The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 07

There was in him, as he himself once said, a certain "aftertaste of a worthy philistinism." The dominant bent of his mind was toward the immediate actualities, and this bent in the end, as in his antagonism against the radical students in Halle, always overcame his endeavor to grasp the more remote realities of a larger vision.

The purposes of his literary works, like the beginning and purpose of his intimacy with Elisa, are always large, comprehensive, and idealistic, but they always, even in his most important work, Merlin, dwindle to petty details of actuality. His significance for the present age does not so much rest on his objective achievement, as on some of his qualities which prevented achievement. He was perhaps the most considerable representative of the literary "Epigones" intervening between the esthetic individualistic humanism of the eighteenth, and the economic-coöperative humanism of the nineteenth century. He, more fully perhaps than any of his contemporaries, represented the peculiar border-type of literary personality which is both compounded and torn asunder by all the principal conflicting forces of a period of historic transition. He was a victim of the manifold division of impulses, the ill-related patchwork of impressions, and the disconcerting refractions of vision, which characterized his contemporaries. It is in the fact that he united in himself the principal factors which made up the complexion of his age, to an extraordinary degree, that he has his strongest claim upon the sympathetic and studious interest of the modern age.

MERLIN: A MYTH

The principal dramatic agencies in Merlin are Satan, Klingsor, Titurel, King Artus and his Round Table, Niniana, and Merlin. In them, Immermann tried to embody the dominant moral and intellectual tendencies, as he saw them in history and his own times. Satan, the demiurgos, is to him no theological devil, but a princely character, the "Lord of Necessity," the non-moral, irresistible, cosmic force of physical creation. He demands, expressing the faith of Young-Germany:

  "O! naked bodies, insolent art,  O! wrath of heroes, and heroic voice!"

The pride of life in him and in Lucifer, who personifies the creative fire, is aroused against the narrow asceticism of orthodox Christianity, embodied in the wan and feeble Titurel. Satan decides to imitate the Lord of Christianity, by begetting upon a virgin, Candida, a son who is to save the world from the sterility of asceticism. Candida is briefly introduced, acknowledging the power of the mighty spirit and bewailing her fate in one of the finest passages in the play. Merlin is born, combining the supernatural creative powers of his father with the tenderness and sympathy of his mother. His purpose is to reconcile the true principles of primitive Christianity with the natural impulses of life. Merlin thus is opposed to his father as well as to Titurel and his dull and narrow "guild" who keep the true spirit of humanity captive. He is both anti-Satan and anti-Christ.

He next comes into conflict with the third fundamental force, Klingsor. The latter is really only a variant of Satan and, while interesting, is somewhat less fundamental, being more a philosophic and literary, than an active, antagonist. His symbol is the circled serpent, the embodiment of permanence within the changing world of actuality. He represents the nature-philosophy of Romanticism and especially of Schelling, a philosophy so vast and unsubstantial that all values of conduct and all incentives to action disappeared in its featureless abyss. Immermann intensely disliked it. He was, as he said, a lover of men; the worship of nature drained and exhausted the sympathies, the wills and the spirits of men. The passages in which Klingsor himself, in his moments of despair, and Merlin expose the emptiness of this philosophy, are among the best philosophic statements of the play. They are, how ever, too exhaustive. But they are good philosophy, if they are bad drama and poetry. Klingsor says of the "nature book"

"It asserts: all is vain; nought but stale mediocrity—while we are shaken from, shell to core by the breath of the times." He is worshipped by the dwarfs because he has opened the mysteries of inanimate nature, and he commands the spirits of classical life represented by Antinous, and the pagan' gods and demi-gods, the personifications of the naïve impulses of nature. But he realizes that his wisdom, while it makes dwarfs happy, is inadequate for human beings.

The teaching of Merlin is essentially the humanism of the moderate liberalism of Baron von Stein and his followers. Klingsor, voicing the sentiments of Romantic aristocratism, accuses him:

"You tell the mob: Be your own Savior; seek inspiration in your own work. The people like to be told of their majesty. Keep on bravely lying, sweetly flattering, and the prophet is complete."

