Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Postfach 25 60 · D-72015 Tübingen · Fax (0 7071) 97 97-11 Internet: www.francke.de · E-Mail: info@francke.de Gerhard Kaisers erfolgreiche Darstellung umfaßt die Aufklärung ab Gottsched, die Empfindsamkeit und den Sturm und Drang. Sie legt besonderen Wert darauf, die epochalen Konstanten herauszuarbeiten und eine gründliche, in sich gerundete historische Interpretation der wichtigsten Werke zu liefern. Aufklärung, Empfindsamkeit, Sturm und Drang - ein germanistisches Standardwerk in sechster Auflage. „Gerhard Kaisers Forschung und Lehre ist nie zum System oder Methodentraktat geronnen. Sie liegt vor in einer Fülle individueller Auslegungen, die wie die interpretierten Texte selber zum Wiederlesen da sind.“ Friedrich Kittler, FAZ Gerhard Kaiser Aufklärung, Empfindsamkeit, Sturm und Drang UTB 484 6., erweiterte Auflage 2007 VIII, 376 Seiten €[D] 14,90 / SFr 26,00 ISBN 978-3-8252-0484-6 Good Bad Men: Familiarity, Security, and the Robber Novels of Zschokke and Vulpius G AIL K. H ART UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE German robber fiction of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, here represented by the work of Christian August Vulpius (1762-1827) and Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848), was designed to delight (mostly) and to edify (somewhat). Since the entertainment function is so prominent in these pieces and since the nod to edification was a requirement of the market, the question of the purpose and utility of robber fiction rarely attracts much scholarly attention. 1 These novels were and are considered a means of enjoyment, an opportunity for vicarious, and therefore safe, adventure. 2 In this essay, I want to expand on our understanding of the genre, by suggesting another dimension of purpose, namely the promotion of a sense of security among the immediate readership, which consisted of for the most part settled and propertied individuals who could reasonably feel threatened by home or highway robbers. I will then follow the dynamics of this fictional reassurance in Vulpius’ Rinaldo Rinaldini der Räuberhauptmann (1799-1800) and Zschokke’s Abaellino der große Bandit (1794), after giving a general sketch of the genre and the context in which it arose. These exciting romance-and-adventure novels, descended for the most part from Schiller’s Die Räuber, became a sensation from the 1790s to the 1830s as their number and sales figures grew exponentially 3 and they reached a relatively wide and enthusiastic readership. 4 The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries comprised the «grosse Zeit der Räuber» 5 in German territories and the most novels appear during the latter part of this period, including Rinaldini and Abaellino. I will be looking in particular at the ways in which Vulpius and Zschokke negotiate the genre and the phenomenon they romanticize, namely murderous thieves who attack travellers on the road as well as people in their homes. The historical context, the base from which they romanticized, was of course rather different from its sanitized and glorified literary renderings, though most literary renderings did include a few underlings who more closely resembled the thugs who inspired them. Unlike the dashing robber heroes of Schiller, or Vulpius, or Zschokke, historically documented robbers were rarely well-groomed, certainly almost never gra- 276 Gail K. Hart cious, and definitely men and women who did grave injury, both financial and physical, to their fellow occupants of the German territories. More importantly, there was a general fear of such robbers and bandits, a fear that often escalated to the level of gross exaggeration and paranoia. A single crime not only did injury to the immediate victims, but also raised awareness of the possibility of crime, especially in the case of theft and arson. 6 This awareness led to deeper suspicion of the mobile population, the beggars, journeymen, discharged soldiers, gypsies, and Jews, who traveled the local roads. 7 It also led to «a desire to find scapegoats[…]focused on marginal and outsider groups, who were persecuted in the belief that this would combat and resolve insecurity.» 8 Furthermore, the state fuelled the awareness of the threats with wanted posters, public executions, and broadsheets describing the crimes. Though these staged punishments and the documents that preceded and followed them showed state involvement in controlling crime and fed the state’s reputation as a powerful opponent of miscreants, they also increased the general consciousness of what had happened and therefore could happen again. The relative transparency of official pursuit and punishment of criminals encouraged ordinary citizens to be on the watch for such villains and sustained a fear of crime, one that may even have diminished citizens’ ability to distinguish between petty and serious criminals. Otto Ulbricht gives an excellent illustration of the effects of such exaggerated fears in his description of an impromptu lynching in a small municipality in June, 1727. 