Wilhelm Raabe

“ Strolling towards the bathing beach of Westerland arm in arm we became more and more absorbed in talking shop and let the moon shine down as much as it liked. We had almost reached the men's bathing huts and were nearing the steps that lead up from the beach to the top of the dunes when my colleague, who, despite his earlier exaltation had just shown himself to be an extremely clear and perceptive legal mind, all of a sudden, getting stuck in the sand, looked round, looked up and, becoming as pale as a ghost, groaned:
"Ye gods, we're back in the middle of it again!" ”

“ How the moon, that German moon, looked down and laughed at the two women and the Royal Prussian Circuit Judge! It knows how to take its revenge alright. It has its means, it knows the means at its disposal and it knows how to use them. My friend Löhnefinke is quite right—it's a terrible thing to have to inherit the legacy of generations, of centuries past without being permitted beforehand to make use of the privilege in law to limit the amounts owing to one's creditors. ”

“ He, my exalted colleague, declaimed poetry in an ever louder voice. He showed a truly staggering well-readness in both German and foreign lyricism. Poems addressed to the moon gave way to hymns to freedom and songs of battle against all kinds of enemies both thinkable and unthinkable. Tropical landscapes and mood pictures gave way to stanzas taken from familiar and unfamiliar ballads and romances of every historical and non-historical type of content. Löhnefinke was sublime and his enemy, the moon, could really take pleasure in him. ”

“ The unfortunate wretch does not just see the moon as his enemy, but sees himself as someone else.
"Yes, my name is Löhnefinke and I would consider it an honour if you would now acquaint me with yours."
What could I do? I introduced myself and gave my name and title. The lunatic immediately tipped his hat to me again, grasped my hand, shook it warmly and said:
"Oh, my dear colleague, see how fate brings people together! Quarter of an hour ago I wouldn't even have dreamt of it, truly. So we've known each other now for a good length of time. Cast your mind back! ”

“ The impression made by the lapping of waves, sand dunes and dune grass, the flight of seagulls and, above all, the west wind on everyone who has had to wash off the dust and sweat of German officialdom is a pleasant and invigorating one. ”

“ You come over to yourself as unspeakably stupid, silly and tasteless and sniff out stupid things to say, to which purpose your nose is entirely suited. You go home and look at your hair starting to grow long in the mirror and if you should discover thereby a white hair in your beard, your good friend the moon finds this most opportune, for it is in a position to bind you more tightly and to pursue its ends more easily for that than for anything else. ”

“ We all know—and so does the moon—a fairly euphonious name that ends in E or A and the bearer of that name or, if not, we immediately search for such a name and its bearer, and that the moon is ready and willing to help us find it and her goes without saying. No go-between in cases of this sort would lend a hand sooner or more deftly. It lights our way to the lyrical poet for whom we suddenly feel more than just an affinity. It manifests itself on the sheet of paper we ourselves make use of to pay court to the muse. ”

“ You dream while still awake and the moon laughs at you even more than before..."
"Wait a minute, Löhnefinke!" I cried, pressing both hands to my brow. "Must it always be another person to clarify and be objective about one's own past, present and future circumstances? Colleague, you're absolutely right. Even though you are highly strung, I can still follow your argument! Carry on with what you were saying—truly the moon is a monster!"
"It certainly is and this German moon is especially! ”

“ The next time you find yourself once more alone in the night sitting on the windowsill, it makes you think about that hair. You long for a bosom, a sweet, soft, tender bosom into which you can pour all your sadness, to which you can speak your sorrow and with which you can share your frustrations and annoyance. ”

“ The fixed idea grabbed hold of the poor man afresh as he hysterically and anxiously pulled my outstretched umbrella down so that it rested on his hat and I could do nothing more for Circuit Judge Löhnefinke than to tighten my grip on his elbow and to speak to the squirming and struggling man in an admonitory tone of voice:
"But my dear sir, please! Compose yourself! Compose yourself! This crackpot behaviour of yours is too much. How has this harmless source of light actually wronged you? ”

