Caspar Hauser or The Indolence of the Heart
Caspar Hauser or The Sluggishness of the Heart is a historical novel by Jakob Wassermann , published in 1908. The novel is about the last six years of Caspar Hauser's life in Nuremberg and Ansbach ( Franconia ).
The history of the use of Caspar Hauser motif in fiction has Elisabeth Frenzel points listed.
people
- Caspar Hauser - Foundling.
- The gray one sends one assassin after another to Caspar Hauser from the background.
Nuremberg:
- Rittmeister von Wessenig.
- Binder - Mayor of Nuremberg.
- Grammar school professor Georg Friedrich Daumer (* 1800 † 1875).
- Mr. Behold - Councilor.
- Mrs. Behold - wife of the Magistrate Council.
- Christoph Carl Gottlieb Sigmund Freiherr von Tucher (* 1798 † 1877).
- Henry Lord Stanhope , Earl of Chesterfield, Pair of England.
Ansbach:
- President Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach (* 1775 † 1833).
- Police Lieutenant Hickel .
- Teacher Quandt .
- Mrs. Jette Quandt, called the teacher .
- Mrs. von Imhoff, friend of the President.
- Clara von Kannawurf , friend of Imhoff's wife.
- Schildknecht , a soldier and compatriot Caspar.
- Pastor Fuhrmann.
action
Nuremberg
- High school professor Daumer
“The people of Nuremberg, a curious people”, tell themselves “in the first days of summer of 1828, in the Vestnerturm at the castle”, that “a young man of about seventeen was held in custody”. That “stranger” Caspar Hauser was “no more proficient in the language than a two-year-old child. Other food than water and bread "rejects" the boy with disgust ". "He is more like a noble lady than a peasant". Mayor Binder, Magistrate Behold, Freiherr von Tucher and high school professor Daumer are concerned about the "foundling". Rittmeister von Wessenig has received a letter in which the origin of the stranger is alluded to.
Daumer writes about Caspar Hauser: "He had always been in a dark room, never anywhere else ... never seen people, never heard his step, never his voice, not a sound of a bird ... did not see the rays of the sun". Caspar Hauser has supernatural abilities. He is able to “distinguish the colors even in deep darkness”.
“On an inspection tour through the district”, State Councilor Feuerbach, “President of the Appeal Court ” from the “district government” from “Ansbach”, stopped by. Daumer and His Excellency Feuerbach agree, Caspar Hauser is accepted and brought up in the Daumers house. While Daumer was teaching and observing the young man in his apartment in the summer of 1828, a piece of paper flew in from outside. It reads: "The house is warned and the master is warned and the stranger is warned". Daumer feels threatened. Caspar Hauser, "not yet seduced by the snake of knowledge ", shares his fear with the teacher: "At night the dark sits on the lamp and roars". Caspar Hauser ponders. Where does he comes from? Who is he? The image of the mother haunts his dreams. A letter that Daumer sends to President Feuerbach in coordination with Mayor Binder, in which the writer reports on Caspar Hauser's fears, is lost in the mail.
Caspar Hauser's upbringing is making progress. He becomes a skilled rider. During a ride, the Rittmeister von Wessenig makes Caspar Hauser believe that he has a letter from Caspar's mother. Daumer thinks the Rittmeister is a liar, but at the same time passes on the Nuremberg rumor to Caspar Hauser that the foundling “was of princely descent, a prince put aside”. During another visit, President Feuerbach, a Napoleon admirer, looks Caspar Hauser in the face and sums it up: “No deception. They are the same trains ”. Daumer got his hands on a brochure from Berlin in which his pupil was scolded as a “fraudster”. Over time, Caspar Hauser's self-confidence awakens . He writes a diary. Later on, the little book should only be read by his mother besides him. When Caspar withholds the diary from his teacher, Daumer is disappointed in the ungrateful student. Nevertheless, Daumer says about Caspar Hauser: “His friendliness is heart-winning, his seriousness is deliberate, there is always a touch of melancholy hanging over both of them . His behavior is precocious, but has an elegant, completely unconstrained gravity [being measured] ... He loves to say things with an important face and in a presumptuous tone ... ".
When a masked person tries to assassinate Caspar Hauser in Daumer's apartment, Daumer wants the boulder out of the house.
“His glory Lord Stanhope” presents Mayor Binder with a hundred ducats reward for whoever discovers the assassin.
- Mrs. Behold
Caspar Hauser is staying with Councilor Behold. In his room, Caspar keeps a blackbird in a birdcage. The woman of the house forbids the foundling "to leave the house without permission". Caspar did not enjoy attending grammar school. In addition, he is constantly guarded by a police officer in the streets of Nuremberg. Mrs. Behold needs Caspar as "entertainment for her salon". When the lady tries to provoke sexual accommodation from Caspar, she has to admit, furiously, that Caspar really doesn't know what the good woman actually wants from him. Ms. Behold's initial, superficial interest in the young man Caspar turns into mad hatred.
