The Haideprinzchen

The beginning of the first chapter in the gazebo

The Haideprinzeschen (since 1900 at the latest: Das Heideprinzeschen ; in modern orthography: Das Heideprinzesschen ) is a novel ( development novel , family novel , romance novel ) that E. Marlitt published in 1871 in the family weekly Die Gartenlaube (Issues 31-52). The first book edition followed in 1872 in the "Gartenlauben" publishing house Ernst Keil . The illustrations (pen drawings) of the book edition come from Heinrich Susemihl .

The Haideprinzesschen - with an unusual narrative form and a particularly large, intricately linked staff - is Marlitt's most complex work in terms of form. The novel tells the story of the young Lenore von Sassen who, after a natural childhood in the countryside, finds herself in an urban, middle-class environment in which she discovers that not everyone who appears to be friendly is actually a friend, and vice versa even behind a gruff, dismissive demeanor, good character and genuine affection can be found.

action

After “ Reichsgräfin Gisela ”, “Das Haideprinzesschen” was the second novel in which Marlitt took the complexity of character relationships to extremes. These relationships became clearer in later work.

The location of the action is initially a remote heathland in Lower Saxony , the year 1861.

Chapters 1-3. The first-person narrator , Lenore, who was 17 when the action began , grew up on the Dierkhof, a lonely heath farm that belongs to her grandmother. The old grandmother is quirky and intimidating, and so “Lorchen” is the only caregiver, the siblings Heinz and Ilse Wichel. Ilse serves the grandmother as a maid. The beekeeper Heinz, who admires Lenore's light-footedness and delicacy, affectionately calls the girl "little princess" based on Andersen's fairy tale The Princess and the Pea .

Lenore's childhood is happy, but she grows up on the Dierkhof in the ignorance and almost also the social isolation of Kaspar Hauser . For example, she does not know, or at least cannot do much with the fact that her father, Willibald von Sassen, is a famous scholar and her mother a poet. The mother died very young, and so Lenore came to the Dierkhof as a small child. Her training there was only brief, because the educator, Fraulein Streit, did not last long in the heath and left the further upbringing of the girl to Ilse, who was practically illiterate.

The plot of the novel begins with three strange men appearing in the heather for archaeological excavations: a professor, a man named Erich Claudius and his nephew Dagobert. After finishing their work they leave again.

Chapters 4-7. The grandmother suffers a stroke and dies a little later. The circumstances of her death, a letter and her will bring some new things to light for Lenore about the person of the grandmother: Klothilde von Sassen was born into a wealthy Jewish family, the Jakobsohns. In their marriage to a Jew, a daughter was born, Christine, who later ran off with a comedian. Christine's father died, whereupon Klothilde was baptized and remarried, a council from Sassen. The second marriage was Willibald, Lenore's father. Of course, the young widow only took von Sassen Senior because of her wealth, which Klothilde then filled with a lifelong contempt for the money and ultimately drove him into loneliness.

Faithful Ilse inherits the Dierkhof, Lenore inherits securities and a precious pearl necklace from the property of the Jakobsohns.

Chapters 8-17. Since the grandmother had also decreed that the granddaughter should not “degenerate” in the heath, but should go to town for two years for her upbringing, Lenore was taken to K. In K. there are three residences in the immediate vicinity:

• The rococo castle "Karolinenlust" built by a Claudius ancestor. Lenore's father lives and works there as the protégé of a young duke. Willibald von Sassen is an unworldly scholar who at first doesn't know what to do with his daughter. Only in the further course of the action will father and daughter take each other to the heart.
• The dark "Claudius House". Erich Claudius, owner of an important seed company, lives here with his adopted children Charlotte and Dagobert. Without knowing much about him at the time, Lenore had already met him in the first few chapters. Since Willibald is initially absent as a father, Erich Lenore's guardian becomes. He has a serious, even sinister nature and on top of that bites into bitter remorse for not having shielded the innocent nature child Lenore better from the influence of the spoiled Charlotte. Since Charlotte Lenore appears to be very kind, she considers her her best friend, while she doesn't like Erich at all and even trusts him to do everything bad in the world. Only in the course of the plot development will Lenore recognize Erich's good and Charlotte's dubious character. The same applies to Charlotte's brother Dagobert, whom Lenore occasionally calls the "beautiful Tankred " and who soon turns out to be a pushy lecher.
• The “Schweizerhaus” houses the family of the teacher Helldorf. Helldorf's younger brother Max works in the Claudius office, his wife Anna is the daughter of old Eckhof, Erich Claudius' accountant. Eckhof is a religious zealot who cast his daughter out after a dispute over questions of faith.

Lenore moves into an apartment in the "Karolinenlust". She immediately discovers a secret passage that connects her bedroom with the apartment on the first floor , a mysterious, uninhabited suite in which Lothar Claudius once lived. Lothar, an officer, was Erich's older brother and is said to have shot himself out of unhappy love after the death of Princess Sidonie (a relative of the Duke).

