Free Fear by Stefan Zweig

hear what it must do, she stood there uneasily, almost humbly.
    “Well then, Frau Wagner, I won’t beat about the bush. I’m in a bad way, like I told you before, you know that by now. So I need cash down. I been in debt a long time, and there’s other stuff as well. That’s why I come here to get you to help me out with—well, let’s say four hundred crowns.”
    “But I can’t,” Irene stammered, horrified by the sum of money, which indeed she did not have in the apartment in ready cash. “I really don’t have that much any more. I’ve already given you three hundred crowns this month. Where do you think I’d get the money?”
    “Oh, you’ll do it and no mistake, just you think how. A rich lady like you, why, you can get all the money you want. But you got to do it, see? So think it over, Frau Wagner, why don’t you? You’ll do it all right.”
    “I really don’t have it. I’d be happy to give it to you, but I truly can’t get hold of such a large sum of money. I could give you something … maybe a hundred crowns …”
    “Like I said, four hundred, that’s what I need.” She spoke brusquely, as if insulted by the suggestion.
    “But I just don’t have it!” cried the desperate Irene. Suppose her husband were to come in now, she thought fleetingly, he could come home at any moment. “I swear I don’t have it.”
    “Then you better make sure you do.”
    “I can’t.”
    The woman looked her up and down as if assessing her value.
    “Well, let’s see … f ’rinstance, that ring there. Suppose you was to pawn that, it’d fetch a tidy sum. Not that I know that much about joolery, never had none meself … but I reckon you’d get four hundred crowns for it.”
    “My ring!” cried Irene. It was her engagement ring, the only one that she never took off, a setting of a beautiful precious stone that made it very valuable.
    “Go on, why not? I’ll send you the pawnshop ticket, you can get it back any time you like. I’m not planning to redeem it and keep it, not me. What’d a poor girl like me do with a posh ring like that?”
    “Why are you persecuting me? Why do you torment me? I can’t … I can’t. Surely you must understand that. I’ve done all I could, you can see I have. Oh, surely you must understand! Take pity on me!”
    “Nobody never took no pity on me. I could’ve starved to death for all anyone cared. Why’d I have pity on a rich lady like you?”
    Irene was about to return a forceful answer, but then—and her blood ran cold—she heard the latch of the front door fall into place. It must be her husband coming home from his chambers. Without stopping to think, she snatched the ring from her finger and handed it to the woman waiting there, who swiftly pocketed it.
    “Don’t you worry, I’ll be off now,” nodded the woman, perceiving the unspeakable fear in her face and the close attention she was paying to the front hall, where a man’s footsteps were clearly audible. She opened the drawing-room door, and in passing wished good day to Irene’s husband as he came in. He glanced at her for a moment, but did not seem to pay her much attention as she left.
    “A lady coming to ask about something,” explained Irene, with the last of her strength, as soon as the door had closed behind the woman. The worst moment was over. Her husband did not reply, but calmly went into the dining room, where the table was already laid for lunch.
    Irene could almost feel the air burning the place on her finger that was usually enclosed by the cool circle of her ring. It was as if the bare skin were the mark of a brand that would inevitably attract all eyes. She hid her hand again and again during the meal, and as she did so she was plagued by a curious feeling, the result of nervous strain, that her husband’s glance kept going to that hand, following it in all its wanderings. With all her might, she tried to distract his attention and keep a conversation going by asking constant