Horacker by Wilhelm Raabe

First published: 1876 (English translation, 1983)

Type of work: Social realism

Time of work: July 25, 1867

Locale: Two neighboring villages in the area of the Weser River in Germany, principally Gansewinckel

Principal Characters:

• Dr. Werner Eckerbusch, the vice principal of the local school
• Ida, his wife
• Victor Windwebel, the drawing master
• Hedwig, his wife
• Neubauer, the assistant master at the school
• Christian Winckler, the pastor of Gansewinckel
• Billa, his wife
• Cord Horacker, a young man who has escaped from reform school
• Lottchen Achterhang, his girlfriend

The Novel

Horacker is a story told by an outside narrator, who leads the reader into the setting of the novel, descending from the area’s highest mountain down into the hills, forest, and meadows. The reader first encounters Dr. Werner Eckerbusch, vice principal of the local school and the last of a dying breed, and is thus introduced to the rhythms of village life, where the most important thing for the inhabitants is the spate of rumors about Cord Horacker: “Horacker was rampant in the land.”

In this setting, Eckerbusch and Victor Windwebel, the drawing master, spend their last day of vacation before school starts again, hiking to the neighboring village of Gansewinckel to visit their friend, Pastor Christian Winckler. In the forest, the schoolmasters encounter Horacker’s mother and finally Horacker himself. Up to this moment, the reader knows only the horrible rumors. Reality is restored as a young man of nineteen—“trembling, emaciated, ragged”—emerges from the forest with his suffering mother. The reader learns that Horacker grew up in abject poverty and was constantly harassed by the villagers. When he was driven to stealing and pranks, the authorities sent him to a reformatory—where he was learning to be a tailor—from which he escaped only after being told that Lottchen Achterhang, the girl he loves, would not wait for him.

Meanwhile, Lottchen, an orphan reared by the Wincklers, has been caught stealing carrots. She has run away from her job on the other side of Berlin with Pastor Noleke, after hearing of Horacker’s supposed crimes, and arrives on foot, ragged and hungry. After the Wincklers have taken her into their care once again, Eckerbusch arrives with the news that he and Windwebel have seen Horacker, who ran away in panic at the mention of the public prosecutor. Windwebel chases him, finally persuading the youth to return. Pastor Winckler himself goes out and brings Horacker to the parsonage, where he is reunited with Lottchen.

By five o’clock in the afternoon, the rumor that Horacker has murdered two schoolmasters is spreading. Hedwig Windwebel, nearly hysterical with grief, goes immediately to Ida Eckerbusch, a strong, sensible woman, who maintains that the rumor is nonsense. Unable to comfort Hedwig, however, Ida hires a coach and, accompanied by Assistant Master Neubauer, the women travel to Gansewinckel, where they surprise their husbands at the end of the story.

Just before they arrive, Eckerbusch disperses the assembled villagers by pointing out that their failings are greater than young Horacker’s: “the night cannot grow black enough to cover your shame, you threefold Horackers of Gansewinckel!” He encourages each person to examine his own conscience and leave Horacker in the capable hands of the pastor and his wife. Soon the public prosecutor and his assistant arrive, in time to discover that Horacker has been found and that no murders have been committed. All join in drink and fellowship, and the women reassure Widow Horacker and the two young people that everything will turn out well.

The Characters

Eckerbusch is introduced in the first sentences of the novel as a creature like the kiwi of New Zealand, who “should be stuffed and revered as a species that one shall never again encounter.” The narrator emphasizes that Eckerbusch is the last vice principal (Konrektor), since this position is being abolished. While these words have a humorous effect, they are not intended to mock the vice principal, except insofar as Wilhelm Raabe always gently mocks the absurdities of human beings. In this case, Raabe’s ironic tone carries with it a very serious note: Eckerbusch is the representative of a type of humane individual who is gradually disappearing in favor of a new breed of men like Neubauer.

Eckerbusch is a product of his local village environment, beyond which he “never ventured, with the exception of three years spent at the university.” He is a compassionate man, concerned about his students and others, but he is considered something of an odd character and often laughed at for his eccentricities. Raabe’s portrait of him as a man “respected in the community as an authority on matters of weather” is gently humorous. Eckerbusch is a good-humored old man who does not seem to worry about upholding the image of a dignified vice principal.

Winckler also is a compassionate man, whose sympathy immediately goes out to Lottchen and Horacker. He is an old-fashioned pastor with “both the body and the spirit for the task” and is an admirer of the moralizing fables of Christian Furchtegott Gellert. Outwardly, Winckler seems to be a rural pastor in an idyllic setting, but the undercurrents in the parish show this image to be an illusion. When there is need, he and his wife, having no children of their own, easily “adopt the cause of strangers,” and they dedicate their lives to ministering to the Gansewinckel farmers.

