Antisemitism -- Fiction; Jews -- Austria -- Fiction; Middle class -- Fiction; Vienna (Austria) -- Fiction
A fly came out of the Heugasse, some one bent out of the window. George
recognised Anna's face under the white shawl. He was very glad, got
in and kissed her hand. They enjoyed their talk, joked a little about
the party from which she had just come and found it really ridiculous
to spend an evening in so inept a fashion. He held her hands in his
and was affected by her presence. He got out in front of her house and
rung. He then came to the open door of the carriage and they arranged
an appointment for the following day.
"I think we have got a lot to talk about," said Anna.
He simply nodded. The door of the house was open. She got out of the
fly, gave George a long look full of emotion and disappeared into the
hall.
My love! thought George, with a feeling of happiness and pride. Life
lay before him like something serious and mysterious, full of gifts and
full of miracles.
When he went into the café, Heinrich was sitting in a window niche.
Next to him was a pale young beardless man whom George had casually
spoken to several times, in a dinner-jacket with a velvet collar but
with a shirt-front of doubtful cleanliness.
When George came in the young man looked up with ardent eyes from a
paper that he was holding in his restless and not very well-kept hands.
"Am I disturbing you?" said George.
"Oh, not a bit of it," replied the young man, with a crazy laugh, "the
larger the audience the better."
"Herr Winternitz," explained Heinrich, as he shook hands with George,
"was just reading me a series of his poems, but we will break off now."
Slightly touched by the disappointed expression of the young man George
assured him that he would be delighted to hear the poems if he might be
permitted to do so.
"It won't last much longer," explained Winternitz gratefully. "It is
only a pity that you missed the beginning. I could----"
"What! Does it all hang together?" said Heinrich in astonishment.
"What, didn't you notice?" exclaimed Winternitz, and laughed again
crazily.
"I see," said Heinrich. "So it's always the same woman character whom
your poems deal with. I thought it was always a different one."
"Of course it is always the same one, but her special characteristic is
that she always seems to be a fresh person."
Herr Winternitz read softly but insistently, as though inwardly
consumed. It appeared from his series that he had been loved as never
a man had been loved before, but also deceived as never a man had been
deceived before, a circumstance which was to be attributed to certain
metaphysical causes and not at all to any deficiencies in his own
personality. He showed himself, however, in his last poem completely
freed of his passion, and declared that he was now ready to enjoy all
the pleasures, which the world could offer him. This poem had four
stanzas; the last verse of every stanza began with a "hei," and it
concluded with the exclamation: "Hei, so career I through the world."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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