Edi and his nettle
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Edi und seine Nessel is a short story by the Austrian writer Peter Rosegger , which appeared in August and September (issues 11 and 12) 1889 in the Graz monthly Heimgarten .
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The story takes place in the area around Leinbach. Edi Hochsteininger's mother and his only sister had died years ago. When the large farmer Hochsteininger dies, he leaves the deeply indebted farm to his son Edi, who graduated from an agricultural school. Edi escapes the crowd. With a bundle on his back that contains a few items of clothing, he dives into the nearby woods in May. On the way he meets the goatherd Agnes. The girl is called the Neserl or the nettle. Both start a conversation. Edi proposes to nettle. The dirndl takes the young man into the nearby small parental home. The Zudel - that is Agnes' father - is presented to the reader as a notorious liar and slanderer who always has to sit down . The mother - silent and solid - is quite the opposite.
Edi moves on looking for work. After several unsuccessful attempts, he serves a tenant. When the employer learns that Edi has studied agriculture, he showered his subordinates with ridicule. Edi answers with a slap in the face. The offended woman does not wait for the tenant's legal proceedings, but flees in late summer to that narrow valley where Nessel's little house crouches on a rock face. Edi finds out about Nessel, in May he got her pregnant. Edi suggests a joint suicide. The nettle wants to live. The Zudel has the magic bullet. He brings the “rich” horse dealer Siegmund with him from prison as a willing man to marry. The nettle flees up to the birch trees in Edi's hiding place. Edi attempts suicide with his revolver; shoots itself in the heart area.
The wounded survived. The nettle brings him home. The mother proves to be a careful nurse and calls a doctor. The "rich bridegroom" Siegmund is looking for space. The nettle watches over Edi's sick bed and the mother has to look after the goats.
The daughter is at a loss and expects good advice from her level-headed mother about the future. Even the mother doesn't know what to do next. Finally, the daughter's mother wants to overwrite the Zudel house. The couple could get married and turn the modest property into a Hochsteiningerhof.
expenditure
- Edi and his nettle . A village story from Styria by PK Rosegger In: Heimgarten . tape 13 . Leykam, Graz 1889, p. 801-813, 888-896 ( archive.org ).
- Edi and his nettle . In vol. 2: Peter Rosegger: The rogue from the Alps. All kinds of stories and characters. Swaying and purring. 2 vols. A. Hartleben's Verlag, Vienna 1890.
- Edi and his nettle . In: Elisabeth Goedicke , Peter Rosegger, Kurt Münzer : Master novels of recent narrators (Frei - Der Edi und seine Nessel - Die Rosentreppe). Hesse & Becker, Leipzig 1910.
- Edi and his nettle . In: Peter Rosegger: The book of novels. Third volume, L. Staackmann. Leipzig 1916, pp. 189-223.