Late Fame E-Book

Arthur Schnitzler

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 160

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

One seemingly ordinary evening, Eduard Saxberger arrives home to find the fulfilment of a long-forgotten wish in his sitting room: a visitor has come to tell him that the youth of Vienna have discovered his poetic genius. Saxberger has written nothing for thirty years, yet he now realises that he is more than merely an Unremarkable Civil Servant, after all: a Venerable Poet, for whom Late Fame is inevitable - if, that is, his new acolytes are to be believed.Arthur Schnitzler was one of the most admired, provocative European writers of the twentieth century. The Nazis attempted to burn all of his work, but his archive was miraculously saved, and with it, Late Fame. Never published before, it is a treasure, a perfect satire of literary self-regard and charlatanism.

Leseprobe

ARTHUR SCHNITZLER

LATE FAME

Translated from the German by Alexander Starritt

PUSHKIN PRESS

LONDON

CONTENTS

Title PageLate FameAfterwordAbout the PublisherCopyright

LATE FAME

HERR EDUARD SAXBERGER came home from his walk and climbed slowly up the stairs to his apartment. It had been a lovely winter’s day and as soon as office hours ended, the old gentleman had set off as he often did to stroll around in the fresh air, going far beyond the suburbs to the very last of the houses. He was a little tired and looking forward to his warm and friendly room.

The housekeeper met him with the news that a young man she’d never seen before had been waiting for half an hour. Curious, the old gentleman, who almost never had visitors, went into the sitting room. As he entered, the young man stood up from an armchair and bowed to him.

Saxberger reciprocated the bow and said, “I’m told you’ve already been waiting for some time—how can I help you?”

The young man remained standing and replied, “Esteemed Herr Saxberger, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wolfgang Meier, author.”

“Pleased, very pleased to meet you, won’t you take a seat?”

“Herr Saxberger,” the young man began after he had sat down, “First of all, I must apologize for being so presumptuous as to enter your home unknown and uninvited. But I’d searched in vain for a different way of making your distinguished acquaintance.”

“You flatter me.”

“And for quite some time, Herr Saxberger, making your acquaintance has been one of my, or rather our, most fervent wishes—because what I’m saying here is not only in my own name.”

Herr Meier accompanied these words with a friendly smile. Saxberger sized him up. He was pale, with simple blond hair, and very respectably dressed. While he spoke, he played with a pince-nez that hung on a black cord round his neck. “I’m intrigued,” said Herr Saxberger, “by why this fervent wish… since when this fervent wish…” he interrupted himself in embarrassment.

“For some time,” answered Meier, “and, to be more precise, I would say: since the day when I, or rather we”— here he again gave a friendly smile—“had the privilege of encountering your Wanderings.”

“What?” Herr Saxberger cried out in amazement. “You’ve read my Wanderings? People still read my Wanderings?” He shook his head.

“People might not read them any more,” replied the young man. “But we read them, we admire them and, I think, in time, people, too, will again come to read and admire them.” As Herr Meier spoke in this way, his cheeks flushed a little and his voice became more animated than before.

“You astonish me, Herr… Meier,” said Saxberger, “and I would very much like to know who you are, I mean those in whose name you’re speaking. I had no idea that anyone today still knew my Wanderings.” The old gentleman stared into space—“Even I haven’t thought of them, it’s been so long since I thought of them. For years, I’ve been so far from any of these things, so far.”

Herr Wolfgang Meier smiled delicately. “It hasn’t escaped my, or, I should say, our, attention, dear sir, that you haven’t committed anything to print for a long time, something that surprised and saddened us. And it was, after all, just chance that led us—though here I can probably say me—to discover your exquisite book, so to speak, anew.”

Saxberger found the words he heard singularly moving. Was this young man really speaking about him? Was it truly possible that this young man, a complete stranger, knew about him and his forgotten work? “How did you come across the book?” he asked.

