box 4/9
Badearzt
raesler
Doktor
29 D Sunenenten teenchen da
DE SENECTUTE
70
end, Schnitzler’s begins. The fear of being taken in, the eternal
distrust of others, above all the distrust of self which sterilizes
the activities of a good half of modern humanity, betrays the
Doctor at this point. With an unerring psychology, Schnitzler
shows him to us writing back that for the present he dare not
accept this great gift ... in a few weeks perhaps ... that
when he comes back he hopes to find everything unchanged .
and so with a sense of frustration and sick at heart, taking the
carriage and leaving the scene of his great gift—in the rain.
Schnitzler is past-master at describing all the nuances which go
to make up that pathological condition known in homely par¬
lance as “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.'
In his native town, where he goes to await letters from Sabine
which never come, the little gods present Doctor Graesler with
his sccond and last opportunity. She is a little shop-girl of humble
origin and a not too immaculate past, but to the last degree en¬
gaging, sweet, and gay, th## nost enchanting creation to be found
in all the author’s gallery of girls. The Doctor (and the author)
know all the fluctuations in that sweet tumult which accompanies
an affair all the more absorbing for its ambiguity, its slight sense
of guilt. After a while she rose to get supper, and just then
the door-bell rang. Graesler started. What could it be? Sabine?
He noticed Katharina’s eyes upon him questioning but undisturbed.
Too undisturbed it struck him. Perhaps she knew something about
the visitor. A put-up job? Blackmail? .. Well, he
wouldn't let himself be intimidated. It was not tiie first time he
had been in similar danger.
After living with the shop-girl in a state of unprecedented hap¬
piness for over a fortnight, Gracsler decides it is time to come to
his senses and to take up Sabine like a book he has laid down.
There is an affecting parting with the shop-girl, and he goes back.
Of course Sabine, having taken his measure, will have none of
him, and when, in a rage of desperation and re-stimulated love
for the little proletarian, he returns to her, she is on her death-bed.
So the poor aging faun has spent the last months of his awakened
existence in rebounding back and forth between two experiences,
both of which fail him because he had no trust in anything in
life, not even in himself. The last pages of the book see him
back again at the spa, descending the gangplak, a commonplace
Badearzt
raesler
Doktor
29 D Sunenenten teenchen da
DE SENECTUTE
70
end, Schnitzler’s begins. The fear of being taken in, the eternal
distrust of others, above all the distrust of self which sterilizes
the activities of a good half of modern humanity, betrays the
Doctor at this point. With an unerring psychology, Schnitzler
shows him to us writing back that for the present he dare not
accept this great gift ... in a few weeks perhaps ... that
when he comes back he hopes to find everything unchanged .
and so with a sense of frustration and sick at heart, taking the
carriage and leaving the scene of his great gift—in the rain.
Schnitzler is past-master at describing all the nuances which go
to make up that pathological condition known in homely par¬
lance as “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.'
In his native town, where he goes to await letters from Sabine
which never come, the little gods present Doctor Graesler with
his sccond and last opportunity. She is a little shop-girl of humble
origin and a not too immaculate past, but to the last degree en¬
gaging, sweet, and gay, th## nost enchanting creation to be found
in all the author’s gallery of girls. The Doctor (and the author)
know all the fluctuations in that sweet tumult which accompanies
an affair all the more absorbing for its ambiguity, its slight sense
of guilt. After a while she rose to get supper, and just then
the door-bell rang. Graesler started. What could it be? Sabine?
He noticed Katharina’s eyes upon him questioning but undisturbed.
Too undisturbed it struck him. Perhaps she knew something about
the visitor. A put-up job? Blackmail? .. Well, he
wouldn't let himself be intimidated. It was not tiie first time he
had been in similar danger.
After living with the shop-girl in a state of unprecedented hap¬
piness for over a fortnight, Gracsler decides it is time to come to
his senses and to take up Sabine like a book he has laid down.
There is an affecting parting with the shop-girl, and he goes back.
Of course Sabine, having taken his measure, will have none of
him, and when, in a rage of desperation and re-stimulated love
for the little proletarian, he returns to her, she is on her death-bed.
So the poor aging faun has spent the last months of his awakened
existence in rebounding back and forth between two experiences,
both of which fail him because he had no trust in anything in
life, not even in himself. The last pages of the book see him
back again at the spa, descending the gangplak, a commonplace