A Place in the Country

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

In the “extended marginal notes and glosses”—as he modestly characterizes the essays in A Place in the Country—W. G. Sebald chooses to dispense with the usual scholarly accoutrements of footnotes (with a single exception) and bibliography. In reintroducing such apparatus as an aid for the English reader, I have accordingly tried to keep these notes as unobtrusive as possible, refraining from footnoting the numerous embedded quotations, half-quotations, and allusions. Instead, works cited in the text are, as far as possible, listed and referenced in the Bibliography, where details of the English translations of the authors in question, to which my own translation is indebted, may be found.

FOREWORD

1 recollection of things The phrase “Aufzählen der Dinge” (recounting or recollection of things) would seem to be a reference to the title of the 1993 catalog of Jan Peter Tripp’s work in which this essay was first published: Jan Peter Tripp, Die Aufzählung der Schwierigkeiten: Arbeiten von 1985—92 (Offenburg: Reiff-Schwarzwaldverlag, 1993). Part of the essay on Robert Walser appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on May 23, 1998. The essay on Mörike was given as an acceptance speech for the Mörike Prize in Fellbach (near Stuttgart) on April 22, 1997 (see Mörike-Preis der Stadt Fellbach: Ein Lesebuch 1991–2000 [Fellbach, 2000]), while the essay on Rousseau was first published, with minor variants, under the title “Rousseau auf der Île de Saint-Pierre” in Sinn und Form 50:4 (July/August 1998); neither of these includes any images.

A COMET IN THE HEAVENS

1 the feuilleton which Walter Benjamin wrote Walter Benjamin, “Johann Peter Hebel (I): On the Centenary of His Death,” English translation by Rodney Livingstone, in Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings 1913–1926, vol. 1, eds. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996) (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II.i, eds. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, pp. 277—80).

2 Robert Minder (1902–1980), French scholar of German and comparative literature, was born in Alsace to French-speaking parents at a time when Alsace-Lorraine was under German rule. During his university career he was a tireless promoter of Franco-German cultural cooperation, the historical vicissitudes of the twentieth century notwithstanding. His publications focus particularly on writers from the Rhineland. The essay referred to here is “Heidegger und Hebel oder die Sprache von Messkirch,” in Dichter in der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1966). For Heidegger’s other articles on Hebel, see the Bibliography.

3 Bloch On Ernst Bloch’s reception of Hebel, see the article by Johann Siebers, “Aufenthalt im Unerhörten: Bloch’s Reading of Hebel (1926—65),” in Remembering Johann Peter Hebel: Anniversary Essays, eds. Julian Preece and Robert Gillett, Oxford German Studies 40:1 (2011). This special anniversary issue of OGS contains a number of further interesting articles on Hebel.

4 Föhn … Wermuth The Föhn is a warm Alpine wind blowing from the south. Wermuth (wormwood) denotes vermouth or absinthe.

5 flowering of the wheat This metaphor, with the promise of a good harvest, is a reference to the tale “Die Weizenblüte” in the Kalender of 1814. An equivalent English saying would be “my ship has come in,” or, to continue the botanical analogy, “being in clover.”

6 “For to count the stars” “Für die Fixsterne zu zählen gibt’s nicht Finger genug auf der ganzen Erde” (“Die Fixsterne”).

7 “The great Emperor Napoleon” “Das sah der große Kaiser Napoleon wohl ein, und im Jahr 1806, ehe er antrat die große Reise nach Jena, Berlin und Warschau, und Eylau, ließ er schreiben an die ganze Judenschaft in Frankreich, daß sie ihm sollte schicken aus ihrer Mitte verständige und gelehrte Männer aus allen Departementern des Kaisertums” (“Der Große Sanhedrin zu Paris”). Compare the standardizing translation by John Hibberd (see Hebel, Treasure Chest, p. 29).

8 The words are As quoted in the German original.

9 the rules of German syntax Standard German word order places the verb at the end of a subordinate clause. Note that Sebald’s own usage on occasion also deviates from this rule, particularly in longer sentences, a feature on which German critics are fond of commenting.

10 the gold background Walter Benjamin, “A Chronicle of Germany’s Unemployed: Anna Seghers’ novel Die Rettung,” trans. Edmund Jephcott, in Selected Writings, vol. 4, pp. 126—33 (German text in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. III, pp. 530—38).