“It was very straightforward,” replied Wolfgang Meier. “I was having a look around a second-hand bookshop and among the books I picked up was your slim volume. As soon as I read the first poems, they had an indescribably powerful effect on me. I took the book home and read it straight through, which as you know hardly ever happens with a collection of poems. When I looked at the title page again and saw the year 1853, I said to myself: you could have known this man—that same evening, I took the book with me to our little circle…”

“What circle is that?”

“It’s a group of young writers who stay apart from those following the beaten track. If I said their names, it wouldn’t tell you much. These names are not yet known. We are simply artists, no more than that, and our time will come.” Herr Meier said these words in a tone that was calm but categorical.

The old gentleman listened attentively, nodding. It was so peculiar. Artists, artists—how that word sounded! All at once there rose up in him muddled images of distant days and forgotten people. Names occurred to him, and what had become of them—and then he saw himself as you see yourself in a dream, as a young man, saw himself youthful, laughing, talking, as one of the best and proudest in a circle of young people who stayed apart from those following the beaten track and did not want to be anything but artists—and he said aloud, as if the young man opposite him had had these rapid thoughts along with him, “That is long ago, that is so long ago!”

Wolfgang Meier observed the old gentleman in silence; only the eyes in that wrinkled, beardless face seemed to have remained young, and these now looked past the small lamp standing on the table and out through the window into the dark-blue night.

“1853”—said Meier after a short pause, “that certainly is a long time ago,” and then he continued more spiritedly, “You wouldn’t believe, dear sir, how pleased we were when we learnt that the poet of the Wanderings was living in our city; it felt as if we had a debt to repay to you.” With these words Meier rose and, bowing slightly, said in a solemn voice: “The youth of Vienna ask that you be so good as to accept, through me, their most deeply respectful greetings and their thanks.”

Saxberger wanted to get up, but the young man pressed him amiably back into his chair. His voice charged with emotion, Saxberger answered, “Thank you, I don’t know, no, I really don’t know…”—he stopped speaking, and the young man quietly looked him in the eye with an encouraging smile until he carried on: “It’s so long ago—I… I… I don’t know anything about it any more, no one thought much of it back then. I haven’t written anything for so long. You see, no one takes any notice and then, by and by, I lost my appetite for it, you understand, along with my youth. And also there were worries, the daily work, it all ended so much of its own accord that I didn’t even notice…”

The young man listened… he shook his head, commiserating, serious.

“And I did write other things, too, oh yes, not just verse. I once even wrote a play.”

“What?” exclaimed Meier, “a play! But, please, where is it? Please!”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know. My God, I sent it round the theatres at the time—three years it must have done the rounds, or four. Then, well, I let it go. That’s more than thirty years ago…”

After saying nothing for a moment, Meier stood up and, while resting one hand on the back of the chair, burst out: “It’s the same old story. At the start, we’re satisfied to have just our own pleasure in our work and the interest of the few who understand us. But when you see those coming up around you, winning a name and even fame for them-selves—then you would rather be heard and honoured as well. And then come the disappointments! The envy of the talentless, the frivolity and malice of reviewers, and then the horrid indifference of the public. And you get tired, tired, tired. You still have a lot you could say, but nobody wants to hear it, and eventually you yourself forget that you were once one of those who wanted great things, who have perhaps even already achieved them.”

Saxberger accompanied the young man’s words with a slow nod of agreement. Yes, that was exactly how it had been. He had just needed this young man to come and remind him.

“But,” said Meier, “I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time.”

“Oh, my time isn’t valuable,” responded Saxberger with a melancholy smile… “When my office hours are over, I don’t have anything else to do.”

“So you have an office job?” Meier asked with polite interest. “I imagine you can’t find that particularly satisfying?”

“Oh, goodness me, my dear man, you get used to it, and what would I do all day if I didn’t have a profession?”

“So you’re… content?”

