Etzel Andergast

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Jakob Wassermann
* 1873 † 1934

Etzel Andergast is a two-part novel by Jakob Wassermann , completed after two years of work and published in spring 1931 by S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin . Marie breaks the marriage in the first part as Mrs. Bergmann and in the second part as Mrs. Kerkhoven.

characters

1913

  • Prof. Dr. Joseph Kerkhoven , doctor, born in Düsseldorf in 1880 . The father came from Holland .
    • Nina Kerkhoven, née Belotti, his wife from Trentino
  • Johann Irlen , Major a. D., later director , Protestant , born in 1869, from Cleveschen . Irlen means that in the alder live .
  • Marie Bergmann, b. Martersteig, born in 1894, Bergmann's wife, later: Marie Kerkhoven
    • Adrienne Martersteig, her mother
    • Johanna Adelheid Bergmann, called: Aleid, daughter of the Bergmanns
    • Johann Karl, born in 1921, is Marie's and Kerkoven's son
    • Ludwig Robert, born in 1925, Marie's and Kerkoven's son
    • Herr von P., Marie's lover
  • Otto Kapeller, main shareholder of Kapeller's steel and machine works
    • Dagmar Kapeller, his sister

1928

  • Baron Etzel von Andergast, born in 1908
    • Sophia von Andergast, his mother
  • Eleanor Marschall, called Nell , around 32 years old, Etzel's friend
  • Roderich Lüttgens, Etzel's friend
    • Jessie Tinius, his girlfriend
  • Emma Sperling, called Spatz, dancer, around 20 years old
  • Jürgen Lorriner , born 1900, radical

action

The first part is mainly about 1913 to 1914 in a small German town:
Kerkhoven

In 1913 Senator Irlen got her sick son Johann treated by the very simple house doctor Joseph Kerkhoven. The young doctor surprised by quiet and considerate behavior , can but not in the poisoned blood into it has the violence not and gelatinized his impotence with staid phrases to the address of his latest death row inmates . Johann Irlen becomes the friend of the taciturn and closed Kerkhoven.

Irlen

Major Johann Irlen served in the Prussian General Staff , but was subject to a camarilla in 1907 and had to say goodbye . He then became commercial director of Kapeller's steel and machine works . Factory owner Otto Kapeller threw off his friend's mask during a major strike in December 1910. An irreconcilable dispute ensues . In addition, Irlen interceded for Kapeller's sister Dagmar when she did not submit to her brother. Kapeller insults Irlen in public during the workers' unrest and is shot by the officer in a duel. Irlen went to Africa and returned sick from the Congo in 1913 . The major refuses to accept the diagnosis of sleeping sickness . Unfortunately the trypanosomes don't die .

Fatally ill, Irlen made a desperate attempt in the summer of 1914 to prevent the impending war. He travels to London and wants to win his companion, former Minister of War Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, for his peace mission. The opinion of the British turns out to be irrefutable: the Germans want war . Irlen returns home without having achieved anything. The friend Kerkhoven helped to die . Irlen dies.

Marie

When Kerkhoven visits Major Irlen for the first time in the senator's house, Marie, the wife of Irlen's nephew Ernst Bergmann, is there. Although Marie has a daughter, little Aleid, von Bergmann, the marriage is unhappy. After several visits to Kerkhoven, Marie becomes too colorful and asks Kerkhoven why he never greets her properly . The subsequent stammering of the somewhat petty-bourgeois doctor causes Marie to feel a strong sympathy for him . The affection is reciprocated by the married, childless Kerkhoven. His wife Nina finds out about it. Nina defends herself in vain ; their time is up . Kerkhoven has another patient in the Irlen house - Marie. Diagnosis: psychoneurosis . In plain language: Marie, the much older Mr. von P. , is an adulteress. Kerkoven's “treatment” Maries causes the patient to break up with her lover and give herself completely to the house doctor . Nina can't stand it. Kerkhoven takes his wife to the county insane asylum and confesses to Irlen his relationship with Marie. Irlen envies the two adulterers for their demonic power . The adulteress wants to separate from Bergmann. The husband agrees with everything and releases Marie. Only Aleid's grandmother, the senator, does not want to give up the granddaughter. Marie proves to be the stronger in the fight for the child. Under current law, Marie and Kerkhoven are not allowed to marry as long as Nina lives in the institution. Maria and Kerkhoven get married after Nina died in autumn 1922. The reserve officer Ernst Bergmann had previously died in Belgium in October 1914 . Marie has two children from Kerkhoven - Johann Karl and Ludwig Robert.

