Faksimile

Text

Liebelei
5 box 10/8
Mee 1944
RCII 5, 1900.
TIIE GERMAN THEATRE.
ST. GEORGES HALL.
In“ Liebelei,“ a play in three acts, produced for the first
time in this coantry on Fridar last, Herr Arthur Schnitzler
would almost secm to have set himself the task of writing
a version of Fanst? with the action transferred to
modern times, and the centre of interest shifted
to Gretchen. Christine Weiring, the daughter of
a poor musician, is introduced by Theodor Kaiser,
a paradoxical Mephistopheles, to Fritz Lobheimer, an un¬
lettered Faust. Fritz is involved in an intriaue with
a married woman, All such connections Theodor holds in
aversion. They are compromising, they are dangerous.
Passion in every case is folly; happiness is heartlessness,
or, as this modern cynic expresses it,“ We hnte the women
we love; welove only the women forwhomwe care nothing
whatever.? Theodor’s purpose, then, in introducing
Christine to Fritz is to drive out real fire by false.
Ho proproses pastime instead of passion, love-making instead
of love. Fritz allows his arguments and assimilates his
principles. Not so Christine. She in her ingenuousness
loves Fritz with all a woman’s sublime imperviousness to
legie. Of Liebelei, of love-making for pastime, she knows
nothing. She has, indeedvor thinks she has, no illusions.
Marriage is oubof the question. Some dax she and Fritz
must part. But that is not get, and she is well
content to purchase love in the present at the
price, if need bie, öf deprivation in the future.
No attempt is madle hy Herr Schnitzler to gloss the
banality of this story. In the first uct Christine and her
friend Mizzi Schlager-once a milliner, now a convert to
the loctrines of Theodlor—come tu supper at Fritz’s rooms.
The hilarions festival is interrupted by a visitor. Fritz
sees him alese. and alt#r Stee Gunversation, in the course
of which the gentlemanre than once men¬
tienell, Fritz states his intentenrefsemeining at home the
#Peiny until twelve o’olock in case ## gentleman should F
65
4 twoof his friends to make srrang
##rcher inserriew, at which the subject id
mnore at large. In the sccond act Pi#
for the üirst time to Christine’s room
lath#heuse, He has a presentiment he will be killes
cund forls che need of her affection, HIer room, with ita
humbieness, its homeliness, its aleofners from the world,
charms him. IIe examines the pietun###n the walls, the
few books on the sheives, the #nst of Besthaven over the
stove, the imitation flowers on the table.
shamed, half llattered, holls her breath as
object to object, and when bis feelings flue
is sprechless
trite words of approval she
while poor chicken-hearted Fritz, trembling already
for the miserable existence his folly has endangered,
is teuched and softened, and a doubt suggests
Pitself that the happiness he sought with such
frenzied desire among such different surroundings
was verhaps waiting for him here all the time, to be had
forthe deserving. Heparts from Christine with unsesustomed #
tenderness, and the girl, convinced at last that his love is
sincere, awaits with trustful anziety his return from an
alleged journey to his home in the country. Then after
two days of silence she learns that Fritz is dend;
that he has been killed in a duel; that he
fenght for the sake of another women; that he died with¬
out leaving a letter, a message, a word of ang kind for
Christine. She is told she cannot even see him again.
He is already buried. She would even do well
not to go to his grave for a day er two lest
her prayers should disturb the prayers of his re¬
lations. I am not going there to pray,? she
cries, as she rushes from the room. Theodor and Mizzi
follow. Her old father is wiser." She will never come
back, he moans, as he falls on his knees and covers his face g
with bis hands.
The crudeness, the undramatie indefiniteness of the
play as a whole is almost atoned for by che excellenco of
this concluding scene. Its distinctive merit, apart from
its conception, lies in its extraordinary simplicity, its
absence of all generalisation of grief. As blow
after blow falls on the unhappy girl the re¬
sponse comes in a cry of anguish as natural, as
entirely reflex as the vibration of a musical instrument.
There is no railing atthe barrier of birth or riches, norant¬
ing against the selfishness or heartlessness of the man who
has wrecked her life; no rhetoric of ang kind. It is
throughout the plain passionate utterance of a human!
being who suffers, like an unreasoning ercature, without
questioning the justice or injustice, without secking to
analyse the causes of its suffering. When she realises she
was no more than her lover’s plaything, it is the theught
that he could never have understood the love she bore him