Leo Perutz: The Search for Identity
Katerina Blazek Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Needham, MA 02492
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the 15th century, when the Habsburgs rst came into power at the head of what would later become the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria played an important role in European politics. In the 19th century the monarchy was the largest and most powerful in central Europe in fact, what is today known as Central Europe is largely de ned as the area formerly occupied by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The last three rulers, Maria Theresa, Josef II., and Franz Josef I., ruling during the 18th and 19th centuries, remade the old monarchy into a modern multicultural, decentralized state. German was the o cial language of the Empire and it was largely the German Austrians who were involved in government, hence they constituted the most powerful ethnic group in the monarchy. Austro-Hungary's defeat in the First World War changed his old order. Each ethnic group making up the Empire was granted its own state and the old monarchy was broken apart Austria became what was left over after each nationality claimed its territory. For the German Austrians this came as a great shock the empire, whose leaders they had been for hundreds of years, was no longer in existence and they were left with the remains. During the times of the monarchy, these citizens had always been close to Germany and thought of themselves as German there was no Austrian identity as such.1 The Treaty of St. Germain, which speci ed the terms of surrender for Austria-Hungary at the end of the war, mandated that the new Austrian state could not join Germany or Russia, and so the citizens of this newly created state needed to nd themselves a new identity as independent Austrians, not as Germans. During the interwar years, the political scene was dominated by the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, each of which had very strong adherents. The mutual antagonism
1 Jelavich, Modern Austria 144-7. 2 between the two parties led to a brief civil war in 1934 and the institution of a right-wing dictatorship, termed the `Ständestaat', under the leadership of the Christian Democrats. This dictatorial state nevertheless failed to prevent the encroachments of the National So- cialists and Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938 and remained a province of the Third Reich for the rest of the war. The First World War also left Austria in a deep economic crisis. Although Vienna had been the seat of administration under the Monarchy, because the old Monarchy had been strongly decentralized, the new Austrian state possessed no industry and very little agricul- ture the center of industry had been in Bohemia, and the center of agriculture in Hungary. Once the monarchy was broken apart, the new Austrian state had no means of supporting itself and was unable to stand on its own. This resulted in a lasting economic crisis during the interwar years, which perpetuated the political and identity crises. Out of these societal upheavals grew a new generation of literary gures of the interwar period, Leo Perutz among them, who reacted to this uncertainly through nostalgia for the past, by evoking the times of the old monarchy in their work and the world that once had been so safe and certain. However, in this nostalgia was hidden a very modern desire to make sense of the changes in society and create a new literary and political identity for Austria. Like the other authors of this interwar period, Perutz contributed to the modernization of the modern novel by creating his own particular style that melds believable historical accounts with fantasy elements and modern narrative techniques to create novels that exist on several levels of meaning and invite the reader to delve into and analyze the text. Perutz' main theme is the close relationship between history and identity, how and why history is used and manipulated to create identities. Like his contemporaries, Perutz explored the psychology of his characters, as well as his own, and sought to illustrate to his readers the process of creating identities. However, because he was comparatively popular when he was published, and because of the often thrilling and adventurous plots of his novels, he has often been classi ed as `only' a writer of popular ction, not one of serious literary merit. Furthermore, after the Second World War, the Viennese cultural environment in which he ourished was gone, and he found it very di cult to write. Austrian post-war concerns and problems were very dierent from pre-war ones, so Perutz' work did not make sense in the new context, and it was essentially forgotten except in translation. Only in the past fteen years has he been newly discovered and re-published in German, but despite this 3
resurgence in popularity, Perutz' work has not been subject to much critical study, and he is still relatively unknown in literary circles. It is therefore an aim of this paper to enlarge that pool of analysis. According to Perutz, each person has his own history, and his identity is built of this individual history. This thought has two corollaries: the rst is a rejection of the unity of history, of the concept that only one true, o cial history can exist; the second is an assertion of the inherent exibility of identity according to Perutz, in order to change one's identity it is su cient to change one's history, or the appearance thereof. This relationship holds for groups as well the identity of a group is built upon the collective history of that group. Perutz asserts this theme and its consequences in his novels: he employs various narrative techniques, such as the diraction of the narrative and stories from the societal periphery, to show how multi-stranded and subjective history can be. Through the main gures in his novels he shows how this subjective history can then be used to create new identities.
