The Lighted Windows, Or, the Humanization of the Bureaucrat Julius Zihal. (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought. Translation Series)

Widowed and newly retired, the turn-of-the-century Austrian civil servant Julius Zihal has left the safe haven of the Tax Office and its orderly, codified administrative practices and now faces a drab and uncertain future alone. This gloomy scene suddenly becomes brighter when he discovers that the lighted windows of the adjacent apartment buildings offer a nightly display of variously-endowed ladies undressing as they prepare for bed. The expected Jekyll and Hyde contrast between Julius' Biedermeier daytime conduct and his nocturnal activities never quite materializes as the bureaucrat within him dominates the voyeur and he attempts to open a file on Eros, as it were, by carefully noting down and categorzing all the pertinent details of his observations, rather than simply surrendering to their pleasures.