Merlin retorts:

"You describe yourself, not me. Men have a deep sense of truth, and pay in false coin only him that offers them false gifts." He then continues, lashing the transcendent egotism of the Romantic conception of man in the universe: "To you the earth, the ocean, the firmament, are nothing but a ladder for your own elevation, and you must absolutely reject the thing called humility. In order to maintain yourself strong and whole you have to find men weak and only partial beings," etc. Later, in lines 1637ff., he proceeds, in what are probably the finest and richest passages in the work, to state his own purpose of combining all that is great, true, beautiful, human, and noble, into one comprehensive and rational faith of humanity.

Merlin tries to teach his faith to King Artus and his circle, who embody the frivolous, irresponsible, though refined, conduct of the nobility, essentially the same nobility whom von Stein accused of injuring the nation and Immermann satirized and exposed in Münchhausen. They decide to seek salvation in the primitive idealism of India, appointing Merlin their guide. Merlin, however, succumbs to the silly Niniana, the personification of wanton desire. She makes him tell her a fated word, after promising not to repeat it. She thoughtlessly repeats it. He now loses his superhuman power, i. e., the power of absolute spiritual integrity, and becomes subject to the limitations of earth, like a common man. He can no longer lead Artus and his court, who perish of their own spiritual vacuity.

The end of the play is unsatisfactory. The hero's surrender to the lust of the flesh, undoubtedly suggested by Goethe's Faust and consistent in Goethe's poem, is foreign to the conflict of this play, which, not being human, as is that of Faust, but an abstract antagonism of general historic principles, should have been solved without the interference of the mere creature weaknesses of the hero and the mere creature sympathies of the reader. Immermann planned to untie the knot in a second part, which was to treat of the salvation of Merlin; but he never carried his purpose beyond a few slight introductory passages.

IMMERMANN'S "MÜNCHHAUSEN"

BY ALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD, PH.D. Instructor in German, Columbia University

Immermann first thought of writing a new Münchhausen in 1821, the year of his satirical comedy, The Princes of Syracuse, which contains the embryonic idea of this "history in arabesques." Conscientious performance of his duties as a judge and incessant activity as a writer along other lines forced the idea into the background until 1830, the year of his satirical epic, Tulifäntchen, in which the theme again received attention. In 1835 he finished Die Epigonen, a novel portraying the social and political conditions in Germany from 1815 to 1830, and in 1837 he began systematic work on Münchhausen, continuing, from a different point of view and in a different mood, his delineation of the civic and intellectual status of Germany of his own time. The last part of the entire work was published in 1839, having occupied, intermittently, eighteen of his twenty years of literary productivity. The first edition was exhausted one year after publication, a second appeared in 1841, a third in 1854, and since 1857 there have been many of all kinds, ranging from the popular "Reclam" to critical editions with all the helps and devices known to modern scholarship.

In so far as the just appreciation of a literary production is dependent upon a study of its genesis, the reading of Die Epigonen is necessary to a complete understanding of Münchhausen, for through these two works runs a strong thread of unbroken development. Hermann, the immature hero of the former, and his associates, bequeath a number of characteristics to the title-hero and his associates of the latter; but where the earlier work is predominantly sarcastic, political, and pessimistic, the later one is humorous, intellectual, and optimistic. It would seem, therefore, that, in view of its bright outlook, mature view, and sympathetic treatment, Immermann's greatest epic in prose was destined to be read in its entirety, frequently, and with pleasure.

This is, however, not the case. Starting from a long line of models, Sterne's Tristram Shandy among others, Münchhausen resembles the diffusive works of similar title by Raspe (1785) and Bürger (1787). It takes its name from Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Baron of Münchhausen (1720-1797), and satirizes many of the whimsicalities of Herman Ludwig Heinrich, Prince of Pückler-Muskau (1785-1871). And it flagellates again and again such bizarre literary and intellectual phenomena of the time as Raupach's Hohenstaufen dramas, Görres' mysticism, Menzel's calumniations, Eduard Gans' liberalism, Bettina's pretensions, Young Germany's reaction, even the Indian studies of the Schlegels and Alexander von Humboldt's substantial scholarship, so that, for the general reader, the larger part of the work is a sealed book. Its references are obscure, its satire abstruse, its humor vague. Even Ferdinand Freiligrath, Immermann's contemporary and friend, declined, on the ground of lack of familiarity with the allusions, to write a commentary to it.

