Immensee
T >>
Theodore W. Storm >> Immensee
Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
IMMENSEE
BY THEODOR W. STORM
TRANSLATED BY C. W. BELL M. A.
PREFACE
We are at the beginning of a new era which will, it is to be hoped, be
marked by a general
rapprochement between the nations. The need
to know and understand one another is being felt more and more. It
follows that the study of foreign languages will assume an ever-
increasing importance; indeed, so far as language, literature, and
music are concerned, one may safely assert that
fas est et ab hoste
doceri.
All those who wish to make acquaintance with the speech of their
neighbours, or who have allowed their former knowledge to grow rusty,
will welcome this edition, which will enable them, independently of
bulky dictionaries, to devote to language study the moments of leisure
which offer themselves in the course of the day.
The texts have been selected from the double point of view of their
literary worth and of the usefulness of their vocabulary; in the
translations, also, the endeavour has been to unite qualities of style
with strict fidelity to the original.
INTRODUCTION
Theodor W. Storm, poet and short-story writer (1817-1888), was born in
Schleswig. He was called to the Bar in his native town, Husum, in
1842, but had his licence to practise cancelled in 1853 for
'Germanophilism,' and had to remove to Germany. It was only in 1864
that he was able to return to Husum, where in 1874 he became a judge
of the Court of Appeals.
As early as 1843 he had made himself known as a lyrical poet of the
Romantic School, but it was as a short-story writer that he first took
a prominent place in literature, making a most happy
début with
the story entitled
Immensee.
There followed a long series of tales, rich in fancy and in humour,
although their inspiration is generally derived from the humble town
and country life which formed his immediate environment; but he wrote
nothing that excels, in depth and tenderness of feeling, the charming
story of
Immensee; and taking his work all in all, Storm still
ranks to-day as a master of the short story in German literature, rich
though it is in this form of prose-fiction.
IMMENSEE
THE OLD MAN
0ne afternoon in the late autumn a well-dressed old man was walking
slowly down the street. He appeared to be returning home from a walk,
for his buckle-shoes, which followed a fashion long since out of date,
were covered with dust.
Under his arm he carried a long, gold-headed cane; his dark eyes, in
which the whole of his long-lost youth seemed to have centred, and
which contrasted strangely with his snow-white hair, gazed calmly on
the sights around him or peered into the town below as it lay before
him, bathed in the haze of sunset. He appeared to be almost a
stranger, for of the passers-by only a few greeted him, although many
a one involuntarily was compelled to gaze into those grave eyes.
At last he halted before a high, gabled house, cast one more glance
out toward the town, and then passed into the hall. At the sound of
the door-bell some one in the room within drew aside the green curtain
from a small window that looked out on to the hall, and the face of an
old woman was seen behind it. The man made a sign to her with his
cane.
"No light yet!" he said in a slightly southern accent, and the
housekeeper let the curtain fall again.
The old man now passed through the broad hall, through an inner hall,
wherein against the walls stood huge oaken chests bearing porcelain
vases; then through the door opposite he entered a small lobby, from
which a narrow staircase led to the upper rooms at the back of the
house. He climbed the stairs slowly, unlocked a door at the top, and
landed in a room of medium size.
It was a comfortable, quiet retreat. One of the walls was lined with
cupboards and bookcases; on the other hung pictures of men and places;
on a table with a green cover lay a number of open books, and before
the table stood a massive arm-chair with a red velvet cushion.
After the old man had placed his hat and stick in a corner, he sat
down in the arm-chair and, folding his hands, seemed to be taking his
rest after his walk. While he sat thus, it was growing gradually
darker; and before long a moonbeam came streaming through the window-
panes and upon the pictures on the wall; and as the bright band of
light passed slowly onward the old man followed it involuntarily with
his eyes.
Now it reached a little picture in a simple black frame. "Elisabeth!"
said the old man softly; and as he uttered the word, time had changed:
he was young again.
* * * * *
THE CHILDREN
Before very long the dainty form of a little maiden advanced toward
him. Her name was Elisabeth, and she might have been five years old.
He himself was twice that age. Round her neck she wore a red silk
kerchief which was very becoming to her brown eyes.
"Reinhard!" she cried, "we have a holiday, a holiday! No school the
whole day and none to-morrow either!"
