Free Three Lives: A Biography of Stefan Zweig by Oliver Matuschek Page B

to go to Hollywood at some point and have a career there as a screenwriter? Zweig had already received several such offers, and a number of his books had been very successfully filmed.
    On 9th August 1940 Stefan and Lotte left New York for his second, and Lotte’s first, voyage to South America. Their ship entered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro on 21st August. This time Stefan had insisted that the whole circus that had accompanied his last visit should not be repeated this time; he wanted this to be more of a study trip, with few lecture appointments and extended periods of rest. They had set aside a sufficient amount of time for such a leisurely tour—at the moment there was little to draw them back to North America, let alone Europe.
    After spending several weeks in Rio they set off in September for an extended tour of the interior. Stefan had long been planning to write a book about Brazil. Following the various reports and feature articles he had written for newspapers in the wake of his earlier visits, this was to be his first attempt at a comprehensive account of a whole country. What he had in mind was a travel guide or handbook for foreigners who, just like himself and Lotte, arrived in the country full of wonder, yet knew very little about it. From the end of October to mid-November they travelled around Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, where they had been warned to expect a tight schedule and crowded lecture halls. So much for the restful interlude they had been looking forward to. This time it was Lotte who wrote home to report on the frantic round of engagements. On 23rd October she wrote to her brother and his wife from Rio:
… we are again feeling like in a madhouse—leaving Saturday for Buenos Aires, today Stefan’s conference in French “Vienne d’hier”, since two hours a phone call from Buenos Aires announced without name and not yet come through, urgently some books to sign for people who are leaving Rio today, tomorrow a Jewish charity affair where Stefan has to speak an introduction, a men’s luncheon tomorrow and the last rehearsal of the Spanish lecture on Friday. In between Stefan dictates a lecture in English, that is to say I shall translate it and he will revise it, another lecture for the refugees in Buenos Aires and revises his other lectures in French which he might have to give, and sometime I shall have to pack—and pack carefully because we fly and I have to select what to take. 4
    Zweig’s Argentinian translator Alfredo Cahn had informed him in good time about the various lectures and speeches that had been planned. As a passionate devotee of Zweig and his works he had played a major role in arranging his travel programme. On 29th October Zweig was scheduled to speak in Buenos Aires, and two days later in Rosario. On 4th November he was to speak at the University in Córdoba, on the 6th at the city’s Jockey Club, and on the 12th he was back in Buenos Aires again, where he was due to address an audience of Jews. Zweig intended to donate his earnings from these appearances to various refugee organisations. His Spanish was now reasonably good—good enough for him to read out speeches from the printed page. He had studied the language a little back in 1932, and now worked on his pronunciation and the finer points of style and idiom. He also tried to learn some Portuguese, as best he could in these circumstances.
    In Argentina he had an important administrative matter to attend to alongside his various lecture engagements. On 5th November Lotte and Stefan were issued with a permanent residence visa for Brazil at the Brazilian Consulate General in Buenos Aires. This meant that if it proved impossible for them to return to Europe, and the USA refused them a visa, they would at least have a safe haven for the long term. While Lotte and Stefan were constantly having to deal with tedious matters relating to entry permits and visas, in faraway Germany the process of depriving Zweig of his