According to Immermann's own statement, he began Münchhausen without a shimmer of an idea as to how he would finish it; but he finished it, having in the meantime gone through a complete inner transformation, in a way that surprised even himself and greatly pleased his readers. We have here, consequently, a novel which, though written as a whole, falls naturally into two parts, the one negative and satirical, the other positive and human. And odd indeed is the situation in the negative part.

As in Die Epigonen, the scene is laid in Westphalia. The impoverished Baron Schnuck-Puckelig-Erbsenscheucher, a faithful representative of the narrow-minded and prejudiced nobility, lives with his prudish, sentimental daughter, Emerentia, in the dilapidated castle, Schnick Schnack-Schnurr. Their sole companion is the daft school-teacher, Agesel, who, having lost, from too much study of phonetics, the major part of his never gigantic mind, imagines that he is a direct descendant of the Spartan King Agesilaus. With these occupants and no more, the castle resembles a harmless home for the insane. But one day Münchhausen, the prince of liars and chief of swindlers, accompanied by his servant, Karl Buttervogel, the Sancho Panza of the story, comes to the castle. His presence enlivens; his interminable stories, through which Immermann satirizes the tendencies of the time, delight at first, then tire, then become intolerable. To maintain his influence, he suggests to the old Baron the establishment of a stock company for the selling of compressed air, assuring this gullible old soul that hereby his fortunes can be retrieved and his appointment as Privy Councilor can be realized. The Baron, though pleased, enters into the proposition with caution. But Münchhausen, unable to execute his scheme, finds himself in an embarrassing dilemma from which he disentangles himself by mysteriously disappearing and never again coming to light. Emerentia has in the meantime fallen in love with Karl Buttervogel, whom she erroneously looks upon as a Prince in disguise. At the prospect of so humble a son-in-law, the Baron becomes frantic, violently removes Buttervogel from the castle, which, as a result of the Baron's ravings, falls to the ground with a crash and a roar—a catastrophe which reminds one of Poe's Fall of the House of Usher—and the Baron and Agesel are restored to their senses.

The chief trouble with this fantastic story is that it lacks artistic measure and objective plausibility. Immermann, omnivorous reader that he was, wrote this part of his book, not from life, but from other books. And even granting that he carried out his plan with a reasonable degree of cleverness, the average reader is not sufficiently acquainted with Kerner and Platen and their long line of queer contemporaries to see the point, so he skips over this part of the work and turns at once to Der Oberhof.

It is needless to state that Immermann never wrote a work with such a title. Editors and publishers have simply followed the lead of readers and brought out separately the best parts of the complete novel under the heading of the third chapter of the second book. There is not even final agreement as to how much of the original work should be included in order to make a well-rounded story. The editions, of which there are many, vary in size from seventy-five to three hundred and seventy-five octavo pages. The best arrangement is that which includes the second, fifth, seventh and eighth books.

Here again we meet with three leading characters—the very honest and reliable Hofschulze, the owner of the "Upper Farm," in whom are personified and glorified the best traditions of Westphalia; Lisbeth, the daughter of Münchhausen and Emerentia, the connecting link between romantic and realistic Germany; and Oswald, the Suabian Count disguised as a hunter, a thoroughly good fellow. But this by no means exhausts the list of pleasing personalities. The good Deacon, who had lost interest in life and faith in men while tutoring a young Swedish Count, and who was made over by his new work among the solid middle class of Westphalia, is a character of real charm; his ideals are humanitarian in the best sense, his wisdom is sound, his help generous. Jochem, Oswald's servant, is the incarnation of fidelity; the old Captain, who finds himself today in a French and tomorrow in a Prussian mood, is instructive at least, for such dualistic patriotism was not unknown at the time; the Collector follows his vocation with inspiring avidity, the Sexton is droll without knowing it, and each of the Hofschulze's servants has something about him that separates him from his confederates even though he be nameless. There are no supernumeraries among the characters.