Reinhard was carrying his slate under his arm, but he flung it behind
the front door, and then both the children ran through the house into
the garden and through the garden gate out into the meadow. The
unexpected holiday came to them at a most happily opportune moment.
It was in the meadow that Reinhard, with Elisabeth's help, had built a
house out of sods of grass. They meant to live in it during the summer
evenings; but it still wanted a bench. He set to work at once; nails,
hammer, and the necessary boards were already to hand.
While he was thus engaged, Elisabeth went along the dyke, gathering
the ring-shaped seeds of the wild mallow in her apron, with the object
of making herself chains and necklaces out of them; so that when
Reinhard had at last finished his bench in spite of many a crookedly
hammered nail, and came out into the sunlight again, she was already
wandering far away at the other end of the meadow.
"Elisabeth!" he called, "Elisabeth!" and then she came, her hair
streaming behind her.
"Come here," he said; "our house is finished now. Why, you have got
quite hot! Come in, and let us sit on the new bench. I will tell you a
story."
So they both went in and sat down on the new bench. Elisabeth took the
little seed-rings out of her apron and strung them on long threads.
Reinhard began his tale: "There were once upon a time three spinning-
women..." [Footnote: The beginning of one of the best known of Grimm's
fairy tales.]
"Oh!" said Elisabeth, "I know that off by heart; you really must not
always tell me the same story."
Accordingly Reinhard had to give up the story of the three spinning-
women and tell instead the story of the poor man who was cast into the
den of lions.
"It was now night," he said, "black night, you know, and the lions
were asleep. But every now and then they would yawn in their sleep and
shoot out their red tongues. And then the man would shudder and think
it was morning. All at once a bright light fell all about him, and
when he looked up an angel was standing before him. The angel beckoned
to him with his hand and then went straight into the rocks."
Elisabeth had been listening attentively. "An angel?" she said. "Had
he wings then?"
"It is only a story," answered Reinhard; "there are no angels, you
know."
"Oh, fie! Reinhard!" she said, staring him straight in the face.
He looked at her with a frown, and she asked him hesitatingly: "Well,
why do they always say there are? mother, and aunt, and at school as
well?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"But tell me," said Elisabeth, "are there no lions either?"
"Lions? Are there lions? In India, yes. The heathen priests harness
them to their carriages, and drive about the desert with them. When
I'm big, I mean to go out there myself. It is thousands of times more
beautiful in that country than it is here at home; there's no winter
at all there. And you must come with me. Will you?"
"Yes," said Elisabeth; "but mother must come with us, and your mother
as well."
"No," said Reinhard, "they will be too old then, and cannot come with
us."
"But I mayn't go by myself."
"Oh, but you may right enough; you will then really be my wife, and
the others will have no say in the matter."
"But mother will cry!"
"We shall come back again of course," said Reinhard impetuously. "Now
just tell me straight out, will you go with me? If not, I will go all
alone, and then I shall never come back again."
The little girl came very near to crying. "Please don't look so
angry," said she; "I will go to India with you."
Reinhard seized both her hands with frantic glee, and rushed out with
her into the meadow.
"To India, to India!" he sang, and swung her round and round, so that
her little red kerchief was whirled from off her neck. Then he
suddenly let her go and said solemnly:
"Nothing will come of it, I'm sure; you haven't the pluck."
"Elisabeth! Reinhard!" some one was now calling from the garden gate.
"Here we are!" the children answered, and raced home hand in hand.
* * * * *
IN THE WOODS
So the children lived together. She was often too quiet for him, and
he was often too head-strong for her, but for all that they stuck to
one another. They spent nearly all their leisure hours together: in
winter in their mothers' tiny rooms, during the summer in wood and
field.
Once when Elisabeth was scolded by the teacher in Reinhard's hearing,
he angrily banged his slate upon the table in order to turn upon
himself the master's wrath. This failed to attract attention.
But Reinhard paid no further attention to the geography lessons, and
instead he composed a long poem, in which he compared himself to a
young eagle, the schoolmaster to a grey crow, and Elisabeth to a white
dove; the eagle vowed vengeance on the grey crow, as soon as his wings
had grown.
Tears stood in the young poet's eyes: he felt very proud of himself.
