Chess Story

by Stefan Zweig

And, actually, isn’t it damn easy to think you’re a great man if you aren’t troubled by the slightest notion that a Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante, or Napoleon ever existed?

And the idea flashed through my mind like a bullet: steal this book! Maybe you’ll succeed, you can hide it in your cell and then read, read, read, finally read again! Once this idea had entered my head, it was like a strong poison; my ears began to ring and my heart began to pound, my hands became ice-cold and paralyzed.

still carrying the book, I stepped back into my hell, alone at last and yet no longer alone!

The only reason that this activity had become such a salutary and even soothing one for my shattered nerves was that playing through games that were not my own did not involve me personally; it was all the same to me whether Black or White won, it was Alekhine or Bogoljubov who was battling for the laurels of the champion, and I as a person, my intellect, my spirit took part solely as an observer, as a connoisseur of the peripeteias and the beauties of each game. But from the moment I began to play against myself, I began unwittingly to challenge myself.

Talking about writing?

when I held a glass it was all I could do to bring it to my lips, my hands were trembling so much; but as soon as I began to play, a furious energy came over me: I walked up and down with fists clenched, and I sometimes heard, as though through a red fog, my own voice addressing me with hoarse and ill-tempered exclamations of ‘Check!’ or ‘Mate!’