Game at dawn
Game at Dawn is a novella by Arthur Schnitzler that was published by Ullstein in May 1927 . Schnitzler had worked it out in the years before as a " B [a] d [e] n Novelle".
Table of contents
Lieutenant Wilhelm Kasda receives an unexpected visitor one Sunday morning: his former service comrade , Lieutenant Otto von Bogner, asks him urgently for 960 guilders, which he stole from the company treasury and which he now has to put aside before the impending revision. Wilhelm's cash only consists of 120 guilders. All acquaintances who could be considered as lenders have either already been asked or had no money themselves.
Wilhelm has the idea of winning the money he needs by playing cards in Café Schopf , which he visits from time to time on Sundays. They say goodbye in the hope of getting the money they want , Willi takes the train to Baden , visits the Kessner family there in the hope of being invited to lunch, and spends the afternoon with them in the company of a lawyer . After the third or fourth glass of wine, another company appears, an elderly lady with her two daughters. Torn by his shared expectations and feelings, Wilhelm finally recommends himself. He walks thoughtfully through the city when he arrives at Café Schopf and sits down next to Lieutenant Greising and the theater secretary. Then lieutenant Wimmer asked them to go to the card table, where he, the consul , Doctor Flegmann , Herr Elrief , the regimental doctor Tugut and secretary Weiß were already playing.
It doesn't take long for Wilhelm to win a sum of over a thousand guilders. He decides to leave the play with the actor Elrief. He wants to return to the Keßner family satisfied; but she went on a trip to Helenental . So he decides to return to the café and is immediately dealt a playing card again as a matter of course. Wilhelm was lucky and after some initial bad luck increased his fortune to over 2000 guilders. Afterwards we have dinner together and Willi finally says goodbye so as not to miss the train at ten forty. But since he also meets the Keßner family, he misses the train to Vienna by a minute.
This is his third time playing the game and first decides to bet carefully. Willi wins again strongly and finally finds himself in possession of 4200 guilders when the end of this game, which is set for half past two, is already announced. Gambling grabs him and he risks too much. Consul Schnabel opens a bank of 3,000 guilders, something unheard of. Wilhelm loses almost all of his fortune. The bystanders warned him to end the game. The consul keeps pushing out thousands of notes. Willi stops counting and just keeps playing, gripped by the fever, but still trying to turn his luck around in the last few minutes. At the final end of the game, he finds himself with a debt of 11,000 guilders. Schnabel agrees to take over the bills and invites the lieutenant to take him to Vienna in his carriage. Cold as ice, he insists on the period that Willi is generously extended to Tuesday lunchtime, in which he can repay his honorary debt, otherwise he will lose his officer post.
The fiaker arrives at the barracks, the consul says goodbye. Lieutenant Kasda called in sick the next day after telling his boy to report to Bogner that he had done nothing. Desperate he goes to his uncle, hoping for help. After some insistence, Willi learns that the uncle has transferred his fortune to his wife and that he is only allowed to visit her three times a year. It's about Leopoldine Labus, a flower girl with whom Willi had spent a night three to four years ago. Willi finds out her address and looks for her. It turns out that she is now a wealthy businesswoman.
Willi tells Leopoldine his misery. She wants to discuss it with her lawyer, she says, and will let him know between seven and eight that evening. In the evening Leopoldine appears in person in his room. After an introductory, polite conversation, he can persuade her to have dinner together in the room; she spends the night with him in the barracks. Inhibited by shame, he doesn't dare ask about the money. When Wilhelm wakes up in the morning, she leaves him and gives him 1000 guilders as a love reward for the previous night, since he had said goodbye to her years ago with ten guilders. The expected 11,000 guilders are missing. Willi has his boys bring the 1000 guilders to Bogner. Three hours later, Bogner and regimental doctor Tugut find Willis' door locked. The door is opened from the outside - Kasda shot himself. Willis uncle appears, an envelope with the 11,000 guilders that will save him - too late. He bends over the dead man and thinks he can feel his wife's perfume; a suspicion arises in him - and vanishes again. The commission of inquiry enters.
