A Village Romeo and Juliet
Gottfried Keller
Translated by Ronald Taylor
ALMA CLASSICS
ALMA CLASSICS
Hogarth House
32-34 Paradise Road
Richmond
Surrey TW9 1SE
United Kingdom
www.almaclassics.com
A Village Romeo and Juliet first published in German in 1856
First published in this translation in 1966 by John Calder (Publishers) Limited Translation © John Calder (Publishers) Limited, 1966
First published by Alma Classics Limited (previously Oneworld Classics Limited) in 2008. Reprinted 2009 (twice), 2011
This new edition first published by Alma Classics Limited, 2015
Front cover image © Jean Boccacino
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
ISBN: 978-1-84749-457-3
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.
Introduction
Gottfried keller, one of the greatest narrative writers of German literature, was born in Zürich in 1819. His family was poor and his education rudimentary, and after leaving school at fifteen he took up the study of painting, first in Zürich, then in Munich. But his faith in his artistic calling was not matched by his talent, and after two years in Munich he returned to his native town.
Turning his mind to writing instead of painting, he succeeded in having a group of poems published in a 1iterary magazine, and on the basis of the promise which these poems revealed, he received a grant from the government of his canton to study at a university abroad. With this he went to Heidelberg, where he came under the strong influence of the materialist philosopher Feuerbach. After two years he left for Berlin, where he stayed from 1850 to 1855, publishing a further volume of poems and completing his first and most important novel, the autobiographical romance Der grüne Heinrich. Immediately after this he began to work at great speed on the succession of short stories by which he is best known today: those collected into two volumes under the title Die Leute von Seldwyla.
In 1855 Keller returned to Switzerland, and in 1861 was offered a position in the cantonal administration of Zürich. This post he held for fifteen years, during which time he published his Sieben Legenden and the cycle of historical stories Zürcher Novellen. He died in Zürich in 1890, four days before his seventy-first birthday.
It is in his shorter narrative works that Keller is seen at his strongest and most gripping. His subject matter is often of slender proportions, and its setting provincial, but the pitiless penetration of his gaze and the blunt insistence of his manner – he was no respecter of persons – create from it works of ruthless characterization and rugged situational power. He is no polished stylist, like his contemporary and countryman Conrad Ferdinand Meyer; indeed, his descriptive writing is often repetitious and technically inept, and one must sometimes wonder that it does not seriously detract from the effectiveness of the finished product. Yet the forceful realism of that product remains unshakeable – a blend of his observed experience of the people about whom he wrote and his relentless pursuit of significant detail.
The genesis of Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe lies in a Zürich newspaper report of the suicide of two young lovers who have been driven to desperation by the antagonism between their two families. Keller read this report at the time and sought to provide from his imagination a series of circumstances that could have led to a family feud; and the circumstances that he created were made to bear the motivation both of the degradation of the rival families and the ultimate tragedy of the lovers.
But for all his eloquent presentation of their imagined love, Keller has concerns that go beyond the personal fate of Sali and Vrenchen, for these two unhappy creatures are but the helpless victims of forces that issue from the evil ways of others; and these others, moreover, are Keller’s fellow citizens from the locality of his symbolical town of Seldwyla. The malice and intolerance of the fathers; the thinly veiled hostility of most of the onlookers; jealousy that so complete and pure a love should be vouchsafed to, of all people, the children of such despicable families; and the Black Fiddler’s devilish attempts to seduce the lovers into exchanging a life of light-hearted abandon in his kingdom of immoral freedom for their doomed existence among the cruelties of a so-called moral society: these are the malevolent realities that condition the lives of Vrenchen and Sali. And there is no simple, benevolent deity who can be called upon to officiate at the restoration of simple, benevolent, optimistic faith. It is characteristic of Keller’s forthrightness that this situation is left – and resolved – in the realistic, uncompromising terms that express his own view of life and human fate.
R.T.
Chronology
1819 Born in Zürich on 19th July.
1834 Expelled from school and took up the study of painting.
1840–42 Study of art in Munich.
1845 Publication of his first poems under the title Lieder eines Autodidakten.
1848–50 Study at Heidelberg on a scholarship from the cantonal government of Zürich.
1850–55 Residence in Berlin.
1851 Neuere Gedichte.
1854–55 Publication of Der grüne Heinrich (a revised edition was published in 1880).
1856 First volume of Die Leute von Seldwyla (five stories, including Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, Die drei gerechten Kammacher and Spiegel, das Kätzchen).
1861–76 Staatssekretär of the canton of Zürich.
1872 Sieben Legenden.
1874 Second volume of Die Leute von Seldwyla (including Kleider machen Leute).
1878 Zürcher Novellen (historical stories).
1883 Gesammelte Gedichte.
1890 Died in Zürich on 15th July.
A Village Romeo and Juliet
WERE THIS TALE NOT BASED on actual occurrence, it would be mere idle repetition on my part to relate it. Yet how deeply rooted in human life is each and every one of the stories on which the great works of the past are built. For such stories, though few in number, constantly reappear in new guises and force themselves upon our attention.
