The silence in the forest (novel)

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The Silence in the Forest is a novel by the German writer Ludwig Ganghofer published in 1899. The story of love and jealousy takes place in the Tyrolean mountains.

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Prince Heinrich "Heinz" von Ettingen-Bernegg flees from an unfortunate love affair in Vienna to relax in a hunting lodge between Ehrwald and Leutasch , which his friend Count Egon Sternfeldt has leased for him. He is accompanied by his valet Martin. His forester Kluibenschädl and the district hunters, including Josef “Pepperl” Praxmaler and Anton Mazegger, greet him at the hunting lodge. Mazegger comes from Trento , his German-speaking father was a teacher there - after the early death of his parents he had to drop out of school in Innsbruck and go into hunting.

While walking in the forest, Ettingen sees a pretty young woman riding a donkey down the valley, the sight of which impresses him deeply. The sight of it reminds him of Arnold Böcklin's painting “The Silence in the Forest”. His valet Martin wrote a secret invitation to Vienna to the Baroness Prankha, before whom Ettingen had run away. While forester Kluibenschädl is quietly enjoying himself with the colportage novel The Secret of Woodcastle , the hunters celebrate in the nearby dairy hut with the dairymaid Burgi. Only Mazegger stays away. When the valet Martin wants to deliver the two letters to the hunters, there is a heated argument between him and the drunken hunter Praxmaler, who recognizes the noble servant as a rival for the dairyman's favor.

In the evening the forester catches the hunter Mazegger, who lied to him about his stalking and instead went to the painting “Fräulein vom Sebensee”. He confronts him, there is an argument, and the forester gives Mazegger four weeks to look for a new job.

The next day, before sunrise, the prince sets out to stalk with Jäger Praxmaler. At Ebensee they shoot a stag, the prince leaves the hunter to graze; he discovers a small hut above the lake, which is surrounded by a well-tended garden of mountain flowers. The lady of the house is the young donkey rider who welcomes him. He immediately feels connected to the girl, Lolo Petri, and guesses a lot about the story of her father, who discovered the location and built the hut. After the death of her father, a painter who was misunderstood during his lifetime, in the previous year she comes up there to paint and to tend the garden and is supplied with provisions from the surrounding alpine huts. On the way home, he learns from his hunter that the painter Emmerich Petri from Munich bought a house in Leutasch a few years ago and earned his living with Lüftlmalerei and making Marterln , but also created other allegorical paintings.

Meanwhile, the hunter Mazegger tries to win Lolo's favor by bringing her an edelweiss for her garden, which she refuses because it is too far in bloom to be buried. Mazegger breaks out in jealousy, from him Lolo learns that her sensitive visitor was the prince and new hunter master.

On his return, Praxmaler hears how valet Martin makes advances to the dairymaid Burgi - he is being appointed a hunting manager with a generous income and is looking for a wife. Praxmaler confronts her and the two part in an argument. Prince Ettingern telegraphed his friend Sternfeldt to inquire about Emmerich Petri. During an excursion into the valley to Leutasch, Ettingen learns a lot from the forester about the time that Emmerich Petri spent in the village and about his death during the heroic work against a flood; During a visit to the Petris house, the housekeeper shows him the late artist's paintings, which impress him deeply. Lo picks up her brother Gustl from the coach - the Innsbruck high school student spends his holidays with his sister and mother in Leutasch or at the Sebensee.

Martin secretly has the house prepared for the arrival of Baroness Prankha and ensures that Ettingen will be absent for two days from stalking and driven hunts. On the evening of the first day, a storm forces Ettingen and Praxmaler to turn back and they spend the night with Lo and her brother Gustl in the hut by the lake, where Lo and Ettingen talk all night. The next morning they descend to the hunting lodge. The hunter Mazegger, who should actually call the Ehrwalder hunters to drive the hunt, instead goes to the Sebensee and explains himself to Lo - he tells of his origins, the difficult childhood, the abandoned school and his lofty plans; he sees in her the woman he would approach her for. But Lo rejects him and he has to go to Ehrwald without having achieved anything.

Ettingen and Praxmaler meet Lo and her brother on a stalking walk, who is seriously injured by the donkey. Ettingen carries him to the hunting lodge, where he can be well looked after. Lo Petri and Heinz Ettingen discuss the parallels between Böcklin's silence in the forest , a copy of which has now arrived. A dispatch from Vienna confirms that Emmerich Petri is now enjoying the highest recognition in art circles and that an exhibition in Berlin was a great success just at the time of his death. Lo brings the boy down to the valley to see his mother.

