Arthur Schnitzler

“ At this moment he was in the little room of Mme Eisenstein, the music teacher—where he had seen Kläre for the first time. A Pierrot was standing on the stage declaiming, "With this curse on his lips Prince Bedenbruck died, and . . . listen . . . the wretch in whose arms she lay, the victim on whom the curse will be fulfilled, is I! . . . I! . . . I! . . ."
Then the stage collapsed with a loud crash, and sank Leisenbohg's eyes into the sea. But he, without a word, fell over backwards in his chair—like a marionette.
Sigurd sprang up, calling for help. ”

“ Do you hear, Kläre? I curse him! . . . The first man who kisses these lips, who embraces this body after me—may his soul rot in Hell! . . . Kläre, Heaven hears the curse of a dying man. . . . Take care for yourself—take care for him. . . . He is des- tined for Hell! In madness, misery, and death! Woe! Woe! Woe!'"
Sigurd, out of whose mouth the voice of the dead Prince had resounded, had arisen. He was standing there, large and stout in his white flannels, looking off into the clean night. The green plaid sank from the banisters into the garden. The Baron felt himself freezing horribly. ”

“ The carriage travelled on through the fields; the hills rose darkly around him and seemed higher than by day; from the little villas lights glimmered across to him; against the railing of a balcony a man and a woman were leaning silently, pressed closer to one another than they would, very likely, have dared to be in daylight. From a veranda on which a small company sat at their evening meal, came the sound of loud speech and laughter. Doctor Graesler began to be aware of his appetite ”

“ For over three years Kläre had been true to Prince Bedenbruck, but with a deeper passion than she had loved his predecessors; and although Leisenbohg had never quite abandoned hope in spite of all his disappointments, he began seriously wondering whether the happiness he had longed for for ten years would never bloom. Always, when he saw someone beginning to slip out of favour, he would take leave of his other darling in order to be prepared at any moment and for all contingencies. ”

“ Leisenbohg asked, as a sudden wave of impatience came over him.
"I am a lost man," Sigurd said, staring in front of him.
"How do you mean?" Leisenbohg asked tonelessly. "And how can I help you?" he added mechanically.
"Not much. I have no idea." And he gazed over the tablecloth, over the banisters, the garden, the trellis, the street, the sea . . . into nothing.
Leisenbohg became inwardly paralyzed. . . . All sorts of thoughts shot through him. . . . What could have happened? . . . Was Kläre dead? . . . Had Sigurd murdered her? . . . Yet no, that was impossible. . . . ”

“ When, with the years, the last prospect of this kind had vanished, she seemed to submit to her fate without complaint; and yet her brother now thought that he could remember many a mute look from her eyes, directed at him in silent reproach as though he, too, were somehow answerable for the haplessness of her existence. So, by and by, the consciousness of a wasted life had, perhaps, asserted itself, growing stronger as it was less outspoken, until she had finally preferred a swift end to the gnawing torment of such a confession. ”

“ She had, to be sure, reduced her unsuspecting brother—and this at a period of life generally unfriendly to the formation of new habits—to the necessity of concerning himself with affairs of domestic economy—a necessity which Friederike's ministrations had up to this time spared him. And though he mourned his sister none the less, there crept into his heart, during the last days of the steamer-trip, a somehow soothing and consolatory feeling of estrangement from the departed who, without so much as a farewell, had left him, wholly unprepared, alone in the world. ”

“ First there came to him the widow of the engineer from Rio de Janeiro; in Lisbon she had left the steamer on which he was, in his capacity as ship's-doctor, her fellow-traveller—had left it, ostensibly in order to make some purchases in the city, and, in spite of the fact that her ticket was good to Hamburg, had not returned on board. He saw her still before him, dressed in black—saw her as she nodded to him pleasantly from the carriage which was conveying her up to the city from the harbour—saw her as, at a street-corner, she vanished from his sight for ever. ”

“ Sabine smiled. "My father is not a ranger. It is a long time since this has really been 'The Range.' It is only called that because, up to six or seven years ago, the ranger of the county lived here. But just as, hereabouts, they still call the house The Range, so in town they always call my father The Ranger, although he has never in his whole life been anything remotely resembling that."
"You are the only child?" asked Doctor Graesler while, as though it were a matter of course, she accompanied him through the young pines, on the narrow path to the highway. ”

“ He bade the driver stop at the edge of the road, and took the narrow meadow-path winding up through the young pines towards the house, which seemed to give him friendly greeting with its blinking little windows, its huge pair of antlers hung above the narrow front door, and the glow of the evening sun on its reddish roof. Down the wooded steps leading to the comparatively spacious side-terrace there advanced to meet the doctor a young lady whose appearance seemed to him familiar from the very first glance. ”

“ We will live together in the country, not far from Vienna, in St Veit, perhaps, or in Lainz. I shall buy a small house there, or else have one built according to her own ideas. We shall live pretty much in retirement, but frequently take long trips . . . to Spain, Egypt, India . . ." In this manner he went on dreaming to himself, letting his horse out as he crossed the meadows by the Heustadl. Then he trotted back through the Hauptallee, and at the Praterstern took his seat in his carriage. He stopped in at Fossatti's and sent Kläre a bouquet of splendid dark roses. ”

“ For Kläre's pain seemed so immoderate, that it was everyone's opinion she would shut herself off now for all time from the joys of this life. Every day she rode out to the cemetery and laid flowers on the grave of the departed. ”

