The innermost

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Die Innerste is a novella by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written in the autumn of 1874 and appeared in Westermann's monthly magazine in 1876 . The story was published in book form in 1879 as part of the “Krähenfelder Stories”.


content

The young miller Albrecht Bodenhagen, a returnee from the Seven Years' War , was not welcomed with open arms by his father Christian in 1760. The old Christian Bodenhagen, who runs a water mill on the Innerste between Groß Förste and Sarstedt , does n't want to hear the chatter of the mill miner Barthold Dörries from Dielmissen . After that, Albrecht deserted from a Prussian free battalion after the Battle of Kolin and went into hiding with his darling, the 22-year-old red-haired Doris Radebrecker. Master Radebrecker's sawmill is located on the upper reaches of the Innerste in the Harz Mountains between Wildemann and Lautenthal .

Albrecht cannot be turned away. The miller's only son is fed up with war and hiking. At the mother's request, the vagabond and country runner may stay at home. The authoritarian father appoints Liese Papenberg, a “clean” farmer's daughter from Groß Förste, as the bride for the son.

Joachim Brand from the mountain town of Grund in the Harz Mountains, Albrecht's old corporal , appears in the mill. The invalid fire had lost his right arm in the battle of Minden . Brand wants to get Albrecht out from behind the sacks of flour. The project fails. Albrecht stays with his parents and marries Liese. Old Christian Bodenhagen dies the day after his son's wedding. Before that, the brave old master miller had heard the innermost scream. In conversation with Albrecht, the corporal suspects that the river did not scream, but that Doris laughed upstairs at the sawmill. Albrecht even claims to have heard a laugh outside the window of his father's mill.

On August 15, 1760, Albrecht is now master of the mill, a young red-haired woman, hidden behind the willow by the water, with "bright, large, green-blue, cool eyes", pursues a love argument between the young couple. This time Liese also hears the cry of the innermost. Actually it would have been “a laugh and a screech at the same time”. Pale as death, Liese assures her husband that she will die if she heard the voice again. Liese lives on, but Albrecht's dear mother dies.

The narrator reveals that Corporal Joachim Brand was sent by Doris. Brand returns to the red-haired woman in the sawmill. The Sägemüller Radebrecker and his cronies are imprisoned for murder and executed. Although Doris and the corporal had ended up in prison with the murderers, Doris had managed to escape and the corporal had been released.

Doris had said to the corporal that he and Albrecht should "not call her innermost for nothing". Albrecht could have made her his wife. Instead, he took another. For this he should now pay the bill. Joachim Brand wants to protect his war comrade Albrecht and returns from prison wounded to the miller.

When Doris attacked the Bodenhagen mill with a small group of “ ailing brothers ” from the Harz Mountains, the corporal recovered and fought back the “rabble” together with the miller and two miners. Doris dies inside during the attack. She had previously stabbed the corporal fatally in a duel.

Albrecht and Liese's children continued to run the mill until 1803. The building was demolished around 1820.

shape

If the narrator assures the truth of his story in the first sentence, he gives in in the last sentence. A river that screams like a woman belongs to the 18th century.

reception

  • Sprengel goes into the mermaid figure Doris and her structure-forming function.
  • Meyen gives 15 further works from the years 1879 to 1969.

expenditure

First edition

Used edition

Further editions

  • The innermost. A story. Hermann Klemm, Freiburg im Breisgau 1955.
  • The innermost. Narrative. with verbal and factual explanations. Verlag Gute Schriften, Zurich 1961.

literature

  • Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 2nd edition Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, supplementary volume. 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 In: Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
  • Cecilia von Studnitz : Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6 .
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1870–1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century . CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1 .

See also

Eberhard Schlotter created ten etchings for the story.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 312, entry 45
  2. ↑ Butzmann in the edition used, p. 494, 5th Zvu and p. 508, 7th Zvo
  3. ^ Butzmann in the edition used, p. 512, entries Z and B
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 103 and p. 195
  5. ^ Sprengel, pp. 46–47
  6. ↑ Meyen, pp. 355-356
  7. ↑ Meyen, p. 20, entry 13