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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The German Classics, v. 20 Masterpieces of German Literature Author: Various Editor: Kuno Francke Release Date: January 25, 2010 [EBook #31081] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GERMAN CLASSICS, V. 20 *** Produced by Charles Bowen, from scans obtained from The Internet Archive. Transcriber's Note: Source of this book is found in the Web Archive at http://www.archive.org/details/germanclassicsof20franuoft VOLUME XX JAKOB WASSERMANN BERNHARD KELLERMANN MAX HALBE HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL ARTHUR SCHNITZLER FRANK WEDEKIND ERNST HARDT THE GERMAN CLASSICS Masterpieces of German Literature TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH Patron's Edition IN TWENTY VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED THE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY NEW YORK Copyright 1914 by T HE G ERMAN P UBLICATION S OCIETY CONTRIBUTORS AND TRANSLATORS VOLUME XX Special Writers M RS . A MELIA VON E NDE : The Contemporary German Drama. Translators P AUL H. G RUMMANN , A.M., Professor of Modern German Literature, University of Nebraska: Mother Earth. B AYARD Q UINCY M ORGAN , Ph.D., Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin: The Marriage of Sobeide. J OHN H EARD , J R .: Tristram the Jester. K ATHARINE R OYCE : God's Beloved. A LBERT W ILHELM B OESCHE , Ph.D., Assistant Professor of German, Cornell University: The Court Singer. A. I. DU P. C OLEMAN , A.M., Professor of English Literature, College of the City of New York: Literature. J ULIA F RANKLIN : Clarissa Mirabel. H ORACE S AMUEL : The Green Cockatoo. CONTENTS OF VOLUME XX PAGE JAKOB WASSERMANN Clarissa Mirabel. Translated by Julia Franklin 1 BERNHARD KELLERMANN God's Beloved. Translated by Katharine Royce 59 The Contemporary German Drama. By Amelia von Ende 94 MAX HALBE Mother Earth. Translated by Paul H. Grummann 111 HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL The Marriage of Sobeide. Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan 234 ARTHUR SCHNITZLER The Green Cockatoo. Translated by Horace Samuel 289 Literature. Translated by A. I. du P. Coleman 332 FRANK WEDEKIND The Court Singer. Translated by 360 Albert Wilhelm Boesche ERNST HARDT Tristram the Jester. Translated by John Heard, Jr. 398 ILLUSTRATIONS—VOLUME XX PAGE The Warden of Paradise. By Franz von Stuck Frontispiece Jakob Wassermann 20 Bathing Woman. By Rudolf Riemerschmid 40 Hera. By Hans Unger 70 In the Shade. By Leo Putz 100 Max Halbe 130 Mother Earth. By Robert Weise 160 Fording the Water. By Heinrich von Zügel 190 Sheep. By Heinrich von Zügel 220 Lake in the Grunewald. By Walter Leistikow 240 Lake in the Grunewald. By Walter Leistikow 260 A Brandenburg Lake. By Walter Leistikow 280 Arthur Schnitzler 290 Henrik Ibsen. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 310 Georg Brandes. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 330 Gerhart Hauptmann. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 340 Paul Heyse. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 350 Frank Wedekind 360 Siegfried Wagner. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 370 Leo Tolstoy. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 380 D. Mommsen. (From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries") 390 Ernst Hardt 420 A Daughter of the People. By Karl Haider 440 Approaching Thunderstorm. By Karl Haider 480 [Blank Page] EDITOR'S NOTE This, the last volume of THE GERMAN CLASSICS, was intended to be devoted to the contemporary drama exclusively. But the harvest of the contemporary German Short Story is so rich that an overflow from V olume XIX had to be accommodated in V olume XX. It is hoped that this has not seriously crippled the representative character of the dramatic selections, although the editors are fully aware of the importance of such dramatists as Herbert Eulenberg, Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, or Fritz von Unruh. The principal tendencies, at any rate, of the hopeful and eager activity which distinguishes the German stage of today are brought out in this volume with sufficient clearness, especially in combination with the selections from Schönherr and Hofmannsthal in V olumes XVI and XVII. The European war, unfortunately, has prevented us from making the selections from contemporary German painting in V olumes XIX and XX as varied and representative as we had hoped. KUNO FRANCKE. [Blank page] JAKOB WASSERMANN CLARISSA MIRABEL (1906) TRANSLATED BY JULIA FRANKLIN In the little town of Rodez, situated on the western side of the Cévennes and washed by the waters of the river Aveyron, there lived a lawyer by the name of Fualdes, a commonplace man, neither good nor bad. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he had only recently retired from affairs, and his finances were in such a bad shape that he was obliged, in the beginning of the year 1817, to dispose of his estate of La Morne. With the proceeds he meant to retire to some quiet spot and live on the interest of his money. One evening—it was the nineteenth of March—he received from the purchaser of the estate, President Seguret, the residue of the purchase-money in bills and securities, and, after locking the papers in his desk, he left the house, having told the housekeeper that he had to go to La Morne once more in order to make some necessary arrangements with the tenant. He neither reached La Morne nor returned to his home. The following morning a tailor's wife from the village of Aveyron saw his body lying in a shallow of the river, ran to Rodez and fetched some people back with her. The rocky slope was precipitously steep at that point, rising to a height of about forty feet. A great piece of the narrow footpath which led from Rodez to the vineyards had crumbled away, and it was doubtless owing to that circumstance that the unfortunate man had been precipitated to the bottom. It had rained very heavily the day before, and the soil on top had, according to the testimony of a number of people who worked in the vineyards, been loose for a long time. It seemed a singular fact that there was a deep gash in the throat of the dead man; but as jagged stones projected all over the rocky surface of the slope, such an injury explained itself. On examination of the steep wall, no traces of blood were found on stone or earth. The rain had washed away everything. The news of the occurrence spread rapidly, and all through the day two or three hundred people from Rodez—men, women, and children—were standing on both shores staring with a look of fascination and self-induced horror into the depths of the ravine. The question was raised whether it was not a will-o'- the-wisp that had misled the old man. A woman alleged that she had spoken with a shepherd who declared he had heard a cry for help; this, it is true, occurred about midnight, and Fualdes had left his house at eight o'clock. A stout tinker contended that the darkness had not been as dense as all believed; he himself had crossed the fields, on his way from La Valette, at nine o'clock, and the moon was then shining. The inspector of customs took him severely to task, and informed him that a new moon had made its appearance the day before, as one could easily find out by looking in the calendar. The tinker shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that in such conjunctures even the calendar was not to be trusted. When it grew dusk the people wandered homeward, in pairs and groups, now chatting, now silent, now whispering with an air of mystery. Like dogs that have become suspicious and keep circling about the same spot, they strained with hungry eagerness for a new excitement. They looked searchingly in front of them, heard with sharpened ears every word that was uttered. Some cast suspicious side-glances at each other; those who had money closed their doors and counted their money over. At night in the taverns the guests told of the great riches that the miserly Fualdes had accumulated; he had, it was said, sold La Morne only because he shrank from compelling the lessee, Grammont, who was his nephew, by legal means to pay two years' arrears of rent. The spoken word hung halting on the lips, carrying a half-framed thought in its train. It was an accepted fact among the citizens that Fualdes, the liberal Protestant, a former official of the Empire, had been annoyed by threats against his life. The dark fancies spun busily at the web of fear. Those who still believed it was an accident refrained from expressing their reasons; they had to guard against suspicion falling upon themselves. Already a band of confederates was designated, drawn from the Legitimist party, now become inimical, threatening, arrogant. Dark hatred pointed to the Jesuits and their missions as instigators of the mysterious deed. How often had justice halted when the power of the mighty shielded the criminal! The spring sun of the ensuing day shone upon tense, agitated, eager faces gradually inflamed to fierceness. The Royalists began to fear for their belongings; in order to protect themselves, infected as they, too, were by the general horror which emanated from the unknown, they admitted that a crime had been perpetrated. But how? and where? and through whom? A cobbler has a better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He remembered exactly what the doctor had said on the discovery of the corpse; he was standing close by and had heard every syllable. "It almost looks as if the man had been murdered;" those were the astonished words of the doctor when he was examining the wound in the throat. "Murdered? what are you saying, man?" interposed one of the company. "Yes, murdered!" cried the cobbler triumphantly.—"But it is said that there was sand sticking to the wound," remarked a young man shyly.—"O pshaw! sand, sand!" retorted the shoemaker, "What does sand prove anyway?"—"No, sand proves nothing," all of them admitted. And by midday the report in all the houses of the quarter ran: Fualdes had been murdered, he had been butchered. The word gave the inflamed minds a picture, the whispering tongues a hint. Now, by a strange chance it happened that on that fateful evening the night watchman had deposited in the guardroom a cane with an ivory knob and a gilt ring, which he had found in front of the Bancal dwelling, separated from lawyer Fualdes' house by the Rue de l'Ambrague, a dark cross street. Fualdes' housekeeper, an old deaf woman, asserted positively that the cane was the property of her master; her assertion seemed incontestable. A long time after, it came to light that the cane belonged to a traveling tradesman who had spent the night carousing in the company of some wenches; but at the time, attention was at once turned to the Bancal house, a dilapidated, gloomy building with musty, dirty corners. It had formerly been owned by a butcher, and pigs were still kept in the yard. It was a house of assignation and was visited nightly by soldiers, smugglers, and questionable-looking girls; now and then, too, heavily veiled ladies and aristocratic-looking men slipped in and out. On the ground floor there lived, beside the Bancal couple, a former soldier, Colard, and his sweetheart, the wench Bedos, and the humpbacked Missonier; above them, there dwelt an old Spaniard, by the name of Saavedra, and his wife; he was a political refugee who had sought protection in France. On the afternoon of the twenty-first of March, the soldier, Colard, was standing at the corner of the Rue de l'Ambrague, playing a monotonous air on his flute, one that he had learned from the shepherds of the Pyrenees. The shopkeeper, Galtier, came up the road, stood still, made a pretense of listening, but finally interrupted the musician, addressing him severely: "Why do you gad about and pretend to be ignorant,