High Treason and Low Comedy. Robert T. O’Keeffe

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ others, you’ve got the brightest of futures, thousands envy you your good fortune, yes thousands ...

      (With a quick glance Redl sees that Franzi is kneeling down. He reacts to her words with a perplexed laugh, which, when he hears “good fortune”, turns into a burst of sobbing. He staggers.)

      FRANZI (she jumps up, startled; she props him up): For heaven’s sake, what’s going on with you?

      REDL (after pausing): It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it —— I’m not going to stand in your way. Stefan won’t ever see me again. Tell him I send him my greetings, that I wish him better luck than I’ve had, tell him ...

      FRANZI: What’s the matter, Herr Colonel? What’s happened to you?

      REDL: ... tell him that I was thinking of him right up until the very last minute ...

      FRANZI: What do you mean to do? —— Look, Herr Colonel, I’m only a woman, and I know that you despise women, though I don’t know what’s behind your desperation right now —— but I want to say something to you: an hour ago I realized that my Stefan had made a decision for you and that he wanted to get away from me — then, just for a second, the thought came to me that maybe it would be better if I did away with myself. But in that same instant I also knew that’s not the right way for a decent hu- man being to go. As long as you can work and love there’s no

       It’s too late

      need for you to die. And that goes for you too, Herr Colonel. (She takes his sword.) What kind of a thing is this for men to make, a thing made to wound others? (She picks up his cap.) Why do you wear the monogram of other men on your head? (She points to his military overcoat.) Why do you wear somebody’s livery, like a lackey. (She fingers the decorations on his coat.) Why do you wear these tinplate awards, like some kind of prize-winning animal? If it’s life you want to pursue rather than death, and if all these things oppress you, then throw them all away! Whether you sweep streets or clean up canals, that’s far more honorable work than recruiting spies and unmasking spies!

      REDL: I thank you for that, my dear young woman. Unfortunately, it’s too late for that now.

      FRANZI: It’s never too late.

      REDL: Perhaps you’re right. But summoning up courage won’t help me now. I must ask you to please leave now, my dear young woman.

      FRANZI: I thank you, Herr Colonel.

      REDL: It’s you I have to thank, gracious lady.

      FRANZI: Good-bye.

      REDL: Good-, Good- ...Live well!

      (Franzi exits)

      A Homosexual? Horrible!

      REDL (he goes to his desk and takes out writing paper): Whom should I write to first? The Corps Commander. (He starts to write, tears it up, then starts again. There’s a knock on the door.) Already? Come in!

      (Umanitzky, General Höfer, and Major-Auditor Worlitschek enter, wearing their military caps.)

      REDL: I know why you’ve come. I won’t waste time denying anything.

      UMANITZKY: I have to ask you if you have any accomplices, Mister Redl?

      REDL (he startles when he hears the words “Mister Redl”): No, no one.

      UMANITZKY: Who recruited you as a spy?

      REDL: The Russian military attaché, he had me under surveillance when I was acting as an expert witness at an espionage trial, and he found out then that I ... (he pauses) ... that I’m a homosexual.

      I’m a victim of blackmail.

      UMANITZKY: A Homosexual?

      HÖFER: Horrible!

      WORLITSCHEK: Achh ... the devil take you!

      UMANITZKY: Mister Redl, under the highest orders you have to bring this affair to its end within the hour in the only way possible. Have I made myself clear?

      You are allowed to ask for a pistol

      REDL (after a moment): Yes.

      UMANITZKY: You are allowed to ask for a pistol.

      REDL: Please ― I respectfully ― request ― a pistol.

      (Umanitzky gives the Major-Auditor a signal, whereupon he hands over a revolver: Umanitzky then confirms to General Höfer that he has given it to Redl.)

      UMANITZKY (he salutes): Herr General, I respectfully report the completion of our official mission.

      (Höfer salutes back to Umanitzky. The three men leave the room. Redl takes the revolver, lifts it toward his open mouth, and the curtain falls, after which a shot is heard.)

      THE END

Chapter 4. Kisch and the Redl Case: Reportage into Melodrama

      Viewers and readers of Die Hetzjagd were exposed to a constricted presentation of the complicated Redl affair, the culmination of a series of events that occurred over a decade before reaching its unsavory end in 1913. Therefore in the present chapter I supply information on the historical events on which the play was based. Even within the confined temporal frame of one day on which the strands of several narratives concluded in Redl’s death, there was more to the story than Kisch could show on stage. My historical exposition is followed by analytical remarks about the structure and themes of the play, and then returns again to historical issues: first, the accuracy of Kisch’s reporting on the case; and, second, how historians assess the significance of Redl’s espionage. A more detailed look at other aspects of the play—its performance history, contemporaneous critical responses, and its placement in a series of plays written by Kisch during the 1920s—is undertaken in Chapter 7.

      During the 1920s the names of Kisch and Redl became intertwined to the extent that readers and critics considered it ‘his’ story in an almost proprietary way. This was due to the success of Kisch’s 1924 book about the case, Der Fall des Generalstabschefs Redl. In the chapter of his memoirs re-telling the Redl story Kisch reminisced about his lead role in breaking the case during the two weeks in May and June of 1913 when he had written numerous unsigned articles about the affair for Bohemia.1 The General Staff immediately issued a ‘cover story’ that Redl’s suicide resulted from overwork, insomnia, and anxiety; in the terminology of the era, he had a “nervous breakdown”. To keep up the pretense, in recognition of his years of diligent service he was to be given a full-ceremonial military burial later in the week. This deliberately misleading version of what had happened came out in Vienna’s Neue Freie Presse on Monday, May 26, a day after Redl had taken his own life.2 By the next day this version was undermined by Kisch, who had an ‘inside source’ who gave him enough information to indicate the falsity of the official Viennese press release. As he explains in Sensation Fair, he and his editor averted foreseeable censorship by using the ruse of printing a brief notice that the authorities in Vienna denied the truth of rumors of espionage as the real reason for Redl’s suicide.3 Kisch noted that this would lead the average reader, skeptical about government press releases, to the conclusion that an official denial meant that what was being denied might well be true. The local censors in Prague did not check with СКАЧАТЬ