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Agathe

Robert Musil
Contents (43)
  1. CONTENTS
  2. INTRODUCTION
  3. A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION
  4. EDITORIAL NOTE
  5. AGATHE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 18
  24. 19
  25. 20
  26. 21
  27. 22
  28. 23
  29. 24
  30. 25
  31. 26
  32. 27
  33. 28
  34. 29
  35. 30
  36. 31
  37. 32
  38. 33
  39. 34
  40. 35
  41. 36
  42. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  43. NOTES
Agathe

ROBERT MUSIL (1880–1942) was born in southern Austria, an only child whose older sister died before he was born. Sent to military boarding school when he was twelve, he enrolled at an officer’s academy in Vienna at seventeen, before dropping out to study engineering at a university in Brno. He received his doctorate in 1901, and then another, in philosophy, in 1909. Musil’s first novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (The Confusions of Young Törless, 1906), met with some acclaim, and he worked as an editor at a Berlin literary magazine while writing a short-story collection, Vereinigungen (Unions, 1911). That same year he married Martha Marcovaldi. During World War I, he fought on the Italian front, and in 1917 he and his father were ennobled and given titles that they would hold until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the following year. After the war, Robert and Martha moved to Berlin, where his play Die Schwärmer (The Enthusiasts, 1921) was awarded the Kleist Prize. Several novellas and many essays followed, and in 1930 and 1933, he published the first two volumes of his unfinished magnum opus, The Man Without Qualities. His work was banned by the Nazis and, following the Anschluss, he and Martha, who was of Jewish descent, fled Berlin for Switzerland, where they would live in poverty while he worked on the next volume of Qualities until he died of a stroke.

JOEL AGEE is a writer and translator. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received several prizes, including the ALTA National Translation Award and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translation of Heinrich von Kleist’s verse play Penthesilea. He is the author of two memoirs—Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany and In the House of My Fear. His translation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound was published by NYRB Classics in 2015. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

AGATHE

or, The Forgotten Sister

ROBERT MUSIL

Translated from the German by

JOEL AGEE

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

New York

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Translation, introduction, and notes copyright © 2020 by Joel Agee

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Paul Ryan, “She sought his eyes and found them glaring like two moons afloat in this precarious atmosphere,” 2015, from the artist’s book Agathe; courtesy of the artist

Cover design: Katy Homans

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Musil, Robert, 1880–1942, author. | Agee, Joel, translator.

Title: Agathe, or the forgotten sister / by Robert Musil, translated from the German by Joel Agee.

Other titles: Mann ohne Eigenschaften. English | Forgotten sister

Description: New York : New York Review Books, [2019] | Series: New york review books classics | Translated from the German.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019025132 (print) | LCCN 2019025133 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681373836 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781681373843 (ebook)