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box 36/4
Pamphlets Offorints
39
PAUL H. GRUMMANN
youth falls in love with Anna, a young Jewess, whose family is on the down¬
ward course.
This acquaintance is more serious, and Anna in time looks forward
to motherhood. His association with Anna, brings George into close touch
with various types of Jews in Vienna. These are characterized with an
uncompromising irony. George feels that Anna does not share their
characteristics, yet he is disturbed by her loyalty to the members of her
race. More and more he realizes that he is in the enemy's country,
and consequently he feels relieved when his child dies at birth. The
definite prospect of a position as the conductor of an orchestra awakens
the more serious side of his nature and he breaks with Anna in order to
find his way into the open.' It would be rash to pronounce this book
an unqualified success. The two problems presented clash.
The awakening of a young dilettante to the serious problems of life
has not been faultlessly blended with the tragedy of the young Jewess, who
yearns to rise above the sordidness of her race — yet cannot break the ties
that bind her to it. She cannot return to George without a proposal of
marriage, and he cannot make this proposal because he feels the barrier
and is lured on by the possibilities of a carcer which presumably might be
hampered by family obligations. A clear-cut solution of this entanglement
is hardly possible. Relentless irony is visited upon the Jews for their sup¬
posed cold and selfish intellectualism, their lack of real intellectual and
emotional depth; but the dallying emotionalism of this pampered baron,
who will accomplish little even if he finds his way into the open' is taken
in a most philosophical spirit. The fact that George is in love with Anna
would, by no means, make it necessary for him to associate exclusively with
Jews. Although their brilliancy attracts him, he always feels disappointe“
when he sums up any single experience with them. In the face of this
fact, it is simply exasperating to follow George from Jewto Jewas if he had
no choice whatsoever in the shaping of his environment.
With Countess Mizzi'or The Family Reunion’ (°09) Schnitzler returns
to a field where he is an undisputed master, It is a short comedy onthe
morals of the ancient aristocracy. Count Arpad, at the death of his wife,
takes a mistress, Lolo, with whom he lives undisturbed for eighteen years.
Although there is not the slightest attempt at real secrecy, he punctiliously
avoids insulting the conventions of his corrupt class. During the first year
he is so interested in Lolo that he does not realize that his daughter Mizzi
is being betrayed by his friend, Prince Egon. Mizzi leaves home for a
while and gives birth toason. She is willing to make any sacrifice in order
to follow Egon, but he refuses to undertake anything so rash as an elope¬
ment, because family considerations forbid. The mother gives up her son