Der Neg
box 3/1
ins Fr
23
B
A
Ort: —
KNAug SOR
Datum.
TWO GERMAN NOVELS. 13339
Dra Wro ins Faziz. By Aarnus Sca#irzi#n (Berlin
S. Fischer. öm.)
Den Genti#n. By Rosuar Warsen. (Berlin: Bruno
Cassirer. öm.)
Of these two novels, Der Gehülfe, by a young writer
vho has already made his mark, is full of the freshness of
recent experience. It seems to bubble over with sug¬
gestions, of which the writer is himself, possibly, unsware.
Der Weg ins Freie' is by a tried and proved craftsman,
1 cultivated observer and man of the world, a writer, it
may elmost be said, of genius. Like his play Der Ruf
Ies Ledens, this novel is woven upon a definite design,
of#ich the idea expressed in the title is the principal
thread. What strikes an English reader first in the picture
of Viennese life, vivid and attractive in many ways as it is,
is the moral laxity not only practised, but apparently con¬
doned by persons who would be called, in our phrase,
respectable. Vienna, the city of music and of beautiful
women, has the reputation of being as gay and irresponsible
as any capital in Europe. Irresponsibility is certeinly
the“ note“ of every character in the book. No man is
his brother’s keeper. And perhaps this is der Weg#ins
Freie.
The hero, Georg von Wergenthin, a musical and attractive
young man, is a sort of Don Juan malyré lus. The favourite
son of his mother, theidol of sisters andof married women,
young and old, the jolly goad fellow of his men friends,
in short, the lovable, and, therefore, the beloved. In the
hands of a Thackeray, or a Dickens, we should look for
some unpleasant consequences of his pleasant vices. But
that is not the way with Schnitzler, his creator. Georg
is a type, but he is highly individualized. His mother,
a singer by profession, but of good burgher family, is part
cause of his musical gift. His father, whose recent death
is the first ineident mentioned, was an aristocrat of taste
and culture. Georg's tastes naturally lead him into musical
and somewhat unconventional circles, and, therefore, in
Vienna, among Jews. He forms a connexion with one of
these, a teacher of singing, named Anna Rosner. She finds
herself about to become a mother, and the Preparations
made by the unmarried pair for the birth of the ebild,
the birth itself, the sufferings of the mother, and the death
of the child before it was born, are all described with e minute¬
ness of detail which would be wearisome did we not recog¬
nize in it the conscious purpose of the artist. The author
seems to accept and even to approve freedom from moral
law (der Weg ins Freie) in the relations of man and woman,
except in so far as these result in the production of offspring.
But, if we interpret aright, fatherhood and motherhood,
particularly the former, carry with them obligations mutual
and reciprocal, all the more rigid for the freedom permi
in other circumstances. On the very first page, pe
and sigmäcant emphasis is laid on Georg’s affectio
his own father. Georg, the light-hearted and in
sionable, is profoundly affected by the loss of the
that“ was dead before it was born.“ He assunied tacit
in his own mind that his connexion with Anna would
become permanent should the child live, and sbis, not
from the idea of making an honest woman of her.! Anna
professes herself rather proud than ashamed of her mother¬
hood, and their connexion is such an open secret that
another Jewess, Else Ehrenberg (whose own relatio
Georg are very delicately sketched) offers to adopt th
pon her own marriage with the English diplomat
ner. Eise’s father is a passionate Zionist
for bis age, weklth, and commercinl instinet mäke
averse from settling in Palestine. He makes a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, and gazes on the home of his fathers, in
the same spirit in which a good Bostonian used
to visit Stratford-on-Avon.
Eise herself is the cultivated Jewess, the flower of the
race, whose counterpart we could easily find in London.
box 3/1
ins Fr
23
B
A
Ort: —
KNAug SOR
Datum.
TWO GERMAN NOVELS. 13339
Dra Wro ins Faziz. By Aarnus Sca#irzi#n (Berlin
S. Fischer. öm.)
Den Genti#n. By Rosuar Warsen. (Berlin: Bruno
Cassirer. öm.)
Of these two novels, Der Gehülfe, by a young writer
vho has already made his mark, is full of the freshness of
recent experience. It seems to bubble over with sug¬
gestions, of which the writer is himself, possibly, unsware.
Der Weg ins Freie' is by a tried and proved craftsman,
1 cultivated observer and man of the world, a writer, it
may elmost be said, of genius. Like his play Der Ruf
Ies Ledens, this novel is woven upon a definite design,
of#ich the idea expressed in the title is the principal
thread. What strikes an English reader first in the picture
of Viennese life, vivid and attractive in many ways as it is,
is the moral laxity not only practised, but apparently con¬
doned by persons who would be called, in our phrase,
respectable. Vienna, the city of music and of beautiful
women, has the reputation of being as gay and irresponsible
as any capital in Europe. Irresponsibility is certeinly
the“ note“ of every character in the book. No man is
his brother’s keeper. And perhaps this is der Weg#ins
Freie.
The hero, Georg von Wergenthin, a musical and attractive
young man, is a sort of Don Juan malyré lus. The favourite
son of his mother, theidol of sisters andof married women,
young and old, the jolly goad fellow of his men friends,
in short, the lovable, and, therefore, the beloved. In the
hands of a Thackeray, or a Dickens, we should look for
some unpleasant consequences of his pleasant vices. But
that is not the way with Schnitzler, his creator. Georg
is a type, but he is highly individualized. His mother,
a singer by profession, but of good burgher family, is part
cause of his musical gift. His father, whose recent death
is the first ineident mentioned, was an aristocrat of taste
and culture. Georg's tastes naturally lead him into musical
and somewhat unconventional circles, and, therefore, in
Vienna, among Jews. He forms a connexion with one of
these, a teacher of singing, named Anna Rosner. She finds
herself about to become a mother, and the Preparations
made by the unmarried pair for the birth of the ebild,
the birth itself, the sufferings of the mother, and the death
of the child before it was born, are all described with e minute¬
ness of detail which would be wearisome did we not recog¬
nize in it the conscious purpose of the artist. The author
seems to accept and even to approve freedom from moral
law (der Weg ins Freie) in the relations of man and woman,
except in so far as these result in the production of offspring.
But, if we interpret aright, fatherhood and motherhood,
particularly the former, carry with them obligations mutual
and reciprocal, all the more rigid for the freedom permi
in other circumstances. On the very first page, pe
and sigmäcant emphasis is laid on Georg’s affectio
his own father. Georg, the light-hearted and in
sionable, is profoundly affected by the loss of the
that“ was dead before it was born.“ He assunied tacit
in his own mind that his connexion with Anna would
become permanent should the child live, and sbis, not
from the idea of making an honest woman of her.! Anna
professes herself rather proud than ashamed of her mother¬
hood, and their connexion is such an open secret that
another Jewess, Else Ehrenberg (whose own relatio
Georg are very delicately sketched) offers to adopt th
pon her own marriage with the English diplomat
ner. Eise’s father is a passionate Zionist
for bis age, weklth, and commercinl instinet mäke
averse from settling in Palestine. He makes a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, and gazes on the home of his fathers, in
the same spirit in which a good Bostonian used
to visit Stratford-on-Avon.
Eise herself is the cultivated Jewess, the flower of the
race, whose counterpart we could easily find in London.