The German Section of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures


Notes for a speech given by Professor Horwege at the Sweet Briar Alumnae Reunion in May 1994

SWEET BRIAR IN GERMAN LITERATURE

Probably some of you scoffed when you read the topic of the talk I am about to give you. Sweet Briar in German literature! What is this man trying to feed us? I must admit that I had a similar reaction when I first heard someone declare that Sweet Briar had a place in German literature. In April 1971, just after I had accepted a position at Sweet Briar I was at a party with some of my professors and fellow graduate students at Indiana University. In a conversation with one of my professors, Albrecht Holschuh. I mentioned my new position for the next year. He immediately broke into a broad smile and asked me if I remembered the guest writer who had been at Indiana a couple of years before that. Of course I did. How could anyone not have known this man. If one had not had the opportunity to meet him personally, one certainly could by then get to know him through the novel he had just published. This novel is entitled Indiana Campus (published in 1969), and is a running commentary of this writer's experiences during his year in Bloomington, Indiana. We had all had some good laughs reading his descriptions of some of our fellow students and professors. The writer's name, incidentally, was Hans Egon Holthusen.

I was quite surprised to hear that Holthusen had also had something to do with the college where I planned to work the next year. I asked Professor Holschuh to elaborate for me. He just chuckled and told me to go to the library and look for a book called Das Schiff.

During the next several weeks I had no opportunity to seek out this book because I was occupied with the final revisions on my dissertation and with the preparation of courses for my first venture into full-time college teaching. It was not until the middle of the my first semester at Sweet Briar that the thought occurred to me to look into the possibility that Sweet Briar indeed did have a place in German literature.

When, with some skepticism, I finally took the time to investigate whether Professor Holschuh really had known what he was talking about or not, I went first to the card catalogs at the Sweet Briar Library and --- there it was in Sweet Briar's own collection-- the book which was supposed to give Sweet Briar a place in German literature--- Das Schiff was in our own collection and had been there for probably over fifteen years --- and apparently nobody at Sweet Briar had been aware what is to be found in this book.

Before I proceed to tell you what I found in the book itself I should elaborate a little about Holthusen. Although he had been at Indiana for a whole academic year, I had not taken any of his classes and had just met him briefly. In other words, I did not gain for myself a place in his book on the Indiana Campus. At the time he was there I was finishing up course work in Historical linguistics and Philology and was more interested in preparing for my Ph.D prelims than in taking another course in modern German poetry, which was his specialty. Indeed, when I was preparing this talk I had to do some digging in the library to find out more about this writer. I first looked in several literary histories and found that his name was mentioned, usually as a footnote in connection with other modern poets. Other than the mention of the name nothing else appeared. This would tell one, perhaps, that as a poet he was not classified among the major poets, but deserved only a reference.

I found with a little more investigation that Holthusen, while perhaps not among the most well-known poets, was still quite prominent as an academician. He was born in 1913 in Germany and received his Ph.D. from the university of Munich in 1937. HIs dissertation dealt with Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonette an Orpheus His scholarly publications include several other books on Rilke, several collections of essays on modern German literature, and several volumes of his own poems. He also edited an well-known collection of 20th century German poetry (Ergriffenes Dasein: Deutsche Lyrik 1900-1950), a collection of poems by the 19th century writer, Eduard F. Mörike, and a collection of speeches commemorating the death of the poet, Gottfried Benn. In addition to Das Schiff (1956) and Indiana Campus (1969) he wrote Chicago Metropolis am Michigansee (1981). All three of these works deal presumably in large part with his own experiences. He served in the German Army in the Signal Corps from 1939-45, was Director of the Literary Section of the Academy of Arts in Berlin from 1956-63 and President of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts 1968-?) From 1961-64 he was director of the Goethe House in New York and from 1968 on he was Professor of German at Northwestern University. As of 1990 he was still living and had the position of Professor emeritus at Northwestern.