Ida Eckerbusch and Billa Winckler are both strong-minded partners to their husbands. Realistic, sensible women, they know how to deal with others. Raabe’s portrait of them is gently humorous and admiring. Memorable scenes occur when Billa deals firmly with the parishioners on the question of the quarter-money and when Ida lectures an unwilling Neubauer.

Windwebel is a younger man, under Eckerbusch’s protective wing, with the same compassion and other humane qualities characteristic of both Eckerbusch and Winckler. The younger man takes genuine pleasure in his association with Eckerbusch and, when faced with Horacker’s troubles, shows an immediate empathy based on his own struggles to succeed in a hostile world. Windwebel’s handling of Horacker’s return wins for him new respect from Eckerbusch.

In contrast to these men and women of the two villages, Neubauer represents the man of the future. He is a very serious young philologist who has recently been transferred from the city to the province, and he considers Windwebel “shallow” and “insignificant.” Neubauer is a pedantic scholar, characterized by “the awful gravity of his character and views on life.” When forced to accompany Ida and Hedwig to Gansewinckel, he shows no sympathy for their concern but worries instead about whether he looks ridiculous. Concerns about his image and dignity and a detached approach to the problems of others distinguish him as much as humane action based on real sympathy distinguishes the Eckerbusches and Wincklers. The two contrasting ways of dealing with life revolve around the decision to become personally involved or to keep all contact with poverty and troubled individuals on an impersonal level.

Critical Context

Horacker is one of the mature works on which Raabe’s reputation as a major German novelist of the nineteenth century rests. The novel falls within the period of German realism, sometimes referred to in German literary criticism as poetischen or burgerlichen Realismus, and is realistic in contrast to the more idealistic classicism and Romanticism. Horacker focuses on the daily life experienced by the protagonists in a transitional society following the Revolution of 1848, a period when the German bourgeoisie (Burgertum) was struggling vainly for more political rights. The book is regional only in the sense that it is firmly anchored to a specific geographical area, which Raabe knew well and portrayed with a sure touch.

The humorous, rambling style used by Raabe allows a comprehensive view of the society he describes. Plots are weakened—not much action occurs in Horacker—and suspense is diminished. Although many devices are used to delay the conclusion, all the elements are carefully woven into a well-orchestrated whole; for example, everyone arrives at the final scene in Gansewinckel at just the right moment. What appears to be merely purposeless digression contributes to the reader’s understanding of the attitudes of the people and of the village environment. The structure, which superficially appears so very rambling and uninterrelated, turns out to be very carefully constructed.

Raabe’s narrative technique became more complex as his work matured, probably reaching a high point in his masterpiece Stopfkuchen: Eine See-und Mordgeschichte (1891; Tubby Schaumann: A Tale of Murder and the High Seas, 1983). Various narrators bring their perspective to his later stories. This happens to a certain extent in Horacker; the narrator provides an overview, bringing the reader into the scene, while Eckerbusch and Windwebel, Ida, and the Wincklers contribute their views of “the Horacker Case.” This unconventional way of telling a story is directed to the perceptive reader. In Horacker, Raabe identifies this individual as the one in a thousand, who, watching a house being built, “will be given to quiet and somewhat melancholy meditation, who will ask of himself and fate: ‘What all do you suppose will happen in that new house?’” His style of writing demands participation and overturns the reader’s expectation that the narration will build suspense and finally produce satisfaction at the capture of a criminal. This destruction of expectations is a particularly modern feature of this nineteenth century novelist.

Throughout his works, Raabe focuses on the question of human development, the struggle between an individual’s dreams and the limiting effect of society. In Horacker, as in his other works, he considers the relationship between an individual and a society in transition. Horacker ends on a positive note, but with an individual solution to one problem that does not resolve the overall conflict of values. Later novels show more resignation and skepticism about man’s ability to understand or control history; Horacker represents the high point of Raabe’s vision of a more humane world established through the actions of single individuals.

Bibliography

Daemmrich, Horst S. Wilhelm Raabe, 1981.

Fairley, Barker. Wilhelm Raabe: An Introduction to His Novels, 1961.

Helmers, Hermann. Wilhelm Raabe, 1968.

Pascal, Roy. “Wilhelm Raabe (1831-1910),” in The German Novel: Studies, 1956.

Stern, J.P. “Wilhelm Raabe: Home and Abroad,” in Idylls and Realities: Studies in Nineteenth-century German Literature, 1976.