2. Guttings
box 37/7
Akrhon Schyirzzek’s Daamarie Wonk 301
brace“'. Anatol is unwilling to destroy his paradise, even
though he knows it can last for only a short while. Schnitz¬
ler’s interest in the psychie world and in hypnotism, which
marks him as a strange combination of the scientist and the
romanticist, and which reminds us strangely of the poetic
interest which Wordsworth is said to have experienced for
the study of higher mathematics, is brought to our attention
in this scene, as Anatol's power of hypnotism is the means
whereby he is enabled to question Cora.
The second scene satirizes the smug and self-conscious virtue
ofthe respectable married woman. Anatol has met Gabrielle,
an old acquaintance who has married, and she, having ques¬
tioned him about his present innamorata, sends her the fol¬
lowing message:
ethese flowers, my sweet little girl, were sent to you by a woman
who, perhaps—might know how to love as well as you—but who
hasn't the courage.“
She leaves him standing in the street, And so the experiences
follow one another in suecession, the glance of interest at
first meeting, the lowered eyelid and slight suggesticn of a
smile which usher in the new affair, the thrill of pleasmeat a
new conquest growing into a crescendo of passion, the first
murmur of dissatisfaction signaling the coming rupture, the
final meeting when ihe words of farewell are said with relief,
with resignation, with a slight touch of sadness and regret
or are growled between the hysterical sobbings of a furions
woman; and the tireless one is ready for a new adventure
and a new theill. There is no end to the eternal procession
of women; they come from the hero cares not where, and
they go to where he neither knows nor cares. IIe lives in a
world of mistresses, past, present, and future, dreaming in
his twilight memories of those who have gone before, when,
atthe beck of his retrospective mood, the shades of past lovers
come before him, “one from a simple tenement home, another
From her husband’s gorgeons drawing room, one from her
stage dressing room, one from a milliner’s shop, one from the
box 37/7
Akrhon Schyirzzek’s Daamarie Wonk 301
brace“'. Anatol is unwilling to destroy his paradise, even
though he knows it can last for only a short while. Schnitz¬
ler’s interest in the psychie world and in hypnotism, which
marks him as a strange combination of the scientist and the
romanticist, and which reminds us strangely of the poetic
interest which Wordsworth is said to have experienced for
the study of higher mathematics, is brought to our attention
in this scene, as Anatol's power of hypnotism is the means
whereby he is enabled to question Cora.
The second scene satirizes the smug and self-conscious virtue
ofthe respectable married woman. Anatol has met Gabrielle,
an old acquaintance who has married, and she, having ques¬
tioned him about his present innamorata, sends her the fol¬
lowing message:
ethese flowers, my sweet little girl, were sent to you by a woman
who, perhaps—might know how to love as well as you—but who
hasn't the courage.“
She leaves him standing in the street, And so the experiences
follow one another in suecession, the glance of interest at
first meeting, the lowered eyelid and slight suggesticn of a
smile which usher in the new affair, the thrill of pleasmeat a
new conquest growing into a crescendo of passion, the first
murmur of dissatisfaction signaling the coming rupture, the
final meeting when ihe words of farewell are said with relief,
with resignation, with a slight touch of sadness and regret
or are growled between the hysterical sobbings of a furions
woman; and the tireless one is ready for a new adventure
and a new theill. There is no end to the eternal procession
of women; they come from the hero cares not where, and
they go to where he neither knows nor cares. IIe lives in a
world of mistresses, past, present, and future, dreaming in
his twilight memories of those who have gone before, when,
atthe beck of his retrospective mood, the shades of past lovers
come before him, “one from a simple tenement home, another
From her husband’s gorgeons drawing room, one from her
stage dressing room, one from a milliner’s shop, one from the