The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse

by Hermann Hesse

  His father placed his hand on his shoulder and said, “I understand very well that you cannot learn much more here. You must become a great and good man and pursue a special kind of happiness that cannot be found in your nest at home. Pay attention: First you must climb the Mountain of Knowledge, then you must perform some deeds, and finally you must find love and become happy.”

  While his father spoke these words, his beard seemed longer, and his eyes larger. For a moment he looked like a wise king. Then he gave his son a kiss on his forehead and told him to depart. So Martin walked down wide beautiful stairs like those in a palace, and just as he was crossing the street and about to leave the small city, he encountered his mother, who called to him, “So, Martin, do you want to go away without even saying good-bye to me?”

  He glanced at her with a startled look and was ashamed that he had thought her long since dead. But he could see her standing alive and well before him, more beautiful and younger than he had remembered. In fact, there was something girlish about her, so that when she kissed him, he blushed and did not dare return her kiss. She peered into his eyes with a bright clear look that radiated like a light within him, and she nodded to him as he hastily departed in confusion.

  Outside the city he was not surprised to find a harbor instead of the valley and the country road lined with ash trees, and there was a large old-fashioned ship with brownish sails that rose into the golden sky, just like in his favorite painting by Claude Lorrain. Soon he was sailing toward the Mountain of Knowledge.

  But then the ship and the golden sky vanished completely from sight. Now the young student Haberland found himself wandering down the country road, already far from home. He approached a mountain that glowed as red as the sunset in the distance and seemed not to come any closer as long as he continued to walk. Fortunately, Professor Siedler was accompanying him, and he said in a fatherly tone, “There is no construction to be used here other than the ablativus absolutus. Only by using it will you suddenly come media in res.” Martin immediately followed this advice and recalled an ablativus absolutus that, to a certain extent, was his entire past. It included the world and made a clean sweep of every kind of past in such a thorough way that everything became bright and full of the present and the future. And suddenly he stood on the mountain, and Professor Siedler was also right next to him and all at once began talking to him in a familiar way. In turn, Martin spoke familiarly with the professor and confided in him as though he were his real father. Indeed, as the professor talked, he became more and more like his father. Soon Haberland’s love for his father and his love for scholarship flowed together and merged in him, both stronger and more beautiful, and while he sat and thought, surrounded by nothing but foreboding wonder, his father whispered to him, “So, now look around you!”

  He could see nothing but immense clarity all around him, and everything in the world was in the best of order and as clear as the sun. He understood completely why his mother had died and yet still lived. He understood deep in his heart why people were so different in looks, customs, and languages and yet came from one being and were close brothers. He fully grasped that want and suffering and nastiness were necessary and were desired or ordained by God so that they became beautiful and bright and spoke loudly about the order and joy of the world. And before he was completely certain that he had been on the Mountain of Knowledge and had become wise, he felt himself called upon to perform a deed, and although he had constantly thought about various professions for two years and had never decided on a particular one, he now knew for sure that he was an architect, and it was wonderful to know this and not to have the slightest doubt about it anymore.

  All at once, white and gray stones lay on the ground. There were also long beams and machines. Many people stood around and did not know what to do. However, he gave instructions with his hands and explained and ordered. He held plans and needed only to gesticulate and point, and people ran about and were happy to do sensible jobs. They lifted stones and shoved carts, set up poles and chiseled logs. The architect’s will was in all their hands and eyes. Soon the building was erected and became a palace that displayed a very evident, simple, joyous beauty with its gables and vestibules, its courtyards and bay windows. And it was clear that only a few such things needed to be built in order for suffering and want, dissatisfaction and discontent, to vanish from the earth.

  With the completion of the building, Martin became sleepy and could no longer pay careful attention to everything. He heard something like music and festive sounds roaring around him and surrendered to a profound, beautiful fatigue with deep and rare contentment. Now after all these experiences, his consciousness began to rise for the first time, and then his mother stood before him again and took him by the hand. Immediately he knew that she wanted to go with him into the land of love, and he became quiet, full of expectation, and forgot everything that he had already experienced and done on this journey. At the same time, there was a splendid light that shone after him from the Mountain of Knowledge and his palace as well as from a conscience that had been thoroughly cleansed.

  His mother smiled and took him by the hand. They went down the mountain into a nocturnal landscape. Her dress was blue, and as they walked, she vanished. What had been her blue dress became the blue of the deep distant valley, and as he recognized this and no longer knew whether his mother had really been with him, he was overcome by sadness. He sat down in the meadow and began to weep, without pain, as devoted and sincere as he had been before, when he had used his creative drives to build the palace and then had rested in exhaustion. In his tears he felt that he was now supposed to encounter the sweetest thing that a person could experience, and when he tried to ponder this, he knew quite well what love truly was, but he could not imagine it exactly and ended with the feeling that love is like death. It is fulfillment and an evening after which nothing more may follow.