II. PERUTZ' BIOGRAPHY
Leo(pold) Perutz was born in 1882 in Prague, the oldest son of a Jewish cloth merchant. He attended the Piarist School until 1899, when his family moved to Vienna. His memories of Prague would later build the foundation of his novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke [At Night under the Starry Bridge]. In Vienna he attended a Gymnasium, but left school without a degree in 1902. Three years later he enrolled as a guest student at both the Technical University and the University of Vienna, where he studied insurance mathematics. After graduation he worked as an insurance mathematician in Trieste, later also in Vienna. Around the time of the rst world war appeared his rst publications, and also his st novel, Der dritte Kugel [The Third Bullet]. He served on the eastern front during the war, where he was seriously wounded; after his recovery he worked for the military press. After the war he continued his mathematical work for several years, before turning solely to writing. Perutz published many novels, plays, translations, and short works during the interwar period, but because of the rising antisemitism of the national socialists, he found it increasingly more di cult to publish in Germany and Austria. After the invasion of the German forces into Austria, he emigrated to Israel where he remained until his death. Perutz wrote very little in exile, because due to the war, the old cultural atmosphere of Vienna vanished, and along 4
with it his audience and his interactions with other writers, which were very crucial to the development of his novels. He died in 1957 in Bad Ischl, while on holiday.2 Perutz was an active member of the Viennese literary circles of the interwar period; he belonged to the regulars at the Café Central and later the Café Herrenhof, where the other literati and bohemians gathered. Among his acquaintances were Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Roda Roda, Paul Frank, with whom he wrote several plays, Franz Werfel, Richard Beer-Homann, Peter Altenberg, Alfred Polgar, who wrote many of the rst reviews of Perutz' work, and Anton Kuh. Perutz stylized himself as a literary outsider, a man on the fringes of the cultural circle; he was, however, also a brilliant mathematician (his work in the theory of functions is still used today).3
III. REJECTION OF THE `SIEGERGESCHICHTE'
Perutz' main theme, that identity is dependent on an interpretation of a subjective history, is predicated on two ideas. The rst is a rejection of the unity of history, a rejection of the concept of the `siegergeschichte' the history of the `victors', the powerful middle and upper classes of society. Instead of one single, o cial history that applies to everyone, Perutz argues that each person has his own history and that these personal histories are just as important as the o cial ones written down in history books. He illustrates this idea indirectly through the narrative devices used in his novels: by violating the unity of the narrative, he draws parallels between his ctional historical accounts and real historical accounts. Through linking the form and content of his novels with historical accounts, Perutz is able to generalize features of his novels to history as a whole, and by showing the subjectivity of his novels, can then assert the subjectivity of history. His novels explicitly explore the lives of society's outsiders and alternative explanations of accepted events to further underscore that recorded, o cial history is simply a subset of all histories, and that all of these histories are equally important and valid.
2 Müller, Leo Perutz, 135-6. 3 Neuhaus, Erinnerung und Schrecken, 18. 5
Diraction of the narrative
Many of Perutz' novels are written on several levels of meaning, each of which aects the others and changes how each level, and the novel as a whole is perceived. This technique, termed diraction of the narrative (the term comes from Neuhaus4), serves to illustrate the subjectivity of Perutz' narratives. Because each level of narrative contradicts the others, but all are perceived as true, Perutz forces the readers to make sense of the dierent levels and consciously construct the true narrative out of the written text. This work of reconstructing the truth out of a series of mutually contradicting narratives is analogous to the process of historical research, and by drawing these parallels between his ctional novels and histori- cal accounts, Perutz suggests that real history is no less subjective than his own ctional histories. The novel Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages [Master of the Day of Judgement] is one of the best examples of a novel with a diracted narrative: the rst level of narrative is the story told by the Baron von Yosch he tells a thrilling detective story in which he is searching for the murderer of his friend, Eugen Bischo. This rst level forms the bulk of the novel and provides a foundation for the other levels of narrative. This rst level, however, is disrupted by the second: an afterword from the editor at the close of the novel asserts that the entire previous narrative was invented by the Baron, that, in reality, there was no mystery, that it was the Baron who had caused Bischo's suicide, that the Baron had only written this narrative to trick the readers. The third level is the level of the author: the readers know that both the Baron and the editor are characters imagined by Perutz, and therefore it is up to the readers to determine which one of them is telling the truth. Do they believe the Baron, or the editor? How can they determine who is telling the truth? As readers, they must search through the novel and nd Perutz' clues to determine the truth for themselves. The clearest clue appears in the foreword, in which the Baron clearly tells the unsuspecting readers that perhaps it was not he, who wrote the narrative, and perhaps that it is not the actual truth:
Meine Geschichte liegt hinter mir, ein Stoÿ loser Papiere, ich habe ein Kreuz darüber gemacht. Was habe ich noch mit ihr zu tun? Ich schiebe sie beiseite, als
4 Neuhaus, Erinnerung und Schrecken. 6
hätte sie ein anderer erlebt oder erdacht, ein anderer geschrieben, nicht ich.5 [My history lies behind me, a pile of loose papers, I have nished with it. What more have I to do with it? I push it to the side, as though someone else had lived or imagined it, someone else written it, not I.]
The diraction of the narrative is this well-developed only in Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, but similar clues are present in almost all Perutz novels. These clues tell the reader that not all is right with the novel, that the real state of the situation is not always that which is explicitly written. In Zwischen neun und neun [Between Nine and Nine], in the middle of the novel, as the main protagonist, Stanislaus Demba, is in conversation with his friend Ste , he mentions that perhaps he is really dead; at the close of the novel, the readers nd out that is the case:
Vielleicht trägt mich in diesem Augenblick ein Rettungswagen durch die Straÿen oder vielleicht lieg' ich noch immer in dem Garten unter dem Nuÿbaum auf der Erde und hab' das Rückgrat gebrochen und kann nicht aufstehen und hab' die letzten Gesichte und Visionen6 [Perhaps in this moment I am being driven by ambulance through the streets, or perhaps I am still lying in the garden under the walnut tree with a broken back and cannot rise, and am seeing the last faces and visions]
In Der Judas des Leonardo [Leonardo's Judas] as well, Perutz drops hints from the be- ginning of the novel as to who will eventually become Leonardo's Judas, how the novel will end:
Zum zweitenmal führte das Schicksal dem Messer Leonardo Joachim Be- haim in den Weg, und auch diesmal wieder hielt Behaim seinen Geldbeutel in der festgeschlossenen Hand. Aber Messer Leonardos Gedanken waren bei dem Denkmal des verstorbenen Herzogs, den er zu Pferde sitzend dargestellt hatte.7 [For the second time Fate drove Joachim Behaim in master Leonardo's way, and again Behaim held his gold pouch in a tight st. But master Leonardo's
5 Perutz, Meister des Jüngsten Tages, 9. 6 Perutz, Zwischen neun und neun, 83. 7 Perutz, Der Judas des Leonardo, 60. 7
thoughts were by the memorial for the deceased duke, whom he had to portray on horseback.]