“I actually can’t complain. I can’t actually imagine my life as any different—I ask you, when you’ve been in a post for almost thirty-five years. Yes, yes,” he affirmed as Meier shook his head incredulously, “I’ve long been able to celebrate my office jubilees!”

“But at the beginning, when you still… wrote, this monotonous employment must have been extremely painful for you.”

“Well, everyone has to have some occupation. It’s not so bad. Though the opportunities for promotion could be better, that has to be said. But things are good for me, I really can’t complain.” The old gentleman nodded good-naturedly. “When I started,” he continued, “yes, you’re quite right, it wasn’t how it is now. You’ve reminded me. It’s quite true that there was a time—” he smiled—“when I didn’t like to go to the office.”

“Is that so?” cried the young man, pleasantly moved.

“When I used to be a ‘poet’, you’re right, you’re right, I would sometimes even be absent without any kind of excuse.”

“Oh, I understand that so well!” exclaimed Wolfgang Meier. “The Wanderings couldn’t have been written while you sat in your office day after day. You can hear in those proud verses that they were made by someone who had cast off the shackles of the everyday.”

“A lovely time, a lovely time,” said the old gentleman, and sank back into his thoughts.

“What message can I give my friends?” Meier asked ebulliently.

“Please thank them, thank them very warmly. Please say that I was very pleased, and that it was so unexpected. It’s touched me. Tell them I honestly didn’t believe there was anyone in the world who still knew my name—apart, of course, from my colleagues in the office. And send them all my regards, and perhaps they will have more luck than I did.”

“Herr Saxberger, perhaps I could be so bold as to ask whether you might, sometime when it’s convenient, devote one of your spare afternoons to us?”

“It would be a pleasure,” replied Saxberger, “to meet your friends and thank them in person.”

“Then I’ll try my luck again one evening soon.”

Meier said goodbye to the old gentleman, who accompanied him to the door. “My most heartfelt thanks again for the kind reception,” said the young man when he was already standing in the stairwell.

“Send my regards to them, all your friends, send my best regards,” Saxberger called after him.

Then he went back into his room. He shook his head, laughing. It seemed strange to him when he thought that, in an hour, he would be sitting at his usual place in the Pickled Pear, as though nothing had happened.

The next day, Herr Saxberger received through the post a little volume on whose title page were the words: Poems by Wolfgang Meier. On the first inside page he had written in ink: “To the poet of the Wanderings, with heartfelt gratitude, the author”. That’s an elegant gesture, thought the old gentleman, and laid the little book on his desk, resolving to read it that evening. Poems! Who would have predicted it? For years he had read only the newspaper and, before going to sleep, perhaps some “popular” novel.

When he came home after lunch that day and stretched out on the divan, he began to immerse himself in Wolfgang Meier’s poetry. Ah! This was by no means as easy as a popular novel. That much was obvious to him after only the first few verses. Saxberger read with great conscientiousness; he read all the more carefully and concentratedly the harder it became for him to form any clear opinion of the poems. He became very anxious. One thing seemed beyond question: they were pretty verses—but when he asked himself what more he might say about them, he found himself at a loss. He came to a poem that tried to portray a landscape. (And here he felt he was seeing more deeply into the work.) It had a stronger effect on him than the earlier ones, which had sung the praises of beautiful girls. Something in him resonated with it. He loved nature. And the older he had become, the greater his love for it had grown. He had discovered new ties to it by which he had not previously been connected. Oh, it was true—love, youth—that was all in the past. And so there was little that those verses could mean to him. What did the high spirits and the triumphs of youth have to do with him these days? How many years had it been since he’d been interested in those things, since he’d even noticed anything of them? He stood alone in the world. Had never been married, never had children—all connection to youth had been lost as he slowly grew older. All his social intercourse was with friends—who grew old as he did.

And as he leafed further and there were more verses telling him about beautiful blue eyes and tender evenings, a bitter feeling crept over him. He lowered the book and stared into the distance.

