The Will

Eileen Cham
Sir Are you sure about this? Ehrenborgs voice quivered. His
hands were clenched and white.
Strehlenert and Hwass were
engaged in conversation near the fireplace, and from the little I
gathered from the occasionally raised voices (advise, will, money,
sane, advise), I could surmise what their response to this affair would
be.
How absurd it was for the matter to arrive at such a state. To have to
call for my old friends in the middle of the night to the club I regret
to have to be such a nuisance to these kind gentlemen. But the task of
validating this will should not to be put off any longer; a decent
paroxysm might finish me off as soon as tomorrow. I could have called
for my lawyer, but he would never approve of my wishes.
I have composed this will on my own over the course of two months.
Truthfully, writing this will has been an invigorating exercise. It
reminded me that the dysfunctions of my body have not crept up to
my head, that I was still capable of thought and control. By the third
paragraph the tremors of my hand had miraculously stopped, and the
haze before my eyes dissolved, my mind taking on a clarity and I was
transported back through years and decades with my imagination,
and what was left of an old mans memory I was once again thirty in
Stockholm, eleven in Saint Petersburg, eighteen in the States, forty in
Paris
All the people in my life, they came forth to me from behind that hazy
veil as I wrote. They came to me, one after another, noiseless and fluid
as ink, glistening on the surface of the smooth white parchment, and
then fixed into eternality. My nieces and nephews, my servants and
secretaries and lab-assistants they would each receive a piece of my
wealth in, depending what they need, crowns, francs, florins, marcs,
dollars. It was surprising how I ruled these calculations with so little
difficulty, how readily the words came to my disposal. My hold of the
pen, however, wavered when I had come to Bertha

How close I was to proposing to her twenty years ago. I remember the
graceful, loopy B of her script in her first correspondence with me, the
scent of summer when I took her out to the Parisian streets on the
wagon I had designed myself. I remember her sure, unhesitant gaze
as she made her departure from my office to Caucasus, to meet von
Suttner. That Saturday I waved goodbye to her at the door with one
hand, and the other clasping the ring I had meant for her. I returned
the ring to the jeweler only after a few weeks later, when she wrote to
me as Bertha von Suttner. She kept the same script in her letters to
me for the next twenty years; but how much she would change! The
words I read would become wiser, the voice I imagine louder and
more passionate and unwavering; and what was left for her in my
heart could only grow stronger over the years.
In many of her letters she pleaded for my support for the Austrian
Pacifist Organization. She wrote of her visions for a longlasting Peace,
in Europe and beyond. She asked for advice, how she should deliver
her speeches to convince the most cynical of men. Of course, the irony
of her writing about such ambitions to the owner of the richest
Dynamite empire in the world escaped her grudgeless soul.
Sometimes she would write about von Suttner and their travels
together, and an envy would rise in me; I had but no one to write
about in return.
My friend Ehronborg began, and I was brought back to the
urgency of the present. Under Ehronborgs heavy gaze I fumbled for
my fountain pen in my breast pocket. I gave him what I hoped was a
reassuring nod. I have thought this over, months before, maybe years.
There was a proverb that Id heard from a teacher as a child, one that
Id lately taken to turning over in my head over and over again: Das
letzte Hemd hat keine Taschen the last shirt has no pockets.
I handed the will to Ehronborg. Strehlenert and Hwass ceased talking,
and in the silence I hear the frantic unruliness my pulse. Ehronborg
cleared his throat
The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in
the following way: the capital shall constitute a fund, the interest on
which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who,

during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit
on mankind.
His voice reverberated in the study. I stayed still in my armchair,
feeling the light touch of its last echoes. This new paragraph will set
this will apart from its previous versions, and also set me apart from
the dozens of other tycoons who, after their deaths, would fade away
into the unforgiving depths of history. They would talk about me for
years. The prizes would be an extension of my investments, and would
survive long after my death. There would be one for Medicine, one for
Physics, one for Chemistry, one for Literature, and one for Peace
this, a tribute to Bertha.
Strehnelert fidgeted, My friend, are you really sure about this?
I questioned my motivations daily. Like most men, I feared death; but I
feared infamy more. They called me the Merchant of Death, for how I
had earned my wealth by bringing to this world an invention that
would kill people faster than anything else in the world. Would this
Will salvage what little was left of my name? I wanted to do something
for Bertha, who has for so long occupied my thoughts; would this Will
be enough?
For now there is only this the piece of parchment solemnly
reflecting, in the dull glow of the chandelier overhead, my hopes and
resolve. The three gentlemen drew their breath as I positioned my pen
below Paris, 27 November, 1895, and signed -Alfred Bernhard Nobel