In Der schwedische Reiter [The Swedish Cavalier] the clue is even more explicit. In the rst several pages, in the de facto introduction, Perutz simply tells the readers the end of the mystery, the secret of the Swedish cavalier:
Es war die Geschichte zweier Männer.8 [It was the story of two men.]
These clues serve to disturb the reader, to create an emotional distance between the reader and the text, so that the readers read the novel more closely and begin to doubt the veracity of the written word. As in Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, these clues insert an extra level of meaning into the text there is always an omniscient narrator who comments on the events occurring in the novel, and so the readers must interpret for themselves how much trust they place in this extra narrator, how much the believe the basic plot versus how much they believe the comments made by the external party involved. Perutz, however, also presents his ctional novels as truthful historical accounts, thus drawing parallels between his novels and historical documents and how the techniques for understanding and evaluating both are the same. Perutz' readers must analyze the text and nd the truth between the lines, just like historians must read between the lines of their manuscripts to nd the historical truth. Despite Perutz' clues, however, not all readers will nd the same truth in the text. Just as with historical research, there are multiple perspectives, all legitimately based upon the text. Through this parallel structure between the task for the reader and the task of historians, Perutz shows that what we really understand about the truthfulness of historical account is just as little as what we understand about the truthfulness of ction. Just as with ction, historians are at the mercy of whomever wrote the historical narrative when faced with competing accounts, there is no objective way to determine which is the true one: just as with the Baron and the editor in Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, historians must subjectively choose which account they will believe. It is this need for the interpretation of con icting information, both when history is written and when it is read, Perutz asserts, that renders the idea of an objective history invalid.
8 Perutz, Der schwedische Reiter, 15. 8
The high point of this broken narrative structure of the novel is Nachts under der steiner- nen Brücke, where the individual stories follow each other without thematic or chronological order. The rst chapter describes the end of the main plot, whose beginning we only read at the close of the novel, in chapter 14. In this novel Perutz also creates several levels of narrative: there are the stories themselves, which form the novel and which also create the rst level. These stories are, however, told and commented upon by the medical student Ja- kob Meisl, speaking to the young Leo Perutz. These comments form the second level of the narrative and Perutz' own comments on his novel in the epilogue form the third. In contrast to Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, these levels serve to support, not to disrupt each other: the Baron's narrative seems believable and only on account of the comments of the editor do the readers begin to doubt its veracity. In Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke, on the other hand, the stories themselves read more as myths than as actual truth, and only through the in uence of the two narrators do they gain credibility. In both cases, however, the additional levels serve to change the meaning of the foundational narrative, and it is this subjectivity that Perutz emphasizes: what is understood from the narrative and what is believed to be true is strongly dependent upon the context in which the narrative is read or heard. Because just like ction, all history is always interpreted by whomever wrote it, it is impossible to determine an objective historical truth, and even if an objective history existed, the process of understanding and interpreting it is always a subjective act and depends on the context in which it is done.
Narrative from the periphery
Perutz' novels almost never feature mainstream protagonists, but instead draw their main characters from the outsiders of society: students (Zwischen neun und neun), Jews (Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke), criminals (Zwischen neun und neun, Der schwedische Reiter, Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages), and artists (Der Judas des Leonardo). Members of these groups stand outside of mainstream society, and because o cial history is written by the members of mainstream society, these groups also stand outside of written history. Only when they directly in uence the course of mainstream history are they mentioned. This is the basis of the concept of the siegergeschichte: the history of the insiders in society, the middle and upper classes of society. Perutz counters this idea through his novels from the 9
world of outsiders, from the periphery. He shows the history of these groups as equally valid and equally important as the acknowledged history of the mainstream and therefore counters the idea that only one legitimate history exists. Zwischen neun und neun is the story of a complete outsider: Stanislaus Demba is a student, and therefore an outsider from middle-class society. He is also an outsider among students, in that he studies completely esoteric subjects:
Ich habe eine Studie über die Idyllen des Calpurnius Siculus und seine Ha- pax legomena geschrieben. Eine Arbeit über ein paar agrarische Fachausdrücke, die diese Calpurnius Siculus verwendet, deren Bedeutung strittig ist, und in der übrigen römischen Literatur nicht vorkommen.9 [I have written a paper about the Idylls of Calpurnius Sicilus and his Hapax legomena. A paper about some agrarian jargon used by this Calpurnius Sicilus, whose meaning is disputed, and which is found nowhere else in Roman litera- ture.]
He is also an outsider on account of his thievery: he borrowed several books out of the university library and them sold them to an antiques dealer. Most of all, however, he is an outsider because of the handcus he wears as a result of his tangles with the police. As he tells Ste :
Siehst du, mit diesen Handschellen bin ich abseits der Welt. Ganz allein steh' ich gegen die Millionen anderer Menschen. Wer nur einen Blick auf meine gefesselten Hände erhascht, der ist von dieser Sekunde an mein Feind und ich der seine, und wenn er vorher der friedlichste Mensch war.10 [See, with these handcus I am outside the world. All alone I stand against millions of others. Whosoever sees only a glimpse of my bound hands, is from that moment on my enemy and I his, even if he were previously the most peaceful man alive.]