11 that home, in fact Probably a reference to Ernst Bloch at the end of Das Prinzip Hoffnung: “etwas, das allen in die Kindheit scheint und worin noch niemand war: Heimat” (Bloch, Werkausgabe: vol. 5: Das Prinzip Hoffnung [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985], p. 1628). English translation by Neville Plaice et al.: “something which shines into the childhood of all and in which no one has yet been: homeland” (The Principle of Hope, vol. 3 [Oxford: Blackwell, 1986], p. 137).

12 Weltfrömmigkeit The term was coined by J. W. von Goethe in Wilhelm Meister (Wanderjahre, II, ch. 7).

13 in a warm room Sebald omits Hebel’s description “warm” here. In Hebel’s original (“Traumbilder,” in Werke, vol. I, p. 495) the date of this dream is given as November 6, 1805.

14 “Esslingen” The battle actually took place at Essling (on the Danube near Vienna), but no doubt Esslingen (a town on the Neckar in Württemberg) would resonate more readily with a local Alemannic readership. (“Die Kometen.”)

15 Das Unglück der Stadt Leiden The pun in the title on Unglück (misery, disaster) and Leiden, which in German means suffering or sorrows, is untranslatable here.

16 “if only all men would cultivate” Johann Kaspar Hirzel, Die Wirtschaft eines philosophischen Bauers (Zurich, 1761): see Hannelore Schlaffer, ed., Johann Peter Hebel: Schatzkästlein des Rheinischen Hausfreunds; Ein Werk in seiner Zeit (Tübingen: Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins, 1980), note p. 364.

17 “il lui fallait tomber” “He had to chance upon a fractured society.”

18 Allemagne, réveille-toi! “Germany, awake!” “To shake it from its lethargy, it took nothing less than the cannons of the French Emperor. This Germany which became so terrible in the twentieth century, it is we, alas, who created it, who made it from nothing.”

19 “Jo, wegerli, und ’s Hus” There are variant orthographies of the Alemannic dialect in this poem, “Die Vergänglichkeit” (“Transience”). What is reproduced in the German edition of A Place in the Country (the source for the present edition) differs from the edition of Hebel’s work in Sebald’s library: see Hebel, Werke, vol. 2: Gedichte: Briefe (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1968), pp. 122—26. English translation (“Transience”) by Leonard Forster, in The Penguin Book of German Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994), pp. 281—82.

J’AURAIS VOULU QUE CE LAC EÛT ÉTÉ L’OCÉAN—

1 Seeland The Seeland (literally “sea land,” or more accurately “lake land”) is a region in Switzerland, at the foot of the Jura Mountains and bordering the cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Neuchâtel, and Vaud, comprising the three lakes of Morat (Murten), Neuchâtel, and Bienne (Biel) — the Lac de Bienne (or Bielersee) referred to here. It is a bilingual area on the linguistic boundary between French- and German-speaking Switzerland, and for this reason the city of Biel, Robert Walser’s birthplace, is in the present translation referred to in the essay on Walser by its German name, while in the essay on Rousseau it appears in the French form, Bienne. Seeland is also the title of one of Walser’s early collections of short prose pieces first published in 1919. Like Schattenrain (literally “shadow ridge”), Seeland is a “speaking name,” denoting a place but also having a clear literal meaning, as well as a literary echo, within the German text.

2 exceedingly obliging host In his notes to the poem “In Alfermée” in Across the Land and the Water, Iain Galbraith identifies the “exceedingly obliging host” as the critic Heinz F. Schafroth. In the September 1985 issue of Manuskripte (25: vol. 89/90), an article by Schafroth on Robert Walser (“Robert Walser oder die manipulierte Buchhaltung”) immediately follows Sebald’s article “Das Gesetz der Schande — Macht, Messianismus und Exil in Kafkas Schloß.”

3 “Il me semble” “It seems to me that, in the shade of a forest, I am forgotten, free, and undisturbed, as if I no longer had any enemies” (Reveries of the Solitary Walker, trans. Russell Goulbourne [Oxford: World’s Classics, 2011], p. 79).

4 “I ha in schwarzer Wetternacht” Hebel, “Der Bettler” (translation by JMC).

5 “un jour cette petite île” “one day this small island will astonish Europe.”

6 “linge, habits, vaisselle” “the simplest comforts of life …: linen, clothes, plates and dishes, kitchen utensils, paper, books — all these would have to be taken with me” (Confessions, Book XII: pp. 699–700).

7 in order to hasten the moment Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Sebald quotes from the German translation by Ulrich Raulff (see the Bibliography). Goldhammer’s English translation has been adapted in places (here and below) to follow Sebald’s (and thus Raulff’s) German more closely.