From the banks of the beautiful river that flows past Seldwyla, about half an hour’s walk from the town, there rises a gentle ridge which, lush and fertile, merges into the rolling plain beyond. At the foot of the slope lies a village with a number of large farmsteads, and years ago three long fields used to stretch out side by side above it, like three giant ribbons.
One sunny September morning two farmers were away ploughing on the two outer fields; the field in the middle appeared to have lain fallow for many years, for it was full of stones and tall weeds, and a myriad creatures winged their untroubled way across its rustling grasses. The farmers, each tramping behind his plough, were tall, gaunt men of about forty who conveyed at first glance the air of prosperous and industrious husbandmen. They were wearing coarse knickerbockers whose every pleat had its permanent place, as though it were chiselled out of stone. Whenever they met some obstacle, they gripped the plough more tightly, and the sleeves of their rough shirts rippled under the strain; alert yet relaxed, their clean-shaven faces puckered slightly against the bright sunshine, they gauged their furrows, occasionally looking round when some distant sound disturbed the tranquillity of the scene.
Deliberately and with a certain natural
grace they each moved forwards step by step. Neither of them spoke, save to give an order to the boy who was leading the fine horses. From a distance they looked identical representatives of the countryside at its most characteristic; to a closer view they appeared distinguishable only in that one had the flap of his white cap at the front, the other at the back. But this changed when they ploughed in the opposite direction, for as they met and passed at the top of the ridge, the strong east wind blew the cap of the one back over his head, while that of the other, who had the wind behind him, was blown forwards over his face. And at each turn there was a moment when the two caps stood erect quivering in the wind like two white tongues of flame.
Thus the two men worked peacefully on, affording a pleasant prospect in the stillness of the golden autumn landscape as they passed each other silently at the top of the slope, drew further and further apart again and finally vanished behind the ridge like two setting stars only to appear again a short while later. If they found a stone in one of the furrows, they tossed it on to the field in the middle, but this happened only rarely, since almost all the stones that had ever lain there were now piled up on this centre field.
The long morning had run part of its course when a neat little cart was seen approaching the gentle slope from the village. It was a tiny green perambulator in which the children of the two farmers, a boy and a frail, delicate girl, were carrying up the morning meal. For each man there was a tasty sandwich wrapped in a serviette, a jug of wine and a glass, together with a few extra trifles which the wives had sent along for their hard-working husbands. Besides this, the perambulator contained a motley assortment of odd-shaped apples and pears which the children had found lying on the ground and started to eat; and finally there was a one-legged doll with a dirty face and no clothes, which was sitting between the sandwiches like a lady of rank riding elegantly in her carriage.
After stopping many times on the way, the little conveyance at last bumped its way to the top of the slope and stopped in the shade of a linden bush at the edge of the field, where it became possible to observe the two “coachmen” more closely. The boy was seven, the girl five, both sound in wind and limb, and the only striking feature about them was that they both had very attractive eyes, while the girl’s dark complexion and curly black hair gave her an intense, passionate look.
The farmers had now reached the top again. Stopping their ploughs in the half-completed furrow and leaving their horses some fodder, they walked across to where their meal was waiting and bade each other good morning, for they had not yet exchanged a word that day. As they sat there contentedly, good-humouredly sharing their food with the children, who did not leave, and after they had finished eating and drinking, they gazed out over the countryside and contemplated the smoke-shrouded village nestling in the hills: for when the people of Seldwyla cooked their tasty lunch, a silver haze hovered above the roofs of their houses, shining for miles around and floating serenely up into the mountains.
“Those rascals in Seldwyla are getting another good meal ready,” said Manz, one of the farmers. Marti, the other, rejoined:
“Someone came to see me yesterday about this field.”
“Someone from the Bezirksrat?”* asked Manz. “He came to my house too.”
“Well, well. And I suppose he suggested that you should use the land and pay the council rent for it.”
“Yes, until it is decided who owns it and what is to be done with it. But I refused to clear the place up for somebody else, and told them to sell the field and keep the money until the owner is found – which will probably never happen, because the authorities in Seldwyla take ages over everything, and in any case it is a difficult matter to settle. The rogues are all too eager to feather their own nests by renting the field. And it would be the same if they sold it – although you and I would take care not to drive the price too high! At least we would know then where we stood and who the land belonged to.”
“That is just what I think, and I told the fellow so.”
They were silent for a while, then Manz said:
“Still, it is a pity to see good ground left in this state. For almost twenty years nobody has troubled about it. There is no one in the village with any claim to it, nor does anyone know what has become of the children of that wastrel, the Trumpeter.”