9 On the day in question, a beggar came to Wohlde in the duchy of Schleswig and stole some linen from a garden, where it was hanging to bleach, a vivid illustration of the conjunction between a settled laboring existence (weaving and bleaching linen is labor-intensive) and a mobile scavenger. Witnesses alarmed the village citizenry and the thief was apprehended. But rather than deliver him to local magistrates, the men who caught him began to beat him viciously and were joined by others returning from work. Bleeding from the head, the beggar confessed and gave back the linen. At this point the villagers should have turned him over to the authorities to be punished as a thief, but the bloody beating continued with deadly consequences: Schliesslich lässt man von ihm ab, er bleibt schwer verletzt liegen; die Kinder Frauen und Männer gehen erregt zurück. Manch einer aus dem Dorf besichtigt ihn noch in der Dämmerung, Hilfe aber erfährt er nicht. Nachts versuchen Männer aus berechtigter Furcht vor obrigkeitlichen Nachfragen, den Verletzten zu bewegen davonzuziehen; er kann aber längst nicht mehr […] Am nächsten Morgen ist er tot. 10 The extreme and cruel reaction to the theft of a piece of linen is, as Ulbricht explains, an example of irrational scapegoating: Good Bad Men 277 Auf der Basis der eingewurzelten latenten Vorurteile und bekräftigt durch das kollektive Gedächtnis kam es zu einer Projektion bzw. Zusammenziehung negativer Stereotype auf den zum Dieb gewordenen Bettler zu einer Umprägung der Figur, die aufgrund der Verhältnisse sofort geglaubt wurde. 11 In a village where fear of crime was strong, where elements of the mobile population passed through looking for opportunities, and where tales of theft and arson were familiar, but where the inhabitants could do little to address or prevent crime, the beggar apparently took on the aspect of all criminals and of all crime. The villagers expressed and addressed these fears with their own hands, striking the representative of illicit behavior. The savage treatment of the linen thief is a stark example of the consciousness of general malfeasance and the powerlessness of the average citizen to counter it. The tendency to generalize from a linen thief to all criminals and incendiaries illustrates the dimensions of the fear and of the need for release. Unless one had a firm grip on them, robbers were everywhere and could strike at any time. As Zschokke’s Doge in Abaellino laments, «Wißt ihr, was es heißt, Banditen zu fangen? Dies Gesindel ist unsichtbar und allgegenwärtig, man sieht es allenthalben und nirgends.» 12 The omnipresence of the criminals, the constant threat of attack, and the strong suspicion of the mobile population who were largely unfamiliar to those hard-working «Seßhafte» who sought to secure their possessions and their safety, led to a severely diminished sense of security. Whatever the threat, a lack of knowledge and a disproportionate fear can do nearly as much damage as the actual occurrence of a robber attack. There was a problem with securing the highways and homes and there was perhaps also a more severe problem with the anticipation of personal injury that was in most cases not imminent. 13 The existing threat to security, recorded in police protocols and victims’ accounts, then as now generated disproportionate suspicion and fear when filtered through the popular imagination. This essay will examine another form of release, namely that provided by imaginative literature. What the lynch mob in Wohlde needed and gained by brutal means was offered in more refined doses in the many robber novels and dramas of the later eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. There readers found a semblance of control of the situation through the domestication of the frightening criminals who threatened their homes and coaches. In this domestication lies the reassurance that the threat that citizens imagined can be overcome through understanding and identification. That this had no appreciable effect on actual criminal activity is almost immaterial, since a soothing of fears may have addressed the greatest widespread damage done by these actual criminals - undermining the feelings of security of their fellow citizens and potential victims. As Bill McSweeney writes in Security, Identity, 278 Gail K. Hart and Interests, «Etymologically […] the freedom of security is related to the possession of knowledge, confidence in the predictability of things, in knowing the objective order.» 14 The «knowledge» gained by a fictional domestication or Verharmlosung of the criminal contributes to the sense of security and the freedom it engenders. Without these fears of criminals and with this manufactured knowledge, sometimes a linen thief is just a linen thief. Though consumers bought and read robber fiction primarily for entertainment and excitement, 15 the imagined security gained by dwelling on domesticated criminals was part of the package. By «imagined security,» I mean more or less what we understand generally under security, namely a feeling or imagination of safety. This feeling can be induced by large supplies of ballistic hardware or by other means. The hardware does presumably have a deterrent effect on those agencies we perceive as threats and, when implemented, it has the capacity to destroy or diminish the means by which they could potentially harm us. Security in this specialized sense refers both to the reassurance and the capacity. Indeed the capacity is the reassurance. The reassurance that we find in trivial robber fiction, as opposed to that found in missile silos, is not backed by firepower, but by an appeal to common humanity, however crude. This kinship or understanding is established