The lovers’ talk, their riddles and their songs as they ride off together on the gray horse, are set forth in a narrative of singular beauty, and when she reaches his home it is the girl and not Johannes who has to break the news to the Landfriedbauer and his wife and seek their blessing, while the young man stays at the miller’s in much anxiety as to the outcome of her mission. Her plea is really eloquent in its simple pathos. She is accepted, and the Landfriedbauer and his wife, being anxious to avoid the reproach of having let the boy marry a penniless girl, each gives her in secret a store of coins which has been laid by, and when both stores are spread upon the table at a family reunion, each parent really begins to believe what they both say, that their new daughter-in-law has come to them with a dowry of her own.
This modern “Cinderella” is written in a style of great simplicity, and in my view, the village heroine, the counterpart of whom no doubt exists in many similar communities, is entitled to a high place in literature.
EKKEHARD
JOSEPH VON SCHEFFEL
“Ekkehard” is a novel derived very largely from mediæval records that are now little remembered. It attempts to reproduce for the modern reader the political and social conditions of the tenth century, and the story is accompanied with numerous notes and references, giving evidence of the careful researches of the author. It is to German scholarship, indeed, that one would naturally look for a work of this description, for although many novelists elsewhere use historical materials for certain parts of their works, there are few who would follow the records with such fidelity.
The scene opens at a castle on a lofty eminence near the lake of Constance. Hadwig, the young and not inconsolable widow of the old duke, resolves for diversion to go with her train to the monastery of St. Gallus on the other side of the lake. This visit, illustrating many of the details of monastic life, is graphically and attractively described. According to the rules of the order, no woman’s foot may pass over the threshold of the cloister, but as the duchess is the protectress of the convent, it is determined that she may be carried over, and the duty falls upon the young monk Ekkehard, whose flattering words win him such favor that he is commanded to go to her castle of Hohentwiel to instruct her in Latin and read Virgil to her. The development of a very natural romance follows. Ekkehard is as innocent as a child, and for a long time his mistress vainly tries to awaken in him the passion that rises in her own heart. When a horde of barbarous Huns attacks her possessions, and the monks of Reichenau and St. Gallus betake themselves to the castle for defense, she gives him the sword of her late husband and bids him distinguish himself in the combat. The Huns are defeated, but Ekkehard has not signalized himself by any remarkable exploit. In a contest of story-telling, too, he fails to meet the expectations of his mistress, and when at last his own passion is fully aroused, it is too late. He seizes an inopportune moment to declare it. He is detected in the chapel in most unmonastic behavior, and Hadwig is inexorable. He is imprisoned, he escapes and flees to the regions of the higher Alps, where he dwells in a cave, and for his own consolation composes the “Waltharïlied,” a short epic, full of much slaughter, in which heads and hands and feet are hacked off, eyes put out, and other unappetizing feats of arms performed amid the lusty merriment even of those who suffer from these mutilations. This work is an actual reproduction of a poem of the time, but many will consider it a blemish in a romance with which it has little connection.
When the winter comes and the flocks on the mountains descend to the valleys, Ekkehard leaves his hermitage, and passing, on his way to distant parts, the castle which had witnessed his discomfiture, he fastens his parchment to an arrow which he sends as a farewell greeting to his former mistress, whose resentment has softened and who receives it with tears.
There are many striking episodes in the book. The stern fury of the hermit Wiborad, immured in a living tomb near the monastery of St. Gallus; the encounter between the coarse cellarer, Rudiman, and Kerhildis, the chief serving-maid of the monastery of Reichenau; the delightful pastoral scenes between the two children Audifax and Hadumoth, bond-servants of the castle; the elaborate and learned lampoon written against Ekkehard by the monk Gunzo in revenge for catching him in a grammatical error; the realistic accounts of certain ridiculous superstitions; the lifelike description of the preparations for a German Christmas—these things give the book a deservedly high rank as a faithful reproduction of the customs of the time. Von Scheffel has invested mediæval monasticism with a fine poetic grace and charm. But it is seldom that a story which is used largely as a means of conveying historical information concerning a remote period is as vivid in the delineation of character as one where the scene is laid amid the immediate surroundings of the writer, and it can not be said that the two chief figures of the novel, Hadwig and Ekkehard, are at all impressive as portraits of actual life.
THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN
OCTAVE FEUILLET
“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is a charming tale, and quite free from the cynicism which pervades much of modern French fiction. The hero (who tells his own story in his diary) is the young Marquis d’Hauterive, who, reduced to extreme poverty by the extravagance of his father, assumes the name of M. Odiot, becomes the manager of the estate of M. Laroque, and falls in love with Marguerite, the beautiful heiress of the house. She secretly returns his passion, but treats him oftentimes with great cruelty from the suspicion that he, like others, is seeking her hand in order to advance his fortunes. The noble character of both the chief personages of the novel appears naturally and simply from the recital of the things they say and do, and the narrative of the expeditions to some of the Celtic ruins in Brittany upon which he attends her has all the charm of a pastoral. The ridiculous M. Bevallan, his rival, who reveals most opportunely his commonplace character and sordid motives; the romantic Mme. Laroque, the mother of Marguerite; the ancient spinster, Mlle. de Porhoet, who bears with dignity her triple burden of high lineage, age, and poverty—indeed all the characters are skillfully drawn, and their doings form an excellent background for the action of the two chief personages of the story.
“The Romance of a Poor Young Man” is emphatically a work of exquisite finish and high creative art. Yet it does not wholly lack the extravagances which seem inevitable in modern French fiction. When the hero has been unjustly reproached by the proud beauty, who suspects his mercenary designs, he vows in his rage and despair that he will never wed her, even if she were to implore him upon her knees, unless his fortune should be equal to her own; and after every other obstacle is cleared away, he persists in adhering to this unreasonable vow. Then he learns that Marguerite and her mother propose to give their fortune to charitable uses, so as to remove the last hindrance to their union. But this, too, he will not permit, and it requires a tour de force to straighten out these complications.