Mrs. Salome

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Frau Salome is a short story by Wilhelm Raabe that was written in the summer of 1874 and published in Braunschweig in 1879. The text belonging to the “Krähenfelder Stories” had already been printed in Westermann's monthly magazine in February 1875 .

The old judiciary Scholten from Hanover loses his two highly gifted childhood friends, but forms an active community of responsibility for his goddaughter with the Jewish banker's widow Salome von Veitor - an "ethical family foundation".

content

Three good friends - that's Scholten, Dr. theol. Peter Schwanewede and Karl Ernst Querian - all come from Quakenbrück . They spent their childhood together, were still friends as students and then went their separate ways. Scholten studied jurisprudence, Schwanewede theology and Querian sculpture. Scholten considers the doctor to be a genius, but at most himself a talent. The youth is long gone. Each of the three gentlemen lives in seclusion. Schwanewede, the old mystic, is probably reading Jakob Böhme on the Pilsumer Watt . Querian lives as an ore worker, carpenter, carver, sculptor and chemist "in a Harz village under the Blocksberg " in his studio with his 13-year-old daughter Eilike. Part of the north German plain can be seen from the church hill of the village . Eilike is Scholten's godchild. The child's mother has been dead for twelve years. As an old summer guest of his landlady, the widow Bebenroth, Scholten now knows everyone among the farmers, forest workers and miners in the village.

On "one of the foothills" of the Harz, an hour away from the Harz village, behind a graceful gate is the Villa Veitor. This is the summer apartment of a banker's widow from Berlin. The beautiful Jewess Baroness Salome von Veitor is a friend of the old judiciary. In the course of the action, both discover their deep spiritual and moral affinity. The judiciary would like to send the baroness to Pilsum. But nothing comes of it. First, Scholten shows the baroness his summer quarters in the house of the widow Bebenroth. The disturbed Eilike has fled there. The young girl had to stand naked again for her father in his studio, which was filled with wood shavings and dry wood, for a dead child in the arms of a clay giant. The godfather, “as good-hearted as he is rude”, declares the artist “crazy” and wants guardianship over him and Eilike. First of all, the wealthy Mrs. Salome would like to solve the problem with money; would like to finance a stay in Rome for Querian. Then she wants to take the child with her. Scholten stays with it. He thinks his best friend Querian belongs in a madhouse.

Eilike admires the beautiful woman Salome. When the girl flees from her birth father again, she hides in the Villa Veitor. Mrs. Salome and Scholten bring Eilike back to her father, this “unfortunate person”, on a hot, windy summer day. Querian looks insecure. Reluctantly, he lets the newcomers forward to his picture, on which he had worked for fifty years. The artist asks Mrs. Salome for one thing: “Don't laugh!” When Scholten does laugh, the sculptor sets the studio on fire and pounds his mighty clay sculptures in madness. Eilike wants to go down with her father in the burning house, but Mrs. Salome takes the girl away with her at the last second. The fire spreads to neighboring houses. After the fire is finally extinguished, two thirds of the village are in ruins. Scholten is proving to be an energetic, talented organizer in housing homeless villagers. The award of a state order of the second lowest class beckons. Scholten complains: "O Querian, Querian, if only they had given you the appendix at the right time!" Querian burned to death in his house. In search of the scapegoat, the villagers approach Eilike. Mrs. Salome and the girl escape.

Scholten found out by letter that his friend Schwanewede died a year ago. Ms. Salome holds out the prospect of a joint next summer stay in Pilsum.

shape

The reader is only led into the studio of the sculptor Querian in the penultimate of the twelve chapters. Thus, for example, the reader cannot really understand why parts of the consistently primitively depicted village population worship the artist Querian, who lives in their community, like an idol. If the reception is primarily about Querian's secret, which was revealed late, then one can speak of an artist's novella.

But everything is very different. Scholten - and not the woman who gave the title, Salome - is placed in the spotlight by the narrator. Apparently an event from the past is being told. The novella can be read as the story of Scholten's turning away from his two old comrades and the bachelor's late turning to his wife Salome and the child Eilike.