Chapters 18-25. Since Eckhof, the accountant of the Claudius company, also carries his extreme religious views into the company, Erich would like to stop him. But he is in a difficult situation with the old man: many years ago he shot Eckhof's son in a duel. Lenore, and thus the reader, only learn the background to this duel as the story progresses: Erich once had a young wife who then cheated on him with Eckhof Junior. Only when Eckhof pressures the employees to donate a large part of their income for missionary purposes does an open dispute arise between the two men.

As a result, Eckhof seeks the closeness of Charlotte and Dagobert and suggests to them that the French officer Mericourt is not their father, but Erich's deceased brother Lothar. Her mother was Princess Sidonie, with whom Lothar had a secret marriage in the "Karolinenlust". When Lenore finds out about this, she and the siblings are convinced that Erich is trying willfully to cheat Charlotte and Dagobert of their noble parentage. With Lenore's support (Lenore knows the secret passage), they search the apartment and think they can find further evidence there. Princess Margarete, Sidonie's sister, also confirms that Lothar and Sidonie could have been married. When Charlotte later asks the princess for support in the fight for her supposed birthright, she excludes the possibility that Lothar could have been her father. And Erich will finally confirm that Charlotte and Dagobert are children of Mericourt.

Chapters 26-29. Lenore takes private lessons from teacher Helldorf and quickly makes up for everything that she has missed in education so far. Her aversion to Erich gives way more and more to shame that she misjudged him. When a blossoming love mixes into this difficult emotional situation, she becomes more and more self-conscious towards Erich. In order not to touch her money reserves or to have to live at the expense of others, she asks Erich for a paid job. He offers her a position as a label writer for seed bags.

Lenore was able to use her own financial resources to send her aunt Christine, Klothilde's abandoned daughter from his first marriage, from Naples. Christine, a singer, has lost her voice and Lenore wants to help her regain health. Since Willibald does not want to have anything to do with the half-sister - Lenore will understand later that he has good reasons for this - Christine is quartered in the Schweizerhaus, where she begins a lazy parasitic life.

Chapters 30-31. Willibald, who advises the young duke on buying antiques, believes he has made a fabulous find: supposedly precious coins that are offered to him for a relatively low price. Since he lacks the money, he asks Lenore for a loan, which Erich, as guardian, has to agree to first. Erich, himself a coin collector, considers the goods to be forgeries right from the start. This assessment will be confirmed later. The Duke won't make a big deal out of Willibald's mistake, but in his first desperation Willibald sets fire to Caroline's lust. Erich saves him from the flames, but is injured in the process. A thief uses the mess to steal a large amount of mission money from Eckhof's apartment, for which Eckhof is personally liable. Erich refunds him the money. This humane gesture touches Eckhof so much that he reconciles with his daughter Anna.

Chapters 32-33. Erich wishes to get to know the aunt for whom Lenore is so committed. When he meets Christine for the first time, he discovers that she is none other than his unfaithful, divorced wife, the “evil demon of his youth”. After the separation, Christine married Captain Mericourt in Paris and gave birth to two children: Charlotte and Dagobert. After Mericourt's soldier death, Erich had adopted the siblings.

Lenore fears that Erich and Christine will be reconciled and flees to the Dierkhof. Erich follows her, however, and they become a couple. Christine travels back to Italy. Dagobert goes to America as a farmer. Charlotte is training to earn a living as a governess. She initially rejects a marriage proposal from Max Hellberg. When he was seriously wounded in the battle of Königgrätz in 1866 , she went to the deaconesses and, via this detour, ended up becoming Hellberg's wife.

shape

Das Haideprinzeschen is Marlitt's fourth novel and her only work that is written from the first-person perspective . In addition, it is the only work in which Marlitt chose unreliable narration : the first-person narrator's perceptions are initially highly selective and subjectively distorted; only in the later course of the action do they give way to a more faithful representation of the event.

effect

In 1870 Adolph Oppenheim published a stage adaptation ( Das Haideprinzesschen. Character image in 3 acts plus a prelude ). Eufemia von Adlersfeld-Ballestrem tried in 1880 with a novel Heideröslein to tie in with the motifs and success of Marlitt's novel.

Expenses (selection)

• The little heather prince . Ernst Keil, 1872.
• The little heather prince . Union German publishing company, Stuttgart, Berlin, Leipzig (around 1900).
• The little heather prince . Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1984, ISBN 978-3-89350-614-9 .
• The little heather prince . Neuer Kaiser Verlag, Klagenfurt 1992.
• The little heather prince . Langen Müller, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7844-2487-2 .
• The little heather prince . Hofenberg, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8430-9655-3 .
• La petite princesse des bruyères . Librairie de Firmin-Didot Frères, Paris 1874 (French edition).
• Hedeprinsessen . Kunstforlaget "Danmark", 1911 (Danish edition).
• The Princess of the Moor . Papala Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-355-05359-0 (English edition; also under the title "The Little Moorland Princess").

Web links

Wikisource: Das Haideprinzesschen  - Sources and full texts

Wikisource: Marlitt's "Haideprinzesschen"  - sources and full texts

Commons : Das Haideprinzesschen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The little Heideprinzesschen at Zeno.org
• The Heideprinzchen in the Scholars Archive of Brigham Young University (based on the 1900 edition)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ limited preview in the Google book search