by various means in robber fiction. Here I want to offer a comparison of the methods of two successful popular novels of the late eighteenth century, Vulpius’s Rinaldo Rinaldini der Räuberhauptmann, which includes the immediate sequel Ferrandino, and Zschokke’s Abaellino der grosse Bandit. This comparison will demonstrate the mechanics of this sort of appropriation of the fearful and of the reassurance that leads to a heightened sense - not level - of security. The former of these novels is better known today for its many revisions and offshoots, including abridged and rewritten versions for children, but Zschokke’s «novel,» which is a mere 78 pages in the most recent edition, was also extremely successful in its day, as well as in its dramatic form of 1795 and subsequent revisions. Goethe produced the play in Weimar in 1795 and found to his disappointment that its reception was as enthusiastic as that of Schiller’s plays: «Abellino ward den Schillerschen Stücken ziemlich gleichgestellt.» 16 Both Vulpius and Zschokke were in a sense ‹Vielschreiber,› though Zschokke’s productivity was a shade more astonishing and his reputation a bit loftier than that of Vulpius, who as Goethe’s brother-in-law was related only legally to greatness. At issue here are the means by which each achieved a humanizing presence of the imagined enemy, presenting a robber with a human(e) face as a basis for reimagining the phenomenon as a whole. Legend preceded prose fiction and drama in situating particular individual robbers (historical and purely legendary) as folk heroes, coopting the high- Good Bad Men 279 waymen as allies of the poor or unprivileged in their daily negotiations with the local lords. Notoriety is often a good in itself, inasmuch as sufficient concentration on an individual generally leads to some level of empathy and notorious robbers were often reimagined as not-that-bad and, indeed by virtue of their energy and daring, perhaps somewhat good. As reincarnations of Robin Hood, certain historical bandits developed very good reputations in German lands. «Der bayrische Hiesel,» Matthias Klostermayer, has the strongest claim to an amended Robin Hood status because of his activity as a poacher. «Wilddiebe» like Klostermayer were neither home nor highway robbers but hunters, who killed only animals, and only animals which belonged to the nobility by virtue of living on their land. These animals were protected by law or decree and farmers were not allowed to prevent them in any way from trampling or devouring crops. Poachers killed the game, spared the crops, and were not entirely reviled as law breakers - indeed Klostermayer was most positively portrayed in contemporary robber biographies that promoted the legends. 17 Schiller’s Christian Wolf, in Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre, begins his criminal career as a poacher, and this is exculpatory. Yet there were also robbers who did grievous injury to their neighbors and nevertheless became celebrated folk heroes - usually for the odd act of kindness. The basis for robber fiction existed in the legends and the general popular sympathy toward certain lawbreakers. Writers like Vulpius and Zschokke built on both. Their robbers and bandits are capable of amazing feats of strength and courage but they also attract sympathy for being, to a certain extent, «just like us,» or just like those of us who are good, caring, and possessed of a strong moral compass. Vulpius especially seizes on the potential for identification through like-mindedness by showing the reader the «inside» of his passionate and morally righteous - if sometimes faltering - hero, Rinaldo Rinaldini. He uses representations of thought, reflection, and subjective reverie to lay bare the mind and heart of Rinaldo and thus to welcome the reader into the inner sanctum where Rinaldo can be convincingly rehabilitated: Vielleicht - sprach er bei sich selbst, - gelingt es mir endlich doch noch, unter guten, unverdorbenen, reinen Naturmenschen eine stille, friedliche Stätte zu finden, und mir selbst ruhig, und reuig für den Himmel zu leben. 18 Zschokke, on the other hand, tends to present only the surfaces of his robber, but through the manipulation of these surfaces (costume, gesture, and expression are crucial here), he is able, literally, to transform a frightening bad man into a very good man. In both cases, the exciting adventures are the primary factor, but underlying these adventures is a strong message to the reader that he or she is safe. This is not the safety of artifice that Nietzschean tragedy ac- 280 Gail K. Hart cords us, that of being able to contemplate our mortality behind the protective wall of art. Rather, this safety or security involves a reconciliation with the representation of the criminal that diminishes fear of crime. Not only is the representative of a threatening population really just a good fellow who took the wrong turn in life - perhaps through no fault of his own - but this representative of the dark side is made comprehensible and thus can be forgiven, rather than feared. Vulpius’s Rinaldo Rinaldini, the famous robber captain of all Italy, lost the kind father figure who taught him to read during his lonely boyhood vigils as a goatherd, joined the military upon this loss, and was falsely accused of insubordination and discharged. He avenged himself and fatally stabbed his superior officer, in response