Effi Briest (37 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
It was a month later and September was on the wane. The weather was fine but the leaves in the park were already showing many tints of red and yellow,
and since the equinox which had brought three days of storms, leaves lay strewn everywhere. On the roundel a small alteration had taken place. The sundial had gone; the day before a white marble slab had been laid in its place with the simple inscription ‘Effi Briest’, and beneath it a cross. It had been Effi’s last request: ‘On my gravestone I would like my old name back; I didn’t do the other one much honour.’ And that had been promised her.
Yes, the previous day the marble slab had arrived and been laid, and Briest and his wife were now sitting facing the spot and looking at the heliotrope, which had been spared and now framed the stone. Rollo lay beside it, his head between his paws.
Wilke, whose gaiters got wider and wider, brought breakfast and the post and old Briest said, ‘Wilke, have the small carriage brought out, Frau von Briest and I will take a turn in the country.’
Frau von Briest in the meantime had poured the coffee and was looking over at the roundel and its flower-bed. ‘Look, Briest, Rollo is lying in front of the stone again. It’s gone even deeper with him than with us. He’s stopped eating too.’
‘That’s it Luise, dumb animals. It’s what I’m always saying. We’re not all we’re cracked up to be. With them we always say it’s just instinct, but when all’s said and done, it can’t be bettered.’
‘Don’t talk like that. When you start philosophizing – don’t take this amiss Briest, it’s really beyond you. Common sense you’ve got, but when it comes to questions like that –’
‘I’m out of my depth.’
‘And if it’s a matter of questions, there are others demanding answers Briest, and I can tell you that not a day passes now that the poor child is lying there, without these questions coming into my head…’
‘What questions?
‘Whether perhaps it was
our
fault after all?’
‘Nonsense Luise. What do you mean by that?’
‘Whether we should perhaps have brought her up more strictly. Us that is. For Niemeyer is really useless, because he leaves everything open to doubt. And then Briest, I’m sorry to have to say this… there were your constant risqué remarks… and finally, and this is what I reproach myself with, for I don’t want to seem blameless in the matter, I wonder if perhaps she wasn’t too young.’
Rollo who wakened at these words shook his head slowly from side to side, and Briest said calmly, ‘Ah Luise, that’s enough… that’s
too
vast a subject.
Page 5
:
Elector Georg Wilhelm
. Margrave of Brandenburg (1595-1640), Elector of Brandenburg from 1620, father of
Friedrich Wilhelm
(1620-88), the ‘Great Elector’ who set the Hohenzollerns and Prussia on the road to greatness.
Page 6
:
Rathenow
. Hussars’ garrison thirty miles west of Berlin in the Prussian administrative District (
Bezirk
) of Potsdam. The prestigious 3rd Brandenburg Regiment of von Zieten’s Hussars was stationed there. A Landrat von Briest came to the assistance of the Great Elector during the surprise attack on Rathenow in 1675. See note to
page 46
.
Page 7
:
Fritz Reuter
. Humorous writer (1810-74). The twins
Mining and Lining
are characters from his most famous novel
Ut min Stromtid (Seed-time and harvest: or, During my apprenticeship)
, written in
Plattdeutsch
. The names suggest middle-class respectability.
Page 7
:
Landrat
. Prussian official, appointed by the crown. He was in charge of a
Kreis
, the smallest administrative district, so Innstetten was the biggest fish in a small pool. The
Bezirk
was a larger district centred on a more important town, such as Potsdam. See notes to
pages 6
and
9
. There were thirty-five
Bezirke
in Prussia. The largest units of administration were Provinces. Kessin would have been a
Kreis
in the Province of Pomerania.
Page 8
:
Wedding Eve
. It is traditional in Germany to celebrate the
Polterabend
, the night before a wedding, with a festive meal, amateur theatricals, dancing and riotous merriment which may include breaking crockery, a custom originally intended to frighten away evil spirits.
Page 9
:
Ritterschaftsrat
. Land-owning aristocrat with a seat in the Prussian provincial parliament.
Page 9
:
war of 1870
. The Franco-Prussian war (1870/71) was the last of a series of victorious campaigns for Bismarck which brought about the unification of Germany and the declaration of the German Empire. The first German empire, the Holy Roman Empire, had ceased to exist in name in 1806 in the aftermath of Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz, and in fact it disintegrated much earlier.
