Even if I had not intended for some days to go to the theater this evening to see Hidalla (Wedekind and his wife are in it, of course), I would inevitably have had to do so, dearest, after your second letter today. For no matter how far apart we are, and no matter how little anyone notices it or at any rate wants to believe it, we are linked by a strong cord, even if it should not please God to turn it into an encircling chain. But if you go to Professor Bernhardi, dearest, you drag me along by that inevitable cord, and there is a danger that we both succumb to that kind of bad literature, which the greater part of Schnitzler represents for me. But to guard ourselves against this danger it was my duty not to give way completely to the tug of the cord, and to go to Hidalla instead, to steer you away from the Professor a little and let a few true, well-cut Wedekindian words reach your heart, beating as it does for Professor Bernhardi. Thus, without any damage to the soul, I may be able to bear the Schnitzlerian impressions which are blowing toward me this evening, and which I am absorbing greedily because they come from you, dearest. For I don’t like Schnitzler at all, and hardly respect him; no doubt he is capable of certain things, but for me his great plays and his great prose are full of a truly staggering mass of the most sickening drivel. It is impossible to be too hard on him. Those plays of his that I have seen (Interlude, The Call of Life, Medardus) dissolved even before my watching eyes, and I forgot them while listening to them. Only when looking at his photograph —that bogus dreaminess, that sentimentality I wouldn’t touch even with the tips of my fingers—can I see how he could have developed in this way from his partly excellent early work (Anatol, La Ronde, Lieutenant Gustl).—Wedekind I won’t even mention in the same letter.
Enough, enough! Let me quickly get rid of Schnitzler who is trying to come between us, like Lasker-Schüler the other day. Dearest, did you go to the theater alone? And why so suddenly? Does this mean that your eye is all right, quite all right again? After supper just now I saw a picture of your new princely bridal couple in the evening paper.1 The two of them walking in a park in Karlsruhe, arm in arm; but not satisfied with that, their fingers are intertwined as well. If I didn’t stare at those intertwined fingers for five minutes, then it must have been ten minutes.
This afternoon I could have done with a hole to disappear into; for in the current issue of März I read Max’s review of my book;2 I knew it was coming out, but had not seen it. A few reviews have already appeared, needless to say all of them by friends, valueless in their exaggerated praise, valueless in their comments, and explicable only as a sign of misguided friendship, an overrating of the printed word, a misunderstanding of the general public’s attitude to literature. Ultimately that is what, on the whole, they have in common with the majority of reviews, and if they did not act as a sad though quickly spent spur to one’s vanity, one might easily accept them. But Max’s review is more than excessive. Just because his friendship for me, in its most human aspect, has roots far deeper than those of literature, and for this reason is effective long before literature gets a chance, he overestimates me to a degree that makes me feel embarrassed, and vain, and conceited, whereas with his literary experience and powers of discernment, he has at his disposal vast reserves of genuine judgment, which is nothing but judgment. Nevertheless, that is how he writes. If I myself were working, were in the flow of work and borne along by it, I wouldn’t have to give a thought to the review; in my mind I could kiss Max for his love, and the review itself would not affect me in any way! But as things are— And the dreadful thing is that I have to say to myself that my attitude to Max’s work is no different than his to mine, except that sometimes I am aware of it, whereas he never is.
But are there really no pleasanter Sunday thoughts for you in my silly head, dearest, dearest! If I did not know that all the evil owing from me toward you were inevitably turned to good by you, best of creatures—honestly, I shouldn’t tell you these things.
I enclose a letter from my Madrid uncle3 (he is 60 years old, director of railways) for your kind consideration. Wouldn’t you too, dearest, let me read an occasional letter from one of your relatives, from your sister in Budapest, for instance, or the one in Dresden? So that I can begin to understand the circle around you into which I have insinuated myself. Nor have I received your list of books yet. Can one ask too much even of the person one loves? If I do, dearest, then say so. It would be a poor exchange if, by my acquiring knowledge of you, your heart were to develop some resistance, however small.
Franz
Princess Viktoria Luise and her fiancé, Prince Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg.
Max Brod’s review of Meditation, “Das Ereignis eines Buches” [“A Literary Event”], in März, No. 7 (February 1913), 268.
Alfred Löwy.