Word: karle
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...sweeps the speed of the growing city . . . George Gewurtz, a lusty young contractor. Frau Zwenge smells the soundness of his bricks and mortar?his automobile, real estate, immediacy. Karl Bleicher is behind the rushing times and Greta is pushed, swept off into George's arms...
...first hours of their three-day honeymoon in Albany she learns her mistake. Brutality. Karl would have wept at her body. The thought fastens upon her until she is able to believe it is Karl with whom she lies, by whom she conceives. Meantime Karl thinks he has learned his mistake. Drinking heavily, he prostitutes his Crucifixion theme, twisting its sonorous measures into hip-hitching, gold-getting jazz tunes, publishes anonymously...
Some years are brushed in. George is a rich builder, with mistresses and a stolid sense of shame. Greta, apart, spiritualizes her grief the more deeply now that Karl is a ragtime king. But her daughter Karoline is Karl's spiritually, almost physically. He gives her music lessons...
...baker dies, true to a fanaticism for cremation. His deathbed plea cleanses Karl and he pushes the Crucifixion to an immense conclusion, only to have it denounced as a plagiarism on the day's jazz. Then more irony, the War?and Karl home after it with the sorrows of Germany in his pale face, needing convalescence like the world...
...poster is shaded and filled, not teased, into a powerful fresco on the walls of Manhattan and of life. Karl sees Greta again in her daughter. The girl has found her lover, just such a penniless composer as Karl once was. But the older man is prestige, comfort, immediacy and she accepts him. Frau Zwenge applauds, on that practical side as before. The old grandfather is glad, having loved Karl. George Gewurtz is for it, seeking to force an issue he has long suspected: the truth about Karoline's paternity...