The two Hanses

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Peter Rosegger around 1906

The two Hanses is the last novel by the Austrian writer Peter Rosegger , which was preprinted monthly from December 1909 to September 1910 in the 34th year of the Graz Heimgarten under the working title Drei Augen . Ludwig Staackmann Verlag published the work in book form in Leipzig in 1912 .

content

The places of action are Styria and Vienna . Two classmates - both called Johann Schmied, both are around 21 years old - passed their Abitur three days ago. On this pleasant occasion, the dear parents gave them a tour of the Styrian mountains before starting their studies. More precisely, the son of a mill owner near the market town of Schatthausen in the Lower Schatt, known as the big Hans because of his tall stature, has money in his pocket. But little Hans, the son of poor farmers from Stahlhöfen above Altenkirch in the little mountainous region of Leingau, helped the big boy prepare for his Abitur exams and is allowed to go into the mountains. Above the tree line, snow drifts begin in August. Nothing will come of the tour to the Three Eyes - these are tiny high mountain lakes lying close together at the foot of the craggy Lanzstein. The Hansa have to go back down into the rainy woodland. Up in the snow-covered alpine dairy, Die Grüne Senn , the tourist councilor Professor Dr. Viktor Weißpandtner recommended studying medicine. The big Hans follows the advice, the little one becomes a seminarian .

Soon the great Hans is going in and out of his professor's house; makes the acquaintance of the two daughters of the house - the 18-year-old medical student Miss Evelana and the 25-year-old Miss Malcha. The latter, the stepdaughter of the landlord, is a reserved heiress of millions, whereas Evelana confidently autopsies in her father's institute and usually entertains a swarm of her young admirers at evening jours fixes in her father's salon.

An adder that Hans brings home from the institute bites him in the neck. The young seamstress Elisabeth Kübler, who is the shy daughter of the room landlady, immediately sucks the wound out of the Studiosus who is calling for help.

Hanse's parents die in his fourth year of study. There is nothing to inherit, because the miller was in debt - pressured by neighboring large companies. So Hans shows interest in a marriage with the rich Malcha. The studios moved out of the impoverished widow Frau Kübler's and rents a comfortable apartment in the Hofrat district. Hans receives a loan from bank owner Liebkindel. On the day of his PhD med. Hans becomes engaged to Malcha. On the same day he seduces Elisabeth.

In the medical practice of the new doctor the patients stay away. Big Hans accepts an invitation from little Hans to a primacy in his hometown Stahlhöfen on August 14th. That's good. On August 15, the doctor wants to give a public lecture on Darwin and Nietzsche , entitled The Holy Revelations of Natural History , in the Stahlhöfener Gasthaus “Zum Roten Fuchsen” . Little Hans, now chaplain , asks big Hans in vain to refrain from the lecture. The rural Catholics are hostile to urban atheism . The doctor cannot be persuaded. Only one local sits among the audience. He doesn't understand standard German. After the event, the city dwellers who have traveled to the town throw the chaplain into the village stream and have to fish the drowned out again after the “baptism”. Little Hans, popular in his birthplace Stahlhöfen, is soon appointed parish provisional .

Mrs. Kübler dies and Elisabeth stands alone. Big Hans takes on the professor. Occasionally the assistant goes to Elisabeth and sins. When Liebkindel delays the next loan, Hans makes preparations to marry Malcha. Elisabeth, meanwhile pregnant by Hans, found out about the wedding project, sent back all cheap presents, gave up her modest apartment and was no longer seen. At the time of the disappearance of the beloved, Hans found out about the next mermaid, who was pulled pale from the Danube. Hans is afraid it must be Elisabeth. He is convinced by the coroner . But it is not. Nevertheless - Hans is seriously ill for days. The convalescent refrains from marrying the councilor's daughter, says goodbye to the councilor and goes penniless to the homeless asylum, home of the homeless . There a miracle doctor practices who worship the sufferings of the inmates, who can be worshiped. The next station in the big city is the arm hospital. Then it's off to the country in the old homeland. Elisabeth is not in her father's birthplace. In the Melkstubental, the big Hans can hide out for a summer in the village of Schlageifel with farmer Knull.

Finally, Dr. Schmied returned to town and practiced as a doctor there in Siebensterngasse. He learns from the newspaper that the parish provisional officer of Stahlhöfen is supposed to answer for a church violation. Hans changes the search strategy. In a poor quarter he works as a poor doctor. Elisabeth has to sit in the waiting room as soon as she realizes he's still single. Malcha writes to him. Her stepfather also forgave him. The Councilor has paid Liebkindel's debts.

