The cultural historian Peter Gay called the 19th century — the long period of peace in Europe from 1815 to 1914 — Schnitzler's Century. In fact, Arthur Schnitzler, who was born in 1862, 4 years before Austria was humiliatingly defeated by the Prussian military machine at the battle of Sadowa, and died in 1931, 7 years before the beguiling myth of Viennese brilliance finally lost its veneer with Hitler's Anschluss, lived his entire life in the long twilight of the Habsburg dynasty. He is one of those representative 19th-century figures who experienced the disorder and difficulty of the modern era but could still recall, sometimes long-windedly or with pompous ease, how things were in the old days — when people still believed in freedom and the individual.
Like his near-contemporary Chekhov, Schnitzler began his professional life as a physician and became well-known as a boulevard playwright. In his lifetime, his name was a by-word for success and scandal. His play …