And now let us look into Das Schiff and see what it actually has to do with Sweet Briar College. In my talk I deal with the book in its original German and any rough translations I make are my own. I will add, however, that the book was translated by Robert Kee and Susi Hughes and published in 1959 in English under the title The Crossing. A search through the catalogs of surrounding colleges failed to bring the English translation to light. If you happen to run across this book in a used book store, you might think of buying it either for yourself or for the Sweet Briar Library.

One sees immediately that this story is written in the first person. The question of whether it is Holthusen himself or a fictional narrator could remain open. I am inclined to think that at least a large portion of the story is his own experience. This I will let you judge yourself at the end of this talk. In the first chapter we find the narrator in New York City on the way to the harbor on a hot day in late summer. He goes to the Cunard line. The name of his ship he does not give. He makes the comparison of every longer trip with an erotic process and speaks of losing a type of innocence. He talks about leaving Marilyn. the most important aspect of Manhattan (Now is now and I must go) A few tender thoughts about her and his experiences but one gets the impression that he does not plan to see her again. Holthusen himself married Lore Schaeder in 1950 and Inge Havemeier in 1952. (If he is telling about himself, Marilyn may have been someone he met in between marriages or perhaps a fling while he was still married. I assume the trip he is describing took place sometime between 1950 and 1955). He boards the ship and the ship departs. He goes down to his cabin, which, incidentally, is not a luxurious room, but small cell-like room with four beds. On his pillow is lying a little card: "Love Marilyn 14.50"

Now comes the next chapter entitled "Süßer Dornbusch" For those of you who know German, your curiosity is now perhaps raised a bit. We find out that the trip will last seven days and he is sharing his cabin with two other men, an Italian named Tonio and an old American, Mr. Manning. He goes up to the Sports deck to read his book, a novel by Theodor Fontane entitled Unwiederbringlich, (Irretrievable) but he his unable to read because of the noise made by a group of American youth playing ring tennis. (Page 16) "More girls than boys, doubtless all students of the "Sweet Briar Junior Year in France Group", which has its announcements below on the bulletin board. First must be determined who can be Kay, Pat Liz and Phyllis, who Harry, who Tom, who Bill. They are all a little ill at ease with each other, but some have already gotten to know each other and call to each other in a clumsy and comically stilted French in phrases: "S'il vous plait, monsieur!" or "C'est votre service, ma chère!" , no and then a quick unflowery "That's cute!" or "What a damn of a mess!" A fat loud Person has taken up the attack with a film camera on two young ladies in chaise lounges. Terribly flat and thoughtless face with short, reddish, brushy hair , but young, robust and rich, pullover and tennis shoes in the price range Abercrombie and Fifth, Fifth Avenue. I close my eyes and think: Sweet Briar" must be the name of a college, it means something like "Weinrose , also "Dünenrose", and when one translates it literally one can also say "Süßer Dornbusch."

There you have it! - Sweet Briar is mentioned in the book. Now let's see whether there is more about it.

On the same evening, around 10 o'clock he meets the Sweet Briar group together on the deck. The group forms around a core group telling jokes and proceeds to sing "I got plenty of nuttin," "There is nothing like a dame"- "Whippenpoop(sic) Song"--catcalls- "Let's beat the Yankees"- "The Eyes of Texas are upon you"- "I've been working on the railroad." A group of sailors answer with "Tipperary" The narrator hopes for "LIlli Marleen." By midnight the group of sailors, who are divided by a rope from the students, sit directly across from the Sweet Briar group-- "Auld Lang Syne," " Danny Boy"- An offer of whiskey by the sailors is declined by the girls. ' (27) Not only the small dark animated New Yorkers, many Jews among them, also the blonde coy amazons from the south, tall creatures in light blue twinsets, during the day torturously reserved and immovable in their class consciousness.

Tonio, the Italian, who we find out has very little money, at this time ($4.50) is totally bored but begins to talk about the possibility of inviting a few of the long legged ladies from Texas for a drink.

