eho realises the conditions, she gains a tempo¬
th
—
tary triumph, more often her fragile nature i8
I1
shattered against those terrible awakenings
which leave her solitary and desolate.
“ ANATOL.“
* Anatol'’ in various vavs throws light on
tus favourite heroine of Schinitzler. In onc of
of
these little pieces there is a faresvell supper.
Anatol, who has ruined his digestion by having
P.
to cut twosüppers every night, one wich Anna,
01
his older friend, and the other with a gewer
00
favourite, determines to give a’good-bye supper
0
to Anna, his friend Max, and himseff. He is
81
going to reveal to her the changes in his plansjc
and position, but, to the intense and sandonicte
joy of his friend Max, Anna forestalls him with in
che information that into her life also has come A
anew love. In another of these onc-act plays,
T
Tentitled “ Question of Fate,? Anatel, vervitl
anxions about the kind of lovo which Cora feels
W.
#for him, determines to hypnotise her and
WV
draw From her unconscious lips the true answer.
Novertheless, after the girl is hypnotised he
dares not“ put his fortune to the touch, to win
t1
or lose it all, but pretends to Max that he is
E
quite satisfied; while all the time it is casy for
a
the spectator to see that he is as disquieted as
D
before, especially when Cora, awakened from
h
her trance, shows a very troubied and uncasy
curiosity as to thhie results of the interrogation.
8
Perhaps one of the best-known pieccs of
Schnitzler —and it mav be remarked, in pass¬
ing, that he is absolutely at his best in oneact“
plays, and not nearly so successful in longer
pieces of work—is the tragi-comedy which he
calls“ Literature.'' A ladv who has gained no
little reputation in letters is on the eve of mar¬
n
rage with a wealthy baron, who wants her to
give up her hterary career. She is not un¬

willing to make the sacrifice, but only asks that
cho may publish one last novel, which, as a
matter of fact, has been composed of love-letters!
received from a former friend. Of course, the
older love turns up, and it is discovered that
he, too, is abont to produce a novel based on
their correspondence. The two books fit
together like a glove, and discovery secms cer¬
tain. Fortunately, when the baron appears he
declares that he has bought up the whole edi¬
tion of his wife’s forthcoming novel and has
saved a single copy, which he proposes to read
with her at his own fireside. Quickly the
lady sees her chance.“ No, let the sacrifice
be complete,?’ she cries, as she flings the soli¬
tary surviving evidence of her folly into the
MANT MOODS.
It will be observed from these and many
other instances of Schnitzler’s method that
he is a master of all the moods of modern
worldliness. He is callous, cynical, flippant
ratiricl, serious, by turns; sometimes laugh¬
ing with a sour grimace, and sometianes pre¬
serving à sombre countenance, with a suspicion
of a laugh at the corners of bis month. He###
full of romantic melancholy, and yet he is fo:
ever pointing out “ what shadows we are and
what shadows we pursue.?' It is part of the
ecnnedy of existence that we disturb ourselves
abont things that are really trifles, more inte¬
rested im the froth of the glass which fife offers
to our lips than in tde real quality and virtue
of the drink. Besides, how do we know, in the
midst of the confused phantasmagoria of
existence, which is dream and which is reality?
Mesmerism, for instance, a device wlnch
Schnitzler is fond of in more than one of his
plays, reveals to us a particular condition of
mind, in which the unconscious patient may
be telling the exact truth which in bis waking
momants he would have concealed, or may be
merely repeating words suggested to lm by
the operator. So, too, in actual life itself.
In the little volume of“ Three Plays of
Schnitzler, ?’ admirably translated into English,
and with a very interesting introduction by
Mr. Horace B. Samuel, we have that ingenious
piece of romantic impressionism which is called
The Green Cockatoo.“ It is the eve of the
storming of the Bastille, and weare introduced
to an underground cellar, to which resort all
sorts and conditions of men and women, dissi¬
pated nobles, broken-down actors, malcontente
of every kind, men and women of loose lifen
Their object in coming is to sce um entertain¬