7.15 Keller — «Kleider machen Leute» (II) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the climax of Keller's Kleider machen Leute : the unmasking of the false count and his bride's decision. Read comparisons in the subjunctive without wenn : als wollte er sich ewig von seiner Vergangenheit trennen . Follow a narrator who stops the story for a moral reflection, and a heroine whose thoughts are given as questions. Notice what the choice between du and Sie reveals about a relationship. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Nettchen hielt unwillkürlich die Pferde an, womit eine tiefe Stille über den Wald kam. Nettchen stopped the horses without thinking, and a deep silence fell over the forest. Das erste deutliche Gefühl, dessen er inne wurde, war dasjenige einer ungeheuren Schande. The first clear feeling he became aware of was that of enormous shame. und nun war er ein Betrüger geworden and now he had become a swindler Nun es freut mich, daß es Ihnen so lustig geht und Sie hier so fröhliche Fastnacht halten! Well, I'm glad you're doing so nicely and keeping such a merry carnival here! Ohne zu antworten ging sie festen Schrittes voran nach dem Hofe, wo der Schlitten mit den ungeduldigen wohlgefütterten Pferden bereit stand. Without answering she walked with firm steps ahead to the yard, where the sleigh stood ready with the impatient, well-fed horses. Als sich die einsame Schöne näher über ihn hinbeugte und ihn ganz sicher erkannte, sah sie auch sogleich die Gefahr, in der sein Leben schwebte, und fürchtete, er möchte bereits erfroren sein. When the lonely beauty bent closer over him and recognised him for certain, she also saw at once the danger his life was in, and feared he might already have frozen to death. Prerequisites : 7.14 — you need the first part of the novella in 7.14 Reading , the subjunctive of unreality from 2.23 Grammar and 2.24 Grammar , and the paragraph connectors from 2.32 Grammar . About this text This lesson continues Gottfried Keller's Kleider machen Leute from Die Leute von Seldwyla , volume 3, Stuttgart: Göschen , 1874. The text is a later section of the novella, 31 paragraphs and about 2,600 words, from the transcription in German Wikisource, unchanged except that the printed page numbers are left out; one letter added in square brackets by the Wikisource editors, un[d] , is kept as it appears there. The work is in the public domain. Between the two excerpts, a great deal has happened. Strapinski stayed in Goldach, unable to confess, and was welcomed into society as a Polish count. He fell in love with Nettchen, the daughter of a senior official, the Amtsrath , and she with him; their engagement was celebrated. Only the bookkeeper Melchior Böhni , who also wanted to marry Nettchen, remained suspicious. On a business trip to Seldwyla he discovered the truth, and he arranged a trap: on the day of the engagement party, held at an inn between the two towns, the people of Seldwyla arrive in a carnival procession of their own. The excerpt begins in the middle of their masquerade. A dancer in the role of a tailor sews himself a count's coat, puts it on, and then stops in front of the engaged couple. He is Strapinski's former master. The rest of the excerpt follows the false count into the snowy night, and Nettchen after him. The ending of the novella, which you can read on your own, is a happy one, and an ironic one: the tailor becomes a prosperous businessman. Grammar in the text als + subjunctive: as if . German can drop wenn from als wenn and put the verb straight after als : als wollte er sich ewig von seiner Vergangenheit trennen , as if he wanted to part from his past forever . The full form appears too: gleich wie wenn er ein wirklicher Mann von Rang und Ansehen gewesen und nun infam geworden wäre , just as if he had been a real man of rank and standing and had now been disgraced . The narrator's reflection. One paragraph is not narrative at all. It is a single long sentence built from five wenn clauses (a prince, a priest, a teacher, an artist, a swindler) followed by the main clause so weinen alle diese nicht über sich . Its point is the contrast with the next sentence: Unser Schneider aber weinte bitterlich über sich . Read the long sentence for its shape: wenn …, wenn …, so … . Thoughts as questions. Nettchen's despair is shown as a series of questions without a speech verb: was sind Glück und Leben! von was hangen sie ab? Was sind wir selbst, …? The narrator then labels them: Solche mehr geträumte als gedachte Fragen , such questions, dreamed more than thought . Dich , then Sie . When Nettchen finds Wenzel, she says Komm, fremder Mensch! … ich werde mit Dir sprechen : the intimate du of their engagement, mixed with stranger . At the farmhouse she switches to Sie : Trinken Sie dies , Wer sind Sie? The change marks the distance she now feels. Notice also the capital Dir and Dich , the old convention for the familiar pronoun in direct address. Spelling of 1874. New examples: Thränen, Todter, athmete, bischen, Kafe, egyptischen , today Tränen, Toter, atmete, bisschen, Kaffee, ägyptischen . Reading it a second time, section by section The masquerade (paragraphs 1–4). The dancer's pantomime retells the whole story in a few gestures: a tailor makes a count's coat, puts it on and throws away his old cloak. His greeting, sieh da den Bruder Schlesier , unmasks Strapinski in front of everyone. The people of Seldwyla march out laughing. The empty hall (paragraphs 5–8). Four very short paragraphs slow the story down: the hall empties, the couple sits like an Egyptian royal pair of stone, Nettchen looks at him, and he leaves in tears. Strapinski in the snow (paragraphs 9–11). Walking towards Seldwyla without cap or gloves, he passes from shame to a sense of injustice and finally to grief for the bride he has lost. The narrator's long reflection compares him with powerful people who deceive without tears. Hiding from the Seldwyla sleighs, he falls asleep