Dursli

Back to Gotthelf!  I have already mentioned that I re-read Gotthelf's novella about the five young women who were ruined by drink.  Last week I also re-read the second of his two early novellas tackling the problem of rural alcoholism, Dursli, der Brannteweinsäufer, oder Das heilige Weihnachtsabend (Dursli the Brandy Drinker, or The Holy Christmas Eve).  This story also warns against the pubs springing up all over the Emmentaler countryside and their consequences for the rural poor.  But it is also--even more than I had remembered, in fact--set in the broader political context of the times.

Gotthelf begins the novella, in fact, before he ever even introduces the main characters, with about a 10-page discourse on the problematic reception in Switzerland of the ideas of the French Revolution.  Its call for equality and freedom, he says, is naturally interpreted by the poorer classes not in terms of true Christian equality and freedom, but rather as a demand that all should be made politically equal and that the property of the rich should be seized and redistribute among the poor.  The promise of such a change in fortunes causes lots of political unrest, organizing, and agitation...

...into which Dursli gets drawn.  A simple but hard-working, respected, and reasonably successful shoemaker, Dursli gets caught up in the political agitation of radical rabble-rousers who really have few political prospects but are good at causing trouble and running up debts.  Joining them in the pubs for their discussions and not wanting to feel left out of the exciting revolution that he thinks must surely soon break loose, Dursli drinks more and more, squandering his estate and becoming estranged from his family.  They hit rock bottom one Christmas Eve when nothing is left and Dursli storms out of the house in a rage.

Fortunately, before returning home, Dursli encounters the ghostly "Burglenherren," a group of seven long-dead brothers who had once lived in a local castle and terrorized the populace.  As punishment for their tyranny, they were condemned to haunt the earth every year at Christmas until they could help restore ten ruined men (Dursli, we are told, is thought to be their ninth) to peace and harmony with their own families.  Terrified by his night-time encounter with these spirits, whom he is persuaded are pulling him into hell, Dursli repents of his ways, returns to his work and family, and again becomes a respectable member of the community.

Incidentally, the painting above is by Albert Anker, a great Swiss painter who overlapped with Gotthelf and whose images of Swiss national life are iconic.  He even helped illustrate a later edition of Gotthelf's writings.  So perhaps Dursli would have looked something like this fellow.