The second part is from 1928 to 1929 in Berlin and on an estate north of Berlin:

Kerkhoven, now a professor in Berlin, was promoted to head of the entire medical service on the Eastern Front during the First World War . He hadn't been willing to climb . Kerkhoven could not be overlooked . Even after the war, in Berlin as director of the former Werther-François mental hospital , he got through his usual seventeen-hour day and neglected his wife. Marie lives with her children and mother in seclusion on an estate north of Berlin.

Kerkhoven keeps his manuscript “Obedience to Disease ” in his desk . The paper contains the entire later development and is dedicated to the memory of Irlen .

Etzel

The 20-year-old Etzel von Andergast visits Kerkhoven on the advice of his girlfriend Nell Marschall after his friend Roderich Lüttgens shot himself. Because Roderich's friend Jessie Tinius urgently needs medical help. The overused Prof. Dr. Kerkhoven, who has no boyfriend , realizes that there is a real person for the very first time . Therefore he takes time for the newcomer.

Nell, the only daughter of a Pittsburgh steel tycoon and heir to a fantastic dollar fortune , is a second Jane Addams . In Berlin she has built a settlement in which stranded people live in shared apartments . Etzel, who feels drawn to Nell, spends hours in this commune . Etzel is politically active in a so-called World Federation, an international organization .

Roderich had fallen in love with the pretty, snappy dancer Emma Sperling during his lifetime. She finally heard him, but immediately gave the hysterical schoolboy the run-off . In addition to the terrible jealousy scenes that Jessie Tinius had made for her friend Roderich, there was an argument with his relentless father , a well-known editor and socialist MP . At the request of Roderich, the father was supposed to rehabilitate Jürgen Lorriner in his newspaper .

Etzel tries to get close to this Lorriner when he is planning and carrying out an attack . Lorriner, predestined to be a leader , is someone who is touched by the misery of the people . Lorriner deployed the storm troops much too late in his fight , failed and could not bear Etzel's mockery. Lorriner, who already at Kapp Putsch was involved in the overthrow of the Munich Soviet government was going Etzel brings a gaping head wound with his brass knuckles on. Etzel dragged himself to Kerkhoven's clinic, was treated and even found a family connection. At first Marie doesn't want to know anything about the boy with the weak eyes . Etzel can call Kerkhoven master . Kerkhoven writes to Etzel's mother that he wants to lead him . Etzel is not drawn to his mother, who lives in Baden-Baden . He can't forgive her for sleeping with the unloved father - at least once when he was conceived.

Etzel runs away again and seeks Nell's closeness again. She has a dark fear of him , but does not want him to be an enemy . Nevertheless, she snubs him so much that he has a nervous breakdown and ends up back at the Kerkhoven house. This time Marie has nothing against Etzel. The new sleeping guest is even supposed to become the professor's private secretary . Etzel reluctantly agrees. Marie, pregnant again, can no longer stand it in the country and goes to Kerkhoven in Berlin. On this occasion, Etzel and Marie get closer. Marie persuades Etzel to resume contact with his mother Sophia. Marie has a miscarriage after a fall and soon returns to the country. Kerkhoven writes to her that Etzel has grown a lot inside and emphasizes the self-control of his new private secretary. Marie replies that she doesn't want to be alone anymore. Kerkhoven, very busy, knows the way out: he sends the young Etzel to his wife - a fateful mistake. On the remote estate, Etzel presses Marie against his chest with tremendous wild strength; she kisses the fourteen years younger. The ratio widens for Marie to a nervous torture without equal from. She was never so in love in her life. She could have laughed and cried . Etzel relentlessly demands the impossible from Marie: she should part with Kerkhoven. He doesn't want to be the lover in the closet . It gets so bad that Marie thinks this Etzel is a Satan , and she begs: Let's part . It won't work on its own. Kerkhoven thinks about it, drives to the estate and saves what can still be saved from the ruins of his existence . The professor chases away his private secretary. Etzel flees to the high Engadine , into Fex , his mother's current residence. The house, with thick stone walls and loopholes-like windows , is snowing up there. The universe is silent . Etzel, in his mother's house , is finally smiling for the first time in months .

