—.—
box 36/6
Iet
Panb.Offprints
The Germanic Revien
168
spective vision of blissful hours in the face of a cold strange
world.
Der Andere. Aus dem Tagebuche eines Hinterbliebenen,“
published in the same year, introduces the theme of woman’s
infidelity and man’s jealousy, a theme that frequently recurs
in the following years in many variations. A widower, sur¬
rendering himself to his grief, makes daily pilgrimages to the
cemetry. One day he notices a stranger with blond hair and
plaintive eyes, who had attracted his attention before, kneeling
by his wife’s grave, but he is too startled to address him. The
following day the same scene is repeated, but now the widower
follows the young man out of the cemetery. The latter,
however, apparently aware of being pursued, jumps into a cab
and vanishes forever. Henceforth the widower is tormented
by the uncertainty whether or not his wife was true to him:
Wie beneide ich jene Betrogenen, die über ihr Unglück klar
geworden sind! Wie beneide ich selbst das Los derjenigen,
welche ein Verdacht quält, und die weiter wacher weiter
spionieren dürfen, die den glückseligen Augenblick erwarten,
in dem die Ungetreue sich durch einen Blick, ein Wort verraten
wird. Ich aber bin ein Verdammter für ewige Zeit;
denn das Grab gibt keine Antwort.
In form and style, and particularly in mood, this story
bears a resemblance to the series of novelettes published in
1808 under the title Die Frau des Weisen. It is the first instance
of Schnitzler portraying to us the complex and often contra¬
dictory emotions of his characters. And he succeeds in making
these vivid and convincing by use of the so-calledinterior
monolog'’ which we also find employed here for the first time
and which he developed to such perfection in his later prose
works, utilizing it exclusively, for instance, in Leutnant Gusti
and Fräulein Else. A quotation may serve to illustrate this
point. The widower is sitting at his desk, brooding over the
significance of the mysterious stranger at his wife’s grave:
Wer ist dieser Mann, der es wagt, auf dem Grabe meiner
Wie erfahre ich's?
Was war er ihr!
Gattin zu knien?
*
Wo finde ich ihn wieder? . .. Plötzlich verzerrt sich mir
die ganze Vergangenheit. Bin ich denn toll? Hat sie
We
box 36/6
Iet
Panb.Offprints
The Germanic Revien
168
spective vision of blissful hours in the face of a cold strange
world.
Der Andere. Aus dem Tagebuche eines Hinterbliebenen,“
published in the same year, introduces the theme of woman’s
infidelity and man’s jealousy, a theme that frequently recurs
in the following years in many variations. A widower, sur¬
rendering himself to his grief, makes daily pilgrimages to the
cemetry. One day he notices a stranger with blond hair and
plaintive eyes, who had attracted his attention before, kneeling
by his wife’s grave, but he is too startled to address him. The
following day the same scene is repeated, but now the widower
follows the young man out of the cemetery. The latter,
however, apparently aware of being pursued, jumps into a cab
and vanishes forever. Henceforth the widower is tormented
by the uncertainty whether or not his wife was true to him:
Wie beneide ich jene Betrogenen, die über ihr Unglück klar
geworden sind! Wie beneide ich selbst das Los derjenigen,
welche ein Verdacht quält, und die weiter wacher weiter
spionieren dürfen, die den glückseligen Augenblick erwarten,
in dem die Ungetreue sich durch einen Blick, ein Wort verraten
wird. Ich aber bin ein Verdammter für ewige Zeit;
denn das Grab gibt keine Antwort.
In form and style, and particularly in mood, this story
bears a resemblance to the series of novelettes published in
1808 under the title Die Frau des Weisen. It is the first instance
of Schnitzler portraying to us the complex and often contra¬
dictory emotions of his characters. And he succeeds in making
these vivid and convincing by use of the so-calledinterior
monolog'’ which we also find employed here for the first time
and which he developed to such perfection in his later prose
works, utilizing it exclusively, for instance, in Leutnant Gusti
and Fräulein Else. A quotation may serve to illustrate this
point. The widower is sitting at his desk, brooding over the
significance of the mysterious stranger at his wife’s grave:
Wer ist dieser Mann, der es wagt, auf dem Grabe meiner
Wie erfahre ich's?
Was war er ihr!
Gattin zu knien?
*
Wo finde ich ihn wieder? . .. Plötzlich verzerrt sich mir
die ganze Vergangenheit. Bin ich denn toll? Hat sie
We