Sultry days
Sultry Days is a novella by Eduard von Keyserling , published in 1906 by Fischer, Berlin. It was published in advance in the new Rundschau in 1904. The 18-year-old Count Bill von Fernow talks about the internal conflict he feels because of his role as a “young man” and about his relationship with his father.
action
Count Gerd von Fernow takes his son Bill with him to the family's country estate in midsummer. Bill has failed high school and is supposed to be studying for the exam during the summer vacation instead of going on an entertaining beach vacation with the rest of the count's family. The father's unpleasant admonitions culminate in the principle: Keep your composure! The father asks Bill once: “How are the studies going?” But basically he has other interests. By chance, Bill overhears the sad father crying lonely.
The father sometimes takes Bill with him on visits to relatives that lead to the Warnows on the neighboring estate. Bill has loved the very young cousin Gerda Warnow for a long time. Her sister Ellita is out of the question for Bill, because she is older than him, and cousin Went desires the beautiful woman to be his wife. At the engagement dinner, Bill's father gives a speech - again she has the tenor “Keep your composure!” While listening, Bill feels the “pleasant arrogance tickle” according to the motto: We nobles are something special. But he despises the father and the whole snooty clan at the festive table. Bill observes an encounter with Ellita's father in the Warnow's Park and it dawns on him - the two could have had something with each other. In addition, Bill only has unpleasant arguments with Gerda. Bill seeks and finds consolation on a mild summer night with the buxom housemaid Margusch, who gives herself to the "young man" outdoors - "good-natured and a little compassionate". The father, who also wandered through the summer night, disapproved of the son's relationship with the staff at the breakfast table in private.
Inadvertently, Bill witnesses an encounter between Ellita and her father. The junior listens breathlessly: Ellita was undoubtedly the father's lover. Now the senior thanks her "for the last happiness that" she gave "an aging man" and asks her to: keep your composure! That is to say, marry cousin Went and put the whole story aside. Ellita rebels, but has to submit.
When the Warnows leave, Bill and the father go to the train station to say goodbye. After the train leaves, Bill overhears his father secretly injecting himself. It is also a morphine syringe that the father uses to kill himself days later. During the subsequent mourning, Bill cannot cry for his father at first. But then he feels sorry for the dead man and the tears flow.
shape
Both the simple language of the author and the unobtrusive presentation of the summer story appear to be flawless. Accurate descriptions of nature enliven the reading - precisely because of their unsentimental brevity.
filming
As a television film, Schwüle Tage was broadcast on December 17, 1978 directed by Hajo Gies on ARD , with Daniel Gélin as Count Gerd, Katerina Jacob as Ellita and Gisela Trowe as aunt , among others .
expenditure
- Sultry days. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-12551-9 .
- Sultry days. Unabridged reading with Hanns Zischler . Berlin 2006, ISBN 978 3-7424-0928-7 .
literature
- Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1900–1918. Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52178-9 , p. 364.
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors A – Z. Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 331.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steffen Brondke: Journal and book prints of the literary texts Keyserling . In: Christoph Juergensen, Michael Scheffel (eds.): Eduard von Keyserling and the classical modern (= treatises on literary studies ). JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-476-04892-9 , pp. 287-290 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-04892-9_19 .
- ↑ Contourless schemes
- ↑ Sultry days (IMDb). Retrieved October 23, 2018 .