Ricardo Lugo

Él respondió, la verdad que sí, con una indiferencia y hasta curiosidad hacia sí mismo.

No hay malicia, solamente esa desconexión totalmente radical del mundo, del mundo que ahora lo está juzgando.

Y así, Mendel pasa de su mesa del café a una prisión militar.

and from there to a concentration camp for Russian civilians near Comorn, in Hungary.

He never bothered.

The only time he reacted was when he was taken away from the books and the wallet he had full of notes and addresses.

And at one point, his glasses break and the narrator says, and I quote, "...the magical telescope that allowed him to contemplate the world of the spirit broke into a thousand pieces."

Let's remember, this is an old man of a lot of age.

I think Zweig is also condemning this activity that was very practiced, always practiced during times of war, which was a crazy representation of Europe.

But Jacob Mendel is saved.

He is saved by his clients, really.

Letters begin to arrive asking for him.

They came from nobles, from decans, old clients of the Republic, from the book.

Thanks to them and their connections, Mendel obtains permission to return to Vienna, although with the condition of presenting himself daily with the police.

The lady who is telling this to the narrator says that when he returned, it was as if a dead man had returned.

He arrived with a military cap, a pretty ruined hat, he had no neck on his shirt, he was gray, he was skinny, he looked like death.

And he entered as always, he went to his table as if nothing had happened.

He sat down and looked with his eyes to the void.

Eventually he reacted when he got a package with books and there he began to read, but he noticed, said the lady, it was no longer the same.

Mendel survived, but his inner world had been broken.