The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11
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The President stood absorbed in deep thought; he seemed to have forgotten even Reinhold's presence. – "Some time the daylight will come," Reinhold heard him mutter.
They walked over the pontoon bridge – the water gurgling and splashing against the sharp keels; out of the wide opening of the gate came a sullen murmur. Entering the gate they saw for the first time why the village had looked so deserted. The very large court, particularly the part next to the castle, was filled with a multitude of perhaps a thousand people, who were huddled together in dense groups, and made room, with respectful greeting, for the gentlemen as they approached the portal. They curiously scanned the newcomers, making observations, in low tones, after they had passed. "The man who walked with the Commander was the President!" they who knew him remarked (and there were many) to the others. – "If the President – who is the chief official in the whole district, and, besides being a kind gentleman, is well disposed to every one – would come and be present at the funeral, then the Count might stay at home, Heaven willing!" – "And if the Count wants to play the rôle of gentleman among them – they would make him sorry for it." – "But Mr. Damberg says that is not to be thought of; the Count may be thankful if they spare his life, and, in any case, he would be ostracized."
The gentlemen entered the castle. A still larger and more brilliant group now appeared upon the bridge, and drew the attention of the throng thither. It was a group of officers in full dress uniform, followed at some distance by a larger number of subalterns – from the regiment of von Werben, said they who had served, and had seen Ottomar in the casket. – And the Colonel in the front was, of course, the commander of the regiment! – That he could command, those who had served in France could tell by his eyes and nose. And the Captain, who marched at his side, had been sent by the General Staff by Field-Marshal von Moltke himself; and the tall Lieutenant, also in the uniform of von Werben's regiment, was young von Wartenberg, of the von Wartenbergs of Bolswitz; and as for the old families of von Bolswitz – they had come over an hour before in their equipage, with an outrider, from their castle, three miles away. And the idea that a word of all that stupid talk about young von Werben could be true, that they didn't take him to Berlin because he couldn't have an honorable burial there, and that they came all the way from Berlin to help bury him!
Justus, who had undertaken the direction of the funeral ceremonies with the greatest willingness, and had seen the officers come across the courtyard, waited in the vestibule until he could receive them and conduct them into the room on the right, where the company was assembled. Then he beckoned to Reinhold to follow him, and led him to the door at the end of the hall, which he quietly opened and immediately closed behind him. No one else would be allowed to enter, he declared, – "What do you say, Reinhold?"
The high magnificent rooms, with windows all closed, were flooded with soft light from countless tapers, hung from the walls and ceiling; and among baskets of evergreen plants and young fir-trees which stood in a beautiful ellipse, opening toward the door, rested the two caskets upon an elevated platform, covered with tapestries and flowers. The walls were decorated with old arms which Justus had taken from the armory of the castle – beautiful casts of antiques, and even originals, which a former art-loving occupant of the castle had collected, and which Justus had brought from the halls and rooms, and groups of ornamental plants and evergreens – with lighted candles among them.
"Haven't I made it look beautiful!" he whispered; "and all in the few morning hours. They would both be delighted with it – he with the arms, and she with the sculptures. But they themselves are the most beautiful of all! I must now call the family, Reinhold, before we close the caskets; meanwhile, take your last look. You haven't had as much opportunity as the others."
Justus vanished through the door leading to the apartments. Reinhold ascended the steps and went between the caskets in which the two were sleeping their eternal sleep.
Yes, they were beautiful – more beautiful than they had been in life. Death appeared to have removed every trace of earth from them, so that noble Nature might reveal herself in all her splendor. How fair, how noble, the face of this girl, and how beautiful the face of the youth, as if their souls had been truly united in death, and each had fondly given to the other what was fairest in life! So, around their lips, once so proud, a sweet, blissful, meek smile rested, for, along with the restless shifting of the nervous eyes and the impatient trembling of the fine mouth, death had blotted out all that was incomplete, imperfect, from the young man's clear features, and had left nothing but the expression of heroic will with which he had gone to his death, and of which the broad red wound on his white brow was the awful seal.