Once Caspar forgets to lock his room door before going to bed. Early in the morning he finds his blackbird next to the farmer in her blood and next to it "on a white plate ... the bloody little heart".
- Baron von Tucher
Mrs. Behold throws Caspar out of the house. He will be recorded in the Tucherhaus on Hirschelgasse. Mr. von Tucher, the “ curator of the foundling”, shows “Caspar a strict face” and - in accordance with his educational plan - maintains “a dignified aloofness”. The pupil must listen to the Lord playing the piano. When he is supposed to comment afterwards on the lecture of his guardian, he slips out: "This is nothing". The master cannot forgive the pupil for such an answer. On the other hand, Herr von Tucher also has a soft heart. When Lord Stanhope arrives and asks him “if he can take Caspar with him for a few hours”, he cannot resist. The Lord had impressed Herr von Tucher with a precious diamond ring which he gave to Caspar. Caspar sees his savior in the Lord.
- Lord Stanhope
The lord showered Caspar with further precious gifts and promised him trips to distant lands together. The Englishman calls Caspar “darling” and lets himself be called “Heinrich”. Herr von Tucher feels betrayed because Caspar tells him nothing about his relationship with the Lord.
The Lord speaks "of Caspar's realm, of his subjects". In Nuremberg it is said that “the Lord wants to accept Caspar Hauser in his son's place”. The magistrate, however, requires the Englishman to provide “sufficient” proof of property. "Goddamn beasts," the lord loses his composure and wants to leave. Caspar is beside himself. The lord admonishes the desperate: “The sons of princes don't cry”, gives Caspar gold pieces, encourages him to freely spend the coins and leaves. Caspar alienates this encouragement even further from Herr von Tucher. Caspar is supposed to deliver the money to Mr. von Tucher, who is by and large well-meaning. The stubborn boulder, however, does not give up its gold treasure. The lord wants to take Caspar with him. The Nuremberg authorities let the English fidget "with impatience and anger". In addition, President Feuerbach decrees that Caspar may not be removed from Nuremberg.
If the Lord's intention was constantly in the dark, Jakob Wassermann suddenly steers into the waters of authorial narration , drawing the amazed reader with a few lines, but with almost disarming openness, a flashing picture of the true face of the inhuman lord. Stanhope, formerly Metternich's agent , is "a trained manhunter and soul-catcher" who has his services paid for. The order is: murder of Caspar Hauser.
But there was a small problem. The cunning manhunter is loved by the victim with excessive affection. The a little irritated lord must not consider love. He wants to travel to Ansbach with Caspar and talk to President Feuerbach. Under a pretext, the lord penetrates Caspar's room in Tucher's house, initially unnoticed, and rummages through compromising letters that he has written to the foundling. The sniffer is caught by the landlord von Tucher and confronted.
Ansbach
Lord Stanhope actually penetrates President Feuerbach in Ansbach and wants to realize his diabolical plan. “It is a woman, the most unhappy of all women, whose messenger I consider myself to be,” he puts the president into the picture. Stanhope pretends that he wants to "bring Caspar to safety, ... to another country, ... want to hide him, ... want to remove him from the weapon that is constantly drawn against him". The President, an experienced politician, does not enter into the adventure, but makes inquiries about the Lord.
- Teacher Quandt
The President agrees with his girlfriend, von Imhoff's wife, that Caspar will henceforth be housed in the household of the Quandt couple and be raised by the teacher. Caspar is to be left to Lord Stanhope only in terms of form. The Lord marks the pious lamb; seems to be found in the inevitable. Police Lieutenant Hickel from Ansbach picks up Caspar in Nuremberg. From the start, Caspar was terrified of the strict and very direct police officer. The aversion is mutual. Hickel describes Caspar as closed, defiant and devious. The youth is not spoiled, but of a rotten and unpleasant character.
The gray one is the client for the murder of Caspar Hauser. The lord informs the horror that he is tired of the manhunt, but has won over the dirigible teacher Quandt and “paid a half-year in advance”. The Lord now welcomes the fact that Caspar is "in such good hands" with teacher Quandt and takes part in the upbringing that the ambitious, vengeful and envious teacher Quandt has undertaken. When the Lord remarks that Caspar is “no longer the willless creature of old”, his tone becomes sharper. Caspar probably suspects the cause of "his long imprisonment", which made him a "half animal". The lord poured Caspar pure wine. Caspar is "equal to the princes, ... the victim of the most hideous cabal". Caspar realizes with horror that he is dead. He only wants to see his mother once in a lifetime. Let the lord lead him to her. Stanhope put Caspar off for a year.