8 the long stamens of self-heal Sebald has Braunwurz, i.e. a plant from the Scrophularia or figwort family, possibly referring to S. canina, dog or French figwort, which has longer stamens than the common figwort, S. nodosa. The original Rousseau text has brunelle, i.e. Prunella vulgaris, or self-heal, which in German is usually known as Brunelle.

9 the seed capsules of balsam and of beech Sebald writes Buchkapseln, i.e. the “seed capsules” of beech (Buche), in other words beechmast, although in Rousseau’s French text we find buis (box) — which in German is Buchs. However, Buch is the German for book, and Buchkapsel also translates as “book box.” We may assume the German pun to be intentional.

10 Johann Joachim Becher Sebald’s text has “Becker.”

11 “His very dog” In English in the original.

12 “and that Mrs. Garrick” In English in the original.

WHY I GRIEVE I DO NOT KNOW

1 Why I grieve I do not know “Was ich traure weiß ich nicht,” from Eduard Mörike, “Verborgenheit” (“Seclusion”), in Mozart’s Journey to Prague and a Selection of Poems, trans. and intro. David Luke (London: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 94–95.

2 “Nach der Zeit ein Müller fand” Eduard Mörike, “Der Feuerreiter” (“Fire Rider”), trans. Raleigh Whitinger in Nolten the Painter (Rochester, N.Y., and Woodbridge: Camden House, 2005), p. 20.

3 Waiblinger Wilhelm [Friedrich] Waiblinger (1804–1830) was a contemporary of Mörike’s at the Tübingen Stift (a seminary which served to prepare Protestant pastors in Württemberg) and is often referred to as “Der wilde Waiblinger.” His poems were later collected and published by Mörike in 1844.

4 the Holy Alliance The Holy Alliance or Grand Alliance between Russia, Prussia, and Austria (1815), later joined by Great Britain and (in 1818) France. It came to an end with the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853).

5 Kotzebue’s murderer, Sand August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue (1761–1819), prolific German dramatist. Apparently detested by nationalist liberals, he was stabbed to death by the theology student Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the Burschenschaften or student dueling societies. The incident led to Metternich’s Carlsbad Decrees restricting academic and other freedoms.

6 Stuttgart Liederhalle A series of concert halls in Stuttgart, first inaugurated in 1864 (Mörike was invited but could not attend, and declined in verse). Destroyed in 1943, it was replaced in 1955 by a new building and still functions as a cultural and conference center under that name today. The present Literaturhaus Stuttgart, in an adjacent building, was inaugurated by W. G. Sebald in November 2001 (see his essay “An Attempt at Restitution” (“Ein Versuch der Restitution”) in Campo Santo, trans. Anthea Bell).

7 Ludwigsburg, Urach These Swabian towns in the region of Stuttgart and the surrounding area represent a chronological sketch of Mörike’s rather restless life. It is no coincidence that the list ends with Fellbach; the Mörike Prize, which Sebald received there in 1997, and for which occasion this text was composed, commemorates the fact that in 1873 Mörike moved there for a while with his younger daughter, Marie, following the separation from his wife, Margarethe.

8 from the Adige The original alludes to the opening verse of the German national anthem (no longer sung): [“Von der Maas bis an die Memel, /] Von der Etsch bis an den Belt” ([“From the Meuse to the Memel, /] From the Adige to the [Little] Belt”). In other words, from the Alps to the Baltic.

9 “The clock was … heartfelt pleas” Nolten the Painter, trans. Whitinger, pp. 112—13 (translation adapted).

10 Berté’s Dreimäderlhaus Das Dreimäderlhaus (The House of the Three Girls) was a hugely successful 1916 Viennese operetta giving a fictionalized account of Schubert’s romantic life, with music by Schubert rearranged by Heinrich Berté, and known in its Broadway adaptation (1921) as Blossom Time.

11 Himmelpfortgrund The area of Vienna (now situated in the 9th Bezirk, Alsergrund) where Schubert was born. The name literally means “area of the gate of Heaven,” being the former site of a religious foundation (the Himmelpfortkloster, dissolved 1783).

12 “So ist mein scheuer Blick” Translation (from Mörike’s poem “Früh im Wagen”) kindly supplied by Ray Ockenden.

