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THE SOUTHERN ISRAEL I T E
When A Great Author Dies
Marginal Notes On Arthur Schnitzler s Death
By MIRIAM STERNER
“Arthur Schnitzler, Austria’s leading
novelist, poet and dramatist, died tonight
of a stroke suffered a few hours earlier.
He was 69 years old. . . In thousands
of newspaper offices rewrite men tapped
out the item with a blank expression on
their faces; compositors irritated at the
late cable, set in hundreds of languages;
presses turned out billions of copies with
this obituary tucked away in some corner;
newsboys sold it, yelling out the big head
line of Laval’s visit to the United States;
readers overlooked it searching for the
latest stock exchange reports; street clean
ers swept it—with a bored look—into the
gutter; Jewish editors ordered articles on
Schnitzler, the Jew. Millions of people
made motions directly and indirectly be
cause of the news item on “Schnitzler
died’’. Worldwide fame, Final curtain. The
Viennese dramatist had finished his last
act.
“Let’s have an article on “Schnitzler
and the Jews”, shouts the managing edi
tor. We face the typewriter. It would be
easy to dash out the stuff. So much has
been printed about the “Skeptic of Vien
na”. His biography was published time
and again. Who does not know that
Schnitzler’s grandfather was a fine Jew
ish gentleman by the name of Zimmerman?
That his father was a well-known laryn
gologist and university professor, Dr. Jo
hann Schnitzler (he changed the Zimmer-
mann to Schnitzler) ? And then after the
usual opening: “Schnitzler’s death removes
from the world of literature . . . blah . . .
blah . . .” one could go on with Schnitz
ler’s youth, his medical studies, his liter
ary beginnings as a poet. In no time the
space of an article would be filled. Still
our sheet is blank.
There is no tragic note in the cable re
porting Arthur Schnitzler’s death. It is
invisible—somewhere between the lines. In
this country of ours Schnitzler was noth
ing but a more or less successful Continen
tal author. In the Europe of pre-war days
he represented a literary era, a distinct
chapter in the cultural or, rather, emo
tional education of the intelligentsia.
It will be Vienna who will mourn him
most. The old Hapsburg citadel was the
scene of most of his novels. Not the prole
tarian quarters. The old, distinguished
streets with their quiet unobtrusive houses
of beautiful large rooms with heavy car
pets, fine pictures and luxurious furniture.
The old Vienna which lives so wistfully
in Schnitzer’s works and affects you like
a Schubert Lied, delighting and saddened.
In the cafes of the Danube city there is
a hush. Schnitzler died. The Viennese gri-
settes, the Anatols, the witty flirters and
whoever remains of the elegant officer era
and pre-war intelligentsia will whisper it,
and wipe a furtive tear away. Sentimen
tal. Sure, Schnitzler belonged to the senti-
Arthur Schnitzler’s death removes from
the scene of world literature one of its
acknowledged masters. Nobody is more
qualified than Miss Sterner, resident cor-
resporulent in Vienna of the Seven Arts
Feature Syndicate, to write this article.
An American journalist, living in the very
city which Schnitzler made so famous, Miss
Sterner muses on the tragedy of fame, and
speculates on the chances of Schnitzler’s
immortality. Miss Sterner, just now a
visitor in this country, will urrite several
more articles on Sidelights of Jewish life
in Central Europe in the forthcoming is
sues of The Southern Israelite.
mental era, when young girls dreamt of
love and loved dreamingly, when lieuten
ants fought duels and authors took pride
in the small sale of their books. Today
we smile at all this. Childish, naive, Vic
torian. But to those who lived their youth
in the Schnitzlerian period, the Viennese
author personified the transition period
from the fin the siecle to the Twentieth
century jazz age. But that will be in
Vienna. . . .
In New York, on Times Square, the elec
tric news bulletin of the Times races
around the old Times building and spells
out in flamboyant letters: “Arthur Schnitz
ler, noted Austrian poet and dramatist,
died today”. Nobody cares. A young, red
lipped, red-fingernailed flapper asks her
escort: “Who is this Schnitzelr guy?” And
the New York Anatol, quick at repartee
steering her into a movie house to see
the latest “it-girl” answers: “We should
worry, baby, I suppose he’s the fellow
who discovered the Vienna Schnitzel” . . .
World-wide fame, the newspaperman
wrote.
The Yiddish dailies carry Schnitzler’s
picture on the front page. They speak in
glowing terms about the “German Jewish
author”. For the last quarter of a century
they have taken pride in his success and
growing prestige in world literature. r I rue
Schnitzler was not a Zionist. He was dis
tant from any religious concepts of life.
True also that he abhorred the chauvi
nistic separatistic tendencies of modern
Jewry, that the only reason why he spoke
up as a Jew was because of his pride and
courage; his sportsmanship demanded that
he identify himself with a persecuted race
That does not concern our Yiddish editors.
He makes swell copy, even if their readers
never read “Riebelei”, “Der Weg ins
Freie”, “Fraeulein Else”. What of it? He
was a great Jew, give him a three column
head, he is good copy.
Reuben Brainin, on the occasion of Ar
thur Schnitzler’s sixty-ninth birthday,
wrote: “Schnitzler’s is a light sort of
writing, in form and in content. Dia
logues : between people of elegant man
ners and well-manicured ideas; between
graceful and polite sentimentalists; be
tween people disappointed in love but still
hunting for the supreme thrill; between
intellectual esthetes unfit for the hard
ships of life; between women who avidly
seek the perfect lover and try to escape
the every-day drabness of their prosaic
existence.
Above the tribulations and often petty
tragedies of Schnitzler’s puppets there
always hung the cloud of inevitable death,
which whipped them into life and yet, at
the same time, paralyzed them. The
thought of the end, which made them
realize the futility of love and yet drove
them on to find that elusive something
which might cheat the Grim Reaper of a
complete victory. This is the essence ot
Schnitzler’s first literary decade”. And
then the same literary critic adds: “But
to that should be added the fine, skeptical,
often ironical smile of Arthur Schnitzler,
who instead of pitying his contemporaries
just looks at them sadly as they struggle
against their fate. A smile that makes us
weep”. Here you have Schnitzler and the
reason why he was so little read in this
country except by those who suspected
him of being a pornographist, because the
Society for the Suppression of Vice had
confiscated a few of his American editions.
“Schnitzler”, as some Austrian patrA.
expressed it, “was a combination ot a
violin tune of Hebbel, a smile of Ibsen,
a Vienna dream of Guy de Maupassant,
the finest essence of Austrian culture.
Our poet, this Austrian chauvinist ex
claims passionately. And perhaps he
. . . But Schnitzler, the Austrian- ' :
artist was a combination of the European
intellectual currents of the 19th cent > .
he had the Latin grace of a Maupaus
and the ruthless logic of the Nordic I [ n
Was he perhaps all that because he w;
rootless Jew, a cosmopolitan withm
fatherland? Sometimes we think ol
as a solitary man, standing silently on
balcony of his (Please turn to page