Back to German Stories and Tales, and here’s part I and part II for anyone interested in the contents of this modest OOP book. Readers who are seeking German stories really can’t go wrong with this collection, for most of the tales here are excellent.
In Moritz Heimann’s (1868-1925) story The Message That Failed, a tale of unrequited love, humble revenue clerk/poet Vincentius Hüttenvogel returns from the theatre following a performance of The Marriage of Figaro. In a burst of enthusiasm, he writes a poem to the singer who played the role of Cherubino in a sexually ambiguous fashion:
Vincentius, who had often seen and heard her, but had formerly resented her crude, naturalistic vocal style, was at first vexed and then enkindled by her Cherubino’s ambiguity. Artlessness this time impressed him as superior art; no love song had ever had the elemental quality of this gay, careless outpouring from a creature who did not lure a woman with male wiles or try as a woman to seduce a man. This was no longer yearning or mere concupiscence. This was rapture itself an all its sweetness.
Vincentius considers sending the singer, Nanette, the poem, but decides against it. His landlady. however, finds the poem, copies it, and sends it to Nanette. Nanette is used to fan mail, but this poem strikes at her heart, and somehow the adulation shown by its author make her impatient with her young, wealthy lover, Xavier. So begins a search for the poet, a search laced with irony and a bittersweet ending. (translated by E.B. Ashton)
Arthur Schnitzler’s The Bachelor’s Death reminded me, slightly, of the old film, Letter to Three Wives. A doctor, a writer, and a businessman are called to the bedside of their friend, a bachelor, but they all arrive too late; the bachelor is dead. The doctor discovers a letter written by the bachelor and reads it aloud. To state the contents of the letter would be to give away too much, but I’ll say that the letter is a confession which has profound implications for the three men. (translated by Richard and Clara Winston)
Another great favourite is Hermann Broch’s Zerline, the Old Servant Girl. At first it seemed as though the focus would be A., an affluent businessman with the Midas touch. But no, the focus is Zerline, a bitter, nasty old servant who tells a story of her youth and the competition between her and her mistress, the Baroness, for the love of a dissolute man.
Man is cheap, and his memory is full of holes that he can never patch up. How much of what you forget forever you have to do in order for what you have done to be able to carry the little that you keep forever. Everyone forgets his everyday life. With me it was all the furniture that I dusted day after day, all the plates that had to be wiped, and like everyone else. I sat down every day to eat. But as with everyone, it’s only a knowing about it, not a real remembering, as though it had all happened without any weather, good or bad. Even the lust I enjoyed has become a space without weather, and though my gratitude for what was alive has remained, the names and features that once meant lust and even love to me have vanished more and more from my mind, vanished into a glass gratitude that has no content any more.Empty glasses, empty glasses. And yet if it weren’t for the emptiness, if it weren’t for the forgotten, the forgettable wouldn’t have been able to grow. The forgotten carries empty-handed the unforgettable, and we are carried by the unforgettable.
It’s a long quote, slightly awkward in the beginning, but it captures life and memories so well, and how at the end of our lives, we forget all the meals we’ve eaten, all the boring stuff, and instead our lives are accordioned into some “unforgettable” memories. In the case of Zerline, the unforgettable shrinks down to a few days with Herr von Juna…. (translated by Jane B. Greene)
His Futile Preoccupations ..... 