7.13 Storm — «Immensee» (chapters 1–3) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the first three chapters of Theodor Storm's novella Immensee in the text of 1851. Follow dialogue printed without quotation marks, as Storm writes it. Recognise a frame narrative: an old man in his study, and the memory that opens when he says a name. Read the reported speech and the old turns of phrase of mid-nineteenth-century prose: er werde, er wolle, sie müsse ; Mir graut ; mich dünkt . Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Nachdem der Alte Hut und Stock in die Ecke gestellt hatte, setzte er sich in den Lehnstuhl. After the old man had put his hat and stick in the corner, he sat down in the armchair. Reinhardt faßte sie mit ausgelassener Freude bei beiden Händen, und zog sie hinaus auf die Wiese. Reinhardt took her by both hands in wild delight and pulled her out onto the meadow. So lebten die Kinder zusammen; sie war ihm oft zu still, er war ihr oft zu heftig. So the children lived together; to him she was often too quiet, to her he was often too vehement. Das allein war für Elisabeth ein Geheimniß. That alone was a secret from Elisabeth. Hier müssen Erdbeeren sein, sagte das Mädchen, es duftet so süß. There must be strawberries here, said the girl, it smells so sweet. Hier ist es einsam, sagte Elisabeth; wo mögen die Andern sein? It's lonely here, said Elisabeth; where can the others be? Prerequisites : 7.12 — you need Konjunktiv I from 2.26 Grammar , the pluperfect from 3.11 Verbs , the vocabulary of literature from 5.16 Vocabulary , and the old spellings explained in 7.12 Reading . About this text Theodor Storm (1817–1888) was a lawyer and judge from Husum on the North Sea coast, and one of the masters of the German Novelle . Immensee first appeared in 1849 and was revised for the collection Sommergeschichten und Lieder , Berlin: Duncker, 1851. This is the text printed here: the first three chapters, Der Alte , Die Kinder and Im Walde , complete, about 2,800 words, from the transcription in German Wikisource, unchanged except that the printed page numbers are left out. The work is in the public domain. The story is told in a frame. An old man returns home at dusk, sits down in his study, and as the moonlight falls on a small portrait he says a name: Elisabeth . With that word, the narrative goes back to his childhood. Reinhardt and Elisabeth are children who play together, he telling stories and she listening; then he must leave for school in another town, and a summer outing to the woods becomes their farewell. The rest of the novella, which you can read on your own, tells how they lose each other. The title, Immensee , bee lake , names the estate where they meet again. Immensee was one of the most widely read German books of the nineteenth century, and it was long a standard school text in Britain and America for learners of German. Its sentences are clear, its vocabulary concrete, and its mood, quiet regret, is carried by detail rather than by explanation. Grammar in the text Dialogue without quotation marks. Storm prints speech without inverted commas. Follow the speech verbs: rief sie , sagte er , antwortete Reinhardt . Often the speaker's words come first and the verb follows with inversion: Komm, sagte er, nun ist unser Haus fertig. When a paragraph begins with an exclamation such as Reinhardt! or Elisabeth! , someone is calling. Reported plans in Konjunktiv I . At the start of Im Walde , Reinhardt's promises are reported in the forms of 2.26 Grammar : er werde … Märchen für sie aufschreiben; er wolle sie ihr mit den Briefen an seine Mutter schicken; sie müsse ihm dann wieder schreiben . The subjunctive keeps the promise at a distance, which suits a story about promises that are not kept. Feelings in the dative. As in the tales of 7.12 Reading , the person who feels something can stand in the dative or accusative with no grammatical subject: Mir graut! , I'm frightened ; mich dünkt, ich hörte sie sprechen , it seems to me I heard them speaking . In Der Kleinen kam das Weinen nahe , the little girl was close to tears , the person is again in the dative, but here the feeling itself, das Weinen , is the subject. dünken is now old-fashioned. Spelling of 1851. Besides the patterns you know ( Thür, rothe, Geheimniß, daß ), note giebt for gibt , Brod for Brot , Hülfe for Hilfe , Haidekrauts for Heidekrauts , allmählig for allmählich , and the verb ending -iren for -ieren ( marschirte , serviren ). Reading it a second time, chapter by chapter Der Alte is a single long paragraph. Notice how slowly it moves: the old man's shoes, his stick, the house, the stairs, the room, the chair. Then the moonlight travels across the wall to a small picture, and one word changes the time: und wie er das Wort gesprochen, war die Zeit verwandelt; er war in seiner Jugend . Die Kinder shows the two characters through play. Reinhardt builds, tells stories and plans a journey to India; Elisabeth listens, collects seeds and is afraid to go without her mother. His impatience and her quietness are already the problem of the whole novella: sie war ihm oft zu still, er war ihr oft zu heftig . The chapter ends with his first poem, written into a parchment book, and with the tales he writes down for her. Im Walde is a farewell disguised as an outing. An old gentleman lectures the young people and sends them off to find strawberries. Reinhardt promises Elisabeth a secret spot, but the strawberries are gone, they lose their way, and the forest grows silent and strange. They find the others again by the sound of the noon bell. Reinhardt finds no strawberries, but he finds a poem, which closes the chapter. Full translation An English translation of the whole text, made for this course and kept close to the original. The numbers are the paragraph numbers of the original text, so you can move between the two. The Old Man. One afternoon in late autumn a well-dressed old man was walking slowly down the street. H