His friend Ste , who was burned in the face as a child, is also an outsider because due to her scars, she cannot go out into the street without wearing a veil. Throughout the
9 Perutz, Neun, 85. 10 Perutz, Neun, 117. 10 novel, Stanislaus meets other outsiders: he gambles with Buki-players, he is followed by Herr Skuludis, in reality a member of a criminal gang, and meets up with other students and acquaintances. He is seen rst as a hashish smoker, then as a thief, and lastly as a revolver-toting murderer. Everywhere he is someone who does not belong in mainstream society. Through his various attempts to obtain money, he meets members of the middle class: a kiosk owner, a doctor and his wife, a councillor, a professor, and a lawyer and his wife. They all, however, are mentioned in the novel, in Demba's history, only because their histories are entwined with Demba's Demba is always in the center of the narrative. Here therefore, the standard is reversed: normally it is the history of the middle classes that is written down and the outsiders are only mentioned when their lives intersect that of the middle class, but in this novel the middle class bourgeois characters appear only in relation to the outsider. Through this reversal, Perutz disrupts the notion of the siegergeschichte, the idea that history can only be told from the perspective of the insiders of society. Also in Der schwedische Reiter we see this inversion of history: the real noble in the story, Christian von Tornefeld, plays a role only because his life crosses the life of the Thief who later betrays him. If there were no Thief, Christian von Tornefeld would not survive his desertion from the army and no one would hear of him. The entire narrative is written about the Thief and for most of the novel, he is an outsider: rst an outlaw, then the leader of a robber gang that steals religious implements from churches, and lastly a forced laborer in the Bishop's Hell. For only a short part of the novel, and his life, is he the Swedish Cavalier, the noble. Here again is the outsider in the center of historical narrative, and not the societal insider. The novel, however, is not so simple. The fundamental motivation for writing this history is to explain several mysterious episodes from of the memoirs of Maria Christine, originally von Tornefeld, lately von Blohme, a noblewoman. This means that although the novel is about an outsider, the motivation for writing it is the history of an insider. Furthermore, the Thief is part of the story only because, even if only for a short time, he was a noble. The disruption of the siegergeschichte, therefore, is not so complete Perutz disrupts the idea of a siegergeschichte, but also acknowledges that it exists. Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke is the history of two types of outsiders: the servants of the Emperor and the Jews. The history of Emperor Rudolf is told from the perspective 11
of his servants the readers don't read about his military exploits or political intrigues, but about his relationships to his court jester and body servant. All that the readers know of his passing and the events after his death they see though the eyes of the servants as they sit in a pub many years after the fact and reminisce. The body servant, the lute player, the keeper of the keys, the tack master, the barber, and the court jester are all representatives of the `small' people who are forgotten by o cial histories. It is these people, according to Perutz' stories, who are the real movers of history, however: it was the jester who told the Emperor that his gold came from the Jew Meisl; it was the body servant who saved the Emperor from a mortal illness; it was these servants who rst warned him about the rebellion of the Bohemian Protestant nobles. Even the Emperor himself is not described as an emperor, but as an old insane man, possessed by the desire for art and the money to buy it. He is completely dependent on his servants and cannot do anything for himself. He stands on the edge of the narrative as an old, weak gure the center of the history are his servants. The Jews are the second outsider group in the novel. Because of their faith, they are the original outsider group in Europe, as Georg Kapli° describes:
Mein Vater hochseligen Gedächtnisses, sprach Georg Kapli° weiter, hat mich aber unterwiesen, daÿ man den Juden nichts verkaufen soll. Jeder zu den Seinen, hat er immer gesagt, der Jud' soll mit Juden Handelschaft treiben und der Christ mit Christen. Und so hab' ich es auch mein Leben lang gehalten.11 [My father of most blessed memory, spoke Georg Kapli° further, always taught me that one should not sell the Jews anything. Each to his own, he always said, the Jew deals with the Jew and the Christian with the Christian. And so I have always done.]
It was the Jews who were always the target of persecution in Europe, who were required to live separate from the Christians in a ghetto, and who lacked the same rights as the Christians. Despite being such outsiders, they have their own separate history, as shown by Perutz, that often diers from the acknowledged history, but is equally important. All of the stories in the novel are narrated by the Jewish student Jakob Meisl, and even when they don't directly involve Jews, they are always tied to Jews, because were it not for two
11 Perutz, Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke, 24. 12
Jews, Meisl and Perutz, they would never have been told or written down. As in Zwischen neun und neun, here the relationship between insiders and outsiders is reversed. The noble, important, historical gures such as the Emperor Rudolf, the alchemist Jakobus van Delle, the counts Collalto und Wallenstein, and even Johannes Kepler, all members of the Christian majority, all insiders of society, they all are mentioned only when their lives impinge upon the history of the Jews. It is the Jews who have the power, Perutz argues: it is Rabbi Löw who makes it possible for the Emperor to see Esther Meisl and who saves Count Collalto from Baron Juranic; it is Mordechai Meisl who provides the Emperor with the necessary money to support his administration of the empire; it is the Jews everywhere who are the best and most honest businessmen and merchants, the ones who power the economy. Without the Jews, who are everywhere looked down upon, society would not function. Without the original outsiders of society, there would be no history of the mainstream, because there would be no mainstream society. Through narratives from the world of the outsiders of society, and through the emphasis on the importance of these outsiders, Perutz thus shows that the siegergeschichte, the history of the upper and middle classes, is not the only important history. In fact, the outsiders are often essential and their history is important to know. Acknowledged, o cial history therefore has many gaps that which is written in history books is only the history of the insiders, but the outsiders have an equally important history, which often no one knows or tells.
