In the old iron

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In the old iron is a story by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written from September 1885 to September 1886 and published in 1887 in the magazine “Vom Fels zum Meer” (Issues 7-10) by Spemann (editor: Kürschner ) in Stuttgart. The book edition was published by Müller-Grote in Berlin that same year. Raabe experienced re-editions in 1901 and 1907. The author took part of the material from the “ Berliner Tageblatt ” from 1877. Raabe rejected the working titles “Simila similibus” and “Erdwine Wermuth” (see below).

The story is about a "terrible hunt for human misery". The funeral of a childhood friend who has been neglected for almost a lifetime should not be missed.

The title is ambiguous. He first points to Mrs. Wendeline Cruse, a former international theater director and now a resolute participant in the “hunt”. When she was old, the lady moved down to the Berlin junk dealer. Then an officer's sword from the wars from 1848 to 1850 is rusting in the basement of the old woman who got into the garbage.

content

Erdwine emerged from the marriage of Adele with Lieutenant Wolfram Hegewisch, an "impractical, stubborn dreamer and fanatic". Senator Amalie Brokkorb from Lübeck is worried about her friend Adele Hegewisch. The senator asks her husband for assistance. The senator instructs a neighbor of the Hegewischs. The old accountant Uhusen takes care of the Adeles family. In Lübeck, Albin Brokkorb, Erdwine Hegewisch and Peter Uhusen - children of the three families - become good friends.

Later Peter Uhusen became a private in the Royal Hanover Artillery and deserted in Sankt Pauli . The deserter went into hiding in Mrs. Wendeline Cruse's theater troupe. During a guest appearance in Brooklyn he left the theater company and took part in the " slave war ". When he returned to Europe, he found his wife Emerenz in Untermeidling . After Emerenz Uhusen died, Peter Uhusen went to visit his childhood friend Albin. The friend had in the meantime received his doctorate and made it to the court council as a public speaker in Berlin. Once in the big city, Uhusen gets lost in the product cellar of a second-hand shop and, as luck would have it, meets his ex-theater director, the owner Wendeline Cruse. You recognize yourself and think back to the days in Lübeck, when Uhusen stealthily raved about the young, pretty Madame Cruse, the first lover and wife of the director, from the top gallery. The now about 60-year-old is turning an old infantry officer's sword in her hands. Uhusen takes a closer look at the sword and reads “ Bau , April 9, 1848, Army of Schleswig-Holstein . Wolfram Hegewisch. ”Uhusen knows the name of“ the dear, old, foolish, poor lieutenant ”. He wants to know more. Ms. Cruse replied that a about 12-year-old boy had pawned his grandfather's sword, the Idstedt battle sword, for a bag of nails. The coffin with the dead mother had to be nailed up. The address of the mourning house is Schulzenstrasse 10. Peter Uhusen thinks that Erdwine Hegewisch must be the dead one. Uhusen brings the "youth comrade" Albin into the "rags, bones and scrap iron cellar of Mrs. Wendeline Cruse".

Mrs. Wendeline has meanwhile determined the names of the dead. It is the widow Erdwine Wermuth. The old goods dealer knows Erdwine's husband, the violinist Franz Wermuth, from earlier times. The three of you go to Schulzenstrasse. Under the roof, Miss Rotkäppchen has already taken care of Erdwine's children - Wolfram Wermuth and his younger sister Paula - in the tenement. Berlin is a village: Little Red Riding Hood knows "Madameken" Cruse and the court councilor Brokkorb. The young woman “stood, sat, lied and hung” for the doctor. Albin had talked nicely about Little Red Riding Hood when it was “with Professor Käsewieter as a drowned abandoned model”.

The next morning, all six attend Erdwine's funeral. The two orphans and Little Red Riding Hood, who is always afraid of the police, find shelter with the “comedy mother who has fallen into the old iron”. Mother Cruse pulls in her company sign and accompanies Uhusen with the children to Untermeidling. Little Red Riding Hood stays in Berlin. It reads the riot act to the councilor and gets the upper hand for a while.

Quotes

  • "Look around you like the bird on the branch."
  • "You never need to take the role you are playing as the very last one."

shape

In the first of the 22 chapters, the reader encounters the deepest human misery. Both orphans sit helpless and as if paralyzed by the corpse of their mother Erdwine Wermuth. In the second chapter Raabe describes the life of Hofrat Dr. Albin Broken Basket in Luxury and Wealth. When the plight of the children becomes an issue again much later, it is almost overgrown by the stories of the Councilor, Uhusens and Mrs. Cruse.