“Hm, a fine thing that would be!” retorted Marti. “Whenever I look at the Black Fiddler, who spends half this time with the gypsies and the other half playing for village dances, I could almost swear that he is one of the Trumpeter’s grandchildren. Of course, he does not know that he owns the field, but what would he do with it? Get drunk on the proceeds for a month and then go on living as before! In any case, since no one can be sure, who is going to raise the subject?”
“And it might have unpleasant consequences,” rejoined Manz. “We’ve already got enough on hand to prevent this wretched Fiddler from settling in our community. People are constantly trying to foist him on to us. If his parents went off to join the gypsies, let him stay there and scrape his fiddle for them. How in Heaven’s name are we expected to know that he is the Trumpeter’s grandson? Even if his swarthy face does remind me of the Trumpeter, I tell myself that no man is infallible, and the smallest scrap of paper, a mere fragment of a birth certificate, would satisfy my conscience better than a dozen wicked faces!”
“Quite right!” exclaimed Marti. “He says it is not his fault that he was not baptized, but does he expect us to carry our font out into the woods? We shall never do such a thing! Our font belongs in our church. If anything is to be carried around, let it be the bier that hangs outside on the church wall. The village is overcrowded already, and soon we shall need two more schoolteachers.”
With this the farmers finished their meal and their conversation, and got up to resume their morning’s work. The two children, who were going to return home with their fathers, pushed the cart into the shade of the little linden trees and embarked on an expedition into the strange wasteland with its creepers, its bushes and its piles of stones. After wandering hand in hand across the green wilderness for a while, joyfully swinging their arms over the tall thistle bushes, they sat down in the shade of one of these bushes, and the girl began to dress her doll with long leaves from the plants growing at the side of the path: she gave it a pretty green dress with jagged edges, and a bonnet made from a long red poppy that was still in bloom, tied on with a blade of grass. The little creature looked like a sorceress, and even more so when it was given a necklace and girdle of little red berries.
Setting it on top of the bush, they both regarded it for a while. Then the boy, tired of looking at it, knocked it down with a stone and disarranged its clothes. The girl quickly took them off in order to dress it again, but as the doll lay there, naked except for the red bonnet, the impetuous boy snatched it away from her and hurled it high into the air. With tears in her eyes she tried to catch it, but he caught it first, threw it up again and teased her as she vainly tried to get her hands on it.
As a result of this treatment, however, the doll’s only leg became damaged at the knee, where grains of bran began to trickle through a little hole. As soon as the tormentor noticed the hole, he stopped, looked at it open-mouthed and eagerly began to widen it with his nails, so as to see where the bran came from. The girl became suspicious at his silence, rushed over to him and saw with horror what he was doing.
“Look!” he cried, swinging the doll round in front of her, so that the bran flew out into her face. With a scream she tried to reach it, imploring him to give it to her, but he ran away, swinging the miserable toy round and round until its leg hung down limply like an empty bag. Finally he flung it to the ground, putting on an air of haughty disdain as she threw herself tearfully on top of it and wrapped it in her apron. As she uncovered it again and saw its leg hanging down from its body like a salamander’s tail, she started to cry afresh.
But seeing her weep so bitterly, the mischievous boy began to feel sorry for what he had
done. When she saw him standing there repentant and uneasy, she suddenly stopped and hit him several times with the doll, whereupon he cried out “Ouch! Ouch!” and pretended to be hurt. So realistically did he do this, that she was appeased, and proceeded to help him dismember and destroy the doll. They bored hole after hole in it, letting the bran run out and carefully putting it in a heap on a flat stone, sifting it and looking at it closely.
The only part of the doll still intact was its head, which now claimed the children’s particular attention. Removing it from its battered body, they peeped curiously into its interior. As they looked at the hollow cavity and at the bran, they were both seized by the same obvious thought, and raced each other to pour the bran into the head, which thereby came to have something in it for the first time. But the boy still seemed to regard this as useless knowledge, for suddenly he caught a large bluebottle, and while it buzzed inside his cupped hand, he told the girl to empty the bran out of the doll’s head. Then he put the bluebottle inside and stuffed the head with grass. They held it to their ears and then stood it solemnly on a stone, where, still bedecked with the red poppy, and with the buzzing sound coming from it, it looked like an oracle, to whose parables and pronouncements the children listened in complete silence as they sat there together.
But every prophet evokes ingratitude and fear. The modicum of life in the pitiful little image aroused the children’s cruel instincts, and they resolved to bury it alive. So they dug a hole and, without asking the insect’s opinion, put the head in it and solemnly erected a cairn of stones at the head of the grave. But then they began to shudder at the thought that they had buried a real living creature, and they moved some distance away from the eerie spot. The little girl was tired and lay down on a soft, fragrant bank, chanting a few words in monotonous sequence, while the boy crouched beside her, wondering whether he too should lie down, so lazy and dreamy did he feel.
A Village Romeo and Juliet Page 1