Alternative histories
Perutz advances his theme of a multi-faceted history not only through indirect means, but also through narratives that newly describe events from the o cial history and bring a new perspective or endings to these episodes. These narratives, although counter to accepted history, are nevertheless believable, and thus Perutz can assert that if there exists more than one believable narrative that explains a historical occurrence, the choice of which one is the accepted o cial account is essentially an arbitrary one. Which of the possible explanations is chosen depends on the person interpreting history, and it is this choice that again renders history subjective. The novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke can be seen as an example of the technique 13
of alternative histories. The novel is built from short stories, legends from old Prague, which present familiar historical events in a new light. Through the mouth of the medical student Jakob Meisl, Perutz explains, for example, the real reason why the Bohemian Protestant uprising was crushed by the Catholic Habsburg nobles:
Und da kannst du wieder sehen, wie die Geschichtsprofessoren am Gym- nasium und die Herren, die die Geschichtsbücher für die Schulen verfassen, wie die alle zusammen nichts wissen und nichts verstehen. Sie werden dir erzählen und haargenau beweisen, daÿ die böhmischen Aufständischen die Schlacht am Weiÿen Berge verloren haben, weil auf der anderen Seite der Tilly kommandierte und weil ihr Feldherr, der Graf von Mans eld, in Pilsen geblieben war, oder weil sie ihre Artillerie nicht richtig postiert hatten und weil sie ungarischen Hilfstrup- pen sie in Stiche lieÿen. Das ist alles Unsinn. Die böhmischen Aufständischen haben die Schlacht auf dem Weiÿen Berg verloren, weil der Peter Zaruba damals in Wirtshausgarten nicht den Verstand gehabt hat, den Wirt zu fragen: `Wie kannst du zwölf solche Portionen für drei Böhmische Groschen geben, das ist doch, Mensch, eine volkswirtschaftliche Unmöglichkeit!' Und so hat also Böh- men seine Freiheit verloren und ist österreichisch geworden, und wir haben jetzt den k.u.k. Tabakmonopol und die k.u.k. Militärschwimmschule und den Kaiser Franz Joseph und die Hochverratsprozesse, weil der Peter Zaruba von den böh- mischen Dalken und Golatschen die ihm seine Hauswirtin gemacht hat, schon genug gehabt hat, sie waren ihm nicht fein genug, und weil er also von des Kaisers Tisch gegessen hat.12 [And there you can again see how the history professors at the Gymnasium and the gentlemen who publish history books for schools, how they all together know nothing and understand nothing. They will tell you and patiently explain that the Protestant Bohemian rebels lost the Battle of White Mountain because Tilly led the other side, and because their commander, the Count of Mans eld, stayed in Pilsen, or because their artillery wasn't placed correctly and their Hun- garian reserves left them high and dry. That is all nonsense. The Bohemian rebels lost the Battle of White Mountain because Peter Zaruba back then in the
12 Perutz, Nachts, 33-4. 14
pub garden didn't think to ask the innkeeper `How can you serve twelve such portions for twelve Bohemian groschen, that is, sir, an economic impossibility!' And thus Bohemia lost its freedom and became Austrian, and now we have the k.u.k. tobacco monopoly, and the k.u.k. military swim school, and Emperor Franz Joseph and the treason processes, because Peter Zaruba had enough of the Bohe- mian dalken and golatschen served by his housekeeper, they were not good enough for him, and because he ate from the Emperor's table.]
The student Meisl also tells the story of how the count of Wallenstein, a member of one of the most powerful Bohemian noble families, found his fortune: through marriage to the wealthy Lucrezia von Landeck, which was only precipitated because Wallenstein, on account of the noise caused by his landlord's animals, recognized that he was in his neighbor Lucrezia's house after she kidnapped him.
Ein Hund, der bellte, und ein Hahn, der krähte, die haben das Glück der Wallenstein begründet, sagte mein Hauslehrer, der stud. med. Meisl, als er mir an einem regnerischen und nebligem Novembertag diese Geschichte erzählte, statt mich in die Mysterien des Rechnens mit Sinus und Cosinus einzuführen. Davon wirst du freilich in deinem Gymnasium nichts gehört haben, denn dort trichtert man euch nur Jahreszahlen ein.13 [A dog that barked and a rooster that crowed, they founded Wallenstein's happiness, said my tutor, the medical student Jakob Meisl, as he told me stories on a rainy and foggy November day instead of inducting me into the mysteries of using the sine and cosine. But of that you won't hear a word in your Gymnasium, there all they lecture you on are dates.]
Perutz also tells other legends from the old Prague ghetto: the aair between the Emperor Rudolf and Esther Meisl; the plague in the Prague ghetto and how Rabbi Löw ended it when he terminated this aair; and how the Rabbi Löw saved the Count of Collalto when Baron Juranic was enacting his revenge upon him. All these stories are similar in that they present an alternative version of history. Through the student Meisl, Perutz shows his thinking clearly: there is no one version of history that,
13 Perutz, Nachts 140. 15 which is written in history books or taught in school, is only one possible perspective on past events. Through his legends, Perutz shows that many more explanations of history exist. The novel Der Judas des Leonardo is another such explanation. In the novel, Perutz takes a historical event, the painting of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, and imagines a new explanation for how Leonardo found a model for the head of Judas. Perutz' novel relates a believable possibility for how this event could have occurred, but because the readers know that this is only a ctional account, that it is only an imagined story, they can only conclude that if a ctional account can be so believable, there need be no dierence in believability between o cial history and variations on it. Perutz thus shows that there is no such thing as an objective history, since two competing versions may be both equally believable, but there is no way to distinguish the two to determine which is the real one and thus absolutely true history can never determined.