He wondered what he was supposed to say to Herr Wolfgang Meier on his next visit. He couldn’t tell him that he hadn’t—well, hadn’t what?—hadn’t understood it? Not understood it!

Saxberger was almost frightened. He, the poet of the Wanderings, didn’t understand the verses of Herr Meier! He paced up and down the room a few times. He lit the lamp. And then, tentatively and smiling a little to himself, he opened the bookcase and bent down in front of it. On the lowest shelf, under old magazines and brochures, there must still be a copy, or even two or three, of the Wanderings.

Yes, there they were. More than three. He still had six copies. But it was remarkable. He had, naturally, seen these slight volumes many times in years past. He must also have taken them in his hand and—never noticed them. His memory held a false picture of how they looked. He still imagined the Wanderings as when they, just published, had been set out in the display windows of a few book-shops. A dark-green, slender volume on whose cover the title was printed in pale letters that were tall but narrow. But the book he held in his hand was blue and the letters were small. And he realized something else: he had seen the books countless times and yes, he recognized them when he saw them… but he simply no longer had the feeling that said: these are the Wanderings, which I myself, which I wrote!

He sat at his desk, adjusted the lamp and opened one of the copies. How long it had been since he last looked inside! The edges were yellowed, the type seemed old-fashioned. He began to read. The first verses were unfamiliar. But as he read only a little further on, his memory stirred to life. It was as if some familiar music were coming closer and closer. And soon not so much as a word was unknown to him. He began to declaim under his breath and nodded along the way you do when listening to something you already know.

So these—these were the Wanderings for which the youth of Vienna had yesterday sent him their thanks. Had he deserved them? He would not have been able to say. The whole sorry life that he had led now passed through his mind. Never had he felt so deeply that he was an old man, that not only the hopes, but also the disappointments lay far behind him. A dull hurt rose up in him. He put the book aside, he could not read on. He had the feeling that he had long since forgotten about himself.

On the two following afternoons, Saxberger poked through the lower shelves of his bookcase. There he found old periodicals in which poems of his had once appeared, yellowed manuscripts in his own hand and also newspapers in which were printed the verses of youthful peers whose names came back to him only piecemeal. None of them had really made anything of it, none had become well known. And as for him? He had for many years been no more than Saxberger the civil servant, and had thought no more of being anything else. Sometimes he had even looked back on his past life, sometimes thought about his youthful verses as he had about other examples of youthful foolishness; but that he might be a poet was something he had long ago forgotten. He had become almost seventy years old. Life had slipped through his fingers—and not an hour, not a minute of the last three decades had been brightened by the knowledge of not belonging to the others. On the contrary—he had felt he belonged completely to those others. And they, too, all counted him as one of their own, while no one had the slightest inkling of who he really was! Only the young people of Vienna guessed at it—or indeed knew it to be true!

But where were they, these young people? A full three days had gone by since Wolfgang Meier’s visit. What if he didn’t come back?

It was a clear, not very cold winter’s evening, and Saxberger went down onto the street; he had swallowed too much dust in his rummaging that afternoon. And gathering dust was all that those things would now do—at least on the face of it. But as he let the general impression the poems had made continue to act on him, he came to think that everything had stayed remarkably fresh, and that no small joie de vivre had flown up to him off those old pages. On reading one or other of the love poems there had even re-emerged, as if out of fog, some pale, sweet face which he had once seen, loved, kissed. Those pale, sweet faces! Where were they today? When he looked at the young girls who were walking past him, it seemed to him, as really it always did, that they were the same ones he had encountered there thirty and forty and fifty years ago. That they were the same ones he had kissed and whose—yes—whose praises he had sung.

He had reached the Ring at the point where many streets meet, where the Votive Church stands in airy grey, where the racket of all the carriages clatters together and great streams of people flow into one another. Suddenly he was standing in front of Herr Wolfgang Meier, who swept his hat off very low in front of him.

“What a delight,” said Herr Meier, “to have such good luck. May I ask where your path leads?”