Page 9
:
Perlebergers
. Four squadrons of the 11th Regiment of Uhlans, Prussian lancers, were stationed in Perleberg in the District of Potsdam. The word ‘Uhlan’ is of Polish derivation and the uniforms incorporated features from Polish national dress, whereas the more prestigious Hussars were of Hungarian origin, a fact similarly reflected in their uniforms. The Hussars’
most glorious days were as new crack cavalry regiments under Frederick the Great.
Page 16
:
Hôtel du Nord
. From this high-class hotel on Unter den Linden Effi could go and order her furniture at
Spinn and Mencke
and her trousseau at
Goschenhofer
, both elegant shops on Leipzigerstrasse.
Page 16
:
Alexander Regiment
. 1st Regiment of the Emperor Alexander’s Grenadier Guards, named during the Napoleonic Wars after Tsar Alexander I of Russia. It is significant that Dagobert, the only representative of the younger generation of the Prussian military, is in a regiment associated with a period of Prussian military defeat and betrayal. Tsar Alexander made common cause with the Prussians against Napoleon in the war of 1806-07, which included Prussia’s crushing defeat at Jena (1806), only to leave the Prussians in the lurch by entering into an alliance with Napoleon by the Treaty of Tilsit (1807). This is a further subtle suggestion that Prussia’s glory and the legitimacy of the established order are transient and subject to change, relative and not absolute phenomena.
Page 16
:
Fliegende Blätter
. Illustrated satirical weekly.
Page 16
:
Kranzler’s
. Famous restaurant and cake shop on the corner of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse.
Page 16
:
Café Bauer
. Café on Unter den Linden opposite Kranzler’s, frequented by the demi-monde in the afternoon and evening, hence ‘respectable’ only before lunch.
Page 16
:
The Isle of the Blessed
. Dagobert intends to refer to
Die Gefilde der Seligen (The Elysian Fields)
by Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), which caused a furore when it was hung in the Berlin National Gallery in 1878. It showed a centaur surrounded by naked nymphs in an idyllic landscape in the centre of a lake. He confuses it with another Böcklin,
Die Insel der Seligen
, a more sombre and mysterious painting showing figures in a boat crossing the water to an island of cypresses, which suggests the passage from life to death.
Page 17
:
Princess Friedrich Karl
. Maria Anna von Anhalt (1837-1906), wife of Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, who was Kaiser Wilhelm I’s nephew and from 1870 Prussian Field Marshal.
Page 17
:
Demuth’s
. High-class supplier of leather and travel goods.
Page 18
:
Luch
. A name used in north-east Germany for a low-lying, marshy area. Here the reference is to the Kremmen Luch, part of the Havelland Luch north-west of Berlin.
Page 18
:
Das Käthchen von Heilbronn
. Romantic chivalric drama by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). The heroine Käthchen falls asleep under an elder tree and in a dream declares her love to the knight Wetter vom Strahl.
Page 19
:
Hohenzollern in disguise
. Allusion to the dramatist Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845-1909), grandson of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.
Page 19
:
‘Cinderella’. Aschenbrödel
, comedy by Roderich Benedix (1811-73).
Page 20
:
Sedan Day
. September 2nd, anniversary of the capitulation of Napoleon
III in 1870 at Sedan. A national holiday in imperial Germany.
Page 23
:
Prince Friedrich Karl
. See note to
page 17
.
Page 26
:
Hövel’s
. H. von Hövell, at 12/13 Unter den Linden, manufacturer of chocolates and sweets, supplier to the imperial court.
Page 26
:
Kögel
. Rudolf Kögel (1829-96), conservatively inclined court chaplain from 1863.
Page 27
:
Valhalla
. Temple of Honour at Donaustauf near Regensburg, opened in 1842 to house busts of famous Germans, named after the mythological resting place of Germanic warriors.
Page 29
:
Pinakothek… the other gallery
. The Alte Pinakothek art gallery in Munich housing old master paintings; the other which Effi cannot spell is the Glyptothek, the sculpture gallery.
Page 29
: ‘
Four Seasons’
. Still today one of the best hotels in Munich, a traditional staging point for upper-class honeymooners on the way to Italy.
Page 30
: ‘
In Padua he lies buried’
. Goethe,
Faust
Part I, line 2925. Mephisto’s wily words to Frau Marthe Schwerdtlein about her husband.
