The idea of ‘decadence’ has traditionally been associated with the culture (especially the avant-garde culture) of fin-de-siècle Vienna, with La Ronde sometimes held out as the prime example. But ‘decadence’ is not so much a feature of this avant-garde as a critique of it. Commentators for whom Schnitzler’s generation of artists represented a threat (to taste, decency or social order) frequently labelled them as decadent – as embodying a ‘falling-off ’. Those hostile to the idea that human beings could be at the mercy of their unconscious desires, or that sexuality had its roots in early childhood, similarly dismissed Freud’s theories as ‘decadent’. Indeed, the words ‘decadent’ and ‘Jewish’ were often paired, invariably with hostile intent. The brush once used to tar everything of which those who wielded it disapproved is not likely to be a useful instrument now, even in sympathetic hands.

More recently, the idea of Viennese ‘decadence’ has been replaced by a preoccupation with ‘pessimism’ – the notion that this was a civilisation which foresaw, even somehow willed, its undoing. This is a generalisation of doubtful value, born of hindsight. On the other hand, much (though by no means all) of the art of the period undoubtedly does manifest a sense of anxiety, foreboding, or unrest. There is something of this in La Ronde, too: Schnitzler wrote the play as he emerged from a period of personal crisis and desolation, and the work reflects his own feelings, around this time, of the hopelessness of love and of the impossibility of truthful relations between men and women. But to call the play gloomy or nihilistic would be wide of the mark. Its tone is predominantly light, satirical and even playful. It is comedic not just in form, but most of the time also in its content – even if the laughs are generally at the expense of the characters (especially the male characters). Schnitzler is too entertained by the sheer humanity of these people, with their endless capacity to deceive themselves and each other, for the play to be bleak. The tone is richly ironic, and the dialogue crackles with the thrust-and-parry of men and women trying deftly to outmanoeuvre each other in expressive everyday language. Though La Ronde tells some unpalatable truths, there is not a trace of misanthropy (still less of misogyny) about it.