One of my favourite German language writer is Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach. She wrote in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is famous for her deep understanding of human nature. I believe nowadays she is mostly known for her stories involving animals, the most famous of which is Krambambuli – I defy anyone to read that story and not drench at least a dozen handkerchiefs.
She is little known in English speaking countries, though most people probably know her aphorism, ‘Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.’ Another one, and one of my favourites, is ‘We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack.’
I recently read about the seemingly inexplicable behaviour of some children who are fostered, namely, they behave so badly that eventually even the most dedicated of foster parents throw in the towel and the child is passed on to the next foster home. The reason, apparently, is that the child, having been disappointed so often, has to test and test and test whether s/he is truly loved by behaving badly, until the foster parent can’t cope any more, and then the child thinks, ‘I always knew it wouldn’t last!’
This is not just true for foster children; there are many people, both children and adult, who have been hurt and disappointed so often they are afraid to trust anyone. Whenever they meet someone who professes to like or even love them, they think – subconsciously, probably – ‘Ha, I have heard this before, let’s test this so called friend/lover and see whether they are genuine!’ And then they do everything they can to ‘test’ the other person by being hurtful and selfish – after all, if the other is a real friend/lover they will stick around no matter what, right? And of course the other person gets fed up with getting hurt and leaves. ‘Ha, I knew it was too good to be true,’ thinks the distrustful one, never realising that it was their own bad behaviour which caused the departure of their friend/ beloved, and not the lack of friendship/love.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach’s short story, Die Spitzin (the Pomeranian) is only a few pages long, but throws a light on both the problem and a possible resolution. I have translated and summarised it below.
The Pomeranian
A small boy is abandoned and found by villagers. No one has a clue as to his family, and an old widow takes him in, not out of kindness but because she hopes to get a reward one day if the boy’s parents showed up. But no one comes to claim him, and after a few years the widows dies. The boy is now a burden on the community, which resents this. He gets the worst food, rags for clothes, and everyone abuses, beats and insults him. He sleeps in hay barns, never for long in the same one, since he is chased away when found out. He hasn’t even a name – they call him Provi, as a provisional name, until they can think of something suitable.
One winter Provi is very sick. He is staying in the hay barn of the Schoberwirtin, the local pub landlady, and she checks up on him every day to make sure he is still alive, and gives him a mug of milk. And after he has recovered from his illness, without any help or nursing care, the landlady continues to give him a mug of milk each morning. At five every morning he goes to the pub and calls out: ‘My milk!’ And the landlady gives him his mug of milk and he drinks it and goes away.
But one morning the pub landlord, who is usually sleeping off his hangover from the previous day, witnesses this performance. ‘A scum like you, coming here and demanding something! You should be begging for it!’ And he gives the boy a good hiding, to reinforce his point.
The next morning Provi is back again demanding his milk. The Schoberwirtin gives him the usual mug, but tells him that he should learn to ask for things nicely. ‘You are almost fourteen years old now, you have to learn how to get on with people! From now on, if you want to have milk, you have to ask nicely.’
It is hard for the Schoberwirtin to speak like that to him, and the boy can see this. But instead of recognising that she means well by him and wants to help him, he enjoys his power, the only power he has – to make her feel bad. From now on he never comes again for his milk, and when they meet in the village he does not greet her.
The boy finds work with a stonemason. He sleeps in the empty goat-shed, and makes friends with the five sons of the stonemason. They are the right companions for him, nasty and cruel, and particularly enjoy tormenting the animals of the household. Provi feels good in their company, and joins in their nasty ways.
The one worst treated is the old Pomeranian she dog. She only has three legs and one eye left, and a kick to her rump has left her permanently crooked. Nevertheless she does her duty, barks at every passing dog and intruder, and carries her head up high. She hates both the children and the stonemason, who always takes her puppies away and drowns them, except for one she can keep.
One day she has puppies again, and the stonemason gives the job of drowning them to his oldest son. She is suspicious when the boys try to take away the puppies, but Provi tricks her by speaking gently and stroking her – poor soul, she knows nothing of human treachery and depravity! They get her puppies and drown them, leaving her only one, and consider it great sport to do so.
But after that Provi begins to hate the old dog. At night while in his shed he hears her looking for her lost puppies. Normally she stops looking after a while, but this time she continues. She looks for them everywhere, and she disturbs his sleep. The stonemason and his family are in the house and aren’t bothered, but Provi has to listen every night.
The boy is now at an age where he starts to think about his life. He is used to ill treatment, and although some people have shown him kindness, he quickly discounts and forgets this. As for the Schoberwirtin, he hates her. She is rich and has everything, but expects him to beg for a drop of milk! Whenever they meet, she looks at him as though to say, please ask nicely, so I can help you! Hah, that isn’t going to happen, thinks the boy. He curses her and moves on.
One night the old dog is looking for her puppies again, and making a lot of noise, so he throws a log at her. She yelps, and her little puppy whines. Then there is silence. But the boy still can’t sleep. He thinks of the dog and her endlessly searching for her puppies. If his own mother had been like that, he wouldn’t now lead such a wretched existence! Perhaps she was farmer’s daughter who had become pregnant by a farm hand and been too ashamed to keep him? His life could have been so different if his own mother had been more like that poor old dog! He finally goes to sleep.
The next morning the old dog comes to him in his goat shed, carrying her puppy in her mouth. She can barely walk, she drags herself along, blood flows from her mouth in a thin trickle. He must have hit her last night with the log. Now she lays her young at his feet, her last puppy, and looks up at him. And he reads in her eyes an infinite trust, a desperate beseeching, to please take care of this last of her puppies. And this look brakes through the armour the boy had built around his heart and hitherto prevented any feelings of kindness or tenderness in him. ‘Dear dear’, he says, and the dog, hearing his answer, falls down, shudders, and dies.
Provi is suddenly overwhelmed by feelings quite alien to him. He finds himself kneeling next to the dog, petting her, kissing her, because she had been a good mother, and he has killed her, and it breaks his heart and he cannot stop crying.
Then the little puppy comes to his attention, the puppy who noses his mother’s stomach in search of milk. The boy takes the puppy into his hands, and cuddles him, and listens to his whines and little cries. It is hungry, of course, and the old dog is dead, and where can he find milk for the little bundle of unhappiness who is now his charge? The stonemason isn’t going to help, that’s for sure, he will drown the puppy like his siblings, and there is an end to it. What is to be done?
The puppy is sucking on his finger, but that isn’t going to help it much. The boy looks down at the dead dog. If you want the young to live, killing their mother is a bad idea! Slowly an idea penetrates his thick stubborn skull. Suddenly he clenches his jaw and resolutely walks out of the shed with the little puppy in his arms.
All the way through the village he walks, until he comes to the pub. And he goes into the kitchen, where the landlady is cooking breakfast. Later she said that he looked scary, and spoke with a voice cracked with pain, as though the words were tearing his throat as he spoke them. And he said, ‘Schoberwirtin, Mrs Schoberwirtin, I beg you for some milk, please.’
That was a turning point in a human heart, and of a human fate.
