Confusion by Stefan Zweig

again!—on every step: an intruder, a criminal might approach like this, not a friend. I strained my ears so intently that there was a roaring in them. And suddenly a frosty sensation crept up my bare legs.
    Then the latch clicked quietly—my sinister visitor must already be on the threshold. A faint draught of air on my bare toes told me that the outer door had been opened, yet no one else, apart from my teacher, had the key. But if it were he—why so hesitant, so strange? Was he anxious about me, did he want to see if I was all right? And why did my sinister visitor hesitate now, just outside the door? For his furtively creeping step had suddenly stopped. I was equally immobile as I faced the horror. I felt as if I ought to scream, but my throat was closed with mucus. I wanted to open the door; my feet refused to move. Only a thin partition now divided me and my mysterious visitor, but neither of us took a step forward to face the other.
    Then the bell in the tower struck—only once, a quarter-to-twelve. But it broke the spell. I flung the door open.
    And indeed there stood my teacher, candle in hand. The draught from the door as it suddenly swung open made the flame leap with a blue light, and behind it, gigantic and separated from him as he stood there motionless, his quivering shadow flickered drunkenly over the wall behind him. But he too moved when he saw me; he pulled himself together like a man woken from sleep by a sudden breath of keen air, shivering and involuntarily pulling the covers around him. Only then did he step back, the dripping candle swaying in his hand.
    I trembled, scared to death. “What’s the matter?” was all I could stammer. He looked at me without speaking; words failed him too. At last he put the candle down on the chest of drawers, and immediately the bat-like fluttering of shadows around the room was calmed. Finally he stammered: “I wanted … I wanted … ”
    Again his voice failed. He stood looking at the floor like a thief caught in the act. This anxiety was unbearable as we stood there, I in my nightshirt, trembling with cold, he with his back bowed, confused with shame.
    Suddenly the frail figure moved. He came towards me—at first a smile, malevolent, faun-like, a dangerous, glinting smile that showed only in his eyes (for his lips were compressed) grinned rigidly at me for a moment like a strange mask—and then the voice spoke, sharp as a snake’s forked tongue: “I only wanted to say … we’d better not. You … It isn’t right, not a young student and his teacher, do you understand?” He had changed back to the formal Sie pronoun. “One must keep one’s distance … distance … distance … ”
    And he looked at me with such hatred, such insulting and vehement ill-will that his hand involuntarily clenched. I stumbled back. Was he mad? Was he drunk? There he stood, fist clenched, as if he were about to fling himself on me or strike me in the face.
    But the horror lasted only a second; and then that penetrating glance was lowered and turned in on itself. He turned, muttered something that sounded like an apology, and picked up the candle. His shadow, an obedient black devil which had fallen to the floor, rose again and swirled to the door ahead of him. And then he himself was gone, before I had summoned up the strength to think of anything to say. The latch of the door clicked shut; the stairs creaked heavily, painfully, under what seemed his hasty footsteps.

I shall not forget that night; cold rage alternated wildly with a baffled, incandescent despair. Thoughts flashed through my mind like flaring rockets. Why does he torment me, my anguished and tortured mind asked a hundred times, why does he hate me so much that he will creep upstairs at night on purpose to hurl such hostile insults in my face? What have I done to him, what was I supposed to do instead? How am I to make my peace