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attending physician, Dr Mario M Pinheiro, wrote on their death certificates. All the signs indicated that Lotte had taken the poison some time after Stefan; her body was still warm when they found her.
    The police were summoned to the scene and their investigations led them to the same conclusion as the doctor—that this was a joint suicide. Several photos of the deceased were taken, for which purpose the bodies were moved into a different position, and a dentist was called in to make a death mask of Stefan Zweig.
    The funeral, organised in great haste by Koogan and others, took place the following day, after the coffins had been placed on public display first. The government had insisted on meeting the costs of the obsequies and the grave. Amidst a great display of public mourning the funeral cortege wound its way to the Catholic cemetery in Petrópolis, where the burial service was conducted by Rabbi Lemle in accordance with Jewish rites, for which a special dispensation had been necessary.
    Many leading daily newspapers printed Zweig’s official farewell declaration, the Declaração , in which he expressed his gratitude for the hospitality shown to them in Brazil, and described the feelings of helplessness and despondency that had led him to the decision to end his life. While he himself could not muster the patience to wait for better times to come, he hoped that all his friends would live to see the dawn of a new day after the long dark night that the war had brought and would continue to bring.
    The following day an official inspection of Zweig’s house took place, and an inventory was drawn up of the papers and possessions he had left behind. Both Lotte and Stefan had made additional provisions in their wills. They wanted their clothes to be distributed among the poor and needy, and the housemaid was to continue to receive her wages for the next two months. The investigating officers also found an envelope addressed to Friderike’s nephew Ferdinand Burger, which contained Stefan Zweig’s wristwatch, ring, pearl tiepin and his collar studs and cufflinks. Another envelope, addressed to Koogan, contained his gold Swan fountain pen and matching propellingpencil. Zweig had selected a galley proof of Balzac’s to be donated to the National Library in Rio as a thank-you to Brazil. The books he had borrowed were parcelled up together, other cartons contained manuscripts by Zweig. Among the smaller items found in the house were a typewriter, a radio, two used tobacco pipes and a chess set. Hanging on the wall of the bedroom was a framed copy of Stefan’s translation of the poem by Camões, which he had sent to friends the previous year: “Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary, where live his little span of life secure?”
     
    By the evening of the day on which they died, news of the suicide of Stefan and Lotte Zweig had been picked up by the press and had gone around the world. Friderike’s daughter Suse heard the news, and asked her husband to tell her mother before she heard about it by chance.
    Several days passed before Friderike received the last letter from her deceased husband. The English is Zweig’s own: 22
Petropolis, 34 rua Gonçalves Dias, 22.II.1942
Dear Friderike,
When you get this letter I shall feel much better than before. You have seen me in Ossining and after a good and quiet time my depression became much more acute—I suffered so much that I could not concentrate any more. And then, the security—the only one we had—that this war will take years, that it would take ages before we in our special position could settle again in our home was too depressing. I liked Petropolis very much, but I had not the books I wanted and the solitude which first had such a soothing effect began to become oppressive—the idea that my central work, the Balzac, could never get finished without two years of quiet life and all books was very hard and then this war, this eternal war, which is yet not at his