Page 31
:
St Privat panorama
. This cylindrical panoramic painting by Emil Hünten of one of the decisive moments of the Franco-Prussian War, the storming of St Privat near Metz on August 18th, 1870, was displayed under the title
Nationalpanorama
in Herwarthstrasse from 1881. Sound and light effects and models in the foreground were added to give the spectator the impression of actually being present at the action.
Page 31
:
ten miles
. The German
Meile
which Fontane uses was 7.5 kilometres, that is about 5 miles. All distances in the novel have been converted accordingly.
Page 32
:
Varzin
. Village in the Prussian administrative District of Köslin (now Koszalin in Poland) where Bismarck had an estate. He frequently stayed there up to his dismissal in 1890 by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Page 32
:
starost
. ‘Elder’ (Polish). In Poland, a nobleman who had been given estates by the crown and generally had reponsibilty for judicial matters in the local community.
Page 34
: Christian Julius
de Meza
(1792-1865), commander of the Danish troops in the German-Danish War of 1864. He was descended from Portuguese Jews fleeing persecution, who emigrated to Holland.
Page 37
:
Small and narrow is my hut
. Allusion to Friedrich Schiller,
Die Braut von Messina (The Bride of Messina)
, ‘There is space in the smallest hut / For a happy loving couple.’
Page 40
: Friedrich Ernst Count von
Wrangel
(1784-1877), Prussian Field-Marshal from 1856, had a highly distinguished military career in all major Prussian campaigns from 1807 on and in later life was a popular figure in Berlin, known for his caustic wit.
Page 42
:
black and white with a little red at best
. The Prussian colours (black and white) were preferred to the German national flag (black, white and red).
Page 44
:
president of the high court. Gerichtspräsident
, senior judge at a higher court.
Page 45
:
district judge. Amtsrichter
, judge in a small locality who sat at the
Amts-gericht
, the first judicial instance.
Page 46
:
attack on Rathenow
. As a prelude to the Battle of Fehrbellin, General Doerfflinger liberated Rathenow from Swedish occupation on June 25th, 1675. See note to
page 6
.
Page 46
:
Fehrbellin
. Famous victory won on June 28th, 1675 by the Great Elector over the Swedes. It was considered decisive in freeing Brandenburg from the territorial ambitions of Sweden.
Froben
. The master of horse Emanuel von Froben is credited with saving the Elector’s life by exchanging his horse for the Elector’s conspicuous white charger in the course of the battle. Froben was then killed.
Page 48
:
conqueror of Saarbrücken
. On August 2nd, 1870 Saarbrücken was taken, temporarily, by the French in the first skirmish of the Franco-Prussian War.
Page 48
:
Jewish banker
. Baron Alfons de Rothschild (1827-1905).
Page 48
: Karl Eduard
Nobiling
. Anarchist whose unsuccessful assassination attempt on Kaiser Wilhelm I on June 2nd, 1878 served Bismarck as justification for his measures against the Socialists.
Page 51
: ‘
White Lady’
. Ghostly apparition said to haunt various Hohenzollern castles, warning of imminent disaster. According to legend the widowed Countess Agnes of Orlamünde in the late thirteenth century murdered her children to be able to marry Albrecht von Nürnberg, an ancestor of the Hohenzollerns.
Page 67
:
Orpheus, Kriemhild, Vestal Virgin
. Operatic roles for female voice, from Gluck’s
Orpheus and Eurydice
(1762), Heinrich Ludwig Dorn’s
Die Nibelungen
(1854) and Gasparo Spontini’s
The Vestal Virgin
(1807). The discarded pieces are
Erl-King
, Schubert (or possibly Löwe’s) setting of Goethe’s poem;
Mill-stream…
, from Schubert’s song cycle
Die schöne Müllerin
, setting poems by Wilhelm Müller;
The Bells of Speyer
, Löwe’s setting of Maximilian von Oer’s ballad. Miss Tripelli performs
Sir Olaf
, a poem by Heinrich Heine which Fontane has apparently confused with Löwe’s setting of
Herr Oluf
from the folksong anthology
Des Knaben Wunderhorn
; and other dramatic pieces concluding with Friedrich Hebbel’s ballad
Der Heideknabe (The Boy on the Heath)
in a setting by Schumann (1853) for declamation and piano.