STORIES OF FRIENDSHIP.*
THE German novel and novelette are apt to be a terror to reader and reviewer. Badly written and composed, dull, fall of "drowsy placidity," and void of wit or humour, to get through them often demands a combination of qualities rarely forth- coming, namely, dogged determination, a sense of duty, fixity and singleness of purpose. And even when reader or reviewer is endowed with these virtues and peruses to the bitter end, he is likely to get nothing more profitable than the indigestion which, if Heine is to be believed, Father Rhine got from swallow- ing the verses of Nicholas Becker. To this general rule of dullness there are a few brilliant exceptions — one, so far as we are aware, entirely unknown in England, that of Frau M. Kantsky, whose novels, albeit avowedly Tendenz- romane (the lady is an advanced Socialist), are well worth careful study from the student of literature; the other, Paul Heyse, ac- knowledged facile prineeps among modern German authors, a distinction, unfortunately, easily .won, but in his case entirely deserved. It is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that Heyse is the one German—and he, too, is a Jew—who, since Heine, can write his mother-tongue in a manner calcu- lated to give pleasure. Indeed, it is difficult to say if our enjoyment of him is not due rather to the beauty of his style • Buck der F.eundsoltaft. Von Paul Heyse. Nene Folge. Berlin ; Hertz ; London ; Nutt. 1&34.
than to the profundity of his ideas. So great is his power of expression, so exquisite his command of German, that one is fain to take his commonplaces for originality and his platitudes for genius. In the very latest work from his pen, a continua- tion of a series issued last year, it is, as in the former book, the subject rather than the treatment that fascinates us ; indeed, as far as the style is concerned, there is a notable falling-off. The whole is forced and mannered. We seem to be reading a clever and ingenious imitation of Heyse, rather than Heyse himself. There are traces of weakness and decadence in this volume not noticeable before. And yet, despite its faults and weaknesses, its mannerisms and affectations, we are much mistaken if this volume—it contains at least one real gem—does not, with its predecessor, prove one of Heyse's most popular works. The central idea set forth in these two series is new, original, and very delightful. Friendship, according to Heyse, is not a weaker love, an "amour sans ailes," not "an instinct that drives bees, and ants, and birds to swarm in masses, and men to unite and found States;" it is an impulse of Nature as unreasoning and unreasonable as love itself. People become friends (and to be real friends they must be of the same sex) for no better reason than bemuse it is inevitable, and they must. There is no question of choice,— nay, from the moment that choice enters into the bargain, real friendship ceases. There is no "firm reason to be rendered" for friendship any more than for love. Nor is friendship a haven in which to rest after the storms and passions of life ; it is no refuge from deeper emotions, for of all emotions it is the deepest. To be real, it must, like love itself, be "all sighs and tears, all faith and service." It should be strong as death, stronger than love.
The theory is very delightful, but we doubt if it is prac- ticable. Indeed, this is not the first time that we have found that Heyse the novelist and observer is greater than Heyse the theorist. For in the most perfect story in a volume meant to illustrate his theme, he, half-unconsciously, shows us love as stronger than friendship ; and even while he speaks of the all-absorbing passion of friend for friend, we see the friend forsaken for the lover. It has always been a favourite leaning with Heyse to treat of the abnormal and unusual, to dissect characters thrown into uncongenial surroundings or brought face to face with dilemmas, and so it is here. This new series of the Book of Friendship consists of four stories told with almost all the author's usual artistic skill, though at times a far-fetched effort is observable, which, we fear, denotes weari- ness or the approach of age in a writer who has penned such innumerable stories that his most ardent admirers cannot keep pace with his speed. The first tale, " Siechentrost," is the most pathetic in the volume. Its exaggerations are less disturbing, be- cause the action is thrown back some centuries, to 1375; and as the times, the men, the circumstances, are exceptional, the whole looks to us more harmonious than much else in the book. Brother " Siechentrost " is a martyr and hero,—not a hero who, in one sublime moment, makes the, perhaps, easy sacrifice of his life, but one whose whole existence is one of self-abnegation and devotion. During the plague that ravaged the Rhine, his beloved wife and little child were torn from him, and immured within those hideous walls where the unhappy victims of disease were left unaided and unbefriended, deserted by God and man, to die alone. After his first wild agony, he takes his revenge on mankind by becoming Brother " Siechentrost," that is to say, the comforter and helper of the plague-stricken, the one human and humane being who penetrates into the horrible circle set apart from the rest of mankind. In consequence, he himself comes to be regarded as unclean, and is condemned to wear the dress of the leprous, to live like the beasts of the field, and to trust to his rare musical genius for the few miserable pence that may save him from absolute starvation. For