When he reached home he contrived to get hold of a little parchment-
bound volume with a lot of blank pages in it; and on the first pages
he elaborately wrote out his first poem.
Soon after this he went to another school. Here he made many new
friendships among boys of his own age, but this did not interrupt his
comings and goings with Elisabeth. Of the stories which he had
formerly told her over and over again he now began to write down the
ones which she had liked best, and in doing so the fancy often took
him to weave in something of his own thoughts; yet, for some reason he
could not understand, he could never manage it.
So he wrote them down exactly as he had heard them himself. Then he
handed them over to Elisabeth, who kept them carefully in a drawer of
her writing-desk, and now and again of an evening when he was present
it afforded him agreeable satisfaction to hear her reading aloud to
her mother these little tales out of the notebooks in which he had
written them.
Seven years had gone by. Reinhard was to leave the town in order to
proceed to his higher education. Elisabeth could not bring herself to
think that there would now be a time to be passed entirely without
Reinhard. She was delighted when he told her one day that he would
continue to write out stories for her as before; he would send them to
her in the letters to his mother, and then she would have to write
back to him and tell him how she liked them.
The day of departure was approaching, but ere it came a good deal more
poetry found its way into the parchment-bound volume. This was the one
secret he kept from Elisabeth, although she herself had inspired the
whole book and most of the songs, which gradually had filled up almost
half of the blank pages.
It was the month of June, and Reinhard was to start on the following
day. It was proposed to spend one more festive day together and
therefore a picnic was arranged for a rather large party of friends in
an adjacent forest.
It was an hour's drive along the road to the edge of the wood, and
there the company took down the provision baskets from the carriages
and walked the rest of the way. The road lay first of all through a
pine grove, where it was cool and darksome, and the ground was all
strewed with pine needles.
After half an hour's walk they passed out of the gloom of the pine
trees into a bright fresh beech wood. Here everything was light and
green; every here and there a sunbeam burst through the leafy
branches, and high above their heads a squirrel was leaping from
branch to branch.
The party came to a halt at a certain spot, over which the topmost
branches of ancient beech trees interwove a transparent canopy of
leaves. Elisabeth's mother opened one of the baskets, and an old
gentleman constituted himself quartermaster.
"Round me, all of you young people," he cried, "and attend carefully
to what I have to say to you. For lunch each one of you will now get
two dry rolls; the butter has been left behind at home. The extras
every one must find for himself. There are plenty of strawberries in
the wood--that is, for anyone who knows where to find them. Unless you
are sharp, you'll have to eat dry bread; that's the way of the world
all over. Do you understand what I say?"
"Yes, yes," cried the young folks.
"Yes, but look here," said the old gentleman, "I have not done yet. We
old folks have done enough roaming about in our time, and therefore we
will stay at home now, here, I mean, under these wide-spreading trees,
and we'll peel the potatoes and make a fire and lay the table, and by
twelve o'clock the eggs shall be boiled.
"In return for all this you will be owing us half of your
strawberries, so that we may also be able to serve some dessert. So
off you go now, east and west, and mind be honest."
The young folks cast many a roguish glance at one another.
"Wait," cried the old gentleman once again. "I suppose I need not tell
you this, that whoever finds none need not produce any; but take
particular note of this, that he will get nothing out of us old folks
either. Now you have had enough good advice for to-day; and if you
gather strawberries to match you will get on very well for the present
at any rate."
The young people were of the same opinion, and pairing off in couples
set out on their quest.
"Come along, Elisabeth," said Reinhard, "I know where there is a clump
of strawberry bushes; you shan't eat dry bread."
Elisabeth tied the green ribbons of her straw hat together and hung it
on her arm. "Come on, then," she said, "the basket is ready."
Off into the wood they went, on and on; on through moist shady glens,
where everything was so peaceful, except for the cry of the falcon
flying unseen in the heavens far above their heads; on again through
the thick brushwood, so thick that Reinhard must needs go on ahead to
make a track, here snapping off a branch, there bending aside a
trailing vine. But ere long he heard Elisabeth behind him calling out
his name. He turned round.
"Reinhard!" she called, "do wait for me! Reinhard!"
He could not see her, but at length he caught sight of her some way
off struggling with the undergrowth, her dainty head just peeping out
over the tops of the ferns. So back he went once more and brought her
out from the tangled mass of briar and brake into an open space where
blue butterflies fluttered among the solitary wood blossoms.