Thursday: The Narrator,(by the way his name is Hans) is awakened. He has been thinking about one of the girls. -- a greenish yellowish material over spread knees, flat tennis shoes, a short funny freckled nose and windblown hair and everything always moving hunting for the tennis court, an untamed head-over-heels halleleluja. He nicknames her "Kiebitz"-Kibitzer- (tease)-- He dreams about her- and is awakened.

At the movies later (the film: Dangerous When Wet ) the ladies and gentlemen from Sweet Briar sit before him- "favorites of the historic moment" A whirl at the door- his Kiebitz enters, followed by Tonio- His sensual self wishes for Tonio a pain in the neck- Tonio tries to guide the Kiebitz to the back but in front we see a hawklike profile stand up and offer her a seat he had saved for her. She turns to Tonio and says" See you later" Then the film starts.

Thursday afternoon: Tonio wants to be invited to the captain's party on Sunday evening and believes that he can get there with the help of the girls, who sit every evening at the bursar's table drinking california wine. For the first time they get names: Mercy, Joan and the one with the peanut face-Sue. We see that Mercy is a little fat around the middle, best Vassar style or more Mennington, totally crazy. Joan: a girl with bouquet- without a doubt the most meaningful thing offered on board. She is blond like the devil. Tonio is now on her trail.

Thursday- late evening: After an evening of drinking with a Mr. Erenkoy, an art dealer from whom Tonio hopes to get some money, they meet in the corridor the three students - adjourn to the smoking room- Tonio dances with Joan, then with the "spanish coocoo egg (Mercy)- Hans notices her on the dance floor- her pale face, her serious mouth, her beautiful dark brown hair. He asks Joan what is wrong with her. He wonders if she is pregnant.

" No, she eats too much ice cream. In all her nervous crises she brings herself with ice cream to her feet again.."

He finds she is a brilliant but somewhat unstable person who gets terrible depressions at times. After some discussion of their college, which got a grant of $80,000.00 for planting 30 acres of spinach (not Sweet Briar) Joan mentions a French Literary Historian who came to the college, which makes Mercy tell her to be quit."

Friday: Hans is standing at the railing thinking abut his time in New York. An experience at the house of Marilyn's Uncle Anthony disturbs him especially because a picture of Uncle Anthony's dead wife hangs in every room. He seems to feel ill at ease in any situation which would remind him of domestic bliss. He is happiest when he is traveling between stations: on the ship which does not want to keep him and stays nowhere. He is unwilling to settle down in any one place to a normal every-day existence.

Enter Mercy. " Am I disturbing your meditation?" --" Daddy always said the Germans have too many clouds in their souls and are therefore dangerous. By the way, we never had any Germans at our house.". She takes out a piece of chocolate. Hans: :You eat too much chocolate, Mercy. Your daddy would make a scene." Mercy: "There you are wrong, sir. Daddy doesn't care how I look. He stopped loving me a long time ago. We had a nice time together when I was fourteen or fifteen, nice and horrible. He brought it so far, that I had to have myself analyzed. Now he has a gin and his friends. a herd of politicizing elephants, all strict conservatives, and all of his complexes are complex, no he makes a living. God, I don't want to say anything against him, he is really quite nice, uneducated but nice..." Hans wants to know what she means by that. She replies: " Go for a few years to an American Woman's college, then you will understand my simplifications. A bunch of organ grinders, some play(grind out) freedom, democracy, Happiness through virtue, I mean social complaisance and moral commitment, others grind out the opposite and mean the same thing, we had an Austrian, who said: ' You must be sexually relaxed, if you you to take exams.' The teachers are poorly paid and --well, you already know, bad complexion and frustrated because of the profession, what should they do! All speak of how the world should be, from morning until evening, how the world is supposed to be. But do they know, that doesn't interest me? What interests me is the question how the world is. I am always very excited when I comprehend something that is this way and not different, all moral commitment seems to me then so absurd and prearranged., pure affectation, laziness. With most girls it is nothing but calculation, in order not to get into trouble. One can reject someone and one can go with him at night to a hotel, what is the difference. What I want, what I imagine , that is another kind of commitment, something without doubt, something... something.. where the damned ego is suspended, where one cannot go back,,,
Hans: "Oh, I understand. Were you well entertained yesterday evening?"