“ First of all, the singer demanded that his family never be informed of his visit, and on having exacted this promise he was prepared at once to recite his complaints and to submit to an examination. Doctor Graesler was unable to discover any serious physical ailment, but there was unmistakably present a deep spiritual depression, not surprising in a man who, while still in the prime of life, had been forced to abandon an outwardly brilliant profession for which he was incapable of finding sufficient compensation either in domestic concerns and love of family or in any inner wealth. ”

“ And if, by any chance, it's solitude you dread in that little white house, why, there's always a remedy for that. Why not bring along a nice little wife from Germany?" And as Graesler responded with a timid stare, the director continued in a lively, almost peremptory fashion:
"Come, come, their name is legion. A nice little blond wife—or, for that matter, a brunette would do—that's very likely the one thing you need to make a complete man of you." Doctor Graesler lifted his eyes reflectively, as though to seek vanishing pictures in the past. ”

“ His voice was clear and powerful, if not especially noble; he was of an almost superhumanly large build, and with a certain inclination to fulness; at times when in repose his face would be quite without distinction, but as soon as he began singing his steel-grey eyes would light up with a mysterious inner fire, and with his voice and his glance he seemed to sweep all away with him—especially women.
Kläre sat with her unoccupied colleagues in the company's box. She alone seemed to remain unmoved. The next morning Sigurd Olse was introduced to her in the director's office. ”

“ He felt himself a man of the world, and hastily resolved to try a larger watering-place in which to practise his profession the following summer, although he had theretofore never had good luck in such places.
"Mother is doing splendidly," said Sabine. "But if you already count the evening lost, Doctor, what do you think, Karl—" and she turned to her brother—"of showing the Doctor our woods?"
"Your woods?"
"That's what we call them," said Karl. "They do really belong to us alone. None of the patients at the resort ever get out this far, you know. ”

“ One morning towards the end of the week Graesler met Sabine in town, where she had been attending to some purchases. She asked him why he had not come to see them for such a long time.
"So few people come to visit us," she said, "and it is only to a few of them that you can talk sensibly. Next time you must tell us some more about your life. One likes to get a chance to hear about all that sort of thing." ”

“ Late one afternoon, shortly thereafter, Doctor Graesler determined upon a walk which took him gradually into the vicinity of The Range. From the road he saw it lying silent in the shadow of the woods, and even perceived on the veranda the form of a man whose features he could not at that distance distinguish. He stopped for a moment, violently tempted to walk up towards the house straight-way and inquire after Frau Schleheim's health, as though he had only just accidentally been passing by there ”

“ Kläre sat unmoved in the company's box. The following morning she drove with Fanny to the cemetery and laid an enormous wreath on the Prince's grave. The same evening she gave a party in honour of the singer, who was to leave Vienna the day after.
The circle of friends was completely assembled. Everyone was aware of the passion which Sigurd had conceived for Kläre. ”

“ She showed herself, moreover, well instructed in the conditions at the sanitarium and declared them far more tolerable than they had been in a previous period under another director, an old man grown indolent. She also expressed the opinion that being active in a sanitarium was much to be desired by every doctor, if only because nowhere else were there offered conditions favourable to a really lasting relation between doctor and patients and, in addition, the opportunity of applying reliable, because constantly controllable, curative methods. ”

“ Kläre dropped into a light conversation with her, asked as affably as an arch-duchess about her family relations, and was so taken in by the chatter of this fresh and vigorous girl that she pressed her to come back again soon. Fanny accepted her offer, and soon succeeded in winning a respected place in the house of the artist; and she maintained this position by keeping her distance in spite of Kläre's freedom with her. In the course of years Fanny received any number of proposals, mostly from among young sons of manufacturers in the Mariahilf section, with whom she usually danced at balls. ”

“ Leisenbohg said, and waited.
"One morning Kläre was still asleep," Sigurd began again. "She always used to sleep quite late into the morning. But I was taking a walk in the forest. Suddenly Fanny came running up behind me. "You must get away, Herr Olse, before it is too late. Hurry away from here; you are in great danger!" ”

“ Higher circles were pleased that she went to mass every Sunday, confessed twice a month, wore on her bosom as an amulet a picture of the Madonna blessed by the Pope, and never went to bed without saying her prayers. ”

“ But as he never did come, and Kläre began falling gradually into a state of extreme nervousness, Leisenbohg resolved to end the matter at all costs, and left Detmold to carry on his transactions in person. To his astonishment the Dutchman declared that he had sent these threatening love-letters to her purely out of gallantry, and that as a matter of fact nothing would be more agreeable to him than to be freed of all further responsibility. Elated, Leisenbohg came back to Dresden and told Kläre of the pleasant outcome of the interview. ”

“ This creature of his dreams possessed, however, the mysterious power of banishing the apparition of his dead sister, so that she now seemed to have departed the world longer ago, and in a somewhat more natural manner, than had in reality been the case. ”

“ He further called to mind the lawyer's daughter from Nancy, to whom he had become engaged in St Blasien, the first watering-place in which he had ever practised, and who had then to make a sudden trip to France with her parents because of an important law-suit and had left him to that very day without advice of her safe arrival at home, without word of any kind. His mind also went back to Fräulein Lizzie and his student days in Berlin ”

“ When he is home on his vacation, of course he beats about in the woods all day long. Occasionally he even sleeps out in the open." And as Doctor Graesler shook his head somewhat critically, she added, "Oh, that's nothing ”