Casanovas Heinfahr
box 4/10
30 Camsaurt
700
KENNETH BURKE
yellow, wrinkled face. He sees, by her mute agony, the monstros¬
ity of his age. Then Marcolina turns her face to the wall, while
this lean, worn frame pulls itself out of the bed, clasps on its sword,
throws on Lorenzi’s robe, and leaps through the window.
Lorenzi is waiting, with his sword. Casanova, a bit cynically,
pulls back his robe and shows that he is naked; whereupon, Lorenzi
undresses as well. Scene: the two men facing each other, stark
naked, the one young, fresh, full-muscled, the other slightly spav¬
ined with age and usage; the cool, moist lawn; the dawn still pale
in the east; fencing. Lorenzi is stabbed through the heart; Casa¬
nova kisses his dead face; after which the flight to Venice begins.
We end wich him established as a spy, in mean quarters, preparing
to give information against people who trust him implicitly.
In Casanova’s Homecoming Schnitzler has produced both the tri¬
umph and the reduction to absurdity of his method. The story has
been so simplified, so thoroughly focussed on the one subjech of Casa¬
nova's decay, that every element of it shows up as an accessory.
Certain parts plainly exist, for instance, to establish in the reader’s
mind just how splendid a figure Casanova used to be, so that we get
the full ferce of his going to seed. As the most aggressive instance
of this might be cited the staging of a sight-seeing trip to a convent,
so that, as Casanova is leaving, one of the nuns can break her vow
of silence by whispering his name, the name which belongs not to
him as he is now, but to his former reputation. Other parts exist
for the machinery of the plot, as for instance the first evening of
gambling, which leads imperceptibly into ihe second evening of
gambling, which leads to a gambling debt, by which Schnitzler can
get Casanova into Marcolina’s room; Schnitzler gives us one eve¬
ning of gambling so that we accept the second. Or again, we have
Casanova see himself in the mirror, and for no other reason than
that the next morning, when he awakes with Marcolina looking at
him in horror, Schnitzler can give us a cut-back to the face in the
mirror, thus making the point more forceful than if he had tried to
get the full significance of Casanova’s wrinkles across at the last
moment. So thoroughly has Schnitzler been permeated by stage
technique—the painless method of insinuation, that is¬that we
find it again in such things as this: the story begins with our being
told twice that Casanova has not seen Amalia—whom he had se¬
duced just before her marriage—for over fifteen years, while her
box 4/10
30 Camsaurt
700
KENNETH BURKE
yellow, wrinkled face. He sees, by her mute agony, the monstros¬
ity of his age. Then Marcolina turns her face to the wall, while
this lean, worn frame pulls itself out of the bed, clasps on its sword,
throws on Lorenzi’s robe, and leaps through the window.
Lorenzi is waiting, with his sword. Casanova, a bit cynically,
pulls back his robe and shows that he is naked; whereupon, Lorenzi
undresses as well. Scene: the two men facing each other, stark
naked, the one young, fresh, full-muscled, the other slightly spav¬
ined with age and usage; the cool, moist lawn; the dawn still pale
in the east; fencing. Lorenzi is stabbed through the heart; Casa¬
nova kisses his dead face; after which the flight to Venice begins.
We end wich him established as a spy, in mean quarters, preparing
to give information against people who trust him implicitly.
In Casanova’s Homecoming Schnitzler has produced both the tri¬
umph and the reduction to absurdity of his method. The story has
been so simplified, so thoroughly focussed on the one subjech of Casa¬
nova's decay, that every element of it shows up as an accessory.
Certain parts plainly exist, for instance, to establish in the reader’s
mind just how splendid a figure Casanova used to be, so that we get
the full ferce of his going to seed. As the most aggressive instance
of this might be cited the staging of a sight-seeing trip to a convent,
so that, as Casanova is leaving, one of the nuns can break her vow
of silence by whispering his name, the name which belongs not to
him as he is now, but to his former reputation. Other parts exist
for the machinery of the plot, as for instance the first evening of
gambling, which leads imperceptibly into ihe second evening of
gambling, which leads to a gambling debt, by which Schnitzler can
get Casanova into Marcolina’s room; Schnitzler gives us one eve¬
ning of gambling so that we accept the second. Or again, we have
Casanova see himself in the mirror, and for no other reason than
that the next morning, when he awakes with Marcolina looking at
him in horror, Schnitzler can give us a cut-back to the face in the
mirror, thus making the point more forceful than if he had tried to
get the full significance of Casanova’s wrinkles across at the last
moment. So thoroughly has Schnitzler been permeated by stage
technique—the painless method of insinuation, that is¬that we
find it again in such things as this: the story begins with our being
told twice that Casanova has not seen Amalia—whom he had se¬
duced just before her marriage—for over fifteen years, while her