interpretation
Formal
The narration, Game at Dawn, is clearly structured in terms of time and takes place fairly precisely within 48 hours. Both plot complexes, gamble and erotic play, are each divided into half of the narrative. The inner monologue plays an important role in Lieutenant Kasda’s story, as it is mainly designed from the perspective of the main character. The narrator does not disappear completely, but he keeps a certain distance from his portrayal. The logic of the course of action lacks a conscious goal setting, the characters' impulses for action result from the respective situation, not from the goal-oriented desire. It begins at the beginning of the narrative, when the first encounter with Bogner Willis determines everyday life by the chance of a situation. Even when Kasda wants to withdraw from the game in Café Schopf, he gets back to the card table by missing the train, although he shouldn't risk anything. This creates a double character, on the one hand the narrative has a narrative gradient, which leads the main character towards a catastrophe, on the other hand, in the plot, random surprises collide with the current situations. These interruptions create a discontinuous impression, although on the other hand the novella seems to be related to an event.
Eros and Thanatos
A basic theme in Schnitzler's works is the problem of "Eros [love] and Thanatos [death]" and is also the theme in the novella Game at Dawn . The officer Wilhelm exists in a world of love and happiness. Fate here becomes identical to the game of chance that can be won and lost. Kasda's life depends only on the possibility of luck, winning a few guilders at the card table, and on the pursuit of erotic experiences. The popular saying goes: “No luck in love - then luck in play” and vice versa. His optimism can always be traced back to such formulas, but sometimes the thought of chance degenerates - " Eleven, twelve - eleven, twelve - eleven, twelve (...) Twelve, that sounded maybe better than eleven, maybe it brought him luck ... perhaps the miracle happened - just when he asked for twelve. “(P. 374 *) Kasda says in this case, when he is considering how much to ask his uncle for, that his success depends solely on a number. When he gets back home in his barracks, he has a dream that reflects the game mixed with other experiences. Individual card scenes play out in his head. The different cards take on traits of personalities in his life: “ Nine of spades - Ten of spades - Queen of hearts - damn rascal, thought Willi. Because the queen of hearts was actually Fraulein Keßner. “(P. 369 *) Here you can see the importance of colors. Red (queen of hearts) stands for the female gender, for the erotic adventure, the black card color (spades), as the motif of the game of risk. Again, Eros and Thanatos are metaphorically united in the dream. Since the erotic color red is related to Fraulein Keßner, which is rather unimportant, one has to fall back on Freud's deep psychological dream interpretation, the so-called "dream compression".
The death
Kasda's death actually begins at the point where Bogner appears at the beginning. He is the death-bringing friend who, with his request for voluntary help, leaves Kasda's life to its known fate. The subliminal warning, which is also supposed to be the news of his death, suggests: “ Perhaps it was better that I didn't hear or see anything from me, and it would definitely be better if I hadn't come today either have to. “(P. 325 *) Bogner appears at Wilhelm with this message and breaks through his usual everyday life. At the end of his life, after his suicide, he disappears again inconspicuously: “ He waited in the gate entrance until the regiment was over, then he crept away, pressed against the wall. “(P. 410 *) He appears here as a stranger who suddenly comes out of nowhere and disappears again into nowhere after the deed has been fulfilled.
