t
Casanovas Heinfahl
30 Ga
box 4/11
queror of hearts, destroyer of virtue and despair of
cuckolds. He is a broken old man who refuses to
realize that his youth is gone, that he has grown
unattractive. His battle is the battle against time;
and his reward is frustration, shame and degrada¬
tion.
And so we find that “Casanova’s Homecoming' is
not a narrative of amorous escapades, nor even a
study of senescence; it is an unforgettable picture
of a man who elings to the illusion of youth long
after youth has fled. And in this sense the novel
is more than a mere story, more than a surface por¬
trayal of character; it is a pitiless vivisection of a
dotard, so skillfuliy done as to result at the same
time in a profound psychological study, a moral
plea and a first-rate work of art.
The novel is short. Schnitzler’s stle thr ghout
dignified and restrained. Nowhere do 2 find
That coarseness, that elaboration of offensive detail,
that accentuation of the suggestive, which mark 8o
many of our so-called modern novels. Schnitzler’s
one aim is to expose the utter futility of an attempt
to flout time, to indicate the tragedy of an old man
grasping at the vanishing pleasures of youth. All
of “Casanova’s Homecoming'' is subservient to this
aim; no incident is exaggerated for its own sake;
the integrity of the book, both artistic and moral,
is unimpeachable.
Thus the effect upon the reader is one of distinct
aversion for Casanova. He is not pictured as a gay
hero who derives joy from his exploits. He is an
outcast and a starveling: unhappy, tormented by
his desires, thwarted by failure, embittered by his
fading renown, faced—at the very moment of his
return to Venice—with a life of obloquv, for he
comes back as a governmental spy, reaeg to be¬
tray his friends to win his pardon. We scarcely
pity him; contempt is his measure. No person re: