The Black Spider
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The Black Spider
Jeremias Gotthelf
Translated by H.M. Waidson
ONEWORLD CLASSICS LTD
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The Black Spider first published in 1842
This translation first published by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd in 1958
Reprinted by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd in 1980
First published in the USA in 1980 by Riverrun Press Inc.
This edition first published by Oneworld Classics Limited in 2009
Translation © John Calder (Publishers) Limited, 1958, 1980
Front cover image © Getty Images
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe
ISBN: 978-1-84749-108-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.
Contents
Introduction
Chronology
The Black Spider
Introduction
JEREMIAS GOTTHELF was the pseudonym by which the Swiss pastor Albert Bitzius, who died in 1854, was known as a writer of prose fiction. When his first novel Der Bauernspiegel (The Peasants’ Mirror) appeared, he was thirty-nine years old, a married man with three children, and Protestant minister in the quiet village of Lützelflüh, some twenty miles to the east of Berne. His was, or appeared to be, essentially a practical temperament. He was indifferent to theoretical theology, and saw religion as something to be experienced and to be lived. Keenly interested in education, social welfare and politics, settled and happy in his family life, with a first-hand intimate knowledge of the farming community in which he worked, it might seem strange that he should turn to novel-writing and, after the publication of his first novel, pour out during the next sixteen years a varied succession of imaginative writings with a power and fluency that only ceased with his death. A man of immense vitality, he continued to be pastor of his large and scattered parish as well as to be an educationist and freelance journalist during these years, when he wrote his twelve long novels and some forty shorter tales, and in addition one extensive novel fragment, some essays and briefer works. In a letter of December 1838, Gotthelf describes the breakthrough of his creative writing in the following terms:
Thus I was hemmed in and kept down on all sides, I could express myself nowhere in free action. I couldn’t even tire myself out riding, and if I had been able to go riding every other day, I should never have written. You must realize now that a wild life was moving within me of which no one suspected the existence, and if a few expressions forced their way out of my mouth, they were taken as mere insolent words. This life had either to consume itself or to break forth in some way or other. It did so in writing. And people naturally don’t realize that it is indeed a regular breaking-out of a long pent-up force, like the bursting-forth of a mountain lake. Such a lake bursts out in wild floods until it finds its own path, and sweeps mud and rocks along in its wild flight. Then it gets cleaner, and may become quite a pretty little stream. My writing too has broken its own path in the same way, a wild hitting-out in all directions where I have been constricted, in order to make space for myself. How I came to writing was on the one hand an instinctive compulsion, on the other hand I really had to write like that if I wanted to make any impression on the people.
When first published in 1842, Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider) aroused relatively little interest; the novel Uli der Knecht (Uli the Farmhand), which had appeared a year earlier, with its realism, humour and contemporary setting, was the work by which Gotthelf was first to become at all generally known outside Switzerland. It was not until the twentieth century that The Black Spider became the most widely read of its author’s works. In 1949, Thomas Mann wrote that there was scarcely a work in world literature that he admired more than The Black Spider, and its position as one of the outstanding examples of narrative fiction in the German language is now generally recognized. Perhaps the psychological theories of Freud and Jung and the nightmare fantasies of Kafka had to be absorbed before the European imagination was ready for Gotthelf’s The Black Spider.
The story opens idyllically, a conscious idealization of the peasant-farming way of life. The christening celebration in a farmer’s family would be a homely scene of a type in which Gotthelf must frequently have taken part. Indeed the farm itself was about ten miles from Gotthelf’s house and church at Lützelflüh, and the present Hornbachhof near Wasen is built on the site of the farm which he knew. The little valley of the river Grüne, with its darker patches of forest mingled with the brighter colours of the cultivated land and the scattered red-roofed farmsteads, presents a friendly, peaceful atmosphere now, as no doubt in Gotthelf’s day. It is not an Alpine landscape; to the north can be seen the blue line of the Jura, and from vantage points in the district the peaks of the Bernese Oberland are on a clear day distantly visible to the south. But the valley itself is enclosed by green hills rather than high, rocky mountains. The localities named in the tale are not fictitious. The Bärhegenhubel is a hilltop some 770 feet above the valley. It is about three miles to the east of Sumiswald, with its “Bear” Inn and round table, and its nearby Kilchstalden, or “church slope”; the tree-clad Münneberg rises a little further beyond to the west of the village.
The humour and everyday realism of the framing narrative are more typical of Gotthelf’s writing generally than is the legend of the black spider which forms the central interest of the tale. At one time Gotthelf planned to write a connected cycle of legendary-historical stories which should form a sequence of pictures from the Bernese past. This plan was never carried out, but a number of individual tales on these themes were written, of which The Black Spider is the best. This is a plague legend, and it is known that the valley was ravaged by plague in 1434. The spider theme is linked with motifs from ancient myth – the cheating of the Devil, human sacrifice, the imprisonment of the demon within a beam of wood, and others – which stretch back from legendary material of Bernese origin to remote manifestations. Hans von Stoffeln, the tyrannical knight whose harshness drives his shifty and hapless peasants into the fateful pact that precipitates the plague, was master of Sumiswald from 1512 to 1527; the historical figure, however, was known as a generous ruler, and he is in fact commemorated in one of the windows of Sumiswald Church. The Teutonic Order to which he belonged was in control of this district from 1285 to 1698, when the Sumiswald area passed into the charge of the canton of Berne. At the time of the first and more important of the two legendary narratives which are related at the christening celebration, the Order was an important military and colonizing organization, though by the seventeenth century, when the second visitation of the spider takes place, it was without authority in these lands and on the verge of disintegration. Two narratives of a historical-legendary character are thus enclosed within the framework of the Ascension Sunday christening celebration, and the unifying theme of the whole work is the baptism of children. In the legends the onslaught of the plague is described with a combination of realism and fantasy that brings myth into daily life as the battle between good and evil. Throughout the tale we are conscious of the presentation of the divine and the diabolic as co-existent with the material and human world.
Gotthelf was essentially a spontaneous and original writer, owing little to literary tradit
ions or fashions. Echoes of the Bible are more easily discernible than any other reading influences. He wrote in a German style that was unmistakably his, colloquial, racy and shot through with local Swiss idioms, and yet at the same time massive and rocklike, capable of visionary sweep and power. The writing in The Black Spider often gives a sense of being written in a fury of impetuosity which is careless of conventional grammar and syntax; Gotthelf is, as it were, creating his own language and style as well as his own characters and action.
The version that follows is based on my edition of the German text, which was revised from the original manuscript now in the archives of the Stadt- und Hochschulbibliothek in Berne. For further information about this story the reader is referred to this edition (Jeremias Gotthelf, Die schwarze Spinne, Oxford: Blackwell, 1956) and for a fuller account of Gotthelf’s life and works to my study Jeremias Gotthelf: An Introduction to the Swiss Novelist (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953).
– H.M. Waidson
Chronology
1797 Albert Bitzius born at Murten, now in Canton Fribourg, Switzerland.
1798 French occupation of Switzerland.
1805 The Bitzius family move to Utzenstorf, Canton Berne.
1815 Congress of Vienna and establishment of a restored federal constitution in Switzerland.
1815–20 Student of theology at Berne.
1821–22 Student at Göttingen.
1822–32 Curate at Utzenstorf, Herzogenbuchsee, Berne and Lützelflüh.
1832–54 Pastor of Lützelflüh.
1833 Marriage to Henriette Zeender.
1834 Birth of Henriette Bitzius, Gotthelf’s eldest child.
1835 Birth of Albert Bitzius, Gotthelf’s son.
1837 Birth of Cécile Bitzius, Gotthelf’s younger daughter. Der Bauernspiegel (novel).
1838–39 Leiden und Freuden eines Schulmeisters (novel).
1841 Wie Uli der Knecht glücklich wird (novel).
1842 Die schwarze Spinne (tale).
1843 Elsi, die seltsame Magd (tale).
1843–44 Geld und Geist (novel).
1843–44 Anne Bäbi Jowäger (novel).
1845 Der Geldstag (novel).
1846–47 Jakobs Wanderungen durch die Schweiz (novel).
1847 Käthi die Grossmutter (novel). Sonderbund war, civil war in Switzerland.
1848 Hans Joggeli, der Erbvetter (tale). New federal constitution in Switzerland.
1848 Uli der Pächter (novel, sequel to Uli der Knecht).
1850 Die Käserei in der Vehfreude (novel).
1851 Zeitgeist und Bernergeist (novel). Das Erdbeeri Mareili (tale).
1852 Der Besenbinder von Rychiswyl (tale).
1854 Erlebnisse eines Schuldenbauers (novel). Death of Gotthelf.
The Black Spider
THE SUN ROSE OVER THE HILLS, shone with clear majesty down into a friendly, narrow valley and awakened to joyful consciousness the beings who are created to enjoy the sunlight of their life. From the sun-gilt forest’s edge the thrush burst forth in her morning song, while between sparkling flowers in dew-laden grass the yearning quail could be heard joining in with its love-song; above dark pine tops eager crows were performing their nuptial dance or cawing delicate cradle songs over the thorny beds of their fledgeless young.
In the middle of the sun-drenched hillside nature had placed a fertile, sheltered, level piece of ground; here stood a fine house, stately and shining, surrounded by a splendid orchard, where a few tall apple trees were still displaying their finery of late blossom; the luxuriant grass, which was watered by the fountain near the house, was in part still standing, though some of it had already found its way to the fodder store. About the house there lay a Sunday brightness which was not of the type that can be produced on a Saturday evening in the half-light with a few sweeps of the broom, but which rather testified to a valuable heritage of traditional cleanliness which has to be cherished daily, like a family’s reputation, tarnished as this may become in one single hour by marks that remain, like bloodstains, indelible from generation to generation, making a mockery of all attempts to whitewash them.
Not for nothing did the earth built by God’s hand and the house built by man’s hand gleam in purest adornment; today, a festal holiday, a star in the blue sky shone forth upon them both. It was the day on which the Son had returned to the Father to bear witness that the heavenly ladder is still standing, where angels go up and down, and the soul of man too, when it wrenches itself from the body – that is, if its salvation and purpose have been with the Father above and not here below on earth – it was the day on which the whole plant world grows closer towards heaven, blooming in luxuriant plenty as an annually recurring symbol to man of his own destiny. Over the hills came a wonderful sound; no one knew where it came from, it sounded as if from all sides; it came from the churches in the far valleys beyond; from there the bells were bringing the message that God’s temples are open to all whose hearts are open to the voice of their God.
Around the fine house there was lively movement. Near the fountain horses were being combed with special care, dignified matrons, with their spirited colts darting around them; in the broad trough cows were quenching their thirst, looking about them in a comfortable manner, and twice the farmer’s lad had to use shovel and broom because he had not removed the traces of their well-being cleanly enough. Well-set maids were vigorously washing their ruddy faces with a handy face cloth, while their hair was twisted into two bunches over their ears; or with bustling industry they were carrying water through the open door; and in mighty puffs a dark column of smoke from the short chimney rose straight and high, up into the clear air.
Slowly the grandfather, a bent figure, was walking with his stick round the outside of the house, watching silently the doings of the farm servants and the maids; now he would stroke one of the horses, or again restrain a cow in her clumsy playfulness, or point out to the careless farmer’s boy wisps of straw still lying forgotten here and there, while taking his flint and steel assiduously out of the deep pocket of his long waistcoat in order to light his pipe again, which he enjoyed so much in the morning in spite of the fact that it did not draw well.
The grandmother was sitting on a clean-swept bench in front of the house near the door, cutting fine bread into a large basin, every piece sliced thin and just the right size, not carelessly as cooks or maids would do it, who often hack off pieces big enough to choke a whale. Proud, well-fed hens and beautiful doves were quarrelling over the crumbs at her feet, and if a shy little dove did not get its share, the grandmother threw it a piece all to itself, consoling it with friendly words for the want of sense and the impetuosity of the others.
Inside in the big, clean kitchen a huge fire of pine wood was crackling; in a big pan could be heard the popping of coffee beans which a stately-looking woman was stirring around with a wooden ladle, while nearby the coffee mill was grinding between the knees of a freshly washed maid; but standing by the open door of the living room was a beautiful, rather pale woman with an open coffee sack in her hand, and she said, “Look, midwife, don’t roast the coffee so black today, or else they might think I wanted to be stingy with it. The godfather’s wife is really awfully suspicious and always makes the worst of everything anybody does. Half a pound or so is neither here nor there on a day like this. Oh, and don’t forget to have the mulled wine ready at the right time. Grandfather wouldn’t think it was a christening if we didn’t set the godparents up with some mulled wine before they went to church. Don’t be stingy about what’s to go in it, do you hear? Over there in the dish on the kitchen dresser you’ll find saffron and cinnamon, the sugar’s on the table here, and take at least half as much wine again as you think is enough; at a christening there’s never any need to worry that things won’t get used up.”
We hear that there is to be a christening in the house today, and the midwife delivers the food and drink as cleverly as she delivered the baby at an earlier stage, but she will have to hurry if she is to be ready in time and to
cook at the simple fireplace everything demanded by custom.
A firmly built man came up from the cellar with a mighty piece of cheese in his hand, picked up from the gleaming kitchen dresser the first plate he could find, placed the cheese on it and was going to carry it into the living room to put on the brown walnut table. “But Benz, Benz,” the beautiful, pale woman exclaimed, “how they’d laugh, if we couldn’t find a better plate than this at the christening!” And she went to the gleaming cherry-wood china cupboard where the proud ornaments of the house were displayed behind the glass windows. There she took up a beautiful blue-rimmed plate with a great bunch of flowers in the middle which was surrounded by ingenious legends, such as:
Take heed, O man:
A pound of butter costs three Batzen.
God is gracious to man,
But I live on good grass land.
In hell it’s hot,
And the potter has to work hard.
The cow eats grass;
Man ends in the grave.
Next to the cheese she placed a huge cake, that peculiar Bernese confection, coiled like the women’s plaits, beautifully brown and yellow, baked with best flour, eggs and butter, as large as a one-year-old child and weighing almost as much; and on either side she placed two more plates. Piled up on them lay appetizing fritters, yeast cakes on the one plate, pancakes on the other. Thick, warm cream was standing on the oven, covered up in a jug with lovely flowers patterned on it, and in the glistening three-legged can with its yellow lid the coffee was bubbling. In this way a breakfast was awaiting the godparents, when they should arrive, of a sort that princes seldom have and no peasant farmers in the world except the Bernese. Thousands of English people go rushing through Switzerland, but never has one of the jaded lords or one of the stiff-legged ladies been presented with a breakfast like this.
“If only they’d come soon, it’s all waiting,” the midwife sighed. “Anyway, it’ll be a good time before they’re all ready and everybody’s had what they want, and the pastor is awfully punctual and ticks you off sharply if you’re not there at the right time.”