Reinhard brushed the damp hair away from her heated face, and would
have tied the straw hat upon her head, but she refused; yet at his
earnest request she consented after all.
"But where are your strawberries?" she asked at length, standing still
and drawing a deep breath.
"They were here," he said, "but the toads have got here before us, or
the martens, or perhaps the fairies."
"Yes," said Elisabeth, "the leaves are still here; but not a word
about fairies in this place. Come along, I'm not a bit tired yet; let
us look farther on."
In front of them ran a little brook, and on the far side the wood
began again. Reinhard raised Elisabeth in his arms and carried her
over. After a while they emerged from the shady foliage and stood in a
wide clearing.
"There must be strawberries here," said the girl, "it all smells so
sweet."
They searched about the sunny spot, but they found none. "No," said
Reinhard, "it is only the smell of the heather."
Everywhere was a confusion of raspberry-bushes and holly, and the air
was filled with a strong smell of heather, patches of which alternated
with the short grass over these open spaces.
"How lonely it is here!" said Elisabeth "I wonder where the others
are?"
Reinhard had never thought of getting back.
"Wait a bit," he said, holding his hand aloft; "where is the wind
coming from?" But wind there was none.
"Listen!" said Elisabeth, "I think I heard them talking. Just give a
call in that direction."
Reinhard hollowed his hand and shouted: "Come here!"
"Here!" was echoed back.
"They answered," cried Elisabeth clapping her hands.
"No, that was nothing; it was only the echo."
Elisabeth seized Reinhard's hand. "I'm frightened!" she said.
"Oh! no, you must not be frightened. It is lovely here. Sit down there
in the shade among the long grass. Let us rest awhile: we'll find the
others soon enough."
Elisabeth sat down under the overhanging branch of a beech and
listened intently in every direction. Reinhard sat a few paces off on
a tree stump, and gazed over at her in silence.
The sun was just above their heads, shining with the full glare of
midday heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air
with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing
all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the
tap-tap of the woodpecker and the screech of other birds.
"Listen," said Elisabeth, "I hear a bell."
"Where?" asked Reinhard.
"Behind us. Do you hear it? It is striking twelve o'clock."
"Then the town lies behind us, and if we go straight through in this
direction we are bound to fall in with the others."
So they started on their homeward way; they had given up looking for
strawberries, for Elisabeth had become tired. And at last there rang
out from among the trees the laughing voices of the picnic party; then
they saw too a white cloth spread gleaming on the ground; it was the
luncheon-table and on it were strawberries enough and to spare.
The old gentleman had a table-napkin tucked in his button-hole and was
continuing his moral sermon to the young folks and vigorously carving
a joint of roast meat.
"Here come the stragglers," cried the young people when they saw
Reinhard and Elisabeth advancing among the trees.
"This way," shouted the old gentleman. "Empty your handkerchiefs,
upside down, with your hats! Now show us what you have found."
"Only hunger and thirst," said Reinhard.
"If that's all," replied the old man, lifting up and showing them the
bowl full of fruit, "you must keep what you've got. You remember the
agreement: nothing here for lazybones to eat."
But in the end he was prevailed on to relent; the banquet proceeded,
and a thrush in a juniper bush provided the music.
So the day passed. But Reinhard had, after all, found something, and
though it was not strawberries yet it was something that had grown in
the wood. When he got home this is what he wrote in his old parchment-
bound volume:
Out on the hill-side yonder
The wind to rest is laid;
Under the drooping branches
There sits the little maid.
She sits among the wild thyme,
She sits in the fragrant air;
The blue flies hum around her,
Bright wings flash everywhere.
And through the silent woodland
She peers with watchful eyen,
While on her hazel ringlets
Sparkles the glad sunshine.
And far, far off the cuckoo
Laughs out his song.
I ween Hers are the bright, the golden
Eyes of the woodland queen.
So she was not only his little sweetheart, but was also the expression
of all that was lovely and wonderful in his opening life.
* * * * *
BY THE ROADSIDE THE CHILD STOOD
The time is Christmas Eve. Before the close of the afternoon Reinhard
and some other students were sitting together at an old oak table in
the Ratskeller. [Footnote: The basement of the Rathaus or Town Hall.