There was a slight noise in the firs behind him; he turned and opened his arms to Else. She laid her head on his breast, weeping. "Only for a moment can I feel your dear heart beating, and know that you are still left me – you, my sweet solace, my unfailing treasure!"
She arose. "Farewell, farewell, for the last time, farewell, dear brother, farewell! Fair, proud sister, how I would have loved you!" She kissed the pale lips of the two corpses; Reinhold took her in his arms and led her from the platform, down to where he saw Justus and Mieting standing, hand in hand, at a respectful distance, among the shrubbery; while, following the General, Valerie and Sidonie, Uncle Ernst and Aunt Rikchen appeared upon the platform to take leave of the dead.
Solemn, yet nerve-racking moments, the details of which Reinhold's tearful eyes could not grasp nor retain! But to Justus' keen artist's eye, one touchingly beautiful picture followed another – but, none more touching or beautiful for him, who knew these persons and their relations so well, than the last – the General almost carrying the exhausted Valerie down the steps, her head shrouded in a heavy veil of lace – she had come down from her sick room only for this occasion; while Uncle Ernst's strong form, still standing there, bent over to kind little Aunt Rikchen, and, to quiet her, stroked with his strong hand her pale, troubled, tear-stained face.
"Do you know," whispered Mieting; "they now feel what we felt when we stood before the dead angel – that they must love each other, you know."
Half an hour later the funeral procession moved out of the castle gate, from one of whose turrets a large German flag, and from the other a black one, fluttered in the evening breeze; over the bridge of boats it passed, up the deep road, turning to the right along the gently sloping road to the cemetery which extended from the highest point to the chain of hills that formed the shore, a few hundred steps distant from the village – a long solemn procession!
The village children, strewing the way with evergreen, went on before the caskets – before the one decked with palms, where lay the maidenly form of the beautiful heroic girl, borne by strong pilots and fishermen who would not surrender the honor of carrying their Commander's kinswoman to her last resting place; before that of the man, decorated with emblems of war, for whom she had died, and whom a kindly fate had allowed to die as a brave man, worthy of the decorations which he had won in battle, and which the Sergeant-Major of the company bore on a silk cushion after him – worthy he, that the trim warriors who had seen him in the days of his glory should lift him now on their shoulders, so often touched by his friendly hand in the hot hour of battle, and by the flaming bivouac-fire on the wearisome march to the great rendezvous.
After the caskets, the two fathers; then Reinhold with Else, and Justus with Mieting – Sidonie and Aunt Rikchen remaining with Valerie; the President and Colonel von Bohl, Schönau and the brilliant company of the other officers, and neighboring noblemen with their ladies; von Strummin and his spouse, the Wartenbergs, the Griebens, the Boltenhagens, the Warnekows, and the rest, the descendants of the old hereditary families; the endless train of country folk and sea folk, with the heroic form of brave Pölitz, and the stout figure of the chief pilot, Bonsack, at their head.
A long, silent procession it was, accompanied step by step by the monotonous cadences of the rising and falling waves along the steep shore, and now and then by the shrill cry of a sea-gull, which, soaring above the gleaming water, might have regarded the strange spectacle with wonder, or by a word whispered from neighbor to neighbor, which those immediately preceding and following did not hear. Thus were uttered the low words which the General spoke to Uncle Ernst as the head of the procession reached the cemetery – "Do you feel yourself equal to the task?" And Uncle Ernst's answer was – "Not until now have I felt myself equal to it." Even Reinhold and Else, who walked behind them, would not have understood it if they had heard, nor had Uncle Ernst shown to any one but the General the dispatch of which Justus had spoken. The dispatch of serious content in the dry, matter-of-fact style of the police: Philip Schmidt recognized tonight when about to embark on the steamer Hansa, bound from Bremerhafen to Chile, shot himself with a revolver in his stateroom, leaving the embezzled money untouched; will be interred tomorrow evening at six o'clock.