13 Peregrina “Peregrina,” trans. David Luke, in Mozart’s Journey to Prague and a Selection of Poems, pp. 72–73.

14 Blautopf Blue Pool (literally “blue bowl”) in Blaubeuren near Ulm, Swabia. In fact this episode is part of Lau’s dream. For an English translation of this story, see Eduard Mörike, Die Historie der schönen Lau / The Story of Lau, the Beautiful Water Nymph, bilingual edition with translation by Stan Foulkes, ed. Peter Schmid (Munich: Langewiesche-Brandt, 1996). While this edition has been consulted, the translations here are JMC’s own.

15 Schachzagel, Bartzefant “chess set,” “servant,” “evening round the fire spinning” (cf. sewing circle), “spinning top,” “advantage.” The meaning of the terms seems less important here than the archaic impression conveyed.

16 Fastnacht Southern German form of Fasching: pre-Lenten Carnival, the German equivalent of Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday.

DEATH DRAWS NIGH, TIME MARCHES ON

1 Death draws nigh, time marches on “Her kommt der Tod, die Zeit geht hin,” Gottfried Keller, quoted in Adolf Muschg, Gottfried Keller (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), p. 145.

2 Vormärz Refers to the period before the failed March revolutions of 1848 in Germany (particularly Baden), and also to the (German-speaking) writers active then. It tends to signify a more politically engaged writing than that of the preceding Biedermeier era, usually thought of as spanning the years 1815—48.

3 Martin Salander Keller’s second and last novel (1886) has been translated into English by Kenneth Halwas: Martin Salander (London: Calder, 1963).

4 well-known passage Refers to Keller’s story “Kleider machen Leute” (“Clothes Make the Man”) from the collection Die Leute von Seldwyla. For a list of English translations, see the Bibliography.

5 Veilchenberg Keller’s original has Veilchenburg (Violet Castle).

6 Der grüne Heinrich English translation by A. M. Holt, Green Henry (London: Calder, 1960; Oneworld Classics, 2010).

7 The Origin of Private Property Full title: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

8 bric-a-brac mountain The pun on Brockengebirge (literally mountain of junk or bric-a-brac, but no doubt alluding to the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz mountains, and famously the scene of the Walpurgisnacht, e.g. in Goethe’s Faust) is untranslatable here.

9 Ferdinand Kürnberger (1821–1879), Austrian writer who for political reasons emigrated to Germany between 1849 and 1856. The novel referred to is probably Der Amerika-Müde: Amerikanisches Kulturbild (The Man Who Tired of America: A Picture of American Culture) of 1855.

10 the Landvogt von Greifensee Refers to the eponymous story from the collection Zürcher Novellen; English translation by Paul Bernard Thomas, The Governor of Greifensee (New York: Mondial Books, 2008).

11 Hoffmann’s drops Used for fainting spells and cramps.

12 a box with musk Marderdreck: formerly used as perfume. There is an old saying in German, “to know one’s musk from one’s marten scat,” perhaps roughly equivalent to knowing one’s onions. While pine martens are rare in the UK, in continental Europe the related beech marten is a household pest, and formerly pet — cf. the (in Keller’s text tame) martens in Heinrich’s dream of homecoming on pp. 108–109 above.

13 plaited from fragrant palm leaves Keller has Halme[n] (“blades of grass, grasses”), Sebald Palmen (“palms”) — the former makes more sense, but cf. the use of palm leaves for (somewhat absurd) decoration in Robert Walser’s story from the Bleistiftgebiet cited above (p. 141).

14 Die drei gerechten Kammacher English translation by Robert M. Browning, “The Three Righteous Combmakers,” in Gottfried Keller, Stories, ed. Frank G. Ryder (New York: Continuum, 1982) (translation adapted).

15 little Meret Cf. the eponymous chapter (“Das Meretlein”) in Der grüne Heinrich (vol. I, ch. 5).

16 fall peacefully asleep Entschlafen is more often used as a euphemism for dying, though it can, as here, mean falling asleep. Sebald deliberately plays on this ambiguity here.

17 “brings us closer” Walter Benjamin, “Gottfried Keller,” in Selected Writings, vol. 2, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II.i, pp. 283—95).

18 “Sometimes the river glided” Keller, “A Village Romeo and Juliet” (“Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe”) from the collection Die Leute von Seldwyla. Along with “Clothes Make the Man,” this is possibly the best-known of Keller’s stories, and the one translated the most frequently into English. The passage quoted here is adapted from the version published as A Village Romeo and Juliet: A Tale, intro. Edith Wharton (London: Constable, 1915 [no translator given]), p. 155. Other English translations are listed in the Bibliography.

19 the colossal scrawl “die kolossale Kritzelei.”

