The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German Part 20

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm, usually known as Theodor Storm, was born in the small coast town of Husum in Schleswig-Holstein on September 14, 1817. His father was an attorney whose family had for generations been tenants of the old mill in Westermuhler, and his mother's family were of the local aristocracy. Influences from his ancestry on both sides and from the country in which he was brought up played an important part in the formation of his sentiments and character.

Storm was educated at schools in Husum and Lubeck, and studied law at Kiel and Berlin. At Kiel he formed a friendship with the historian Theodor Mommsen and his brother Tycho, and the three published together in 1843 "Songs by Three Friends." In spite of his interest in literature, Storm went on with his legal career, and began practice in his native town. There in 1846 he married his cousin Konstanze Esmarch, and settled down to a happy domestic life.

When Storm was born, Schleswig and Holstein were independent duchies, ruled by the king of Denmark; but when they were forcibly incorporated into the kingdom of Denmark, Storm, who was a strong German in sentiment, felt forced to leave his home, and in 1853 became a.s.sistant judge in the circuit court in Potsdam. The bureaucratic society of the Prussian town was uncongenial, and three years later he was glad to be transferred to Heiligenstadt in Thuringia. In 1864 Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia, and though Storm was disappointed that it did not regain its independence, it was at least once more German, and he returned to Husum as "Landvogt," or district magistrate, in 1865, and lived there till 1880. The last eight years of his life he spent at a country house in the neighboring village of Hademarschen, where he died July 4, 1888. Konstanze had died in 1865, and he married as his second wife Dorothea Jensen. Both marriages brought him much happiness.

Storm began his literary career as a lyric poet, and his work in this field gives him a high place among the best in a kind in which German literature is very rich. His story writing began with "Immensee"

(1849), perhaps his best known work. His early prose shared some of the quality of his poetry in that it sought rather to convey a mood than describe action; but, as his talent matured, incident and character stood out more and more distinctly.

The progress can be traced from "Immensee" through "At the Castle" and "At the University" to the objective narrative of "In the Village on the Heath" and "At Cousin Christian's." In "Eekenhof" and "Hans and Heinz Kirsch" he is frankly realistic, and the complete evolution from his early subjectivity is seen in the dramatic depicting of human struggles in "The Sons of the Senator," "Renate," and, last and greatest of his works, "The Rider on the White Horse."

In this masterpiece, Storm exhibits a man's will in conflict, on one side, with unintelligent conservatism among his fellowmen and, on the other, with the forces of nature. The figure of the dike-master emerges from the double struggle with a fine impressiveness; and the tragedy which finally engulfs him and his family is profoundly moving. At the same time we are given a vivid picture of the landscape of the low-lying coast of the North Sea, with the ever-present menace of the flood tide; and the sternness of the action is tempered with glimpses of humor and a picture of warm affection. Here Storm's art reached a pitch which places him beside the masters of the short novel.

W. A. N.

CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION

By Adolf Stern

Within his special North German world, Storm's view extends back through the decades and centuries. It reaches also, from the humblest cla.s.ses of the people, whose solidity and peculiar virtues he understands as well as anyone, up to the circles of the most liberal and profound culture. But the cla.s.s that stands out most conspicuously is the bourgeoisie, with their moderate means and their traditional eagerness to a.s.sure to their children circ.u.mstances as good as their own or better; among them his novels are usually laid; and among them he finds his richest and most original characters. All these people are deeply rooted in the soil of the family, of the home in the narrower sense; with all of them the memories of childhood, the earliest surroundings, play a more important part than would be the case with people of the same type of mind and the same social position from another region. With all of them a conservative element is predominant, which makes itself felt in all their doings, their way of seeing things, their habits. Men and women appear to be in the peculiar bondage of a convention more formal than severe; they seem possessed by a feeling of responsibility towards a conception of life which dominates them, a conception which does not, to be sure, exclude free will, a n.o.ble pa.s.sion or warm affection, but which recognizes such and admits them to their world only under special conditions, watchfully, carefully, and with reserve. They are more dependent on the opinion of their environment than the more careless and indifferent children of other stocks. But though all the characters which Storm likes to portray are wonderfully and apparently inextricably overgrown with tradition and custom, yet they are, on the other hand, strong individualities, independent to the point of stubbornness, and fully conscious of their right to their own inner life. In these natures so honestly sober, testing and weighing so sensibly, living in such well-established order, there reigns secretly a powerful imagination, a longing and a determination to win, each for himself, a piece of life after his heart's desire. They are all ready under certain circ.u.mstances to enter into the sharpest conflict, even into the most irreconcilable struggle with all the conventions, as soon as they feel their inmost being seized by such a yearning. They have little inclination to yield to their imaginations in the things of everyday life, or to urge their desires beyond the usual. But sometimes in decisive moments they are carried away, they become conscious of the ardor and at the same time of the strength of their hearts, for once they must follow the call of their feelings which tells them they are free and have to work out their own salvation. It is among such natures that there is scope for the strong and deep pa.s.sion of love, for that faithful affection that gives no outward sign--we stand on the sh.o.r.e whence rose the song of Gudrun in the gray days of old.