The devil
While Bogner can be portrayed as death, the consul can be seen as the devil. This is described as mysterious and threatening. He wears black: "The waiter put the consul's coat on, a wide, black, sleeveless coat with a velvet collar ..." and seems mysterious: "We didn't know much more about Consul Schnabel than that he was consul, Consul of a small Free State in South America ... it [was] clear that this man would face ridicule and jokes come with no reference to the cost ... and they decided ... to more cautious behavior towards him " While So the others have become cautious, the naive Willi falls into his trap and does not realize that he is after him: “And when Willi turned around at the door again, he saw that only the consul's eye was with him cold, quick looking up at the cards ... he did not look up when Willi came to the table, ... and yet the lieutenant sensed that the consul had immediately noticed he was coming. “ When Willi has no more money, he seduces him the consul, by constantly lending him more money: “The consul had pushed two more thousands over to him. 'Help yourself, Herr Leutnant' “ The noble features of the consul disappear completely on the journey home, and the consul enjoys the journey with indifferent cold-bloodedness while he has an ironically friendly conversation with the dishonorable lieutenant. “ 'Strange,' nodded the consul. 'When you think how the existence for some people is, so to speak, mapped out, while for others from a year, sometimes from one day to the next ...' He paused, shaking his head. "Relentlessly, he clings to his guilt: " I will not give myself up satisfied, lieutenant, tomorrow, Tuesday noon, last appointment ... Or - report to your regimental command ... don't take the matter lightly if you value ... remaining an officer ... "It almost looks like a pact with the devil Willis' fault, which he redeems with his death.
Criticism of gender roles
Leopoldine Labus wants the lieutenant to realize how much he offended and humiliated her when he paid her many years ago after a night of love. She loved him and was poor, but not for sale. Years later, she leads an independent life, is successful as a business woman and has had her husband's fortune written over to her because she is the more skilled economist of the two. In the spirit of a late 'self-healing', she lets a second night of love take place and now pays the man for it. Kassda mistakenly understands the 1000 guilders that she wants to leave him as love wages as the entire sum that she wants to give him and that she not only wants to humiliate him, but also leave him to be dishonored. This is not the case, however, because at this point in time the 11,000 guilders are already on their way to the lieutenant at Leopoldine's instigation. Unable to deal with what he regards as double dishonor, he shoots himself. The text raises the question of why women should be able to deal with dishonor, insults and degradation that men cannot endure either. Why should it be more acceptable for women to get paid for sex? Schnitzler's plea for equal rights in sexual matters was very clairvoyant for the time.
Fascination of the game
In addition to the destructive power of money, Schnitzler is an impressive monument to the destructive fascination of the game. Willi, who initially intends to play carefully and “start with a low stake ... never risk the whole thing ... ”, becomes increasingly carefree: “ When the hundred are gone, I'll stop, absolutely he swore to himself. But he didn't believe it himself. "Until he finally no longer has any control over himself:" If you stopped now, nothing could happen to him anymore, and that was good. At the same time, however, he felt an irrepressible, a truly hellish desire to continue playing ... "In the end he plays as if in a trance and sees himself playing:" Was that himself who spoke? His words? His voice? "(P. 350 *) Only when the game is over does he regain consciousness and later realize" that you have lost your head, yes, that you have been almost insane for a quarter of an hour ".
expenditure
- Arthur Schnitzler: Game at dawn. Edited by Barbara Neymeyr . Reclam, Stuttgart 2006. ISBN 978-3-15-018428-8 . Epilogue: pp. 113-134.
- Arthur Schnitzler: Game at dawn. Novella . Dtv, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-02686-4 (unaltered reprint by EA S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin 1927).
- Arthur Schnitzler: Game at dawn . Manesse-Verlag, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-7175-4024-6 .
- Arthur Schnitzler: Game at dawn . In: Ders .: Master narratives . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2003, pp. 321-412, ISBN 3-596-15918-0 .
- Arthur Schnitzler: Game at dawn . In: Ders .: Dream novella and other stories . Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2008, pp. 220-309, ISBN 978-3-596-90088-6 .
additions
The game is indeed once as baccarat named, according to the information contained in the amendment clues but is one of the Baccarat similar game called Macao .
Film adaptations
- As early as 1931, a film adaptation was made in Hollywood under the direction of Jacques Feyder with the title Daybreak , with Ramón Novarro playing the leading role .
- The novella was filmed for television in 2001 by Götz Spielmann with Fritz Karl , Birgit Minichmayr and Karlheinz Hackl, among others .