Then her criticism of the young men: "These young men one cannot take seriously. These baseball-buffaloes, these Neanderthals. They are massive and good humored like.. corn on the cob and have at the most three hundred words in their head. They always run around like loaded pistols and when they take you home in the evening, then the don't want to let you go, nice, and then you remain seated and then they treble all over and can't shoot.. Hans: Amusing, And what do you do against it." Mercy: We teach, when we can. We play teasing. They want at least to have the right to spend money for us, so we behave in such a ways that it costs something....."

Mercy goes on to talk about European men... Perhaps here one can see why she is attracted to Hans. He is not only European but also older. Her relationship, or lack of it, with her father drives her to look for older men-- father figures. Mercy continues to lambast men-- She hates the clichés- She sees in then again and again the rabbitlike qualities in all of us, the terrible general and automatic.. Hans concludes that she hates love, because it is a system like the general school attendance duty. She would like to love the man in the moon, someone who stands out from all the tumult. Such a man, they both conclude, she has not yet found.

At the close of the conversation Hans promises to bring her his paper in Rilke. At the swimming pool in the afternoon Hans again runs into the students. Here Joan teases him and gives him because of his size the nickname Gulliver. This name is perhaps appropriate for him- a traveler who hesitates to stay in one place for a very long time.

In a conversation Joan brings out how Mercy met Robert. She fell in love with him after she had boxed his ears. The beginning was blow in the face and then the story came....They break off to go to eat lunch.

And through the course of the trip Hans comes again and again in contact with Sweet Briar and especially with the three young ladies who are going on the Junior Year Program. Gradually he gets to know Mercy and eventually has a short love affair with her. In the meantime he also writes two letters to Marilyn, which are never sent, but which are found by Mercy when he accidently leaves his book with the letters behind. Mercy has been through a severe nervous breakdown, and was brought back on her feet with the help of the French literary historian, Robert, who ultimately has told her that he would like to love her but cannot. Mercy, who seems to have a special attraction to older men, especially if they are European. Robert fought in the French resistance, and Hans also has been through the war and ultimately shares some of his war stories with Mercy.
If we accept Holthusen as the narrator of real experiences, he would have had to be at that time at least twenty years older than Mercy.

If one likes love stories, especially sad ones, one will enjoy the last part of the book, especially the seduction scene. After trying to philosophize with Mercy about the nature of love and the impossibility of predicting how love will go from one moment to the next, Hans brings up Mercy's relationship with Robert, finds out that they indeed did sleep together but that Robert was unable to commit himself to a lasting relationship and that Mercy has since become cynical about the possibility of the existence of love.The mere mention of Robert in the moment when Mercy is interested in Hans spoils the whole moment and sends Mercy away crying.

A little later on Sunday evening the two of them are left alone in Mr. Erenkoy's cabin when the rest of the group goes to the captain's party. Hans tries to comfort Mercy with a type of sermon or philosophical lesson on the Good and love. " There were to be sure countless many different varieties of love, but the human power to love was only one. It was one and the same in the lover for unseeable things and the tenderness for a girl with whom one wanted to sleep." .. Her reaction: "Dear we must strengthen ourselves." She pours a glass of whiskey for each of them.

"I know as little as you what the good is, and I would exaggerate if I wanted to maintain that this question has ever robbed me of sleep. When I know something precisely, then it comes from somewhere else."

"What do you mean with that?"

" If the good and love come together, then from that would have to come faithfulness.I could not be faithful to you, my dear, at the most for a moment, but not longer than a moment."

They make love- but are very suddenly disturbed by a Miss Webb, who is looking for Hans, because the old woman with whom she has been traveling, has just died in her cabin. This woman was on her way back to England to see her son, whom she had not seen for many years. Her love is unfulfilled just as the love between Hans and Mercy dies as suddenly as it has been born.