Strange things happen. The President Feuerbach is broken into. In Nuremberg, Ms. Behold falls out of the window and remains on the pavement with her head shattered. The president makes a grave mistake. He gives Hickel a guess. After that, Caspar was imprisoned in the Falkenhaus forestry, somewhere between Ansbach and Nuremberg.
When Caspar came home from the Imhoffs one night, a sobbing voice called “Stephan!” In the Quandt house. It is to Caspar as if Stanhope's ghost was wandering around.
President Feuerbach found Caspar a copyist at the Ansbach court. Frau von Imhoff and Pastor Fuhrmann take care of the boulder.
- Clara from Kannawurf
The 25-year-old rich, beautiful Clara confesses to Caspar that she actually came to Ansbach because of him. The young woman, whose mouth has “something childishly sweet”, offers Caspar refuge and a quiet stay on her small estate in Switzerland. Caspar replies stupidly: “You are very beautiful”. He doesn't want to go to Switzerland because he doesn't belong there.
Hickel receives an encrypted command from the horror and decrypts the document. President Feuerbach, Caspar's true friend, is murdered - probably poisoned. The dead man's face looks yellow like a lemon. Clara knows that Caspar is dead and asks him if he wants to take everything on himself. Caspar replies in the affirmative and adds: "I'm all alone".
The soldier Schildknecht, once a guard of Caspar, but driven away from the post by Hickel because of his good-naturedness, even deserted because of his devotion to Caspar in order to secretly convey a letter from Caspar to his mother across the border. Schildknecht is in the picture - Caspar's mother is called Princess Stephanie .
Caspar could be accepted by the Imhoffs, but he modestly refuses: “I have my bread and my bed, I don't need more”.
According to Hickels words, the Lord, tired of life, hanged himself.
Quandt, the stubborn, narrow-minded educator, does not give up. He always wants to portray Caspar as a liar, as the inventor of the fairy tale "of the mysterious incarceration".
An “apparently very distinguished man” addresses Caspar in front of the court with “Prince, my prince!”, “Kisses Caspar's hand in awe,” pretends to be an envoy from Caspar's mother and arranges an escape date with him. Caspar believes the stranger and goes to the Ansbacher Hofgarten for the appointment . The stranger pulls out a dagger and stabs Caspar in the chest. After a few days of sick bed, Caspar complains weakly: “Oh God, have to scrape away with disgrace and shame!” And dies.
- Acedia
One of the seven deadly sins is Acedia, or the indolence of the heart. Clara reads the cause of death in the autopsy protocol: Caspar's side wall of his heart had been pierced and he was bleeding to death inside. Clara goes to the teacher Quandt and says "trembling and cold: murderer". Quandt maintains that Caspar was a fraud. The teacher wants to write a book about it. Hickel resigns and wants to move away from Ansbach. Ms. von Imhoff can hardly believe it - her friend Clara calls "she quietly and with uncanny gentleness" a murderer. Clara also shouts to Pastor Fuhrmann, who always sympathized with Caspar: "Murderer!"
Citizens - well-known and even less well-known - who come across Clara are murderers for them. Clara is taken to an institution . Clara's mind remains dead.
Quotes
- ... everything has to be paid for, that is the meaning of life.
- ... only God is innocent.
literature
- source
- Jakob Wassermann: Caspar Hauser or the inertia of the heart . Structure, Berlin / Weimar 1987, ISBN 3-351-00443-5 (first edition: DVA Stuttgart / Leipzig 1908). Digitized
- Secondary literature
- Margarita Pazi in: Gunter E. Grimm , Frank Rainer Max (Hrsg.): German poets. Life and work of German-speaking authors . Volume 7: From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century . Pp. 40-46. RUB, Reclam-TB 8617, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-008617-5
- Rudolf Koester: Jakob Wassermann (= heads of the 20th century , volume 122). Morgenbuch, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-371-00384-1 .
- Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1900-1918 . Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52178-9 , pp. 379-380.
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors AZ . Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 651.
- Elisabeth Frenzel , Sybille Grammetbauer: Substances of world literature. A lexicon of longitudinal sections of the history of poetry (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 300). 10th, revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-30010-9 , pp. 352-355.
- Birgit Gottschalk: The Child of Europe: on the reception of Kaspar Hauser material in literature . Deutscher Universitätsverlag DUV, Wiesbaden 1995, ISBN 3-8244-4166-7 (dissertation University of Siegen 1992, 246 pages).
Web links
- Caspar Hauser or The Inertia of the Heart in Project Gutenberg ( currently not available to users from Germany )
- free audio book at librivox.org
- The novel text at Zeno.org