Hans does not react. Malcha listens to Liebkindel - money marries money. Hans visits Frau Liebkindel. She leaves the room when he asks: “Are you happy?” Hans becomes a city coroner and after years can repay his debts to the councilor. However, after a malpractice, he loses his job as a medical officer and could become a detective with the police director. But Hans accompanies a billionaire from Chicago as a personal physician on a hike to Lanz stone. Arriving at the Drei Augen in the hospice of the same name at the mountain church of the same name, he meets Elisabeth with their now six-year-old son Hans.

At that time Elisabeth was staying with her relatives on her father's side in the Melkstubental. The pregnant woman had never given a thought to suicide in the Danube. When she could no longer hide her pregnancy from her relatives, she went and was picked up from the ditch by little Hans. Because Hans - against the will of his superiors - had not parted with the housekeeper, his bishop banished him to the Drei Augen parish , the highest in the diocese . The harsh climate had undermined his health over the years. When he found out who the little boy's father was in Stahlhöfe, in all these years he had neither good nor bad about his best friend, Dr. med., reports. Now little Hans is afraid he might lose Elisabeth and the boy, whose breadwinner, doctor, playmate and teacher he had become in the mountains, to the newcomer. It will be like that.

The billionaire, who isn't at all, just the Upper German consul William Pick - alias Wilhelm Pickbacher from the shores of Lake Starnberg - moves on. Big Hans goes along for a while, but then returns to the hospice. Peter Rosegger offers a bittersweet happy ending. Little Hans, who is constantly looking for pilgrims who have stayed on the path in the fog and snowstorms, returns home from the cold and can no longer leave the sick bed. When little Hans took his last breath, it was found that the hands of Elisabeth and Big Hans were lying on one another on his quiet chest.

shape

The story of the great Hanses is told. The little one appears at the beginning and the end of the novel and otherwise only sporadically. Consequently, the author mainly allows the great Hans to think. Only at the end of the novel are the thoughts of little Hans given once.

The form element repetition in the most varied of shades is striking.

  • The working title imaging mountain lakes Three eyes are beginning the unattainable dream destination of the two high school seniors in the Roman center of the exile of the strong-priest Hans, who still addressed formally his housekeeper and lying on Handlungsort the novel final denouement , the hospice.
  • Passages in which Dr. Tacitus, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Sensation, who lies through life on newspaper, must be read as a farce in the gossip press.
  • Big Hans is not squeamish. He almost hacked through the right arm of his corps brother Hampler, a Swabian, in a saber duel, led because of a nullity. The arm can be saved. But Hampler remains a cripple. In the abovementioned home of the homeless , the thug meets his victim practicing as a miracle doctor.
  • Also sketched above: A village doctor from Schlageifel in the Melkstubental comes to see big Hans in the city and wants to see how the doctors work there. When the beggar Hans knocked at Farmer Knull's in Schlageifel, it turned out that he was the self-proclaimed “doctor”. The great Hans spends the summer in the farmer's yard.
  • Kunigunde Moiselgupf, the old camel Kundl, haunts the novel. The old woman has sold her hump to the court councilor's cabinet of curiosities and cannot / does not want to die.
  • The Bachsimmerl with the pug face, husband of the yellow-haired people, squeezes 10 guilders from his compatriot, the great Hans. The blackmail continues. A social democratic press organ brings the article about the intrusive "waddling groom", who was rejected by the yellow-haired woman with a slap in the face.

Furthermore, there is extensive disputation in the novel, for example

  • Euthanasia : The doctor Alfons Kandak helped patients die, but the great Hans does not help when he himself is dying.
  • Skepticism towards millionaires using the example of the fake billionaire Wilhelm Pickbacher from the shores of Lake Starnberg.

reception

Gerhard Pail discovers that Peter Rosegger is hostile to education when he paints the picture of the Councilor. Because, according to Karlheinz Rossbacher, the Enlightenment is a German national disease. What is more, Rosegger speaks “indirectly against analytical thinking”. The "ideologically extremely distorted portrayal of urban life" in the novel was deprecated.

literature

expenditure

Secondary literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Both students had an academic year behind them when they happened to meet during the holidays at the local fair in Altenkirch (edition used, p. 93). Big Hans said to little Hans: “…, we are Styrians !” (Edition used, p. 98)
  2. ↑ Vienna is not mentioned explicitly, but the Councilor Professor Dr. Viktor Weißpandtner, the great Hanses teacher, lives in Siebensterngasse (edition used, p. 56). In addition, the Danube flows through this metropolis (edition used, p. 258).
  3. ↑ abbeten: seek to do well by praying.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Drei Augen, December 1909, p. 159
  2. ↑ Drei Augen, September 1910, p. 879
  3. ↑ Heimgarten, 34th year, table of contents, p. I
  4. ↑ Pail, p. 70, 11. Zvu
  5. ^ Pail, p. 71, 14th Zvu
  6. ^ Karlheinz Rossbacher: Table of contents