By reason of her common sense and energy, Lisbeth had for some time kept the old Baron's head above water. One of her duties was to collect taxes, a business which frequently brought her to the "Upper Farm," where she was always sure of a kind reception. Oswald, too, came to the Farm one day to settle an affair of honor with Münchhausen. Instead of finding him, however, he meets Lisbeth, and here the love story begins.

While waiting at the Farm for Jochem to find Münchhausen, Oswald agrees to recompense the Hofschulze for his hospitality by keeping the wild deer away from the grain fields. His duties are nominal; he exchanges views with the men of the Farm, corresponds with his friends in Suabia, wanders over the fields and occasionally shoots at some game without ever hitting. His room must have been occupied before his arrival by a beautiful girl, for in it he finds a tidy hood and kerchief that betray the charms of their wearer, and he dreams of her at night. And one day, while wandering through the woods, he catches sight of a lovely girl looking into the calyx of a wonderful forest flower. He is on the point of going up to her when her very charm holds him back, and that night he dreams again of his beautiful predecessor in the Hofschulze's corner room.

And then, while wandering again through the pathless woods, he shoots at a roe but hits Lisbeth, the girl of his dreams. The wound is, however, slight, and by the time it has healed their love has become perfect, so that, immediately after the wedding of the Hofschulze's daughter, for whom Lisbeth had been a bridesmaid, and before the same altar at which the ceremony had just been performed, the good Deacon pronounces the blessing upon the newly betrothed pair.

With the Deacon's official act over, imaginary troubles cease and real ones begin. Oswald, grieved beyond expression to learn that Lisbeth is the daughter of Münchhausen and Emerentia, is on the point of leaving the Farm immediately and Lisbeth forever; Lisbeth, having thought all the time that her lover was a plain hunter, is in complete despair when told that he is a real Count; the Hofschulze does not take kindly to the idea of their marriage, for Oswald has not always revered Westphalian traditions, the secret tribunal, for example, as he should have done; Oswald's friends in Suabia object to his marrying a foundling, and advise him to come home and straighten out a love affair he has there before entering into a new and foreign one; the doctor is not even certain that the wedding is hygienically wise. But love dispels all fears and doubts, and the good Deacon makes Oswald and Lisbeth man and wife.

Immermann's lifelong attempts at the studied poetizations of traditional, aristocratic, high-flown themes brought him but scant recognition even in his day, and they have since been well-nigh forgotten. But when, one year before his death, he wrote an unpretentious love story taken from the life of simple people whom he met on his daily walks, he thereby assured himself of immortality. Few works prove more convincingly than Der Oberhof that great literature is neither more nor less than an artistic visualization and faithful reflection of life. The reading of this unassuming "village story," the first of its kind in German literature, warms the heart and stirs the springs of living fancy, simply because it relates in terse and direct language a series of incidents in the lives of very possible and very real human beings.

* * * * *

THE OBERHOF (1839) TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS

CHAPTER I

THE JUSTICE OF THE ESTATE

With the sleeves of his shirt rolled up the old Justice of the estate was standing in the yard between the barns and the farm buildings and gazing attentively into a fire which he had kindled on the ground between stones and logs, and which was now crackling merrily. He straightened around a small anvil which was standing beside it, laid down a hammer and a pair of tongs so as to have them ready to grasp, tested the points of some large wheel-nails which he drew forth from the breast-pocket of a leather apron he had tied around him, put the nails down in the bottom of the rack-wagon, the wheel of which he was about to repair, carefully turned the rim around until the place where the tire was broken was on top, and then made the wheel fast by putting stones under it.

After he had again looked into the fire for a few moments, but not long enough to cause his bright, sharp eyes to blink, he quickly thrust the tongs into it, lifted out the red-hot piece of iron, laid it on the anvil, pounded it with the hammer so that the sparks flew in all directions, clapped the still glowing piece of iron down on the broken place in the tire, hammered and welded it fast with two heavy blows, and then drove the nails into their places, which was easily done, as the iron was still soft and pliable.