The parting between Hans and Mercy is also quite different than one might expect. Mercy turns out, seemingly, to be the stronger of the two. In their last meeting she scolds Hans for his eternal feelings of guilt and after sending him to fetch a cup of tea simply disappears, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his guilt.

One has the impression at the end that Mercy is really the stronger of the two. Perhaps Hans helped her to develop her sense of equilibrium. He brought her down from her idealism and cynicism about love. And as she tells him afterwards, he is the one who feels guilty over the transitoriness of their affair, not she. She tells him in parting, that he will be a better lover, if he learns to keep his quilt feeling to himself or even better to live it down. --At the same time one perhaps has the impression how tragic it is that love and faithfulness do not come together. One could compare Hans and Mercy with one another. They are both extremely intellectual. Hans is much older and has experienced love, seemingly with several women, and that he has been unable to remain involved with any of them. He is so caught up in intellectual pursuits and travel that he has not time or desire to be involved in the every-day existence into which a long-term involvement would develop. Mercy, who is also intellectual, has been disappointed once in the inability of her first lover to commit himself to long-term involvement and has rejected all forms of love. Through Hans she learns to love but also learns about the precarious nature of love, the inability of humans to know from one moment to the next what they will feel.

I mentioned already the discussion between Hans and Mercy concerning the Good and love. Hans in many ways is a representative of the Good. He understands the relationship between amour caritas or spiritual love and amour carnalis or physical love. He shows his goodness throughout the book through his willingness to listen to others and their problems , not only Mercy. He visits in one scene the sick old woman who is going to England to find her long lost son and shows sympathy for her problems. He also shows his sympathy toward other passengers. He listens, for example, to the rather boring old man at his table, who always tries to engage him in a discussion of German politics. He is patient with Tonio and tries to enlighten him to a higher realm of existence and he shows tolerance to Mr. Manning, the other man in his cabin and to the Irish singers who every evening make themselves rather obnoxious with their singing. Perhaps it is his roll as a writer to move around among the people, always observing, giving a sympathetic ear, but never quite getting his feet down onto the ground.

Mercy, on the other hand, has become a kind of ascetic, withdrawing from life, looking at life with a strong cynicism and rejecting the concept of love altogether. Hans' roll with her, as I already mentioned, was showing her the way to love. If but only for an instant, she shared with Hans a unification of the spiritual and the physical aspects of love, even though they both knew at the time that this experience would only be for the moment.

On the other hand, Hans learned also from her. One could think, perhaps of other stories in German literature such as Arthur Schnitzler's "Casanova's Homecoming," in which the aging Casanova finds late in life what love really means, though only through deception, when he manages to gain access to the bedroom of a beautiful young woman and as a result manages to bring about the death of the woman's real lover. Hans, one would hope, comes through his experience with Mercy to understand a little about involvement and the cost of involvement, coming down to a practical existence.

For a few brief moments he shows regret over the impossibility of possessing Mercy. Indeed, Mercy's farewell smacks of the type of farewell Hans has just taken from Marilyn, though Hans was not as direct as Mercy. Hans thinks back to Marilyn and the reader almost hopes that he will do something about this relationship. He does write to Marilyn, inviting her to visit him in Munich. However, whether this letter is ever sent and whether Hans follows through remains unknown.

He writes: "My dear Marilyn, so I write, write actually not myself, but as if it were being dictated to me: " Have just landed in Southampton, and the first greeting from Germany should be directed to you. We had a beautiful sunny voyage, only on one day there was a storm and rain. I am very grateful for the farewell note, which you sent on board to me at the last minute, and I hope, yes I hope to heavens for you and for me. Did you stay in New York a long time. What did your parents say? Good luck and come to Europe soon, so that I can tell you everything in person, that there is no space for on this card or in a future letter. Tender Greeting and adieu! Yours, Hans."

