The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie. Arthur Schnitzler
fascinated stare at death which is so characteristic of Latin and Slav writers—of men like Zola, Maupassant, and Tolstoy—while it is significantly absent in the great Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon poets. "Is there ever a blissful moment in any decent man's life, when he can think of anything but death in his innermost soul?" says Sala. The same thought is expressed in varying forms by one after another of Schnitzler's characters. "All sorrow is a lie as long as the open grave is not your own," cries the dying Catharine in "The Call of Life." It is in this connection particularly that we of the North must bear in mind Schnitzler's Viennese background and the Latin traditions forming such a conspicuous part of it. The Latin peoples have shown that they can die as bravely as the men of any other race or clime, but their attitude toward death in general is widely different from the attitude illustrated by Ibsen or Strindberg, for instance. A certain gloom, having kinship with death, seems ingrained in the Northern temperament, put there probably by the pressure of the Northern winter. The man of the sunlit South, on the other hand, seems always to retain the child's simple horror at the thought that darkness must follow light. We had better not regard it as cowardice under any circumstances, and cowardice it can certainly not be called in the characters of Schnitzler. But the resignation in which he finds his only antidote, and which seems to represent his nearest approach to a formulated philosophy, cannot be expected to satisfy us. One of his own countrymen, Hermann Bahr, has protested sharply against its insufficiency as a soul-sustaining faith, and in that protest I feel inclined to concur.
With "The Lonely Way" begins a series of plays representing not only Schnitzler's highest achievements so far, but a new note in the modern drama. To a greater extent than any other modern plays—not even excepting those of Ibsen—they must be defined as psychological. The dramas of Strindberg come nearest in this respect, but they, too, lag behind in soul-revealing quality. Plots are almost lacking in the Schnitzler productions during his later period. Things happen, to be sure, and these happenings are violent enough at times, but they do not constitute a sharply selected sequence of events leading up to a desired and foreshadowed end. In the further development of this period, even clearly defined themes are lost sight of, and the course of the play takes on an almost accidental aspect. This is puzzling, of course, and it must be especially provoking to those who expect each piece of art to have its narrow little lesson neatly tacked on in a spot where it cannot be missed. It implies a manner that exacts more alertness and greater insight on the part of the reader. But for that very reason these later plays of Schnitzler should prove stimulating to those who do not suffer from mental laziness or exhaustion.
"Intermezzo" (Zwischenspiel) might be interpreted as an attack on those new marital conventions which abolish the old-fashioned demand for mutual faithfulness and substitute mutual frankness. It would be more correct, however, to characterize it as a discussion of what constitutes true honesty in the ever delicate relationship between husband and wife. It shows, too, the growth of a woman's soul, once she has been forced to stand on her own feet. Viewed from this point, the play might very well be classified as feministic. It would be easy, for one thing, to read into it a plea for a single moral standard. But its ultimate bearing goes far beyond such a narrow construction. Here as elsewhere, Schnitzler shows himself more sympathetic toward the female than toward the male outlook on life, and the creator of Cecilia Adams-Ortenburg may well be proclaimed one of the foremost living painters of the woman soul.
The man who, in "Anatol," saw nothing but a rather weak-minded restlessness in woman's inconstancy, recognizes in "Intermezzo" woman's right to as complete a knowledge of life and its possibilities as any man may acquire. The same note is struck by Johanna in "The Lonely Way." "I want a time to come when I must shudder at myself—shudder as deeply as you can only when nothing has been left untried," she says to Sala in the fourth act. This note sounds much more clearly—one might say defiantly—through the last two acts of "Intermezzo." And when Amadeus, shrinking from its implications, cries to Cecilia that thereafter she will be guarded by his tenderness, she retorts impatiently: "But I don't want to be guarded! I shall no longer permit you to guard me!" In strict keeping with it is also that Schnitzler here realizes and accepts woman's capacity for and right to creative expression. It is from Cecilia's lips that the suggestion comes to seek a remedy for life's hurts in a passionate abandonment to work. In fact, the established attitudes of man and woman seem almost reversed in the cases of Amadeus and Cecilia.
Significant as this play is from any point viewed, I am inclined to treasure it most on account of the subtlety and delicacy of its dialogue. I don't think any dramatist of modern times has surpassed Schnitzler in his ability to find expression for the most refined nuances of thought and feeling. To me, at least, it is a constant joy to watch the iridescence of his sentences, which gives to each of them not merely one, but innumerable meanings. And through so much of this particular play runs a spirit that can only be called playful—a spirit which finds its most typical expression in the delightful figure of Albert Rhon, the poet who takes the place of the otherwise inevitable physician. I like to think of that figure as more or less embodying the author's conception of himself. All the wit and sparkle with which we commonly credit the Gallic mind seems to me abundantly present in the scenes between Albert and Amadeus.
The poise and quiet characterizing "The Lonely Way" and "Intermezzo" appear lost to some extent in "The Call of Life" (Der Ruf des Leben), which, on the other hand, is one of the intensest plays written by Schnitzler. The white heat of its passion sears the mind at times, so that the reader feels like raising a shield between himself and the words. "It was as if I heard life itself calling to me outside my door," Marie says in this play when trying to explain to Dr. Schindler why she had killed her father and gone to seek her lover. The play might as well have been named "The Will to Live," provided we remember that mere existence can hardly be called life. Its basic thought has much in common with that of Frank Wedekind's "Earth Spirit," but Schnitzler spiritualizes what the German playwright has vulgarized. There is a lot of modern heresy in that thought—a lot of revived and refined paganism that stands in sharp opposition to the spirit of Christianity as it has been interpreted hitherto. It might be summarized as a twentieth century version of Achilles' declaration that he would rather be a live dog than the ruler of all the shades in Hades. "What a creature can I be," cries Marie, "to emerge out of such an experience as out of a bad dream—awake—and living—and wanting to live?" And the kind, wise, Schnitzlerian doctor's answer is: "You are alive—and the rest has been. … " Life itself is its own warrant and explanation. Unimpaired life—life with the power and will to go on living—is the greatest boon and best remedy of any that can be offered.
The weak point of "The Call to Life" is Marie's father, the old Moser—one of the most repulsive figures ever seen on the stage. It may have been made what it is in order that the girl's crime might not hopelessly prejudice the spectator at the start and thus render all the rest of the play futile. We must remember, too, that the monstrous egoism of Moser is not represented as a typical quality of that old age which feels itself robbed by the advance of triumphant youth. What Schnitzler shows is that egoism grows more repulsive as increasing age makes it less warranted. The middle act of the play, with its remarkable conversation between the Colonel and Max, brings us back to "Outside the Game Laws." That earlier play was in its time declared the best existing stage presentation of the spirit engendered by the military life. But it has a close second in "The Call of Life." To anyone having watched the manners of militarism in Europe, the words of the Colonel to Max will sound as an all-sufficient explanation: "No physicians have to spend thirty years at the side of beds containing puppets instead of human patients—no lawyers have to practice on criminals made out of pasteboard—and even the ministers are not infrequently preaching to people who actually believe in heaven and hell."
If "The Lonely Way" be Schnitzler's greatest play all around, and "Intermezzo" his subtlest, "Countess Mizzie" is the sweetest, the best tempered, the one that leaves the most agreeable taste in the mouth. It gives us a concrete embodiment of the tolerance toward all life that is merely suggested by the closing sentences of Dr. Schindler in the last act of "The Call of Life." It brings back the gay spirit of "Anatol," but with a rare maturity supporting it. The simple socio-biological philosophy of "Change Partners!" is restated without the needless naturalism of those early dialogues. The idea