Hauff / Nemo 7 best short stories by Wilhelm Hauff

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-96858-922-0
Verlag: Tacet Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 159, 99 Seiten

Reihe: 7 best short stories

Wilhelm Hauff was a German poet and novelist best known for his fairy tales. Considering his brief life, Hauff was an extraordinarily prolific writer. The freshness and originality of his talent, his inventiveness, and his genial humour have won him a high place among the southern German prose writers of the early nineteenth century. This book contains: - The Severed Hand. - The Cold Heart. - The Little Glass Man. - The Story Of The Caliph Stork. - The Story Of Little Muck. - Nose, The Dwarf. - How The Stories Were Found.

Wilhelm Hauff (29 November 1802 18 November 1827) was a Württembergian poet and novelist.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hauff, Wilhelm

Nemo, August

Leseproben

Part I
He who travels through Suabia should not pass without seeing something of the Black Forest; not because of the trees, although such countless masses of stately pines are not to be met with everywhere; but because of the people, who differ remarkably from their neighbours on every side. They are broad-shouldered and strong-limbed and taller than the generality of human beings; it is as if the invigorating air, which blows every morning through the pines, has endowed them with a freer respiration, a clearer eye and a firmer though, perhaps, rougher courage than is possessed by the dwellers in valley and on plain. And not only in bearing and stature, but also in customs and dress they form a marked contrast to those who live beyond the confines of the forest. The costume of the Baden Black Forester is the more picturesque: with full-grown beards, as in accordance with Nature's intention, the men, in their black jerkins, their enormous narrow-pleated breeches, their red stockings and their peaked, broad-brimmed hats, have an air somewhat strange, but, at the same time, serious and dignified. These people are mostly occupied in glassblowing; but they are also noted for the manufacture of clocks, which are exported to all parts of the world. On the other side of the forest dwell people of the same stock; but their employment has imparted to them habits, manners and customs differing from those of the glass-blowers. They are occupied with their forest, felling and splitting up the pine trees, which they float down the Nagold to the Necker, and thence to the Rhine and to far-away Holland. The Black Foresters and their rafts are familiar objects even to the inhabitants of the remote coast regions. The raftsmen touch at every town along the river, proudly awaiting offers for their baulks and beams; but the strongest and the longest of the former they sell for gold to the Mynheers, who build ships of them. These men are accustomed, therefore, to a rough, wandering existence. Their delight is to float down stream on their rafts, while the return homeward along the river-banks is but weary work. Their holiday costume is also very different from that of the glass-blowers on the other side of the Black Forest. They wear dark linen jerkins with wide, green braces across their broad chests, and black leathern breeches, from the pocket of which peeps, as a badge of honour, the end of a brass foot-rule. But they take most joy and pride in their boots, the biggest, perhaps, which have ever been in fashion in any part of the world, for these are drawn quite two handspans above the knee, so that the raftsmen can wade knee deep in the water without getting wet. Until quite recently the inhabitants of this forest believed it inhabited by supernatural beings, and it is only latterly that they have begun to abandon the superstition, and it is remarkable that even the forest spirits, which according to legend haunt the Black Forest, are also distinguished by their different costume and habits. Thus we are assured, the Glass-manikin, a benevolent elf, of about four feet in height, is never seen in anything but a little peaked broad trimmed hat, with jerkin, knee-breeches and red stockings. Dutch Michael again, who dwells on the other side of the forest, is said to be a gigantic, broad shouldered fellow, dressed in like fashion to the raftsmen; and many people, who have seen him, are wont to declare that they would not like to bear the cost of the calves, the skins of which have gone to the making of the boots. "So big are they that an ordinary man could stand up to his neck in them," say the latter, protesting that the description is no exaggerated one. Now, there is a story of the very strange adventure which a young Black Forester once had with these forest spirits, and which story I will now relate. In the Black Forest there lived a widow, one Mistress Barbara Munk; her husband had been a charcoal burner, and after his death she brought up her son, a lad of sixteen, to the same calling. Peter Munk, a slenderly built young fellow, took to the business as a matter of course, because he had never seen his father do aught else but sit by his smoking charcoal-kiln, or, blackened and begrimed, travel to the towns to sell his charcoal. Now, a charcoal-burner has a great deal of time for meditation on things as they are, and on himself; and as Peter Munk sat before his kiln, the dark trees around him and the heavy silence of the forest stirred his heart to sorrow and to vague longings. He felt grieved and vexed at something; but what that something was he could not tell. At last, the cause of his discontent was revealed to him: it was—his position in the world. "A grimy, lonely charcoal-burner!" he exclaimed to himself. "What a wretched existence! Look at the glassblowers, the watchmakers, even the musicians who play on Sunday evenings—how they are respected! And I, Peter Munk, though cleaned up and dressed in my father's best jerkin with the silver buttons, and with my brand-new red stockings on, if someone follows me and asks himself 'Who can that slim young fellow be?'