Of course, not every one of these peculiar and silent characters is victorious in the strife with the hard, stubborn, conventional world, nor does their struggle for their highest good always lead to a tragic ending. Storm's eye rests too serenely and securely on the object; he is an artist filled with too deep a sympathy with life to deceive himself sentimentally about the fatal chain of human destiny, about guilt and error, about the secret relation between weakness and its results in life, about the places in the way which we cannot pa.s.s. He is a better, even a keener, realist than many who call themselves by that name, and has looked deeper into the eye of Nature than those who imagine that their microscope has laid bare to them every eyelid of the eternal mother.--From "Studien zur Litteratur der Gegenwart" (1895).

THE RIDER ON THE WHITE HORSE

What I am about to tell I learned nearly half a century ago in the house of my great-grandmother, old Madame Fedderson, widow of the senator, while I was sitting beside her armchair, busy reading a magazine bound in blue pasteboard--I don't remember whether it was a copy of the "Leipzig" or of "Pappes Hamburger Lesefruchte." I still remember with a shudder how meanwhile the light hand of the past eighty-year-old woman glided tenderly over the hair of her great-grandson. She herself and her time are buried long ago. In vain have I searched for that magazine, and therefore I am even less able to vouch for the truth of the statements in it than I am to defend them if anyone should question them; but of so much I can a.s.sure anyone, that since that time they have never been forgotten, even though no outer incident has revived them in my memory.

It was in the third decade of our century, on an October afternoon--thus began the story-teller of that time--that I rode through a mighty storm along a North Frisian dike. For over an hour I had on my left the dreary marshland, already deserted by all the cattle; on my right, unpleasantly near me, the swamping waters of the North Sea. I saw nothing, however, but the yellowish-grey waves that beat against the dike unceasingly, as if they were roaring with rage, and that now and then bespattered me and my horse with dirty foam; behind them I could see only chaotic dusk which did not let me tell sky and earth apart, for even the half moon which now stood in the sky was most of the time covered by wandering clouds. It was ice cold; my clammy hands could scarcely hold the reins, and I did not wonder that the croaking and cackling crows and gulls were always letting themselves be swept inland by the storm. Nightfall had begun, and already I could no longer discern the hoof of my horse with any certainty. I had met no human soul, heard nothing but the screaming of the birds when they almost grazed me and my faithful mare with their long wings, and the raging of the wind and water. I cannot deny that now and then I wished that I were in safe quarters.

It was the third day that this weather had lasted, and I had already allowed an especially dear relative to keep me longer than I should have done on his estate in one of the more northern districts. But to-day I could not stay longer. I had business in the city which was even now a few hours' ride to the south, and in spite of all the persuasions of my cousin and his kind wife, in spite of the Perinette and Grand Richard apples still to be tried, I had ridden away.

"Wait till you get to the sea," he had called after me from his house door. "You will turn back. Your room shall be kept for you."

And really, for a moment, when a black layer of clouds spread pitch-darkness round me and at the same time the howling squalls were trying to force me and my horse down from the dike, the thought shot through my head: "Don't be a fool! Turn back and stay with your friends in their warm nest." But then it occurred to me that the way back would be longer than the way to my destination; and so I trotted on, pulling the collar of my coat up over my ears.

But now something came toward me upon the dike; I heard nothing, but when the half moon shed its spare light, I believed that I could discern more and more clearly a dark figure, and soon, as it drew nearer, I saw that it sat on a horse, on a long-legged, haggard, white horse; a dark cloak was waving round its shoulders, and as it flew past me, two glowing eyes stared at me out of a pale face.