“ The light of the good old German moon is taking its revenge on me and I doubt that any kind of bath or water, alkaline or acidic, will help me."
"German moonlight?"
"Yes! Yes! The moon drives me mad with its smirking even though I am Prussian Circuit Judge by Royal Appointment Friedrich Wilhelm Löhnefinke in Gross-Fauhlenberg, and not just for my own sins do I atone, but I have the accumulated debts of untold generations of my forebears to pay back as well to the shining monstrosity. Colleague, I feel at times most unhappy!" ”

“ One needs to be a man—a German man and a civil servant—to be able to experience the full horror of something like this. Mrs Johanna and Miss Helene Löhnefinke, without ever having considered the claims of the moon on people, had sided totally with the moon and were exacting its revenge on him who had despised it. ”

“ You have lost some of your illusions and you create new ones. There you have one of the first effects of our enemy, the moon! Yes, you have strange illusions and the strangest is that you don't blame yourself for them. ”

“ Poetry had broken in and colleague, do you know what it means when poetry breaks into the life of a solicitor's clerk in the Royal Prussian Legal Service?"
"No, thank God. Bear in mind that we have written to each other only across regional borders."
"True enough, but I didn't know either and only today can I speak of it. You've spent the whole night dreaming of Lex Romana and the statute book and then you wake up and try to recall what you've dreamed about. You succeed only too well and then the misery starts. ”

“ You look from your pillow over to your bookcase and suddenly a desire takes hold of you that you can scarcely master to jump out of bed, take the whole box of tricks in your arms—and—and—and—do unspeakable things to it. ”

“ Should I abandon the man to his fate, unable as I was to change one iota of his idiosyncratic imaginings, and leave it up to his keepers to capture him, or should I strike up a conversation with him and, at the risk of ending up having unpleasant differences of opinion in the process, try to get a better understanding of his situation?
As a human being I should have preferred the former; as a lawyer and a criminologist I opted for the latter. ”

“ I found myself, as previously stated, opposite the great chasm and the sun had said goodbye five minutes beforehand when, suddenly, at the top of the dune on the left, at approximately seventy feet above my head, a man appeared, running towards the edge of the precipice in a tearing hurry, threw his arms up to heaven, then crouched down and in one fell swoop, to my horror, all the way down the steep, almost vertical sandhill slipped—slid—shot! ”

“ As the sea like a washerwoman of both sexes cannot keep things to him or herself, but throws everything back, these runs were never without a certain charm. Even though I am by nature a prosaic person, I can nevertheless feel sadness when I turn a dead seal lying on its back over onto its belly and have thoughts about my own mortality as I do so. ”

“ At home I walk every day and in every weather round the purpose-built walls of the town where I carry out my duties as a public servant. On Sylt I had lunch, lay down on a dune for an hour for an afternoon nap and then ran along the beach towards the north of the island, sometimes getting as far as the Red Cliff, but usually only as far as the bathing huts of Wenningstedt. ”

“ Willingly, with pleasure, immediately, although, in my opinion, it really isn't necessary any more. You see, dear friend, the fact stands as frightening as it is comfortable to live with that the moon from time to time overwhelms the Royal Prussian legal civil servant Löhnefinke and the latter, ultimately, has not the least objection to raise against the intoxication and dizziness it inspires. Yes, I too found a German girl, wandering in the German moonlight as I did, got engaged to her with the consent of her parents and later married her. ”

“ I am, even by German standards, an uncommonly prudent person and I know how to keep my five senses under control. Apart from that, I am a lawyer and father to three sons. Neither during lilac time nor when there are hibiscus, sunflowers and asters on the ground am I in the habit of laying myself open to sentimental and romantic mood-swings. ”

“ It grins at us when we wait for a certain woman on the way out of a ballroom, concert hall or theatre. Later it escorts us home if our mother has no objection to us bringing her home with us. Who understands better than it does how to light the way home for a donkey or a person? It's neither here nor there, but a question well worth asking nevertheless, whether the blame can also be laid at its door when our father one fine day gives his permission. Are you married too, my dear colleague? ”

“ But you control yourself because it occurs to you how much money you've invested in this jumble, and you control yourself too fortunately for the furtherance of your career and get on with preparing your morning coffee. ”