Self-testimony

  • On January 8, 1875 to Wilhelm Jensen: “Frau Salome” is “a very good story”.

reception

  • In 1924, Wilhelm Fehse demonstrated relationships with Goethe's Harz journey.
  • Raabe was inspired by Heine - once from the Harz trip and then from Romanzero . In the latter collection, by “ Baroness Salomon ” (there: verse 528) , Heine meant Caroline Stern (1782–1854), the wife of the banker Salomon Rothschild .
  • Fuld indicates the artist's recognition. For Querian, the only way out if she failed to do so would be death.
  • Meyen names 17 meetings.

literature

  • Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 (Karl Hoppe (Hrsg.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete works. Braunschweig edition . Supplementary volume 1).
  • Cecilia von Studnitz : Wilhelm Raabe. Writer. A biography. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0778-6
  • Werner Fuld : Wilhelm Raabe. A biography. Hanser, Munich 1993 (dtv edition in July 2006), ISBN 3-423-34324-9
  • Eberhard Rohse : Harz tourists as literary figures in the works of Theodor Fontane and Wilhelm Raabe: "Cécile" - "Frau Salome" - "Restless guests". In: Cord-Friedrich Berghahn, Herbert Blume , Gabriele Henkel and Eberhard Rohse (eds.): Literary Harz Travel. Images and reality of a region between romanticism and modernity. Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-89534-680-4 , pp. 175–231, esp. Pp. 181 u. 211–222 ( Braunschweig contributions to the German language and literature. Volume 10).
  • Paul Spruth : Eilike. A girl with Wilhelm Raabe. In: Yearbook of the Raabe Society. 1971, pp. 93-102.

First single edition

  • Wilhelm Raabe: Mrs. Salome. A story. With a foreword "About my life together with Wilhelm Raabe" by Karl Schultes . 126 pages. Max Hesse Verlag, Leipzig 1909

Used edition

Further editions

  • Mrs. Salome. A story. 100 pages. Hermann Klemm, Freiburg im Breisgau 1955.
  • Mrs. Salome . In Hans Butzmann , Hans Oppermann (arrangement): Mrs. Salome. The innermost . From old Proteus. Horacker. 2nd edition, obtained from Karl Hoppe and Hans Oppermann. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969, pp. 5–100, with an appendix, written by Hans Butzmann, pp. 457–492 (Karl Hoppe, Jost Schillemeit, Hans Oppermann, Kurt Schreinert (eds.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete works. Braunschweig edition . Volume 12).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Worship by the “underground people” of the miners: Querian has good geological knowledge. And the forest workers also call the artist their “wise master”. Only the farmers are a little more reserved.
  2. ↑ The narrator about the village fire: "Nobody who witnessed it on the spot will ever forget the day." (Edition used, p. 375, 8th Zvu)
  3. ↑ This refers to letters from Goethe to Frau von Stein from December 1777 and the poem " Harzreise " (edition used, p. 830 middle).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Butzmann in the Braunschweiger edition, vol. 12, p. 458 above and p. 479, 16. Zvu
  2. ^ Giesbert Damaschke : Wilhelm Raabe: "Krähenfelder Stories". Lang, Bern 1990, ISBN 3-261-04204-4 .
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 831 and also p. 817, 13. Zvu
  4. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 312, entry 44.
  5. ^ Butzmann in the Braunschweiger edition, vol. 12, p. 481 above, entries Z and B.
  6. ↑ Hans Butzmann, epilogue to “Frau Salome” in the Braunschweiger edition BA 12, 458: “It can be assumed that Raabe thought from the beginning to combine the fortunes of exceptional people in the future work [= Frau Salome] that for him Ichor, the blood of the gods, became a symbol of the inner nobility of the 'lonely in the crowd'. "
  7. ↑ Wilhelm Raabe, BA Vol. 12, 11: “These are peculiar stretches of earth that produce peculiar creatures. Counselor Scholten came from there, and so did his best friend; but his very best friend was sitting in Pilsum, a village at the mouth of the Ems, and reading Jakob Böhmen with a view of the Pilsum Watt. The judiciary read Voltaire in a Harz village under the Blocksberg. "
  8. ^ Wilhelm Raabe, Complete Works BA 12, 65
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 831, 18. Zvu
  10. ^ Heinrich Heine: Romanzero III. Hebrew melodies. Jude Ben Halevy . After the battle of Arabella
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 830 below to p. 831 above
  12. ↑ Fuld, p. 34, 10th Zvu
  13. ↑ Meyen, pp. 332-333.