Who was that? What did that man want? And now it came to my mind that I had not heard the beating of hoofs or any panting of the horse; and yet horse and rider had ridden close by me!

Deep in thought over this I rode on, but I did not have much time to think, for straightway it flew past me again from behind; it seemed as if the flying cloak had grazed me, as if the apparition, just as it had done the first time, had rushed by me without a sound. Then I saw it farther and farther away from me, and suddenly it seemed as if a shadow were gliding down at the inland side of the dike.

Somewhat hesitating, I rode on behind. When I had reached that place, hard by the "Koog," the land won from the sea by damming it in, I saw water gleam from a great "Wehl," as they call the breaks made into the land by the storm floods which remain as small but deep pools.

In spite of the protecting dike, the water was remarkably calm; hence the rider could not have troubled it. Besides, I saw nothing more of him. Something else I saw now, however, which I greeted with pleasure: before me, from out of the "Koog," a mult.i.tude of little scattered lights were glimmering up to me; they seemed to come from some of the rambling Frisian houses that lay isolated on more or less high mounds.

But close in front of me, half way up the inland side of the dike lay a great house of this kind. On the south side, to the right of the house door, I saw all the windows illumined, and beyond, I perceived people and imagined that I could hear them in spite of the storm. My horse had of himself walked down to the road along the dike which led me up to the door of the house. I could easily see that it was a tavern, for in front of the windows I spied the so-called "ricks," beams resting on two posts with great iron rings for hitching the cattle and horses that stopped there.

I tied my horse to one of these and left him to the servant who met me as I entered the hall.

"Is a meeting going on here?" I asked him, for now a noise of voices and clicking gla.s.ses rose clearly from the room beyond the door.

"Aye, something of the sort," the servant replied in Plattdeutsch, and later I learned that this dialect had been in full swing here, as well as the Frisian, for over a hundred years; "the dikemaster and the overseers and the other landholders! That's on account of the high water!"

When I entered, I saw about a dozen men sitting round a table that extended beneath the windows; a punch bowl stood upon it; and a particularly stately man seemed to dominate the party.

I bowed and asked if I might sit down with them, a favor which was readily granted.

"You had better keep watch here!" I said, turning to this man; "the weather outside is bad; there will be hard times for the dikes!"

"Surely," he replied, "but we here on the east side believe we are out of danger. Only over there on the other side it isn't safe; the dikes there are mostly made more after old patterns; our chief dike was made in the last century. We got chilly outside a while ago; and you," he added, "probably had the same experience. But we have to hold out a few hours longer here; we have reliable people outside, who report to us."

And before I could give my order to the host, a steaming gla.s.s was pushed in front of me.

I soon found out that my pleasant neighbour was the dikemaster; we entered into conversation, and I began to tell him about my strange encounter on the dike. He grew attentive, and I noticed suddenly that all talk round about was silenced.

"The rider on the white horse," cried one of the company and a movement of fright stirred the others.

The dikemaster had risen.

"You don't need to be afraid," he spoke across the table, "that isn't meant for us only; in the year '17 it was meant for them too; may they be ready for the worst!"

Now a horror came over me.

"Pardon me!" I said. "What about this rider on the white horse?"

Apart from the others, behind the stove, a small, haggard man in a little worn black coat sat somewhat bent over; one of his shoulders seemed a little deformed. He had not taken part with a single word in the conversation of the others, but his eyes, fringed as they were with dark lashes, although the scanty hair on his head was grey, showed clearly that he was not sitting there to sleep.

Toward him the dikemaster pointed:

"Our schoolmaster," he said, raising his voice, "will be the one among us who can tell you that best--to be sure, only in his way, and not quite as accurately as my old housekeeper at home, Antje Vollmans, would manage to tell it."

"You are joking, dikemaster!" the somewhat feeble voice of the schoolmaster rose from behind the stove, "if you want to compare me to your silly dragon!"

"Yes, that's all right, schoolmaster!" replied the other, "but stories of that kind are supposed to be kept safest with dragons."

"Indeed!" said the little man, "in this we are not quite of the same opinion." And a superior smile flitted over his delicate face.

"You see," the dikemaster whispered in my ear, "he is still a little proud; in his youth he once studied theology and it was only because of an unhappy courtship that he stayed hanging about his home as schoolmaster."