There, under the broad hand which he slipped under his overcoat, lay the paper, and his great heart beat against it – beat again truly strong and truly proud, now that he could say to himself that his unfortunate son did not belong to the cowards to whom life is everything; that for him, too, there was a measure of disgrace which must not overflow, because in that moment he drained the beaker of life – a draught too insipid and loathsome even for his unhallowed lips.
The caskets were lowered into a common grave. At its head stood Uncle Ernst, bareheaded, and, before him in a wide semicircle, the throng, bareheaded, silent, looking up to the powerful man whose almost gigantic figure towered above the hills against the ruddy evening sky. Now he raised his piercing eyes, which seemed to take in at a glance the whole assemblage: and now his deep voice sounded, its clear tones making every word distinct, even to the outer edge of the circle.
"My friends, one and all – I may call you so, for in the presence of such a great misfortune, such a fearful catastrophe, all are friends who have human faces.
"My friends! This – it had to be! It had to be! It had to be, because we had so basely, so utterly forgotten love; because we had lived on so long through the hopeless years, in barren selfishness, drowning the longing cry of our hearts with the empty sound of our iron conceit, ceaselessly keeping up the vain struggle for mine and thine – the fierce, wild struggle – without a blush and without mercy, wishing no peace, giving no pardon, regarding no right but that of the victor, who scornfully treads the vanquished under foot.
"Yes, my friends: it had to be, it had to be, that we should learn again to love one another! It is this certainty – this, and this alone it is – which can soothe our sorrow for the dear ones whom we now commit to the sacred lap of Earth; the tender blossoms which the storm has broken.
"The storm! The fearful storm, which raged through German hearts and minds and through German lands, breaking so many hearts, darkening so many minds, covering so many fields of young green crops with the horrors of destruction, filling the air with poisonous mists, so that even the brave man might ask – Has the bright German sun set forever! But no! It shines upon us again! It sends us, as it sets, its last golden beams, promising a new, bright day, full of honest toil and true, golden harvest!
"Oh; thou, serene light of Heaven, and thou, Sacred Sea, and thou, life-giving Earth – I call you to witness the vow which we make at the graves of these who parted from us all too soon: To put from us, from now on, all that is small and common, to live in the future in the light of truth, to love one another with all our hearts! May the God of truth and love grant that to the honor of humanity, and to the glory of the German name!"
The voice of the speaker ceased. But the echo of his words quivered in the hearts of his hearers, as they silently stepped forward to show the last honors to the dead. The rays of the setting sun spread over the sky, lighting up the scene, and the sky lovingly reflected them back to earth.
THE LIFE OF THEODOR STORM
By Ewald Eiserhardt, Ph.DAssistant Professor of German, University of Rochester, N.YHans Theodor Woldsen Storm was born on the fourteenth of September, 1817, in the little town of Husum on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein. His paternal forefathers were Low Germans; his mother's family, named Woldsen, was of Friesian origin. For many generations the Storms had been hereditary tenants of the mill in Westermühlen near Husum; for centuries the Woldsens had belonged to the aristocracy of Husum, composed of prominent merchants from whose ranks the burgomasters and senators rose. Theodor Storm's father was an attorney in Husum and commanded universal respect on account of his unselfishness, punctilious sense of honor, and clear-sightedness in juristic matters. The poet's mother is described as a woman of graceful and attractive appearance, distinguished by an unaffected emotional nature and keen mental penetration. Eduard Mörike spoke of her personality as being "so clear, so luminous, so provocative of love."
