First published in German in 1842, this novella includes lots of Gothic elements such as poretending thunderstorms and corpses discovered in forests ... and two men who look very much alike. Friedrich Mergel is the clever peasant son of a mother who was physically abused by her husband; he has a short temper and ideas 'above his station in life'. He is best friends with his lookalike Johannes Niemand, a rather dim peasant whose name means Johnny Nobody.
It's basically a prototype murder mystery. At the core of the story are Friedrich's Uncle Simon, a dodgy dealer for whom Friedrich works, and a team of crooks who are illegally cutting down trees, repeatedly pursued by foresters. One of these foresters is found dead after having had an argument with Friedrich; the lad is suspected but there is no proof one way or another. Four years later, Aaron the Jew, to whom Friedrich owes money, is found dead. Friedrich runs off - with Johannes - and disappears and is consequently again suspected of the crime but later exonerated after another man who later commits suicide confesses to killing a Jew named Aaron. Then, twenty-eight years later ...
The biggest difference from today's whodunnit tropes is this statement just over half-way through the book: "For the sake of those readers who are perhaps eager to learn the outcome of this affair, I must mention that it was never cleared up." (p 59) It seems that Anthony Trollope (as I have observed in reviews of his books The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, and Barchester Towers) was not the only author who enjoyed the self-spoiler. In this case, Hulshoff excuses herself: "It would be unfair to leave the reader's curiosity unsatisfied in a tale of fiction, but all this really happened - I cannot subtract or add anything." (pp 59 - 60)
The story has the folklore quality of a Grimms' fairy tale and the rustic setting of a pre-industrial Germany in which the countryfolk are utterly unromantic and mostly, it seems, petty thieves. There was a whiff of Silas Marner in the relationship between the party-loving peasants and the paternalistic squire. It was a delightful glimpse into a vanished world.
Selected quotes:
(page numbers refer to the paperback edition translated by Lionel and Doris Thomas and published by Alma Classics in 2024)
- "A house which, boasting a chimney and window panes rather larger than usual, testified to the pretensions of its builder, while its dilapidated state indicated the miserable circumstances of the present owner." (p 15)
- "an eerie fellow in whom pompous reserve often alternated with a candour just as affected." (p 25)
- "When children are small, they trample on our laps - when they are big, on our hearts!" (p 54)
- "As soon as anybody had a few shillings to spare, he wanted to have a wife as well who would help him eat well today and starve tomorrow." (p 64)
- "As she let everything given to her go to rack and ruin, the village people had soon tired of helping her, for it is natural to man to abandon those who are actually the most helpless." (p 87)
- "The fields were bare, the leaves began to fall, and many a consumptive felt the shears of fate at his life thread." (p 94)
April 2024; 99 pages
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