Arthur Schnitzler

“ The beauty of the morning acted on Bertha as a good omen; she wondered at the strange, foolish manner in which she had spent the previous evening—as if she had not quite correctly understood why she had come to Vienna. The certainty that the repose of a whole night no longer separated her from the longed-for hour filled her with a sense of great gladness. All at once, she could no longer understand how it was that she could have come to Vienna, as she had done just recently, without daring to make even an attempt to see Emil. ”

“ When George, without hearing their voices, saw the lips of these two men move, while their glances wandered to and fro, he could scarcely understand how they could stand sitting opposite each other for a quarter of an hour in that cloud of hate. It flashed across him at once that this was the atmosphere in which the life of the whole set played its comedy, and through which there darted many a redeeming flash of wit and self-analysis. ”

“ ALBERT
You mean to tell him?
AMADEUS
If you hold it the shortest road to what I have in mind...?
ALBERT
There's a man of honor for you! And is that the discretion you owe the woman you love, do you think?
AMADEUS
Call me illogical, ungenerous, indiscreet—anything you please! I can't help myself! I love Cecilia—do you hear? And I want to go on living with her. But I can't do so until some sort of amends have been made for the past—in my own eyes, in hers, and—I confess it—in the eyes of the world. Sigismund and I must meet, man to man—nothing else can end my trouble. ”

“ Casanova thrilled. “Neither my lips nor my hands are yours to kiss. Your waiting for me and your dreams of me will prove to have been vain—unless I should first make Marcolina mine.”
“Are you mad, Casanova?” exclaimed Amalia, with distress in her voice.
“If I am, we are both on the same footing,” replied Casanova. “You are mad because in me, an old man, you think that you can rediscover the beloved of your youth; I am mad because I have taken it into my head that I wish to possess Marcolina. But perhaps we shall both be restored to reason. ”

“ Sigurd said, "and I am speaking for Fanny, and Fanny is speaking for Kläre, and Kläre is speaking for the Prince. Don't you understand me?"
Leisenbohg listened with taut nerves. It seemed to him as though he could hear the voice of the dead Prince coming up out of the thrice-sealed coffin and ringing through the night.
"'Kläre, I love you, and I must die! You are so young, and I must die. . . . And someone else will come after me. . . . I know it; that's what will happen.—Someone else will hold you in his arms and be happy with you. . . . He shall not—he dare not—he dare not! ”

“ She saw the carriage, not completely upset, as she had thought, but leaning over toward the ground, as if one wheel were broken. The horses stood quietly. She saw the milestone, then a heap of loose stones, and beyond them a ditch. Then the light touched Franz’s feet, crept up over his body to his face, and rested there. The coachman had set the lamp on the ground beside the head of the unconscious man. Emma dropped to her knees, and her heart seemed to stop beating as she looked into the face before her. It was ghastly white; the eyes were half open, only the white showing. ”

“ A hundred yards from the inn George and Leo stretched themselves out on their cloaks. Heinrich sat down on the grass, crossed his arms over his knees, and looked in front of him. At his feet the sward sloped down to the forest. Still deeper down rested the villas of Neuwaldegg, buried in loose foliage. The spire-crosses and dazzling windows of the town shone out from the bluish-grey clouds, and far away, as though lifted up by a moving haze, the plain swept away to a gradual darkness. ”

“ Bertha could not help thinking that she and Emil looked just such another couple ... and she pictured to herself how beautiful it must be to stroll about, not merely in the darkness of the night, but, just as these two were doing, openly in the broad light of day, arm in arm, and with happiness and laughter shining in their eyes. Many a time, when a gentleman going past her looked into her face, she felt as though she understood the language of glances, like something new to her. ”

“ Do I not now, as then, feel all the ardors of desire and all the sap of youth course through my veins? Am I not, as of old, Casanova? Being Casanova, why should I be subject, as others are subject, to the pitiful law which is called age!”
Growing bolder, he asked himself: “Why am I creeping in disguise to Marcolina? Is not Casanova a better man than Lorenzi, even though he be thirty years older? Is not she the one woman who would have understood the incomprehensible? Was it needful to commit this lesser rascality, and to mislead another man into the commission of a greater rascality? ”

“ SIGISMUND
Certainly, I am aware of those reasons, but to me they don't by any means seem sufficiently pressing—not even from your own viewpoint—to exclude all thought of a divorce. And I am anxious to assure you that, under all circumstances, I shall feel bound to treat those reasons with the most profound respect.
AMADEUS
What do you mean?
SIGISMUND
You know, my dear Master, that the reverence I have for your art, even if I am not always capable of grasping it, equals the admiration I feel for the singing of Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg. ”

“ And George thought of how many children of men and women were fated to perish even earlier than his own child, how many, wished and unwished, were fated to die in the first days of their life without their own mothers even having an idea. And while he dozed with shut eyes, half asleep and half awake, in front of his secretary, he saw nothing but shining crosses standing up on tiny mounds, as though it were a toy cemetery and a reddish yellow toy sun were shining over it. ”

“ If she had the power, simply by expressing the wish, to transport herself just where she pleased, would she not, perhaps, at that, moment, rather be at home, with her boy, walking between the vine-trellises, without fear, without agitation, and with a clear conscience; as a good mother and a respectable woman, instead of lying in that uncomfortable room in the hotel, on a miserable sofa, restlessly, yet without longing, awaiting the next hours? ”

“ CECILIA
Calm...? Here I am ... by our fireplace ... taking tea in your company. Here I can and shall always be calm. That's the significance of our whole life in common. Whatever may be my destiny in the world at large will slip off me when I enter here. All the storms are on the outside.
AMADEUS
That's more than you can be sure of, Cecilia. Things might happen that would weigh more heavily on you than you can imagine at this moment.
CECILIA
I shall always have the strength to throw off things according to my will before I come to you. ”