[On the Height]
Berthold Auerbach, a German poet and author of Jewish descent, was born at Nordstetten, in Würtemberg, on February 28, 1812. On the completion of his studies at the universities of Tübingen, Munich and Heidelberg he immediately devoted himself to literature. His first publication dealt with "Judaism and Recent Literature," and was to be followed by a series of novels taken from Jewish history. Of this intended series he actually published, with considerable success, "Spinoza" and "Poet and Merchant." But real fame and popularity came to him when he began to occupy himself with the life of the general people which forms the subject of his best-known works. In these later books, of which "On the Height" is perhaps the most characteristic and certainly the most famous, he revealed an unrivalled insight into the soul of the Southern German country folk, and especially of the peasants of the Black Forest and the Bavarian Alps. His descriptions are remarkable for their fresh realism, graceful style and humour. In addition to these qualities, his last books are marked by great subtlety of psychological analysis. "On the Height" was first published at Stuttgart in 1861, and has been translated into several languages. Auerbach died at Cannes on February 8, 1882, when all Germany was preparing to celebrate his 70th birthday.
I.--A Peasant Nurse in a Royal Palace
Walpurga was as in a dream. It had all happened so quickly! Only a fortnight ago, on the walk home from Sunday Mass at the village church, her Hanseï had to make a hay bed for her on a stone-heap by the roadside. She had thought she could not get back to the cottage in time, but she recovered after a while and bravely walked home. Her mother was with her in the hour of suffering, as she had been with her through all the joys and sorrows of her simple life. Then came the supreme joy of the awakening, with a new life by her side, a baby-girl groping helplessly for the mother's breast. Then--was it only yesterday?--when she was waiting for the return of the christening party, a carriage drove up with the village doctor and an elegant stranger. There was much beating about the bush, and then it came out like a thunderbolt. The stranger was a great doctor from the capital, entrusted with the mission to find in the mountains an honest, comely peasant woman, and married she must be, to act as wet-nurse for the expected crown prince or princess.
Then Hanseï came home with the merry party--there was much storming and angry refusal; but finally the practical sense of the peasant folk prevailed. It was, after all, only for a year, and it would mean comfort and wealth, instead of hunger and grinding poverty. And scarcely had their consent been wrung from them, when shouting and cheering announced the great event of the crown prince's birth. Then came that strange, long drive over hill and dale, through the dark night; and now, in the Royal Palace, she tried to collect herself, to grasp the meaning of all that splendour, the unintelligible ceremonious talk and bearing of those about her. She was to be taken at once to see the queen and her precious charge.
Walpurga was full of happiness when she left the queen's bedroom. Touched by the comely young peasant-woman's naive and familiar kindliness, the queen, who seemed to her beautiful as an angel, had kissed her, and, on noticing a tear, had said: "Don't cry, Walpuga! You are a mother, too, like myself!" The little prince took to his nurse without much trouble, and she soon became accustomed to her new life, although her thoughts often dwelt longingly on her native mountains, her own child and mother and husband. How they would miss her! She knew her Hanseï was a good man at heart, but not particularly shrewd, and easily gulled or led astray.
Meanwhile, her high spirits, her artless bluntness, the quaint superstitions of the mountain child, gained her the goodwill and approval of the king and queen, of Dr. Gunther, the court physician, of the whole royal household, and, above all, of the lady-in-waiting, Countess Irma Wildenort.
II.--The Love Affairs of a King
Countess Irma's letters to Emmy, her only convent friend, contained little of idle gossip and of things that had happened. They had no continuity. They were introspective, and took the form of a diary taken up at odd moments and left again to be continued, sometimes the following day, sometimes after a week. They revealed intellectual development far in advance of her years, and clear perception of character.
"The queen lives in an exclusive world of sentiment and would like to raise everybody to her exalted mood--liana-like, in the morning-glow and evening-glow of sentiment, never in white daylight. She is most gracious towards me, but we feel it instinctively--there is something in her and in me that does not harmonise....