years he has thus lived an outcast, but full of love and pity, with no trace of bitterness towards his blind persecutors, when there comes to him the rich burgher's son Gerhard. Gerhard has returned to his native town after two years of travel to be utterly disillusioned. He finds his affianced bride a heartless, stupid coquette, his friends narrow-minded and unsympathetic. In his loneliness and despair he turns to the lonelier and unhappier Siechentrost. Together the two wander about, united by a passionate love and friendship "passing the love of woman," till— but the end is too pathetic, too beautiful to be spoilt by a cold, hard resumi. It must be read as told by Heyse. It would be neither fair to him nor to ourselves to give it in a few words. The next story, "Die Schwarze Jacobe," is painfully unreal ; and save that it con- tains the most explicit statement of Heyse's theory of friendship, would be read with far less interest than the first. It deals with the passionate friendship of a woman—the rich daughter
of one large landed proprietor and respected wife of another—
for a gardener's daughter, whom she herself sums up as "a bad daughter and mother, a condemned thief, a licentious adventuress, the worst a woman can become, and that which her sex most bitterly condemns." We confess that this story left us entirely cold. There is no reality, no actuality about it. The last story is told in dramatic form, and is slight. It would, however, lend itself excellently well to private theatricals, and for this purpose should commend itself to our innumerable dramatic clubs.
We have reserved for fuller discussion the third story, the most beautiful of all in conception and treatment, a gem of the first water, which to read once is to remember. It takes Heyse to Italy, and he is rarely happier than when his scenes are laid in "the land of lands" which be loves so truly, comprehends so thoroughly, and to whose artistic influences we ascribe no small share in his un-Tentonic mental and artistic development. The story in itself is old enough, but it is the manner in which it is told that gives it novelty and subtle charm. It tells of a certain German,—a man who pronounces himself as entirely happy, or rather who thinks himself happy, because he has not yet really lived—who goes to Rome for a brief holiday. There be meets with a woman, also a German,—a woman no longer young or lovely, and yet of rare charm. Staying in an English pension, the two compatriots are thrown much together, find they have points of interest in common, and after a while slide into an easy intimacy which they honestly believe to be a genuine "comradeship." After a while, however, what they feel turns out to be not mere friend- ship, but love. Now, the hero is a married man, married to a wife whom he describes as beautiful and charming, though "rather strictly evangelical ;" he has, morever, children to
whom he has so far been wholly devoted. She has lost the man she loved and should have wedded, and is now devoted to a sick sister. They meet and part, and we feel the despair and heart- ache of it all because it is told so simply, and without exaggera- tion. He goes his way and she hers, two companion souls torn asunder by the stern force of legal circumstances; and quietly though it is all done, we feel that we are in the presence of a tragedy more terrible than that of " Siechentrost," more real than that of "Die Schwarze Jacobe." Two lives are wrecked and lost, and yet it is all so helpless and inevitable. In this story, and carried away by it, Heyse has forgotten his theory. Gabrielle, the sweet heroine, forgets her friendship in her love, her sister for the man who loves her. There is one inimitable scene in the story. It is laid in a wayside inn of the Carapagna, where the two have halted for brief rest and refreshment during one of their daily excursions about the city and environs. From the opened window of their parlour they hear the low murmuring, half rhythmical utterances of a peasant youth to his lately-wedded spouse, a very song of songs of rustic love, dashed with that poetical power of expression that is used by the Italian peasantry. The words, though spoken softly, are overheard, and seem to express for the friends the feelings they dare not, must not, own, not even acknowledge to themselves. The tension grows too much for them, at last they break away, but not before this accident has made clear to each the feelings they entertain for the other, and therefore made equally clear the need to break away at once and relentlessly from their comradeship. She goes to join her sister, he his wife, and we are led to understand that should they meet again, they will once more and to the cad be only 4: good comrades."
It was in the course of last year that we had occasion, in review- ing Signor De Amici's book on Friendship, to explain the theory held by an Italian on this sentiment ; it is curious to contrast with it the views held by a German. Anything more diverse it would, we suppose, be scarcely possible to find. The one denies all belief in the truth and depth of this feeling, the other elevates it upon a pedestal such as it has certainly rarely yet attained. We cannot help thinking that both exaggerate a little, and that the truth, as it so often does, once more resides in the via media-. But certainly, whether Heyse's book be read for the
sake of his theory of friendship, or for the sakef h o the tales, it .cannot fail to give pleasure, and in this work-a- day world that is not a little thing to say.
Previous page
