Arthur Schnitzler

“ 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. ”

“ A few, a very few, were given the awful inner faculty of being ready to feel every experience as new and individual—were given the strength to endure standing in a new world as it were, every single minute. And the truth was this: only the man who conquered the cowardly impulse of imprisoning all experiences in words was shown life—that manifold unity, that wondrous thing, in its own true shape.
George had the feeling that Heinrich, with all his talk, was simply trying to succeed in shaking off any sense of responsibility towards a higher law by refusing to recognise any. ”

“ A fine grey cloud hung over a meadow which they passed.
"The fraud of summer doesn't last after nightfall. It'll soon all be over," said Heinrich in a tone of unmitigated melancholy, while he added, as though to console himself: "Well, one will be able to work."
They came into the Wurstelprater. The sound of music rang out from the restaurants, and some of the exuberant gaiety communicated itself to George. He felt suddenly swung out of the dismalness of an inn garden at autumn time and a somewhat painful conversation into a new world. ”

“ Anna knew of Labinski's death, of George's conversation with Grace at Labinski's grave, of George's stay with her in Sicily. He had even shown her a picture of Grace; and yet he thought to himself with a slight shudder how little Anna herself knew of this very epoch of his life, which he had described to her with an almost reckless lack of reserve; and he felt how impossible it was to give any other person any idea of a period which that person had not actually lived through, and of the contents of so many days and nights every minute of which had been full of vivid life. ”

“ Could he forgive Anna? To think of having to forgive at all! What nonsense.
A dish of mushrooms was served. On its appearance Heinrich could not refrain from asking if it were at all poisonous.
George laughed.
"You needn't make fun of me," said Heinrich. "If I wanted to kill myself I wouldn't choose either poisoned mushrooms or decayed sausage, but a nobler and swifter poison. At times one is sick of life, but one is never sick of health, even in one's last quarter of an hour. And besides, nervousness is a perfectly legitimate, though usually shamefully repudiated, daughter of reason. ”

“ George was unable to understand the impression produced by these quite out-of-date pieces, but none the less warmly complimented the composer with a kindly sympathy for the ageing man in whose eyes there seemed to shine the distant glamour of a richer and more promising past. George frequently asked himself if the old conductor still thought of the fact that he had once been taken for a man who was destined to go far, and whether he, like so many other of the inhabitants, regarded the little town as a hub from which the rays of influence and of fame fell far around. ”

“ That's what Nürnberger makes out, but it's not quite right. If it were really so, my dear Else, then life would probably be much more beautiful than it is. No, we know those whom we love much better than we do other people—but we know them with a feeling of shame, bitterness and with the fear that others may know them as well as we do. Love means this—being afraid that the faults which we have discovered in the person we love may be revealed to others. Love means this—being able to look into the future and curse this very gift.... Love means this—knowing some one so that it smashes one. ”

“ Anna felt with concern that the whole business had fizzled out. George was uncertain whether he ought to be irritated at his hopes being disappointed or be glad at being relieved of a kind of obligation. But Heinrich felt as though the creations of his own mind were deserting him in shadowy confusion, mockingly, without farewell and without promising to come again.
He found himself alone and deserted in a melancholy garden, in the society of quite a nice man whom he knew very well, and a young lady who meant nothing at all to him. ”

“ The house in which Nürnberger lived was in a narrow gloomy street which led out of the centre of the town and mounted in terraces towards the Danube. It was ancient, narrow and high. Nürnberger's apartment was on the fifth and top storey, which was reached by a staircase with numerous turns. In the low though spacious room into which George stepped out of a dark hall stood old but well-preserved furniture, while an odour of camphor and lavender came insistently out of the alcove in the recess in front of which a pale green curtain had been let down. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A man and a woman went past him; the man carried in his arms a sleeping child, which had slung its hands round its father's neck. George thought of the garden in Grinzinger, of the unwashed little thing which had stretched out its tiny hands to him from its mother's arms. Had he been really touched then, as Nürnberger had asserted? No, it was certainly not emotion. Something else perhaps. The vague consciousness of standing with both hands linked in that riveted chain which stretches from ancestors to descendants, of participating in the universal human destiny. ”

“ Expectant gentleness shone in her forehead, her eyes gleamed with arch merriment, as at the time when George had wooed for their possession. Without anxiety, without impatience and lifted by the consciousness of her budding motherhood far above the memory of home prejudices or any question of future complications, she anticipated with ecstasy the great hour when she was to give back to the waiting world as an animate creature, that which her body had drunk in during a half-conscious moment of ecstasy. ”

