(1941) Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham Read Free Book Online

peace during those troubled
times. When Schuschnigg became head of the State after the assassination of the
little peasant Chancellor, his firmness and determined attitude had maintained
him in his post. He favoured the restoration of the Archduke Otto because he
thought that this was the only way to prevent Austria, which he loved with
ardent patriotism, from being absorbed by Germany. During the three years that
followed he aroused the bitter enmity of the Austrian Nazis by the stem
measures be took to curb their treasonable activities. On that fatal day when
the German troops marched into the defenceless little country he shot himself
through the heart. The young Karl, his boy, was then finishing his education.
He had specialized in the history of art, but was going to be a schoolmaster.
At the moment nothing could be done and with rage in his heart he listened
among the crowd to the speech Hitler made at Linz from the balcony of the
Landhaus when he entered the town in triumph. He heard the Austrians shout
themselves hoarse with joy as they acclaimed their conqueror. But this
enthusiasm was soon followed by disillusion, and when some of the bolder
spirits gathered together to form a secret association to fight the alien rule
by every means in their power they found many adherents. Karl was among them.
They held meetings which they were convinced were private; they conspired in an
ineffective way; they were no more than boys any of them, and they never dreamt
that every move they made, every word they said, was reported at the
headquarters of the secret police. One day they were all arrested. Two were
shot as a warning to the rest, and the others were sent to a concentration
camp. Karl escaped after three months and by good luck was able to get over the
frontier into the Italian Tyrol. He had no passport nor papers of any kind, for
these had been taken from him in the concentration camp, and he lived in terror
of being arrested and either put in prison as a vagabond or deported back to
the Reich where a harsh punishment awaited him.
    `If I'd only had enough money to buy a revolver rd have
shot myself as my father did.’
    He took her hand and placed it on his chest.
    `There, between the fourth and fifth ribs. Just where your fingers are.’
    `Don't say such things,' said Mary, with a shudder,
snatching her hand away. He gave a mirthless laugh.
    `You don't know how often I've looked at the Arno and
wondered when the time would come when nothing was left to me but to throw
myself in.’
    Mary sighed deeply. His fate seemed so cruel that any
words she might have found to console him could only have been futile. He
pressed her hand.
    `Don't sigh,' he said tenderly.
    `I regret nothing any more. It's all been worth it for
this wonderful night.’
    They ceased to speak. Mary thought of his miserable
story. There was no way out. What could she do? Give him money? That would help
him for a while perhaps, but that was all; he was a romantic creature, his
high-flown, extravagant language was that of a boy who knew more of books than,
for all his terrible experiences, of life, and it was quite possible that he
would refuse to take anything from her. On a sudden a cock
crew. The sound broke the silence of the night so shrilly that she was
startled. She took her hand away from his.
    `You must go now, my dear,' she said.
    `Not yet,' be cried.
    `Not yet, my love.’
    `The dawn will break soon.’
    `Not for a long time yet.’
    He raised himself to his knees and threw his arms round
her.
    `I adore you.’
    She disengaged herself.
    `No, really you must go. It's so late. Please.’
    She felt rather than saw the sweet smile that broke on
his lips. He scrambled to his feet. He looked for his coat and shoes and she
switched on a light. When he was once more dressed he took her in his arms again.
    `My lovely one,' he whispered.
    `You've made me so happy.’
    `I'm glad.’
    `You've given me something to