money in my collection. It is true that for sixty years there has been no beer, no wine, no tobacco, no travel, no theatre, no books for me, nothing but saving and saving for these prints. But some day you will see, when I am no longer here. Then you will be rich, richer than anybody in town, and as rich as the richest people in Dresden. Then at last you will be glad of my folly. But as long as I live, not a single print shall leave the house! They must carry me out first, and then my collection.'

"And with that he stroked the long-since rifled portfolios tenderly, like something living. It was ghastly and yet at the same time pathetic for me, for in all those years of the War I had not seen such a perfect, such a pure expression of happiness on any German face. And beside him stood the women mysteriously resembling the female characters in that etching of the German master depicting the women who had come to visit the tomb of their Savior and stood before the empty tomb with an expression of terrified fright and at the same time of ecstatic belief and joy at the miracle. Just as in that picture the faces of the disciples glow with an unearthly realization that Christ had risen from the dead, so these two aging, worn-out, miserable, middle-class women were affected by the childlike joyful happiness of the old man, half laughing, half in tears. I have never seen a sight so pathetic as this one. But the old man could not get enough of my praise. Again and again he piled up the portfolios, and turned them over, thirstily imbibing every word. So it was a relief for me when at last the deceitful portfolios were put aside and he had reluctantly cleared the table for the coffee. But what was my guilty breath of relief in comparison with the exalted, tumultuous joyfulness, with the high spirits of the old man who seemed to be thirty years younger!

"He told many a story about his quests and purchases. He got up awkwardly, again and again refusing help in order to bring out another and still another print. He was elated and intoxicated as if with wine. But when, at last, I said that I had to leave, he was actually scared, acted glum like a stubborn child, and stamped his feet spitefully and said that it was impossible, because I had scarcely seen half of the collection. And the women had a hard time to make him understand that he must not be stubborn and delay me any longer, because I would miss my train. When at last, after desperate resistance, he gave in and we began to say good-bye, his voice became quite soft. He took my hands and his fingers stroked them caressingly, even up to the wrists, with all the feeling of a blind man - as if they wanted to know more about me and to express to me more love than words were able to do. 'You have given me a great, great joy with your visit,' he began with heartfelt emotion, which I shall never forget. 'It was a real blessing for me to have at last an opportunity to look over my beloved pictures with a connoisseur, and you will see that you have not come in vain to this blind old man. I promise you here, before my wife as a witness, that I will add a clause to my will, entrusting your old and reputed firm with the auction sale of my collection. You shall have the honor to administer this unknown treasure' - and with that he laid his hand affectionately on the rifled portfolios - 'until the day that it will be dispersed over the world. Only promise me that you will make a beautiful catalogue. It shall be my monument! I do not want a better one.'

"I looked at his wife and daughter. They stood close together and sometimes a tremor ran from one to the other, as if they were a single body trembling with their common emotion. And I myself was in a somewhat solemn mood when the pathetically unsuspecting man charged me with the administration of his invisible, long-since dispersed collection, as if it were a great treasure. Deeply stirred, I promised him what I could never fulfil. Again his dead eyes began to glow. I realized how his longing from within tried to sense me bodily. I noticed it from the tenderness, from the loving pressure of his fingers, which were holding mine in thankfulness and as a pledge.

"The women accompanied me to the door. They did not dare to speak because he would have caught every word with a sensitive ear, but with what warm tears, with what overflowing thankfulness did they look at me, radiantly! Quite stunned, I found my way down the stairs. In reality I felt ashamed. Like the angel in the fairy tale, I had entered the room of poor people, had made a blind man see for an hour by just lending my help to a pious fraud and by lying outrageously. I had really come as a shabby jobber in order to get a few precious specimens out of somebody through a ruse; but what I got out of it was worth much more. I had for once had a chance to feel pure enthusiasm alive in a dull joyless time, a kind of intellectually transparent ecstasy, entirely devoted to art, which our people seemed to have lost long ago. And I somehow felt - I cannot express it in any other way - full of awe, though I was still ashamed and did not really know why.

"I was already down in the street when I heard a window opening above me and my name called. Indeed, the old man had insisted upon looking after me with his blind eyes in the direction in which he supposed I was going. He leaned out so far that the two women had to protect him carefully, and waving his handkerchief he called out 'Safe journey' with the merry refreshing voice of a boy. That sight was unforgettable to me. That happy face of the white-haired old man up there in the window, soaring high above all the morose, hurrying, bustling people in the street, was softly lifted out of our real and repulsive world by the white cloud of a bountiful imagination. And again I was reminded, as so often before, of the true old saying - I think it is Goethe's - 'Collectors are happy people.' "

End of The Invisible Collection by Stefan Zweig