“ It would be ridiculous to allow himself to be tempted to stake his peace of mind and even his self-respect on a game where even the greatest possible win held out no promise of any satisfaction.
"None at all?" queried Heinrich. "I'll grant you as much as you like about fame, wealth, world-wide influence—but for a man, simply because all these things are of dubious advantage, to relinquish something so absolutely indubitable as the moments of inner consciousness of one's own power——"
"Inner consciousness of power? Why don't you say straight away the happiness of creating?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is hailed as a prince. The sun rises. Ägidius has an opportunity of noticing that he is in the very best society—beautiful women, nobles. A sage, a singer, a fool, are intended for important parts. But who should come out of the chorus of women but the princess herself; she belongs absolutely to Ägidius, like everything else on the ship."
"What a splendid father and king!" said George.
"No price is too dear for him to pay!" explained Heinrich, "for a really ingenious idea. That's his line. There follows a splendid duet between Ägidius and the princess. Then they sit down to the meal. ”

“ Sometimes she would think a quiet life in the country by the side of a worthy landowner the most desirable consummation; and then she would imagine herself sitting with prematurely grey hair at a simply-laid table in a circle of numerous children while she stroked the wrinkles out of the forehead of her grave husband. But George always felt that her love of comfort, which was deeper than she guessed herself, would save her from any rash step. She would often confide in George without ever being quite honest with him ”

“ And George looked in front of him as though ashamed that she was facing the near future. It was true of course that a being would exist, begotten by himself, like himself and itself destined again to give life to new beings; it was true that within the blessed body of that woman, for which he had ceased for a long time now to feel any desire, there was swelling, according to the eternal laws, a life that only a year ago had been undreamt-of, unwished-for, lost in infinity, but which now was forcing its way up to the light like something predestined from time immemorial ”

“ At times he threw a fleeting glance towards his love who sat silent in her corner of the sofa, rubbing her hands lightly as though she were cold. The organ rang out more heavily than before in the silence of the room that had suddenly become so melancholy; the voices of singing men became audible and the window-panes rattled softly. George's glance fell on the little Christmas-tree which stood on the sideboard and whose candles had burnt the evening before last for the benefit of Anna and himself. ”

“ And he felt himself akin with no one, no, not with any one in the whole world: with the weeping Jews in Ble as little as with the bawling Pan-Germans in the Austrian Parliament; with Jewish usurers as little as with noble robber-knights; with a Zionist bar-keeper as little as with a Christian Socialist grocer. And least of all would the consciousness of a persecution which they had all suffered, and of a hatred whose burden fell upon them all, make him feel linked to men from whom he felt himself so far distant in temperament. ”

“ Amy lounged back in the corner of the sofa, while Oskar kept whispering things into her ears which made her laugh. Heinrich had grown silent again and twirled his glass slowly between his fingers. Suddenly George stopped playing and let his hands lie on the keys. A feeling of the dreamlike and purposeless character of existence came over him, as it frequently did when he had drunk wine. Ages seemed to have passed since he had come down a badly-lighted staircase in the Paulanergasse, and his walk with Heinrich in the dark autumn avenue lay far away in the distant past. ”

“ That's why, too, you are better off than I am—much better off. My look-out is ghastly, you know. You surely must have noticed it before. What's the good to me of the lights burning in all my storeys? What's the good to me of my knowledge of human nature and my splendid intelligence? Nothing.... Less than nothing. As a matter of fact there's nothing I should like better, George, than that all the ghastly events of the last months had not happened, just like a bad dream. I swear to you, George, I would give my whole future and God knows what if I could make it undone. ”

“ He then saw Heinrich's glance rest on this pale little face with inconceivable hardness. He now remembered very clearly seeing her on the stage, with the reddish-blonde hair that fell over her forehead and her roving eyes. "That's not how persons look," he thought, "who are fated to belong only to one man. And to think of Heinrich, who plumes himself so much on his knowledge of character, never having felt that! What did he really want of her? It was vanity which burnt in his soul, nothing more than vanity."
George walked along the street, which was like a dry oven. ”

