58. Ernst Georgy: “The Redeemer”

Some time ago,¹ In these pages, I am reviewing the important book “Idole” by the Viennese writer Rosa Mayreder. This work of art describes the repulsive effect that a young girl experiences as a result of a world view that seeks to determine the relationship between men and women not according to the passions of the soul, but according to the rational, sober principle of racial improvement. According to such a view, the future generation should be decisive for the union of the sexes. In the “Idols”, Dr. Lamaris wants a man to marry only a woman who promises him healthy, strong offspring. The girl at the center of Mayreder's story abhors such a view of life, which puts all the needs of the human soul under the aspect of racial hygiene.

It is interesting that almost simultaneously with this story, another one with a similar theme appeared. In it, the main character is a woman who, through her life experience, has come to the point of view that Dr. Lamaris has formed from his scientific convictions. So we have the complete opposite of the woman that Rosa Mayreder has described.

Helene fell in love with a composer and married him because the storm of passion drove her to do so. She bore him a child, a sick, idiotic child unfit for life. The man soon became unfaithful to his wife with a Russian countess. He ended the broken relationship that his life had brought him to with suicide. The young widow initially lives in complete seclusion. All the ideas that form in her mind are influenced by the unhappy marriage and the existence of the idiot child. She becomes more and more convinced that a social system that fosters such idiotic beings is a reprehensible one. As long as she can believe that medical science will be able to bring the child to his senses, the widow still has some hope. But more and more, this hope is destroyed. And when, after some time, she finds the man who once loved her and whom she gave up for the sake of the composer, the terrible certainty dawns on her soul that the child is incurable, that never a spark of humanity will shine from its stupid, animal eyes. The man she left has preserved her love. She is about to marry for the second time. His attitude and world view can be a guarantee that she will find happiness in a new circle of life. Then she becomes the murderer of her child. She must consider the murder of her child as a duty. Because it can only be a good deed to remove from the world a creature that does not deserve to be called a human being. But for a loving man, marriage with a woman of such a life becomes impossible. He leaves his beloved and seeks oblivion in faraway Japan, where he finds a sphere of activity – far away from the place where he experienced that a woman to whom he is bound by so many ties of the soul is capable of such an abhorrent act.

Another man is contrasted with this young widow. He too feels strongly attracted to her. But he too breaks off all ties between himself and the woman he admires when he learns of her deed. His mind must even approve of this act. But his heart does not allow him to go through life with her.

If we compare Ernst Georgy's story with the much more artistically mature “Idols” by Rosa Mayreder, we see that both works reveal a characteristic symptom of our time. It is remarkable that in both cases a doctor is confronted by two women of such different natures. In the first case, the philosophy of life that makes the duty to one's offspring the guiding principle of one's life is represented by a man, and in his case it is the result of his scientific views. In the second case, the same philosophy is represented by a woman who has been led to it by her experiences.

There is something in the fundamental moral drives of our time that powerfully pushes us towards such a way of life. But there are undoubtedly elements in human nature that say a clear “No” to such views. The doctor, who by virtue of his education is most intimately involved with the physical aspects of life, is most easily led to this point of view. The woman who seeks the guiding principles of life in the depths of her emotional life will most easily be repelled by it. Life must be cruel to the woman if it leads her to it. Ernst Georgy describes such a cruel life. And the author also makes the character of the woman portrayed highly credible in terms of her actions. Through a merciless logic of facts, but also through a keenly developed inclination towards all that is well-formed, healthy and perfect, Helene becomes a child murderer. The forces in the human soul that contradict the ethical views that have developed in her are shown to us by Georgy in the very doctor whose humane character must turn away from this woman. These are the same forces that are at work in the girl of the “idols” and that cause her to recoil from Doctor Lamaris' principles.

It is clearly visible how, in our time, the eyes of all are truly opening to the contemplation of life. For hand in hand with such an unbiased view must go the perception of the opposites of existence. A relationship to the world, such as the Christian one, will seek an artificial reconciliation of these opposites. It builds an ideal realm of harmony above the real realm of opposites. But life does not take place in harmony, but in these opposites themselves. And anyone who wants to erect a harmonious ideal world as the superstructure of life, once and for all, is shrouding humanity in a deceptive fog. For life cannot overcome its contradictions at once; rather, it is itself a continuous, never-ending attempt at overcoming, and the contradictions always arise again and again, even when they seem to have been overcome.

In this sense, Ernst Georgy's story is a product of the new world view. Christianity and the ideal of humanity are pitted against a woman's view of the world, which is aimed at redeeming the world from everything that is incapable of living. Anyone who can gain an interest in this battle between two life-opposing forces that are deeply rooted in the essence of the modern soul will read the book with excitement.