As Hans leaves the ship one gets the impression, that he, as Gulliver, will just continue wandering through life as he has done, without commitment and without quite planting his feet on the ground.
A comparison between Hans and Tonio is perhaps also interesting. If Hans possesses a type of spiritual love which only for brief moments combines with the physical, Tonio is just the opposite. With him there are very few spiritual qualities to be found. He was married once for a short time, but has spent his life running from one conquest to the next. For him the chase is all important. Once he has gotten a woman into bed once, he loses all interest in her. Besides women his other preoccupation is with money, of which .as I mentioned, he has little.

In reading this book one also becomes involved with the other students with the Sweet Briar Program as well as with other interesting and not so interesting passengers on the ship.
Sue like Tonio is an embodiment of physical love with very little of the spiritual. Tonio manages to seduce Sue, or at least make some advances( or is it the other way around), after which she abandons him ( or they abandon each other) to move on to new conquests.

Joan the Kiebitz, teases until the end. She is perhaps the happiest of the trio of Sweet Briar girls. She experiences neither the physical nor the spiritual side of love. In a last conversation with her Hans asks her what she will do in Paris. She mentions shopping, sightseeing, cocktail parties with acquaintances from American Express, preferably Frenchman, perhaps a large passion, whatever that is, and then the enjoyment of all of that from the other side. When asked what would happen if her man in the moon would appear and whether she has ever found anyone who could give her satisfaction, she only shrugs her shoulders. End of conversation.

Dexter, the Hawk, is a longtime friend of Joan's , with whom she exchanges some intimacies on the ship, but she is glad that he is going to Bologna instead of to Paris because she is not especially interested in seeing Americans in Paris. One could make the observation, that if Joan loves at all, she loves only herself.

One could dwell on the other characters, but that is not the theme of this talk. It is only interesting to us that the adventures of the writer with the Sweet Briar students, and especially with one of the students, build the main plot of the book.

The Sweet Briar students exit the ship at Le Havre. " Sweet Briar has landed and several hundred others besides. One still sees them piled up in masses standing and waiting, now they have suddenly started to move, each equipped with some light handluggage" Hans goes on to London with thoughts of Mercy: "Listen Mercy, that was definitely the only right thing to do, that you did not allow me to give you a farewell speech. I stand with my back to the exit.. and you go behind me on by on light soles and do not show yourself to me again. that I call an elegant solution, God knows! What did I want to say.?"I want to have my cake and eat it too: I want to have eaten you so that you disappear and not come back and I want to keep you forever in eternity Amen. etc. ---" (He wonders what would have happened if he had been her man in the moon)-- and at the same time he has more thoughts of Marilyn, regrets that he must again come to the end of a voyage and come back to the world of reality, and he feels anticipation of the moments to come and a longing for his next voyage.

The boat could also be compared with life itself. One is thrown over the waves and lives in uncertainty until one finally reaches the harbor. The ocean voyage has ended for Hans and for Mercy, but life does go on with its continued uncertainties.

One final observation. The book which Hans was reading on the voyage: Unwiederbringlich, by the nineteenth Century novelist Theodor Fontane,deals with a marriage that gradually loses its meaning and with the foredoomed attempt of an aging man to recapture youth by taking a young partner. The hero, Graf Holk, a man who is 45 years old is a lord-in-waiting to the Danish court and is summoned to duty. He leaves his wife at home and goes to the court. Here he first falls for the charms of his landlady's daughter but soon changes his interest to the lady-in-waiting, who though she inwardly despises him, falls into an intimate relationship with him. When the castle catches fire Holk rescues his beloved and, convinced that she is in love with him, he returns home to ask his wife for his freedom., which is granted. The girl then rejects him, and he tries a reconciliation with his wife, but she ultimately commits suicide. Is this situation not similar to Hans' attempt to grasp life in his dealings not only with Mercy, but also perhaps with Marilyn and who knows which others?

For us here I have perhaps one or two questions? Were any of you participants in the Junior Year in France Program during the early 50s. Do you know a Mercy, a Sue or a Joan from that time? Are they aware that they have been immortalized in German literature?

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Ronald Horwege, Professor of German, horwege@sbc.edu. (804) 381-6188.
Last update: October 10, 1997.