The newly divorced Baroness Prankha with her French chambermaid and the Viennese Hallodri "Mucki" von Sensburg arrive at the hunting lodge - lured by the valet. Mazegger regains hope that the prince's interest might turn away from Lo. Soon afterwards, Count Sternfeldt (on horseback) also appears, who sets off with the forester to warn Ettingen. Ettingen is too polite and honorable to throw out the uninvited guests, but he dismisses the unfaithful servant Martin.

Mazegger goes into the valley to tell Lo Petri that Ettingen now has a different one - but he does not achieve the desired effect and is finally desperate. But Lo wants to represent her father's legacy in Munich; Immediately after she winterized the mountain hut, she plans to leave. At the Tillfusser Alm there is now a lot going on: the French maid wants to have fun with the locals and flirts fiercely with Praxmaler, who enjoys making the unruly dairywoman Burgi jealous. When the other guests have left, there is a battle of words between Burgi and Praxmaler, in which both realize that they belong together.

Mazegger also climbed back to the hunting lodge and overheard Ettingen coldly and clearly rejecting the baroness in a nocturnal discussion. At dawn, the prince escapes his uninvited guests on an excursion to the stone hut with a prax painter. There Praxmaler asks for a marriage permit - after Ettingen learns that the bride is destitute, he agrees five hundred guilders for the trousseau and promotes Praxmaler to head hunter. The Viennese guests leave, Praxmaler passes on the happy news to his bride, and Lo goes to the hut on the Sebensee.

While everyone is going to sleep, Mazegger sets off, fetches a torch from an alpine pasture below the Sebenwald and lights the brushwood fence to prevent Ettingen and Lo Petri from being happy. The fire spreads quickly, grips the forest and blocks Lo's way into the valley. Mazegger ascends to the Sebensee, where Lo also noticed the fire. She decides to escape via the highly dangerous path up over the rocks into the neighboring valley, while Mazegger follows the fleeing animals down and dies there.

Ettingen, who had set out on an early excursion, discovered the fire, knew Lo was in danger and, in turn, climbed the steep rock face with Praxmaler. You meet the completely exhausted woman in the rock, who collapses as soon as she is saved. When she wakes up, the two confess their love to each other and go into the valley. In autumn Lo Petri and Heinz Fürst Ettingen as well as Pepperl Praxmaler and Burgi get married.

language

Ganghofer's narrative language is High German, is crossed by some Bavarian expressions ( gach instead steep , Schneckerl instead curls ). The different social levels of the characters are reproduced in the language of the dialogues. Like the prince and his entourage, Lo speaks written German, while the hunters speak to one another in the Bavarian dialect. This also leads to misunderstandings. Noble Mucki speaks (in Ganghofer's words) a kind of Viennese Fiaker jargon . Fifi, the baroness's maid, can only speak French (which is translated into footnotes).

background

The story takes place around the time of its creation. The area is located between Ehrwald and Leutasch , the landscape is portrayed roughly as it really exists. The Sebensee and the Tillfußalm also really exist; history's hunting lodge is roughly where Ganghofer himself maintained his Hubertus hunting lodge .

Origin and reception

At the time of its creation, Ganghofer had already published several successful plays and novels. He lived in prosperity and in high esteem, as he was considered the favorite writer of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In the silence in the forest , art is an essential topic - not only because of the eponymous Böcklin painting. Ganghofer himself promoted (regardless of his own conventional style) young modern artists; the figure of Emmerich Petri is reminiscent of the allegories of Franz Stuck , a contemporary of Ganghofer , in the painting style described . The humorous, mocking portrayal of the “ trash novel ” The Secret of Woodcastle is curious , especially since Ganghofer was already accused of the triviality of his stories during his lifetime.

The novel was filmed several times:

In some cases, the plot of the films deviates very strongly from the original.

Work editions

  • First edition: The Silence in the Forest , Berlin, Grote, 1899
  • The silence in the forest , ISBN 978-3849689629 , Altenmünster, Jazzybee, 2016.

Ludwig Ganghofer's works have not been protected under German copyright law since the 70th anniversary of his death in 1990. Therefore, several inexpensive print editions and electronic versions are offered.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "To the Steinernen Hüttl?" He smiled. "Well! Let's go up! Do people live up there - at the Sternen Hüttl? "(Chapter 4)
  2. ↑ See Peter Nusser: Trivialliteratur. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1991, ISBN 978-3476102621 .