By means of the narrative techniques he uses to convey his stories, Perutz thus shows that the idea of history as a single, objective, uni ed account is a falsity: a historical account can be manipulated as it is written, but because many accounts of a single event can exist, indistinguishable based simply on how believable they are, it is very di cult to detect how an account has been manipulated and determine the objective truth. Historical accounts are therefore always interpreted based upon the perspective of the person reading the account, and what is presented as the one o cial history is in fact simply a subjective interpretation of history by representatives of the mainstream. In Perutz' thinking, history is thus a multi-stranded collection of individual accounts, so how does this shifting, subjective history aect the construction of identity?
IV. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HISTORY AND IDENTITY
The second part of Perutz' main theme is the close relationship between history and identity. Perutz asserts that identity is built upon history: the history of a person or group determines that person or group's current identity. Because history is so uid, however, identity can be just as uid, and therefore individuals or groups can use this to create new histories for themselves and out of them new identities. Perutz explores this idea though the protagonists in his novels, and also through the novels themselves. 16
Zwischen neun und neun tells the story of a student, Stanislaus Demba, who is caught by the police and put into handcus. He attempts to ee, but dies in the attempt. As he is dying, he dreams and imagines how he would spend the last 24 hours of his life, were his ight from the police successful. In his dream, he goes though the city and tries to rid himself of his handcus; he meets enemies, friends, and his girlfriend who wants to leave him. So that she does not leave him, he attempts to obtain 200 Krone without exposing himself as a criminal through his handcus. He can trust only one person, Ste , the only friend who tries to help him; his other friends and lover are of no help and even hinder his eorts to become free. In his vision, Demba imagines himself and how he would act, were he still alive. As he does this, he must also imagine how everyone else reacts to him, based on what they were like in real life. He must therefore analyze what kinds of people his friends, acquaintances, and lover are, and what kinds of relationships they really have with him. This close analysis forces him ro reevaluate how he relates to others, and as his vision progresses, this reassessment forces him and the others in his vision to change, to re ect how he would like the world to be, instead of how he remembers it being. In his vision, Demba is thus creating a new world for himself, a new history, and a new identity within that world, based on his new history. In life, we nd out, Demba had been an arrogant, conceited, sel sh, ambitious, jealous man, who saw others only as tools for his use. At the beginning of the novel, he still thinks this way:
Ich gehe ruhig und sicher zwischen Millionen Feinden hindurch, die mich nicht erkennen, und spotte sie aus.14 [I go quietly and safely through millions of enemies, that do not recognize me, and jeer at them.]
In his vision, however, he begins to change from this egoist to a better man as a result of seeing what he was like in real life; through his newly created history he creates a new identity and in the moment of his death, nally understands himself. In his vision, while in conversation with Ste , he voices for the rst time what he would like to be: Integer vitae scelerisque purus15 upright of life and free from wickedness. He nally comes to
14 Perutz, Neun, 117. 15 Perutz, Neun, 82. 17
understand that Ste loves him and that he loves her, not Sonja:
Heute morgen, sagte Demba, als ich in der Dachkammer am Fenster stand, hab' ich an dir gedacht, Ste . Hab' an dich gedacht, mir war bang nach dir, wollte dich noch einmal sehen. Ich hab' mir gewünscht, daÿ du bei mir sollst, wenn ich sterbe. Und nun bist du da, und ich bin nicht froh, hab' ich dich mit in mein Unglück gerissen. Jetzt wolle ich, du wärest weit fort von hier. 16 [This morning, said Demba, as I stood in the garret by the window, I thought of you, Ste . I thought of you, I was worried about you, I wanted to see you once more. I wished for you to be by me when I die. And now that you're here, I'm not glad, I've pulled you into my misfortune with me. Now I wish you were far away from here.]
He nally understands Sonja's shallow personality, that she loves him just as little as he does her.
Ich, sagte Sonja mit harter Stimme, und sie nahm das höhnische Lächeln, die spöttische Blicke und die Verachtung aller auf sich, um Demba zu verraten. Ich weiÿ, wo er wohnt.17 [I, said Sonja in a hard voice, and she bore the derisive laughter, the jeering glances, and the contempt of them all, to betray Demba. I know here he lives.]