This, in almost every German town of importance, has become a
restaurant and place of refreshment.] The lamps on the wall were
lighted, for down here in the basement it was already growing dark;
but there was only a thin sprinkling of customers present, and the
waiters were leaning idly up against the pillars let into the walls.
In a corner of the vaulted room sat a fiddler and a fine-featured
gipsy-girl with a zither; their instruments lay in their laps, and
they seemed to be looking about them with an air of indifference.
A champagne cork popped off at the table occupied by the students.
"Drink, my gipsy darling!" cried a young man of aristocratic
appearance, holding out to the girl a glass full of wine.
"I don't care about it," she said, without altering her position.
"Well, then, give us a song," cried the young nobleman, and threw a
silver coin into her lap. The girl slowly ran her fingers through her
black hair while the fiddler whispered in her ear. But she threw back
her head, and rested her chin on her zither.
"For him," she said, "I'm not going to play."
Reinhard leapt up with his glass in his hand and stood in front of
her.
"What do you want?" she asked defiantly.
"To have a look at your eyes."
"What have my eyes to do with you?"
Reinhard's glance flashed down on her. "I
know they are false."
She laid her cheek in the palm of her hand and gave him a searching
look. Reinhard raised his glass to his mouth.
"Here's to your beautiful, wicked eyes!" he said, and drank.
She laughed and tossed her head.
"Give it here," she said, and fastening her black eyes on his, she
slowly drank what was left in the glass. Then she struck a chord and
sang in a deep, passionate voice:
To-day, to-day thou think'st me
Fairest maid of all;
To-morrow, ah! then beauty
Fadeth past recall.
While the hour remaineth,
Thou art yet mine own;
Then when death shall claim me,
I must die alone.
While the fiddler struck up an allegro finale, a new arrival joined
the group.
"I went to call for you, Reinhard," he said, "You had already gone
out, but Santa Claus had paid you a visit."
"Santa Claus?" said Reinhard. "Santa Claus never comes to me now."
"Oh, yes, he does! The whole of your room smelt of Christmas tree and
ginger cakes."
Reinhard dropped the glass out of his hand and seized his cap.
"Well, what are you going to do now?" asked the girl.
"I'll be back in a minute."
She frowned. "Stay," she said gently, casting an amorous glance at
him.
Reinhard hesitated. "I can't," he said.
She laughingly gave him a tap with the toe of her shoe and said: "Go
away, then, you good-for-nothing; you are one as bad as the other, all
good-for-nothings." And as she turned away from him, Reinhard went
slowly up the steps of the Ratskeller.
Outside in the street deep twilight had set in; he felt the cool
winter air blowing on his heated brow. From some window every here and
there fell the bright gleam of a Christmas tree all lighted up, now
and then was heard from within some room the sound of little pipes and
tin trumpets mingled with the merry din of children's voices.
Crowds of beggar children were going from house to house or climbing
up on to the railings of the front steps, trying to catch a glimpse
through the window of a splendour that was denied to them. Sometimes
too a door would suddenly be flung open, and scolding voices would
drive a whole swarm of these little visitors away out into the dark
street. In the vestibule of yet another house they were singing an old
Christmas carol, and little girls' clear voices were heard among the
rest.
But Reinhard heard not; he passed quickly by them all, out of one
street into another. When he reached his lodging it had grown almost
quite dark; he stumbled up the stairs and so gained his apartment.
A sweet fragrance greeted him; it reminded him of home; it was the
smell of the parlour in his mother's house at Christmas time. With
trembling hand he lit his lamp; and there lay a mighty parcel on the
table. When he opened it, out fell the familiar ginger cakes. On some
of them were the initial letters of his name written in sprinkles of
sugar; no one but Elisabeth could have done that.
Next came to view a little parcel containing neatly embroidered linen,
handkerchiefs and cuffs; and finally letters from his mother and
Elisabeth. Reinhard opened Elisabeth's letter first, and this is what
she wrote:
"The pretty sugared letters will no doubt tell you who helped with the
cakes. The same person also embroidered the cuffs for you. We shall
have a very quiet time at home this Christmas Eve. Mother always puts
her spinning-wheel away in the corner as early as half-past nine. It
is so very lonesome this winter now that you are not here.