The Storms were not rich, but their home was permeated with that sense of solid comfort, based on the consciousness of efficiency and pride of ancestry, so often found in the burgher circles of Germany. Of particular importance to the children was the presence in the family of their maternal grandmother. She was full of overflowing kindness toward her grandchildren, and hence to them the home possessed the magic of a spot where, as in fairy tales, all wishes might be fulfilled, a veritable refuge in all times of need. She succeeded, moreover, in awakening in them strong family feeling; for she loved to tell about her own youth, her parents and brothers and sisters whose portraits and silhouettes, in old-fashioned costumes and with quaint cues, hung on the walls. It was owing mainly to his mother's family that the poet, even in his early youth, was brought into somewhat close touch in his native place with all the different classes of people and many kinds of characters; for on the vessels, in the factories, and in the houses of the Woldsens and Feddersens – Storm's maternal grandmother was a Feddersen – numbers of the inhabitants of the little town had employment, and their relations with these families were not entirely of a business nature but were rooted in mutual confidence.
Of equal importance for his development were the scenes with which the boy became familiar through his father's family. His paternal relatives were settled on considerable estates in the neighborhood, the family mill in Westermühlen being managed by his father's eldest brother. There the boy found an Eldorado in the holidays. There, while wandering through the woods and over the heath, he first held converse with nature; there, where another spirit rested on house and garden than in the town, he first vaguely felt the atmosphere peculiar to certain places; there, where he saw men now favored, now threatened, by external powers and always dependent upon them, his eyes were first opened to the relations between man and nature in all their many-sidedness.
Compared with what his home and family offered him, all that school could give the future poet was of no significance. Until the autumn of 1835 he attended the preparatory school of the town and was then sent to the Gymnasium in Lübeck for a year and a half. After leaving there he devoted himself to the study of law, first in Kiel, which he left only to return after three terms spent in Berlin; and it was in the former place that he concluded his studies and passed his final juristic examination in the autumn of 1842.
At that time Storm had already made several efforts to express himself in lyric poetry. At the age of nine he had written his first poem, and it is characteristic that the occasion of it was the death of a dearly loved sister. Later, during his school-days in Husum and Lübeck, he filled two small books with poems, and even made a vain attempt to reach the public with his The Building of St. Mary's at Lübeck. His poetical talent was most deeply stirred, however, while he was in Kiel for the second time, when he became intimate with the historian Theodor Mommsen and his brother Tycho. As a result of this inspiring friendship the three young men published, in 1843, the Songs by Three Friends. Our poet's contributions to it were chiefly in the sphere in which throughout his whole life he was to show himself a master – namely, in love lyrics; and even these early poems sound, in common with many of his later writings, the note of resignation. Doubtless this quality was largely innate in his nature, but it was also nursed and fed by an experience through which he passed in his youth. As a young student Storm loved a child, Berta von Buchau, and, while she was still a young girl, asked her hand in marriage, only, however, to meet with a refusal. The poems dedicated to this love are rich and varied in tone; they range from the ironic and humorous to the exuberant and graceful, make the lover find gratification in the service of his love, are prompted by doubt, raise lamentations and accusations, pray for the lost love's happiness and ask her to bear him in remembrance, and finally they die away in grief and sadness. The most artistically finished poem of this group and the one that gives deepest utterance to Storm's peculiar poetical talent is Twilight. It avoids all extremes in feeling, seeks to produce the single, deeply felt mood that created it, and gives in a few apparently chance touches a clear and definite situation.
In February, 1843, Storm established himself as an attorney in Husum, and with this step his happiest years began. He was once more in his home, away from which there had never been any real happiness for him; his parents were both still vigorous and he was surrounded by loving brothers and sisters. In the social life of the place, which seems to have centred in his father's house, he was a favorite, and his influence on the spirit of the little town was felt when he founded and conducted a musical society, which soon was able to appear successfully in public. His happiness reached its climax when, in the autumn of 1846, he married his cousin Konstanze Esmarch.
Konstanze was a really beautiful woman of fine and generous proportions, with large yet delicately modeled features and fresh youthful vigor. Storm himself is described as a man of scarcely medium height, slender and of a somewhat stooping carriage. His appearance can have been impressive only by reason of his bright blue eyes and the high forehead beneath his abundant blond hair. Less irritable than her husband, less passionate and eager in her desires, Konstanze met life more evenly, firmly, and clearly, and thus, though lacking talent of any kind, she exerted a far-reaching and beneficial influence on the poet's nature. "When she came into the room it always seemed to me as if it grew lighter," he once said of her.