  He was still thinking about all this when everything became different once again. In the distance he could hear delightful music in the blue valley, and the daughter of the village mayor came walking down the meadow, and suddenly he knew that he loved her. She looked the same as ever, but wore a very simple, elegant dress like a Greek goddess. No sooner was she there than night fell, and it was impossible to see anything more except a sky filled with large bright stars.

  The girl stood still in front of Martin and smiled. “So you’re here?” she said in a friendly way, as though she had been waiting for him.

  “Yes,” he said. “My mother showed me the way. I’m now finished with everything, even with the large house that I had to build. You must live there.”

  She smiled and seemed very maternal, sovereign, and a little sad, like an adult.

  “What should I do now?” Martin asked, and placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders. She leaned over and gazed into his eyes so closely that he became a bit frightened, and he now saw nothing but large calm eyes and numerous stars above her in a mist of gold. His heart began to throb painfully.

  The beautiful girl moved her lips to Martin’s lips, and right away his soul melted and he lost his entire will. In the blue darkness the stars began to resound softly. Now Martin felt that he had tasted love and death and the sweetest thing that a person can experience. He heard the world around him move and ring like an exquisite recurring refrain, and without taking his lips from the mouth of the girl and without wanting or desiring anything more in the world, he felt that he, the girl, and everything else were being absorbed by the recurring refrain. He closed his eyes and rushed down an eternal predestined street resounding with music, and he felt somewhat dizzy. Now no knowledge, no deed, nor anything earthly waited for him at the end anymore.

  THE

  THREE LINDEN

  TREES

  More than three hundred years ago, three splendid, old linden trees stood on the green grass in the cemetery next to the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Berlin. They were so huge that they formed an arch over the entire cemetery
, like an enormous roof, for their branches and boughs had become intertwined and grown into a gigantic crown. The origin of these beautiful linden trees goes back another three hundred years, and it has often been recounted as follows.

  Three brothers lived in Berlin and had developed a remarkably close friendship and loyalty to one another, of a sort that is very rarely seen in this world. Now it happened one evening that the youngest went out alone and did not tell his brothers anything about it, because he wanted to meet a young woman in another part of the city and take a walk with her. As he was sauntering toward their meeting place, engrossed in pleasant dreams, he heard soft moans and gasps coming from an alley between two houses where it was dark and desolate. Immediately he went over to the alley to see what was happening, because he thought an animal or perhaps even a child might have had an accident and was lying there waiting for help. As he entered the dark secluded place, he was horrified to see a man bathed in blood. When he bent over and asked him compassionately what had happened, he received as answer only a weak groan and gulp, for the injured man had a knife wound in his heart and, a few moments later, passed away in the arms of his helper.

  The young man was completely at a loss as to what he should do, and since the murdered man showed no more signs of life, the young man returned, confused and dumbfounded, with vacillating steps, to the street. Right at that moment two sentries happened to come by, and while the young man was still contemplating whether he should call for help or leave the place without drawing attention, the sentries noticed how frightened he was and approached him. As soon as they saw the blood on his shoes and sleeves, they forcefully grabbed hold of him, paying little attention to his explanations and pleas. Indeed, once they found the dead body, which had already turned cold, they took the suspected murderer straight to jail, where he was put in irons and closely guarded.

  The next day the judge interrogated him, and at one point the corpse was brought into the room. Now, in daylight, the young man recognized the dead man as a blacksmith’s apprentice with whom he had had a fleeting friendship some time ago. However, right before this he had testified that he had not been acquainted with the murdered man and had not known the slightest thing about him. Consequently, he was suspected even more of stabbing the dead man, especially since witnesses who had known the dead man stated that the young man had been friends with the apprentice some time ago, but they had drifted apart because of a dispute over a girl. There was really not much truth to this, but there was enough of a kernel of truth that the innocent man even boldly acknowledged it, all the while maintaining his innocence and asking not for a pardon but for justice.

  The judge had no doubts that he was the murderer and thought that he would soon find enough evidence to sentence him and hand him over to the hangman. The more the prisoner denied everything and insisted that he knew nothing about the murder, the more he was regarded as the guilty party.

  In the meantime one of his brothers—the oldest was still traveling somewhere on business—had been waiting in vain for the youngest to come home and eventually set out to look for him. When he heard the news that his brother was in prison and had been accused of murder and was stubbornly denying it, he went straight to the judge.

  “Your Honor,” he said, “you’ve arrested an innocent man. You must set him free! You see, I’m the murderer, and I don’t want an innocent man to be wrongly punished for my crime. The blacksmith and I were enemies, and I was lying in wait for him. Last night I saw him as he went into that alley to relieve himself, and I followed him and stabbed him in the heart with my knife.”

  Stunned, the judge listened to this confession, then ordered the brother to be placed in irons and kept under close watch until he cleared up this mystery. So now both brothers lay in irons in the same jail. However, the youngest had no inkling whatsoever that his brother was trying to save him and kept insisting passionately that he was innocent.

  Two days passed without the judge being able to discover anything new, and he was now tending to believe that the brother who had confessed to the crime was the murderer. Then the oldest brother returned to Berlin from his business trip, found nobody at home, and learned from his neighbors what had happened to the youngest, and how the second brother had told the judge that he was the real murderer, not his brother.