A few very sharp and powerful blows gave the inserted piece its finishing touch. The Justice kicked away the stones with which he had made the wheel fast, seized the wagon by its tongue in order to test the mended tire, and in spite of its weight hauled it without exertion diagonally across the yard, so that the hens, geese and ducks, which had been quietly sunning themselves, flew, with loud cries, before the rattling vehicle, and a couple of pigs jumped up, grunting, from their mud-holes.

Two men, the one a horse-dealer, the other a tax-collector or receiver, who were sitting at a table beneath the large linden in front of the house and imbibing their drink, had been watching the work of the robust old man.

"It must be true!" one of them, the horse-dealer, called out. "You would have made an excellent blacksmith, Judge!"

The Justice washed his hands and face in a pail of water which was standing beside the anvil, poured the water into the fire to extinguish it, and said:

"He is a fool who gives to the blacksmith what he can earn himself!"

He picked up the anvil as if it were a feather, and carried it, along with the hammer and tongs, under a little shed which stood between the house and the barn, and in which there were standing, or hanging, a work-bench, saws, chisels, and whatever other tools pertain to the carpenter's or joiner's trade, as well as a quantity of wood and boards of many kinds.

While the old man was still busying himself under the shed, the horse-dealer said to the receiver:

"Would you believe it that he also repairs with his own hands all the posts, doors, thresholds, boxes, and cases in the house, or if luck favors him makes new ones himself? I believe that he could be an expert joiner, if he wanted to, and put together a first-class cabinet."

"You are wrong there," said the Justice, who had overheard the latter remark and who, having taken off his leather apron, now emerged from the shed in a smock-frock of white linen and sat down at the table with the two men.

A maid brought a glass to him also, and, after drinking the health of his guests, he continued: "To make a post or a door or a threshold, all you need is a pair of sound eyes and a steady hand, but a cabinet-maker has to have more than that. I once allowed my conceit to deceive me into thinking that I could put together, as you call it, a first-class cabinet, because I had handled plane and chisel and T-square more or less doing carpenter's work. I measured and marked and squared off the wood and had everything fitted down to the inch. Yes, but now when it came to the joining and gluing together, everything was all wrong; the sides were warped and wouldn't come together, the lid in front was too large, and the drawers too small for the openings. You can still see the contraption; I let it stand on the sill to guard me from future temptation. For it always does a man good to have a reminder of his weakness constantly before his eyes."

At this moment a loud neigh was heard from the stable across the yard. The horse-dealer cleared his throat, spat, struck a light for his pipe, blew a dense cloud of smoke into the receiver's face, and looked first longingly toward the stable, and then thoughtfully down at the ground. Then he spat once more, removed the varnished hat from his head, wiped his brow with his sleeve, and said: "Still this sultry weather!" Thereupon he unbuckled his leather money-pouch from his body, threw it down on the table with a bang, so that its contents rattled and jingled, untied the strings, and counted out twenty bright gold pieces, the sight of which caused the receiver's eyes to sparkle, while the old Justice did not even look at them.

"Here is the money!" cried the horse-dealer, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a thump. "Do I get the brown mare for it? God knows, she's not worth a penny more!"

"Then keep your money, so that you won't suffer any loss!" replied the Justice cold-bloodedly. "Twenty-six is my price, as I have already said, and not a farthing less! You've known me a good many years, Mr. Marx, and you ought to realize by this time that dickering and beating down don't work with me, because I never take back what I say. I ask for a thing what it is worth to me, and never overcharge. So an angel with a trumpet might come down from heaven, but he wouldn't get the bay mare for less than twenty-six!"

"But," exclaimed the horse-dealer, provoked, "business consists of demanding and offering, doesn't it? I'd overcharge my own brother! When there is no more overcharging in the world, business will come to an end."

"On the contrary," replied the Justice, "business will then take much less time, and for that very reason will be more profitable. And besides that, both parties always derive much benefit from a transaction involving no overcharge. It has always been my experience that, when an overcharge is made, one's nature gets hot, and it results in nobody's knowing exactly what he is doing or saying. The seller, in order to put an end to the argument, often lets his wares go for a lower price than that which he had quietly made up his mind to charge, and the buyer, on the other hand, just as often, in the eagerness and ardor of bidding, wastes his money. Where there is absolutely no talk of abatement, then both parties remain beautifully calm and safe from loss."