Thus at the moment of death, Demba nally understands what kind of person he has been and takes steps to change himself, to change his identity. Through Demba, Perutz thus shows that it does not need to be an actual history that forms the basis of identity: the history only needs to be real in the mind of the person who is using it to create an identity. It is the re ection upon one's history that forms a new identity, not necessarily the history itself. Are there boundaries on this new creation of identity? Is it possible to create a completely new identity for oneself, or must it always be grounded at least somewhat in reality? Perutz explores this situation in Der schwedische Reiter he tells the story of a man, who at rst has
16 Perutz, Neun, 210. 17 Perutz, Neun, 206. 18
no history or even a name, but gradually acquires several layers of histories and identities, each of which are at odds with the others, until this tangle of contradictions overwhelms him. At the beginning of the novel, he appears in a snowed-over eld, an outlaw who has run away from the noose. He betrays his companion, Christian von Tornefeld, and shoves him into the Bishop's Hell instead of himself. He then becomes the leader of a gang of thieves, so that he can earn enough money to be able to impersonate Christian, marry his anceé and take over his manor. Seven years he rules as the Swedish Cavalier until his old connections surface and he must ee into the Bishop's Hell. Throughout the novel he changes identities and histories, but the alterations he tries to make are too deep and too far removed from the truth, and therefore they surface until they are his downfall. At rst the Thief has no identity save that of an outlaw and market thief he therefore fears only the Male zbaron, the local chief of police; after he becomes the leader of the thief gang he begins to fear not only the Male zbaron, but also Christian von Tornefeld, whom he betrayed in order to escape the forced labor in the Bishop's Hell. After he assumes his position as the Swedish Cavalier, he must hide his old identity as thief and gang leader so that he will not be expelled; he therefore fears all the members of his old thief gang, von Tornefeld, and the Male zbaron because they could all recognize his old histories and identities in him and betray him. It is this fear and the need to hide all these past histories that press him to quiet the Red Lies, a member of his old thief gang. In the process he acquires the thieves' brand on his forehead, which then forces him to ee to the Bishop's Hell. Even there he has no peace, however: there always remains his daughter, whom he needs to see and take care of, and it is while attempting to see her that he loses his life. Der schwedische Reiter therefore shows that while it is possible to create a new identity for oneself out of a new history, the old identity and history do not disappear. They may be hidden away, but they always exist and must be acknowledged. The farther the current identity from these old identities, the more di cult it becomes to suppress the old histories and to sustain the new identity. After the creation of a new history and accompanying identity, it becomes crucial to inform and convince others of it. The novel Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages is an example thereof. It is the story told by the Rittmeister Gottfried Adalbert Freiherr von Yosch und Klettenfeld of how he searched for the cause of his friend, master actor Eugen Bischo's suicide, which he is accused of precipitating. The Baron had once had an aair with Bischo's 19
wife, Dina, before her marriage, and still loves her, so he is accused by Dina's brother of causing Bischo's suicide on account of jealousy. After a lengthy investigation, the Baron nds mention of a drug that excites the imagination in a manuscript about a Florentine artist named Giovansimone Chigi. The Baron asserts that Eugen Bischo took this drug and that it was this that drove him to suicide. In the afterword, however, by the (from Perutz imagined) editor, we nd out the truth: the Baron did indeed cause Bischo's suicide out of jealousy. He was accused by Dina's brother and found guilty, but instead of honorably ending his life, he lost his military rank. Like Stanislaus Demba, the Baron imagines a new history for himself, a history where he is innocent, and out of this builds himself a new identity as an innocent detective who solves a mysterious series of suicides. So that this version of the truth, and this version of his identity is retained for posterity, he writes his version of history down. The editor, however, shows us an alternate version of the same events, so that we can see where the Baron has lied. The editor describes the process of newly creating a identity as a reaction against the true history:
Au ehnung gegen das Geschehene, und nicht mehr zu Ändernde! Aber ist dies nicht von einem Standpunkt aus gesehen seit jeher der Ursprung aller Kunst gewesen? Kam nicht aus erlittener Schmach, Demütigung, zertretenem Stolz, kam nicht de profundis jede ewige Tat . . . Eine ferne Ahnung der groÿen Vision, die den Meister für eine kurze Weile über die Wirrnis seiner Schuld und Qual emporgetrogen hat.18 [Revolt against that, which has occurred and cannot be altered! But is this not from one perspective the source of all art? Comes not out of scandal and humiliation, out of broken pride, comes not de profundis every eternal deed. . . A faint glimpse of the grand vision, with which the master, for a short moment, overcame the confusion of his guilt and agony.]
Art is here the personi cation of identity: literary art, as in the case of the Baron, or visual art, as in the case of Leonardo da Vinci in Der Judas des Leonardo. To leave on earth a legacy that asserts his identity as an artist and person, that is the task that master
18 Perutz, Meister, 197. 20
Leonardo sets himself and all other artists, since all that is known about an artist after his death, his whole identity, comes from his work. As Leonardo says:
Und an diesem Werk wird man erkennen, daÿ Himmel und Erde, ja, daÿ Gott selbst, indem er mir diesen Menschen in den Weg schickte, sichtbar Hand angelegt und mir Beistand geleistet haben. Und jetzt will ich denen, die nach mir kommen, zeigen, daÿ auch ich auf diese Erde gelebt hatte.19 [And in this work will it be seen that heaven and earth, yes, even God himself, in that he sent this man my way, gave me assistance. And now I will show them who are coming after me, that I too have lived upon this earth.]
Unlike the Baron in Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, Leonardo attempts to leave a legacy without the in uence of others, a legacy that overcomes the subjectivity of history as much as possible, so that only the truth about Leonardo as an artist is shown. He serves no one else, not even himself, only his work:
Ich diene, sagte Leonardo, keinem Herzog und keinem Fürsten, und ich gehöre keiner Stadt, keinem Lande, keinem Reich. Ich diene allein meiner Lei- denschaft des Schauens, des Erkennens, der Ordens und des Gestaltens, und ich gehöre meinem Werk.20 [I serve, said Leonardo, no duke and no lord, I belong to no city, no land, and no empire. I serve only the passion of seeing, of recognition, of order and shape, and I belong to my work.]
