I, Erzählende Schriften 28, Frau Beate und ihr Sohn. Novelle, Seite 89

28.
und ihr Sohn
box 4/5
Frau Beate uiSena
RIVTE' VHICH APPEARED IN THE NES TORK EVENING POST,

and TIE PIIILADELPHIA PUBLIC LÖDGE •
4

M•A
PONERFUL NEN SCHIITZEER HOWEL TSDHE MRAGEDK OF MOTHERTS SON
VISTTED ON PIIS SOR OF A HOTHIR
8814
K
No brief outline can express the extra¬
knows that he knows
ordinary power of this story. And one
hesitates to state the Pplot“ because it
It must not be considered that the
exhibits a violence not at all in character
above paragraph is an adequate statement
with the tempered credibility of the best
of this moving, finely wrought story.
of our own or English novels, Her is un¬
It cannot suggest even its shallovs.
restraint in planning - the unrestraint
Outlined, the Vplot“ may seem absurd to
of the Greeks, the unrestraint and violence
our matter-of-fact mind; but, believe us,
of Shakespeare and Marlone - astartling
Presented with all the skill of a master
and unconver tionalized sinplicity in
in Inman psychology and in narrative,
movement and conflict, which Schnitzler (as
WBestrice“ is as believable as life.
Homer and Shaespeare and Marlowe have
Arthur Schnitzler can do this amazing
done before him) touches with deep under¬
thing: he can vrite a short story, no
standing and the enchasis of the right
more than 175 small pages, and suggest
word.
a chole world; he can take the heart of
a voman, torture it with violent and un¬
DBeatrice“, like Fraulein Eisel, is a
usual catastrophe, give it circunstance
short novel. It tells the story of a
to labor under as glandrous as a miracle,
esutiful woman, a widow, who learns that
and zeep it hinan
her oung son has been tempted to the arms
of a wanton, and a vanton as old as bis
There is no personality in Ußestrieel.
motber. Beatrice, the mother, dalls upon
not even the least consequential, which
Förtunata to varn her off. But, ajsubtie
is not visible to the eye, the mind, the
influence grips Beatrice in the bresence
heart. There is no page which is not
of this woman and she leaves her! strangely
murnurous of place and mood. The story
conscious, for the first time siäce the
has all the dramatic intensity of UFrau¬
death of her husband eight years before,
lein Eise“, without its nervous, stac¬
that she herself is still desirable. The
cato monologue
mother struggles against the bitter-sneet
obsession, and quite to no purpose.***There
And there is the beauty of sadness in
is in her villa and visiting her son a
these pages, of all-embracing sympathy.
young man**“ And the tragedy of the story
It is not the sympathy of tears. As
reaches its climax uhen Hugo, the son,
narrator, Arthur Schnitzler remains en¬
learns that his mother is not better, and
tirely impersonal. It is the sympathy
to his shame-stricken heart something
of knowledge, of understanding, which
worse, than Fortunata, and when Beatrice
affects the author so that he must te11
Beatrice's story straight, without patronage,
without tears, without evasions.