Faksimile

Text

Traumnove
box 5/7
33. L nzle

F 4
NEW YORK EVENING POST LITERARY REVIEW, APRIL 2, 1927.
39
„ 4
29 Struggles Jor the Ahine
Rhapsody
Pheasa
cowardice, he asks himself?—prevents
the Fatherland, an altar of patriotism
could not re
Dream Infidelity Is
his taking the final step. Each of these
over which has been poured the sacri¬
adventures is more fantastic than the
ficial blood of untold Teutons since the
Stegemann s
last. Everything is real, everything is
Schnitzler's Theme in
dawn of history in Northern Europe.
be read wit
preternaturally vivid—so much so, in
But the Rhine is more than a symbol.
be remembe
fact, that by degrees one begins to won¬
A Charming Novelette
Its terraced vineyards, its millions of
single episo
der if all this is not merely a kind of.
tons of freight, its coal and iron, make
plex invaria
RHAPSODY. A DREAM NOVEL. By
hypnogogic vision. It is here that Schnitz¬
it and its valley a vast corridor of eco¬
Arthur Schniteler. Simon & Schuster.
nifying that
ler’s deep psychological insight stands
81.50.
nomic riches, without which the rest of
treatment of
him most in stead. He weaves into this
Germany would sink to the level of a
Reviewed by Conrad Ailen
eiting, but t
series of queer events (all of which are
petty Baltic state.
book—that
IN HIS La Vida es Sucho,
seen from Fridolin’s viewpoint, as part
Hermann Stegemann has written a
from Cesar
Calderon conducted, in
of his “stream of consciousness'') a chain
history of the wars between the inhabi¬
almost solel
dramatie form, a psycho¬
of psychological determinants, or leit¬
tants of Germany and their Western
logical experiment which
rivalry for
motifs, which are beautifully calculated
neighbors in terms of a desire for the
tion of an ol
was as modern as Freud
to give one the feeling that all this is
possession of the Rhine. To France the
or Pirandello. His hero,
simply a dream.
land west of the Rhine has long been a
a beggar, was put to sleep, and while
Willian
tempting prize. If she could push her
asleep was dressed in the robes of the
FHIS odd way in which the same motif
frontier to the river’s left bank she
king and seated upon the royal throne.
or symbol is always reappearing,
Of As
Waked, and finding himself in this singu¬
would vastly increase her wealth and
but always a little altered or dislocated—-, make herself strategically almost im¬
lar position, and assured of the reality
PHSASANT
by the self-deposed king and his court
Beebe. Put
(who all conspired for a day to keep up
Reviewed by
the deception) the beggar was entirely
Robe
convinced. He concluded that his whole
Actaeon in Busiess
actual existence as a beggar had been
merely a dream. And then, upon falling
asleep again, being again clad as a beg¬
The table irembled; buds of luster slept
gar, and in the morning waking to dis¬
On shifting crustal, and our voices made
cover himself once more in rags, he
44 hollow shelter and uncertain shade
found himself in a quandary. Which
Where ting beasts of ihoug erenelg crept.
was the reality and which was the
dream? And at the present moment was
Dur laughter was a barrice that kept
he awake or asleep?
Marauders from our gold, and then gou laid
Pirandello has treated, in his“ Henry
Your wit against me like a spear and said:
IV, a similar theme, and done it with
Actcon in business. I almost wept.
extraordinary beauty; and now Arthur
Schnitzler has tried his hand at it in
the novelette form of which, in "Fraülein
The torn white bodg in the vermeil grot
Else, he has already shown himself to
Made Harlequin with lozenges of blood.
be so admirably a master. His“ Rhap¬
I had forgotten it. I had forgot
sody'' is in some respects the most ex¬
The moving beam, ihe milkg, wandering flood
quisite thing he has done. If it lacks
And the cold stars and beauty standing bare
the tragic force and sharply defined psy¬
chological determinism of" Fraülein
When nour swift thoughts like hounds leaped on me ihere.
Else'’—which had a certain dramatie
advantage in its unity, in the singleness
Herbert Gorman.
of the narrative thread—it more than
compensates for this in its greater poetic
Treedom and fullness. If one reads it
and the way in which the event is a sort
simply as a story, one finds in it all the
pregnable against all Central and East¬
elusive beauty and imaginative logic of
of modified or exaggerated version of
ern Europe. There is no doubt that
We rarely fi
a fairy tale. It has, too, a great deal
the preceding event—these devices are
Cesar in Gaul, Charlemagne, Louis XIV,
of the fairy tale’s hallucinatory vivid¬
used with great poetic skill to bring the
sonal detach
the two Napoleons, all appreciated the
ness: it combines, as the fairy tale does,
win, Wallace
tone of the realism as close as possible
importance of the ancient river.
and as poetry does, the palpable and the
to the tone of a dream. It is almost with
traveling nat
The interesting story which Herr
impalpable, the tangible and the intan¬
Scarcely a pa
a sense of shock that one finally ac¬
Stegemann tells is, through over¬
gible.
the first pers
companies Fridolin home again in
simplification, unfortunately made less
thinks, hower
The surface of the stream, that is, is
the morning, and sees him wake his
convincing than it might have been. It
astonishingly real, crowded with images
esting and h
wife from a nightmare. Andthen, when
is Herr Stegemann’s thesis that“if a
of light and sound and texture, every¬
vironment an
Albertina, hesitating, tells him her dream
nation at one and the same time pos¬
where apprehensible by the senses, every¬
pening to hi
—a really magnificent dream in which
sesses the Seine and the Rhone and con¬
where burningly and delicionsly immedi¬
depressing, o
she too has triumphantly played the part
trols the Rhine, it is ipso facto able to
ate; but the stream itself, the theme,
threat of dea
of a betrayer—the effect of delicious am¬
dominate Europe.“ Certainly Germany
the meaning, the essence, is perpetually
serpents, are
biguity is enhanced threefold. Is it pos¬
without the Rhine could never do so.
escaping one’s grasp, slipping into an¬
compel the
sible to say that Albertina’s dream is any
But how far beyond this does the thesis
other dimension, or evaporating under
Likewise the
less real than Fridolin’s adventure? Is
hold? Philip of Spain held the mouth
one’s hand, exactly as "being' itself es¬
in or projects
her betrayal of him, as a wish-fulfillment
of the river and dominated Europe.
capes from analysis or as consciousness
other Orienta
in sleep, any less a betrayal than his
But Holland controls it today and does
dissolves when scrutinized by itself.
contaet, conv
actual, though abortive, attempts to be¬
not dominate. England after Trafalgar
sympathy a
tray her?
dominated through her navy, without
usually entel