The family of Herman Merz celebrates both Catholic Christmas and Jewish Easter. A baptized Jew, married to a Catholic, an Austrian citizen and a successful businessman, he is the soul of a noisy, friendly and happy family. We meet him on Christmas Eve 1899, when everyone is full of energy and plans, and Vienna is the center of the vibrant intellectual and social life of Europe. Together with life-loving, sincerely loving, thoughtful and sometimes incredibly naive heroes, we have to go through the milestones of recent history - the First and Second World Wars, the Anschluss, the Holocaust and the bitter sobering of the first post-war years. Until recently, the family saga, masterfully inscribed in dramatic form, was read in the past tense, like a complete portrait of the short twentieth century. Today, this play by Tom Stoppard, probably one of the most significant modern playwrights, speaks to each of us about our future and the future of the world as we know it. The publishing design has been preserved in PDF A4 format.