Episodes from the lives of two childhood friends are narrated - the Schöngeist Brokkorb and the Haudegens Uhusen. So far Brokkorb has only spoken cleverly about art things in front of women's associations across Germany, but on the evening of the day of the funeral he must be very surprised. He has never seen so much in one day.

Testimonials

  • On December 31, 1887, Raabe wrote to Theodor Steinweg : "We are all falling into the trap."
  • Oppermann concludes that Raabe believed in the text when he wrote to E. Sträter on September 21, 1889 that one day " Phöbe Hahnemeyer and the little Rothkäppchen would sit on a bench."

reception

  • Kürschner on April 26, 1887 to Raabe: "I almost believe that your novel was too fine for the large audience."
  • Oppermann may have had the first chapter in mind when he mentions motifs of the naturalism emerging at the time.
  • In the figure of the literary figure Brokkorb, Oppermann sees partly a self-representation of Raabe.
  • References to further work can be found at

Oppermann :

Barker Fairley: “Wilhelm Raabe. An interpretation of his novels ”(Translator: Boeschenstein), Munich 1961, p. 126
Hans Oppermann: “Raabe's ' Tasso '. Reflections on Raabe's 'In the old iron' ”. Raabe-Jahrbuch 1950, p. 74
Leo A. Lensing: "Narrative structure and reader in Wilhelm Raabe's 'Im alten Eisen'". Bern 1977

from Studnitz :

Charlotte Jolles: “In the old iron. Reality in a fairytale tone ”. Josef Daum (Ed.), Hans-Jürgen Schrader (Ed.): “Revisions. Festschrift for the 150th birthday of Wilhelm Raabe. “Yearbook of the Raabe Society. Braunschweig 1981

Meyen :

Karl Albert (Bayreuth 1891), Fritz Jensch (Wolfenbüttel 1924), Wilhelm Fehse and Franz Hahne (Wolfenbüttel 1928 and 1941), Wilhelm Fehse (Braunschweig 1937) and Erich B. Zornemann (Berlin 1951).

expenditure

First edition

  • Wilhelm Raabe: “In the old iron. A story. ”244 pages. Grote'sche Verlagbuchhandlung, Berlin 1887

Used edition

  • In the old iron. A story. (Pp. 339-514) with an appendix by Hans Oppermann (pp. 573-605) in: Karl Hoppe (ed.), Hans Oppermann (arr.): Wilhelm Raabe: Pfisters Mühle . Restless guests . In the old iron . (2nd edition) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1970. Vol. 16 (without ISBN) in Karl Hoppe (Ed.), Jost Schillemeit (Ed.), Hans Oppermann (Ed.), Kurt Schreinert (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.

Further editions

  • Wilhelm Raabe: “In the old iron. A story"
    • 224 pages. Grote'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1901, 1907, 1916, 1920 (9th edition)
    • 228 pages. Epilogue: Hanns Martin Elster . G. Grote, Berlin 1940, 1943

literature

  • Hans Oppermann : Wilhelm Raabe. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1970 (1988 edition), ISBN 3-499-50165-1 (rowohlt's monographs).
  • Fritz Meyen: Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). 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. 346 pages. 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 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. von Studnitz, p. 314, entry 60
  2. ^ Oppermann in the edition used, pp. 573, 579 and 583
  3. ^ Oppermann in the edition used, pp. 573-577
  4. "Simila similibus" by Macrobius : "The same (is happy) to like." (Oppermann in the used edition, p 598, 3. ZVO)
  5. ^ Oppermann in the edition used, p. 579 middle
  6. 422,14u
  7. Edition used, p. 391, 13. Zvo
  8. Edition used, p. 513, 2nd Zvo
  9. ^ Sprengel, p. 187, 19th Zvu
  10. quoted by Oppermann in the edition used, p. 581, 10. Zvo
  11. ^ Oppermann in the edition used, p. 582, 1. Zvo
  12. quoted in Oppermann in the edition used, p. 581, 16. Zvu
  13. ^ Oppermann in the edition used, p. 577 below
  14. ^ Oppermann anno 1970, p. 111, 13th Zvu
  15. Oppermann anno 1970, p. 152, 32. Zvo and p. 157, 12. Zvu
  16. von Studnitz, p. 319, 10. Zvo
  17. Meyen, pp. 352-353