Quotes

  • What is experience The order of the unsuccessful.
  • Obviously man can do much more than he knows he can.
  • Whoever goes through hell is marked by it.
  • The body is an animal.
  • Body-soul problem : If the soul does not accept the illness, it can not seize the body .
  • Lightness is the result of inner order.
  • The most sinister thing that a person can do is to leave his instinct base .
  • What has been done is out of the question because what is to be done requires all efforts.

shape

  • Point of view : The first-person narrator Aquarius addresses the reader in the 2nd person plural. The narrator is responsible for writing history, portraying fate and looking into the fabric of the epoch .
  • Destruction: There are at least three destructors in the novel. Otto Kapeller destroys Irlen's life, Marie destroys Kerkoven's marriage to Nina and Etzel destroys Kerkoven's marriage to Marie.
  • Music of the future: Aquarius anticipates. In the 1913 plot an episode from the First World War in 1915 in West Prussia is inserted as a parenthesized paragraph. And a letter from 1916 is mentioned in the 1913 story. Further anticipations make the reader sit up and take notice again and again - e.g. B. she [ the visionary power of Kerkhoven] will one day be decisive for his life .
  • Fear: As in Heinrich Mann's memoirs, the strange solar plexus is also named in the novel - here "more specifically", with the sympathetic as the seat of fear . The reader can hardly do anything with solar plexus - here and there.
  • Self-blame: On page 608 [the source] is over, and from page 542 onwards, according to Wassermann, despair and destruction reign . So the author recommends: close the book confidently and do something more fun .
  • Medicine: The doctor Kerkhoven has specialized in psychology . We are talking about deep hypnosis and the role model Ignaz von Loyola . Etzel's telepathic relationship with his distant mother fits in with this .
  • Legibility: Aquarius serves a multilingual menu. That includes u. a. the missing link , an apprehension that Reveille [Wakeup] blow , a shake-hand-meeting and in a somnolent state are located. Often the reader encounters educational language - e.g. B. the Fafner's slumber .

reading

In February 1931 Wassermann read from the novel to his friends Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann in Chantarella near St. Moritz .

reception

Koester notices the author's tendency towards the mystical , e.g. B. when it comes to the "soul union" between Irlen and Kerkhoven.

trilogy

The work includes the novels

See also

literature

source
  • Jakob Wassermann: Etzel Andergast. Novel. Munich in April 2002, 608 pages, ISBN 3-423-12960-3
First edition
  • Jakob Wassermann: Etzel Andergast. S. Fischer Verlag Berlin 1931. Linen, Fraktur, 661 pages
expenditure
  • Jakob Wassermann: Etzel Andergast. S. Fischer Verlag Berlin 1962. Whole linen, 661 pages
  • Jakob Wassermann: Etzel Andergast. Novel. dtv literature 12960. Munich 2002. 672 pages, ISBN 978-3-423-12960-2
Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source p. 51
  2. ↑ Source p. 63
  3. ↑ Source p. 76
  4. ↑ Source, p. 189
  5. ↑ Source p. 240
  6. ↑ Source p. 287
  7. ↑ Source p. 347
  8. ↑ Source p. 423
  9. ↑ Source p. 317
  10. ↑ Source p. 113
  11. ↑ Source p. 130
  12. ↑ Source, p. 185
  13. ↑ Source p. 421
  14. ↑ Source p. 416
  15. ↑ Source p. 492
  16. ^ Source, p. 494
  17. ↑ Source p. 549
  18. ↑ Source p. 558
  19. ↑ Source p. 560
  20. ↑ a b source p. 561
  21. ^ Source, p. 602
  22. ↑ Source p. 565
  23. ↑ Koester, p. 76
  24. ↑ Koester, p. 78