For some years, during which three sons were born to them, they lived most happily in Husum until the shadow of political events fell across their house. After a vain struggle for freedom, the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein were subdued by Denmark; and as Storm, even after their subjection, continued openly to proclaim his German sentiments he finally found himself obliged, in 1853, to leave his home.
During the ten years spent in Husum Storm's lyric talent came to full and characteristic development. The influence of Heine's Book of Songs, so apparent in the poems of his school and student days, is hardly seen any more. Eichendorff's poems and his novel, Poets and Their Disciples, do indeed still echo strongly, and we feel the influence of Mörike's lyrics in this period more clearly than before. But all this is insignificant in comparison with Storm's own creative power and the wealth that flowed to him out of his own life. As he was particularly happy at that time, it is natural that qualities should appear in his work which are too often overlooked in forming an estimate of his character and which were more strongly developed in this period than in any other. It is true that we still hear sad tones, even complaints of lost love and of love's suffering and loneliness, but the majority and the best poems are written in a contented, confident, energetic, even jubilant key. It is his love for his wife, of whom he sang so much, that transfigures life to the poet. Beneath her hand pain is stilled, in her arms life and death are overcome, and her presence turns the alien place into home. Separated from the world and from the day nothing can surpass the moments when he receives from her love's last and highest gifts. To the sound of clear bells on moonlight nights peace on earth and good-will to men seem to descend upon the little family circle over which God himself keeps watch. It was in those days, too, that the poet succeeded in writing his song of "the gray town by the sea" which nature has treated so slightingly and yet so singularly, and to which his whole heart goes out; for it is, after all, his mother town. Indeed, he hails with rejoicing the world, the beautiful, imperishable world, and every true heart that does not allow itself to be subdued but enjoys the golden days and has learned to gild the gray ones. He is even full of hope as regards the fate of his home country. In spite of all defeats, in spite of all disgrace and distress, he prophesies a new spring for her and calls the poet blessed who may then win for her "the jewel of poetry." It is only when he actually has to leave his home and move away with his wife and children that he begins to doubt as to his own return; then his hope changes into the prayer that at least his sons may once be able to go back, for "no man thrives without a fatherland."
In 1853 Storm had entered the Prussian service, and for three years held the position of assistant judge in the circuit court in Potsdam. There he was not content, in spite of the cordiality with which he was received, especially by Berlin poets, artists, and lovers of art. If we understand him aright, he was oppressed by the feeling that in the society of Potsdam the worth of the individual was determined by the office he held and by his descent, and that the human being in that State was sacrificed to the citizen and the official, the man to the soldier. During those years Storm's poetical production faltered, and it was fortunate for him that in the autumn of 1856 he was transferred as a circuit judge to Heiligenstadt in Central Germany. This cozy little town in the mountains appealed exceedingly to his nature, and on the whole he was able to live there much as he had been accustomed to in Husum. In addition, the improvement in his financial condition and the lesser burden of his professional work undoubtedly contributed to the re-awakening in him of the poet.
He was not so productive in lyric poetry as during the years in Husum, but, as regards artistic value, the poems of this period certainly do not stand below those of the earlier one. He tries his hand at folk-poetry and succeeds in striking its key of heartiness, simplicity, and spontaneity. He clothes the popular theme of the enamoured miller's daughter in a garment of artistic form, and yet, by means of roguish humor and naïve frankness, manages to sound the note of the folk-song. He employs one of the most telling means for lyric effect by drawing parallels between the conditions in nature and those in men, and in doing this he awakens the most delicate harmonies by portraying both conditions without pointing out the relation between them, or by placing an individual in the midst of a somewhat minutely described landscape and leading us to imagine him in a state that corresponds with that of nature.