In Leonardo can Perutz himself also be seen; in life Perutz spoke very little about his work because he wanted it to stand on its own and be the basis upon which he would be judged. Like Leonardo, he only leaves behind his novels and other works to allow us to understand and rebuild the man and his ideas from them, but because his history are the works he has written, like the Baron, he can manipulate this legacy at will. The clearest indication of Perutz' ideas, and thus of the man himself, is contained in the novel Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke. In contrast to the other novels, here there is no
19 Perutz, Judas, 196-7. 20 Perutz, Judas, 197. 21
central gure who uses a new history to create a new identity; it is the author himself who plays this role. He does not create a new identity, but instead rescues and discovers an old identity out of the remnants of a history. The novel was originally called Meisls Gut [Meisl's Legacy] and one of the most important themes is the destruction of the Prague ghetto at the close of the 19th century, and, guratively, the destruction of the Jewish culture that had developed there as a whole. In the epilogue, Perutz describes how he watched the destruction alongside Jakob Meisl:
Das dort, sagte er [Jakob Meisl], war das Siechenhaus und das drüben das Armenhaus. Was du dort siehst, ist Meisls Gut. Er wies auf zwei Gebäude, von denen nur noch die bloÿen Mauern standen, und die Spitzhacken taten weiter an ihnen ihr Werk. Und wir sahen, wie Meisls Gut in Schutt und Trümmer el und wie es sich noch einmal vom Boden erhob und in die Höhe stieg, eine dichte Wolke von rötlich-grauem Staub. Noch immer war es Meisls Gut, und es stand, und wir sahen es, bis es ein Windstoÿ forttrieb und verschwinden lieÿ.21 [That there, said he [Jakob Meisl], was the lazarhouse and that the poor- house. What you see there, that is Meisl's legacy. He pointed to two buildings, where only bare walls remained, and the sharp hooks continued their work. And we saw Meisl's legacy fall in wreckage and debris, and saw it rise once again as reddish-grey dust. Still it was Meisl's legacy, and still it stood, until a gust of wind blew it apart and it disappeared.]
Meisl's legacy symbolizes the Jews and their culture after the Second World War almost all was destroyed or driven out. Perutz felt this disappearance of Jewish culture acutely despite living in exile, and sought a means by which he could build a new identity for Jews in the future. Like the gures in his own novels, he creates a new identity out of history, in this case out of the legends and stories of old Prague that he heard as a child. Just as Jakob Meisl had told them to him to preserve these stories after the destruction of the old ghetto, now Perutz tells them to a new generation to rescue Jewish identity after the war and to rebuild it.
Through the gures in his novels, Perutz thus explores the relationship between hi- story and identity. By taking advantage of the subjectivity of historical accounts, Perutz'
21 Perutz, Nachts 262. 22
characters devise new histories for themselves, and then use these new histories to create new identities for the future. This process of identity formation is neither wholly positive nor negative while the Baron uses it to cover up his own guilt, Stanislaus Demba uses it to discover himself in the last moment before death. Perutz uses the same principle to save an entire body of culture, that of the Jews in Prague. Other gures in Perutz' novels, however, provide a cautionary tale to those who are seeking to completely rewrite their past: it is not possible to completely divorce oneself from one's history as with the Baron and Thief, there are always others who know the alternate versions of history and their disclosure of hidden histories can lead to catastrophic results. Identity formation through revision of history is thus something very powerful, but dangerous when misused.
V. CONCLUSION
Perutz wrote popular, exciting novels, read by many, but nevertheless he was an author with a program. He wrote during the interwar period in Austria, when much in Austrian society was changing, and Austrians needed to create themselves a new identity. He was also active at a time when the science of psychology was just coming into its own, so there was an even greater interest in the study of how people think and act. Perutz himself felt this need to understand how identity is and can be fashioned, and therefore thought much about these themes. As his legacy to society upon his death, his novels encapsulate his attempts to nd a solution. Given the nostalgic atmosphere in Vienna at the time, it was only natural that he turned rst to history; his novels portray its subjectivity and Perutz' rejection of the idea of a single monolithic o cial history. Through narrative techniques he shows how exible and uid history can be and how the environment in which it is written and understood can change it, so that there cannot ever be an objective history. In his novels, he then shows how this changeable history can be used to create new identities, to alter how others see one in the present and the future, for both positive and negative reasons. Because Perutz saw one's artistic work as one's history as well, one's legacy and mark on the world, his novels also re ect his own personal struggles for an identity as a Jew, as an Austrian, and as a writer. It is this tight relationship between the author and his work, this self-re ection in his novels, that puts Perutz into the circle of the Viennese modern writers. 23
VI. LITERATURE
Jelavich, Barbara: Modern Austria. Empire and Republic, 1815-1986. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1987.
Mandelarzt, Michael: Die Herrschaft der Ökonomie. Leo Perutz: Der schwedische Rei- ter. Studies in Humanities (Magazine of the philosophy department of the University Shins- hu, Matsumoto/Japan), No. 27, 1993, S. 213-220. : Poetik und Historik: Christliche und jüdische Geschichtstheologie in den histori- schen Romanen von Leo Perutz. Conditio Judaica; Band 2. Tübingen (Niemeyer) 1992.
Müller, Hans-Harald: Leo Perutz. Beck'sche Reihe Autorenbücher; Band 625. Munich (Beck) 1992.
Neuhaus, Dietrich: Erinnerung und Schrecken: Die Einheit von Geschichte, Phantastik, und Mathematik im Werk Leo Perutz'. Europäische Hochschulschriften: Reihe I, Deutsche Sprache und Literatur; Band 765. Frankfurt am Main (Peter Lang) 1984.
Perutz, Leo: Der Judas des Leonardo. Munich (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 2005. (1. Edition Vienna (Paul Zsolnay) 1959.) : Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages. Munich (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 2003. (1. Edition Munich (A. Langen) 1923.) : Nachts unter der steinernen Brücke. Munich (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 2002. (1. Edition Frankfurt (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt) 1953.) : Der schwedische Reiter. Munich (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 2004. (1. Edition Vienna (Paul Szolnay) 1936.) : Zwischen neun und neun. Munich (Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 2004. (1. Edition Munich (A. Langen) 1918.)