  That very same night, the oldest brother went to the judge, woke him, and knelt down before him. “Noble judge,” he said, “you have two innocent men in irons, and both are suffering because of a crime that I committed. Neither my youngest brother nor the other killed the blacksmith’s apprentice. In fact, I was the one who committed the murder. I can bear it no longer that others sit in prison for me when they are not at all to blame. I beg you with all my heart to let them go and to arrest me. I’m ready to pay for my crime with my life.”

  Now the judge was even more astounded and did not know what to do except to place the third brother under arrest.

  Early the next morning, when the jailkeeper handed the youngest brother some bread through the door, he said to him, “I’d really like to know the truth. Which one of you three is truly the vile culprit?” When the youngest brother asked him what he meant by that, the jailkeeper refused to say anything more. However, the prisoner did manage to conclude from his words that his brothers had come to sacrifice their own lives for his. All at once, he broke down, began sobbing, and demanded vehemently to be brought before the judge. And when he stood in front of the judge in irons, he began weeping again and said, “Forgive me, sir, for having refused so long to admit my guilt. But I thought that nobody had seen my crime and nobody could prove my guilt. Now I realize that justice must be done. I can no longer resist it and want to confess that I was truly the one who killed the blacksmith’s apprentice. I’m the one who must pay for the crime with my life.”

  The judge’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and he thought he was dreaming. His astonishment was indescribable, and his heart shuddered because of this strange affair. He ordered the prisoner to be locked up once more and placed under guard, like the other two brothers, and sat steeped in thought for a long time. Indeed, he realized that only one of the brothers could be the murderer and that two of them were willing to be executed and to sacrifice their lives out of magnanimity and brotherly love.

  The judge could not reach a conclusion, but he did realize that it would be impossible to make a decision with customary thinking. As a result, he had the prisoners placed under tight security, and the next day, he went to the prince and painted a vivid picture of this strange affair.

  The prince listened and was most astonished. “This is a strange and rare case!” he commented at the end of the judge’s story. “Deep in my heart I believe that none of them committed the crime, not even the youngest, whom your watchmen arrested. Rather, I think he spoke the truth. But since we are concerned with a capital crime involving murder, we cannot let the suspects go free just like that. Therefore, I am going to call upon God Himself to be the judge of these three loyal brothers and let Him decide their fate.”

  And that was what was done. It was springtime, and the three brothers were led to a green field on a bright warm day. Each one of them was given a robust, young linden tree to plant. However, each had to place his linden tree so that its crown went into the ground and its roots faced up toward the sky. According to the prince’s decree, whoever’s tree perished or withered first would be considered the murderer and would be executed.

  The brothers did as they were told, and each one planted his little tree with its branches into the ground with great care. It was not long, however, before the trees, all three of them, began taking root and forming new crowns, indicating that all three brothers were innocent. The linden trees continued to grow to a very large size and stood for many hundreds of years in the cemetery of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Berlin.

  AUGUSTUS

  A young woman named Elizabeth, who lived on Mostack Street, had lost her husband due to an accident shor
tly after their marriage, and now she sat poor and desolate in her little room, about to give birth to a child who would have no father. Because she was so utterly alone, she kept thinking about the child she was expecting, and her thoughts turned into wishes and dreams about all the beautiful, splendid, and desirable things she wanted for the child. A stone house with plate-glass windows and a fountain in the garden seemed barely good enough for the young one, and as far as his future was concerned, he had to become at least a professor or a king.

  Next to Elizabeth’s house lived an old man who was seldom seen. He was a little fellow who wore a tasseled cap on his gray head and carried a green umbrella with whalebone ribs, as in the old days.

  The children were afraid of him, and the grown-ups believed he probably had his reasons for living as secluded as he did. No one saw him very much for long periods of time, but sometimes in the evening strange music could be heard coming from his small dilapidated house, as though tiny, delicate instruments were being played. Then as the children walked by the house, they would ask their mothers whether angels or perhaps nixies were singing inside. Their mothers, however, knew nothing about it and would respond, “No, no, that must be a music box.”

  This little man, who was called Mr. Binsswanger by his neighbors, had a strange kind of friendship with Elizabeth. They never spoke to one another, and yet the little old man would greet her in the friendliest manner each time he passed her window, and she would nod gratefully to him in return, for she liked him very much. And each of them thought: If ever I am really desperate and need help, I’ll certainly go to my neighbor for advice. When the days began to turn dark, Elizabeth sat at her window all by herself. She would mourn her dead husband, think about her small child, or slip into a reverie. Then Mr. Binsswanger would quietly open his casement window, and tranquil music would flow from his dark room, softly and silvery like moonlight through a crack in the clouds. In return, Elizabeth made a point of looking after Mr. Binsswanger’s geranium plants at his back window, which he always forgot to water. They were always green and in full bloom and never wilted because Elizabeth carefully tended them early each morning.