New York

New York is both the point of departure for the voyage that begins “The Royal Game” and a waypoint in Stefan Zweig’s later biography. In the story, its harbor is the setting where the narrator discovers that world chess champion Mirko Czentovic is aboard; in Zweig’s life, the city lies along the route he took after the fall of France before settling in Brazil.

Port of Departure

At midnight, a large steamship leaves New York for Buenos Aires amid the bustle of the hour before sailing. Visitors crowd the ship to say goodbye, telegraph boys hurry through the lounges, luggage and flowers arrive, children run up and down the stairs, and an orchestra plays on deck. The narrator stands with a friend on the promenade, slightly apart from the commotion, when reporters’ flashbulbs draw their attention to a celebrity being interviewed and photographed.

The friend identifies the passenger as Mirko Czentovic, the world chess champion, who has toured the United States and is now bound for Argentina. This chance recognition gives the departure scene its narrative importance: the crossing begins as ordinary travel, then becomes the setting for the narrator’s encounter with a figure whose career and character he begins to recall.

Czentovic’s New York Connection

The narrator remembers that, about a year earlier, Czentovic had risen to the level of established chess masters, prompting a public sensation compared with the excitement surrounding the young Reshevsky at the 1922 New York Masters. New York thus enters the account not only as a harbor but also as part of the chess world against which Czentovic’s sudden prominence is measured. The narrator’s friend, more attentive to newspaper reports, supplies anecdotes that extend the first glimpse of the champion into an account of his reputation.

In Zweig’s Biography

New York also marks a stage in Zweig’s wartime displacement. After leaving Austria for London in 1934, he later moved to Bath; following the outbreak of the Second World War and the fall of France in 1940, he left Britain for New York. He subsequently settled in Brazil, where he wrote “The Royal Game” in 1941. The biographical route gives the novella’s opening destination a separate resonance: New York belongs both to the fictional voyage toward Buenos Aires and to the real journey preceding the book’s composition.