—admiring my stockings and easy gait, no sooner does he pass me and chance to look round, than he exclaims, 'Pooh, it's only that charcoal-burning Peter Munk after all.'" The raftsmen on the other side of the forest were also objects of his envy. When these giants came over to his side of the forest, in all their glory of apparel, their buttons, chains and buckles representing great weight and wealth of silver; when they stood with outstretched legs looking on at the dancing, swearing Dutch oaths, and smoking yard-long Rhenish pipes like the grandest Mynheers, each of these handsome raftsmen appeared to him to be a perfect representation of a really happy man. And when one of these lucky fellows chanced to dive his hands into his pockets, bringing forth whole handsful of silver thalers, and throwing them down on the dice table, five gulden here, ten there, Peter became well-nigh distracted, and slunk dolefully back to his hut; for on many a festival he had seen one or other of these woodsmen play away more money than his poor father had been able to earn in a year. There were three of these men in particular of whom he could not say which he admired the most. One was a big, fat, red-faced man, generally conceded to be the richest person in those parts. He was called Fat Ezekiel. Twice a year he travelled to Amsterdam with building timber, and always had the good fortune to dispose of it at so much better profit than his comrades could, that he was able to travel homewards in luxurious style, while they were compelled to return on foot. The second was the tallest and lankiest fellow in the whole forest. He was called Lanky Schlurker, and Munk envied him because of his extraordinary boldness. He would flatly contradict the most worthy people, and always took up more room in the overcrowded tavern than was required by four others of the bulkiest, leaning with both elbows on the table, or stretching his legs along the bench; yet nobody dared to complain, for he was fabulously rich. The third was a handsome young man, the best dancer for miles round, who had earned the nickname of the Dance King. He had formerly been a poor man in the service of a wealthy timber merchant; but all at once he had become immensely rich. Some said that he had found a jar, full of money, at the root of an old pine tree; others maintained that not far from Bingen on the Rhine he had brought up with his pole, such as the raftsmen use to spear fish, a bundle filled with gold, and that this bundle had formed part of the great Nibelung's hoard which lies buried there. But no matter—the fact was that he had suddenly become rich, and was consequently respected by young and old as if he had been a prince. The charcoal-burner, Peter Munk, thought long and oft of these men as he sat alone among the pine-trees. All three of them had one great failing which made them hated by all; and this common failing was their inhuman avarice, their callousness towards debtors and the poor, for the Black-foresters were a kindly and good-hearted people. Nevertheless, as is often found in such cases, though they were hated because of their covetousness, they were held in awe because of their money; for who but they could fling thalers broadcast as though by simply shaking the pine-trees the money fell into their hands. "I cannot endure this any longer!" said Peter to himself, sorely depressed, one day when there had been a fête, and the people had foregathered in the tavern to enjoy themselves. "If I do not soon have a stroke of luck, I shall be doing myself some harm. Oh, if I were only as rich and feared as Fat Ezekiel, or as bold and strong as the Lanky Schlurker, or as famous as the Dance King, throwing thalers instead of kreuzers to the musicians, as he does! Where the fellow gets his money from is a mystery to me!" He turned over in his mind all possible means of earning money, but none attracted him; at last, he fell to reflecting on the stories which he had heard of people who in bygone times had become rich through the aid of Dutch Michael or the Glassmanikin. While his father was alive, other poor folk would often pay him visits, and the conversation would turn on rich people and how they had gained their wealth. In these stories the Glassmanikin often played a part. Indeed, after some striving, Peter was able to recall a portion of the little rhymed incantation which had to be pronounced in the depths of the forest before the Glassmanikin would appear. It began thus: "Guardian of gold in the pine-tree wold, Art many hundred ages old. Lord of all...