LE PROMENEUR SOLITAIRE

1 Martin Walser The essays by Martin Walser and Elias Canetti, along with an extract from Carl Seelig’s “walks with Robert Walser,” are contained in Katharina Kerr, ed., Über Robert Walser, vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978). English translations (where available) are listed in the Bibliography. The German writer Martin Walser (b. 1927) is no relation to his Swiss namesake Robert.

2 Was it a lady named Wanda The diverse items in this list in the main reflect titles of actual texts by Walser.

3 Bleistiftgebiet Das Bleistiftgebiet is the collective term used to refer to Robert Walser’s “microscripts” or “micrograms,” written in pencil on scraps of paper in a minuscule, almost indecipherable script and long thought to be written in code. See pp. 149—52 above.

4 Der Räuber The Robber, trans. and intro. Susan Bernofsky (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). See also The Tanners (Die Geschwister Tanner), trans. Susan Bernofsky (New York: New Directions, 2009). The present essay first appeared as an introduction to this volume; it has been revised slightly for the present edition. For further English translations of Walser’s works, see the Bibliography.

5 a clairvoyant of the small Sebald’s phrase is “ein Hellseher im Kleinen.” In Walser’s introduction to his first collection, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze (Fritz Kocher’s Essays), the narrator explains how he has seen little of the wider world (“die große Welt”), but “dafür ist es ihm vergönnt gewesen, in seiner kleinen hell zu sehen”—he has been granted the gift of farsightedness in his own small world. “Hellsehen” (“seeing clearly”) has in German the additional meaning of clairvoyance.

6 “night-bird shyness” “das Nachtvogelhaftscheue, in der Finsternis die Meere überfliegende, in sich Hinabwimmernde.” English translation by Susan Bernofsky (The Robber, p. 26).

7 Schützenfest “Shooting fair” or “marksmen’s festival,” a traditional event featuring shooting competitions, food and drink stalls, and often a funfair or circus. The Schützenfest is still an annual feature of (mainly) rural life in Germany and Switzerland today.

8 “from insanity and nowhere else” Walter Benjamin, “Robert Walser,” in Selected Writings, vol. 2: 1927—34, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II.i, pp. 324—28).

9 “In the Government of Simbirsk” Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol (New York: New Directions, 1961; London: Penguin Books, 2011).

10 attic cell Sebald uses the term Bleikammer, a reference to i piombi, the attic cells under the roof of the Doge’s palace in Venice used to house political and other prisoners. Casanova’s incarceration there is recalled in “All’estero” (in Vertigo); cf. the comment there: “presumably not a few prisoners slowly perishing beneath the leaden roof of the palace will have been of that irrepressible species whose desire drives them on, time after time, to the very same point” (trans. Michael Hulse), which seems equally to apply to the fate of the writer as set out here.

11 “storms of steel” A reference to Ernst Jünger’s famous novel of the Western Front in the First World War, In Stahlgewittern (1920). English translations (Storm of Steel) by Basil Creighton (1929) and Michael Hofmann (London: Penguin Books, 2003).

12 Kleist Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) wrote his first drama, Die Familie Ghonorez (better known as the tragedy Die Familie Schroffenstein) in Switzerland in 1802, where — perhaps influenced by Rousseau’s views on nature — he briefly harbored hopes of settling to a rural existence. He killed himself in a suicide pact with Henriette Vogel on November 21, 1811, on the shores of the Wannsee near Berlin.

13 Otto von Kotzebue On Kotzebue, see “Why I grieve I do not know” p. 71 and note p. 191 above, and also Walser’s eponymous piece in the volume Fritz Kochers Aufsätze: Geschichten; Aufsätze (pp. 326—27). Otto von Kotzebue was in fact the son of the dramatist.

14 “yards and yards” Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 65–66; (New York: Vintage, 1989), p. 83.

AS DAY AND NIGHT—

1 “Action et passion” “Action and passion so little separable that one no longer knows who is looking and who is being looked at, who is painting and who is being painted” (translation by Michael Hamburger, in his version of this essay in Unrecounted, p. 80: a closer rendering than in the published translation of Merleau-Ponty’s essay listed in the Bibliography).

2 his comprehensive work on art and illusion E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 206.

3 Gombrich goes on to explain Ibid., p. 207.

4 “And though he may try” Ibid., p. 220.

5 We are such stuff as dreams In English in the original where, however, “on” is misquoted as “of.”

6 ’tis all a Chequer-board In English in the original (Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward FitzGerald).