LDV100

24 MAHLER ∙ SCHOENBERG / JUGENDSTIL The last rays of sunlight set the little river Schwarza ablaze. The woman is motionless on the bank and her gaze is lost in the limpid waters. She seems to be suspended in time. And yet time will pass, just as waves flow, and she will be healed. She clings to that thought. As she left Vienna in this sweltering late summer season, she hoped that her last illusions would be dispelled in the noxious air of the overheated city. So very recently she had been happily engaged, imagining a future where, every day, there would be a hand to hold hers. But it was not to be. Abandoned, repudiated, she is no longer anyone and she wishes she no longer existed. The Viennese façades all seemed to sneer at her and look down condescendingly when she left. She hates Vienna as much as she loves him. ‘How unbearable existence is to me! Each second is a dagger that my memory drives into my breast! I so dreamt of that gentle face, of that voice that always struck the right note, of those glances that made me beautiful . . . Why should I bother to live from now on, if it is without him? It was pity that impelled my brother to take me on holiday, and I resent him for seeing so deeply into me and perceiving my weakness. Does he think that, far from Vienna, I will cease to think of those evenings when love shone brighter than the stars? Does he think that this man he has brought with us will be able to distract me from my sorrow, to make me forget my pain?’ ... Schoenberg Payerbach, September 1899