An hour
At an hour there is a story by Arthur Schnitzler . It was published in the Neue Freie Presse on December 24, 1899 .
action
A youth sits on the deathbed of his beloved. When the “angel of death” enters the room, the young man begs for one last hour to confess his love to her. However, the angel can only grant this if another doomed person renounces his last hour for it. So the angel and the young man travel to five people whose last hour is just breaking. But none of them want to miss their class, no matter how badly they are. The angel gives the young man one last chance: he can forego the rest of his life for the last hour of his beloved. He immediately agrees - but the beloved dies anyway. The young man feels betrayed, but the angel knows the young man's true desires, which he cannot recognize even through his love and pain. He announces to the young man: "You will see me again, I will ask you whether I cheated on you today or whether you cheated on yourself."
interpretation
The story can be read as a parable about the relationship between altruistic love and egoistic will to live. The story would then be based on a pessimistic image of man: In the end, everyone is the next to himself, and whoever asserts something else is only helping himself through an emotionally stressful situation.
literature
- Arthur Schnitzler: Collected Works . The narrative writings, 2 volumes, volume 1, Frankfurt a. M. 1961, pp. 313-318.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christoph Jürgensen, Wolfgang Lukas, Michael Scheffel (eds.): Schnitzler manual: Life - work - effect . Springer-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-05338-1 , pp. 167 ( limited preview in Google Book search).