“ The light of a lamp that was swinging gently to and fro flowed from overhead on to the table, distributing itself equally in all directions. Josef got up from a corner of the sofa. Anna, who had just come out of her room, stroked her high wavy hair with both hands, welcomed George with a light nod of the head and gave him at this moment the impression of being rather an apparition than real flesh and blood. George shook hands with every one and inquired after Herr Rosner's health.
"He is not exactly bad," said Frau Rosner, "but he finds it difficult to stand up." ”

“ Frau Ehrenberg sat with her knitting on the green velvet sofa in the raised bow-window. Opposite her Else was reading a book. The white head of the marble Isis gleamed from out the far dark part of the room behind the piano, while a streak of light from the next room played through the open door over the grey carpet. Else looked up from her book through the window to the high tops of the trees in the Schwarzenberg Park which were waving in the autumn wind and said casually: "We might perhaps ring up George Wergenthin, to know if he's coming this evening." ”

“ He thought of it again with what was almost emotion. Solitude, change of scene, movement: had he not enjoyed a threefold happiness? "I can scarcely describe to you," he said, "the feeling of inner freedom which thrilled through me. Do you know those moods in which all one's memories near or distant lose, as it were, their oppressive reality? all the people who have meant anything in one's life, whether it be grief, care or tenderness, seem to sweep by more like shadows, or, to put it more precisely, like forms which one has imagined oneself? ”

“ He had read Nürnberger's novel on his journey. The scene was laid in a period which was now almost past; the same period, so it seemed to George, as that of which old Doctor Stauber had once spoken to him. Nürnberger had thrown a grim light over that sickly world of lies in which adult men passed for mature, old men for experienced, and people who did not offend against any written law for righteous; in which love of freedom, patriotism and humanitarianism passed ipso facto for virtue, even though they had grown out of the rotten soil of thoughtlessness or cowardice. ”

“ George looked at him with some astonishment.
"Of course your name is Wergenthin-Recco, too," continued Heinrich, "but only George—and that's not the same by a long way, is it? Besides, your brother is very handsome. Of course you haven't got at all a bad appearance. But people whose real point is that they're handsome have really a much better time of it than others whose real point is that they're clever. If you are handsome you are handsome for always, while clever people, or at any rate nine-tenths of them, spend their life without showing a single trace of talent. ”

“ George shook his head angrily. He had felt genuine sympathy for Oskar since his misfortune. He was also sorry for old Ehrenberg, who had been staying in Neuhaus since then, was only living for his work and refused to see any one. They had both paid their penalty, which was heavier than they had deserved. Couldn't Heinrich see that and feel it just as he did? They really got on one's nerves at times, these people, with their exaggerated Jewish smartness and their relentless psychology—these Bermanns and Nürnbergers. Their principal object in life was to be surprised by nothing whatsoever. ”

“ George remained awhile standing at the window. He felt almost convinced at this moment that Anna was mistaken in her surmise. He felt almost reassured as there came into his mind that remark of Leo Golowski's that Anna was destined to end her days in respectable middle-class life. Having a child by a lover really could not be part of her fate line. It was not part of his fate line either to carry the burden of serious obligation, to be tied fast from to-day and perhaps for all time to a person of the other sex; to become a father when he was still so young, a father ... ”

“ It expresses the eternal truth that no Jew has any real respect for his fellow Jew, never. As little as prisoners in a hostile country have any real respect for each other, particularly when they are hopeless. Envy, hate, yes frequently, admiration, even love; all that there can be between them, but never respect, for the play of all their emotional life takes place in an atmosphere of familiarity, so to speak, in which respect cannot help being stifled."
"Do you know what I think?" remarked George. "That you are a more bitter Anti-Semite than most of the Christians I know." ”

“ That might be one kind of love and what she felt for Heinrich another. Really there were far too few words. You go to your death for one man, you go to bed with another—perhaps the very night before you drown yourself for the first. And what, after all, does a suicide really mean? Only perhaps that at some moment or other one has failed to appreciate death. How many tried again if they had failed once? The conversation with Grace came into his mind, that hot-and-cold conversation by Labinski's grave on the sunny February day in the thawing snow. ”

“ And even if he himself should have to die to-day, however early it might be, he had nevertheless a life behind him, a life full of light and music, happiness and suffering, hope and anxiety, steeped in all the fulness of the world. And even if Anna had passed away to-day, in the hour when she gave life to a new being, she would as it were have fulfilled her lot and her end would have had its terrible but none the less deep significance. ”