Short stories
Lineman Thiel
Bahnwärter Thiel
Gerhart Hauptmann · 1888
Opening lines
Allsonntäglich saß der Bahnwärter Thiel in der Kirche zu Neu-Zittau, ausgenommen die Tage, an denen er Dienst hatte oder krank war und zu Bette lag.
Every Sunday the railway lineman Thiel sat in the church at Neu-Zittau, except on the days when he was on duty or was ill and lay in bed.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
A pious and punctual man, Thiel has for ten years held a post as a railway crossing keeper in the forest, on the line from Berlin to Frankfurt an der Oder. A year after the death in childbirth of his frail first wife, Minna, he marries Lene, a robust and domineering former servant, so that she will look after little Tobias. Lene has a second child by him and gradually mistreats Tobias; Thiel sees it and says nothing, and, alone at night in his hut, takes refuge in the cult of the dead woman and in visions.
Context
The novella was written in 1887 in Erkner, on the outskirts of Berlin, by a still unknown author, who sent the manuscript to Munich, to the critic Michael Georg Conrad. It appeared in 1888 in the journal Die Gesellschaft, one of the main organs of Naturalism, under the subtitle of a study in the form of a novella, which distinguished it from bourgeois literature. It uses the style known as second-by-second, in which the narrative matches the duration of what it describes. In French, René Lasne translated it for Flammarion in 1952, in a collection, under the title Le Garde-barrière.
Who it is for
A short story, which its author presented as a study; everything in it comes through Thiel's gestures, places and visions.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the major works of German naturalism, and its author's first naturalist text.