Fantastic Night & Other Stories by Stefan Zweig

to this great game, to the sparkling magic of chance.
    “Hey, there goes the cop,” said a voice behind me. “Our fine gentleman won’t like this, he’ll be behind bars a week or more.” It was meant to sound like a grim threat, but I heard the man’s hesitant uncertainty. I went placidly towards the dim light, where I did indeed see light glint on a police officer’s spiked helmet. Twenty more paces and I would have reached him. Behind me, the men had fallen silent. I realized they were slowing down. Next moment, I knew, they must retreat like cowards into the dark, into their own world, embittered by the failure of their trick, perhaps to vent their anger on the poor woman. The game was over: again, for the second time today, I had won, I had cheated other strangers of their malicious designs. Pale lantern light was already flickering ahead, and when I turned I looked for the first time into the two ruffians’ faces: bitterness and a craven shame looked out of their uncertain eyes. They still stood there, but downcast and disappointed, ready to slink back into the dark. For their power was gone: it was I they feared now.
    At that moment I was suddenly overcome—and it was like fermentation within me, bursting the staves in the barrel of my breast to pour out hot feeling into my blood—I was suddenly overcome by an infinite, fraternal sympathy for these two men. What had they wanted from me, these poor hungry, raggedfellows, what had they wanted from me, a satiated parasite, but a few miserable crowns? They could have strangled me there in the dark, they could have robbed me, killed me, but they had not; they had only tried to frighten me in a clumsy, amateurish way for the sake of the loose silver in my pocket. How could I, who had become a thief on a whim, out of a sense of audacity, who had turned criminal for the pleasure of my nerves, how could I dare to torment these poor devils further? And my infinite sympathy was mingled with infinite shame at having toyed with their fear and impatience for my own amusement. I pulled myself together: now that I was safe and the light of the nearby street protected me, I must go along with them and banish the disappointment from those bitter, hungry eyes.
    With a sudden movement I stepped up to one of them. “Why would you want to report me to the police?” I said, taking care to inject a touch of stress and fear into my voice. “What good will it do you? Perhaps I’ll be locked up, perhaps not. But it won’t do you any good. Why do you want to make my life a misery?”
    They both stared at me in embarrassment. They must have expected anything: cries, threats to make them cringe like growling dogs, not this subservience. At last one of them said, not threateningly at all, but as it were apologetically:” Justice have got to be done! We’re only doing our duty, right?”
    This comment was obviously prepared for such cases, yet it rang false. Neither of the pair dared look at me. They were waiting. And I knew what they were waiting for. They were waiting for me to beg for mercy and offer them money.
    I still remember everything about those seconds. I recollect every nerve that stirred in me, every thought that shot through my mind. And I know what I maliciously wanted at first: I wanted to make them wait, torment them a little longer, relish the pleasure of keeping them on tenterhooks. But soon I forced myself to beg, because I knew it was time for me to relieve these two of their anxiety. I began putting on a show of being terrified, I begged for mercy, asked them to keep all this quiet and not make me wretched. I saw these poor amateur blackmailers begin to feel awkward, and the silence between us was milder now.
    And then at last, at last I said what they had been longing tohear all this time. “I’ll—I’ll give you—I’ll give you a hundred crowns.”
    All three started and looked at each other. They had not expected so much, not now that all was really lost