to this grievous provocation and also apparently guided by cultural codes - «auf italienische Art» (RR III 9, 229). He flees, hides and «[s]o kam er unter die Räuber, die er bald selbst beherrschte, zu ordentlichen Korps organisierte, und als ihr Hauptmann mit ihnen lebte» (RR II 3, 229-30). These semi-exculpatory motivations or determinations are not even mentioned by the narrator until the end of the first novel, and the paucity of explanation throughout testifies, I believe, to logistic difficulties in setting up a good bad man or an exciting good guy. The goodness emerges over the course of the first novel and by the end, when the reader knows Rinaldo, the brief explanation works somewhat better. As for the rest of the plot, it is tangled but comprehensibly sequential. The structure of the two-novel sequence is linear with the regular reappearance of certain figures, especially the main love interest, Dianora, and the father figure, Nikanor (who, the reader learns in Ferrandino, actually is Rinaldo’s father). There is a vague commitment to the cause of Corsican liberation from the French that drives parts of the action, as well as the constant robber theme that requires movement, hideouts, disguises, and aliases as a number of authorities try to capture the infamous bandit, Rinaldini. Otherwise, the novel consists of a series of often loosely related events moving forward in time. Rinaldo encounters enemies, old friends, mysterious situations, and women. In Rinaldo Rinaldini, he meets numerous women, but is still substantially occupied as a robber and a fugitive. Ferrandino, however, is so focused on women and love that the other possibilities for action are subordinated to sex or near-sex with a long line of beautiful women. Adding some slight depth to the proceedings are Rinaldo/ Ferrandino’s regular pauses for reflection and inner peace. Under both names, he occasionally resolves to become a hermit and often indulges in moments of meditation and recollection of the past, which the intermittently omniscient narrator is able to convey to the reader. Rinaldo Rinaldini is first and foremost a contemplative action hero, one who Good Bad Men 281 can provide excitement but also lament and regret the less savory and more frightening aspects of this excitement. This meditative-reflective quality of the narrative and the importance of the hero’s inner state as a means of communicating his humanity are established immediately as the first novel begins. It is a dark and stormy night which moves from the storm outside to what is identified as the storm within. Rinaldo is in love and this leads to reflections on his past innocence (goat herding) and past transgressions. He takes himself scrupulously to account for his robber career and his strong, insistent bad conscience reveals him in the first few pages as a highly righteous, morally aware individual who puts love before all else. This preparation will assist the reader in evaluating the few crimes (meticulously justified) that we actually witness in the course of three volumes. Rinaldo then turns to another effective vehicle for conveying feeling, namely song. He picks up a guitar and sings to innocence lost, blaming vice but in vague terms: Heiter blickt ich sonst zum Himmel Selbst, wie er, so klar und rein, konnte meine sanfte Seele seiner Reinheit Spiegel sein. Und jetzt, finster wie die Nächte, die mein Unmuth hier durchwacht, hat das Laster meine Seele dunkler als die Nacht gemacht. (RR I 1, 20) This self-identified dark, vice-ridden villain is anything but frightening or abhorrent. If this is the face of vile and depraved crime, then it is one which is surprisingly easy for a reader to confront and absorb. Furthermore, this early emphasis on a thoughtful and scrupulous robber/ seducer who made the unwilled transition from innocence to infamy serves the cause of extracting sympathy and identification from the reader. The narrator relates his thoughts and feelings; Rinaldo expresses them in dialogue with others; song and poetry tell us what he is thinking and feeling; and, as if the window to his heart were not sufficiently wide and brightly lit, we are also on several occasions privy to his prayer. In one instance, late in the first novel, as he is about to leave yet another scene of adventure, disguised as a legitimate traveler, he prays for the sea voyage, the sailors, the island where he will reside, the fields he will walk, and the community that will take him in, showing unselfish concern for those around him and an abject piety: Herr! Erbarme dich des Räubers, der zu dir fleht, um eine glückliche Fahrt nach dem Orte der Ruhe, wohin seine Seele sich sehnt. Laß es diesen guten Leuten nicht entgelten, daß sie ihre Barke unwissend mit einem Verbrecher beladen, der 282 Gail K. Hart dir nirgends entfliehen kann. Willst du mich bestrafen, so strafe nicht mit mir die Unschuldigen. Bringe sie glücklich in den Hafen und laß ihnen die Früchte ihres Fleißes erndten. Auch wende dein Angesicht nicht von dem friedlichen Eilande, wohin ich schiffe; strafe die Felder, die mein Fuß betritt nicht mit Mißwachs, wirf deine Blitze nicht auf schuldlose Hütten, nimm meine Buße an, und laß unter guten Menschen mich einen guten Menschen warden. (RR, III 9, 188) Having «overheard» the expression of his deepest devotion, readers must be impressed with his humanity, his commitment to doing no harm, and his will to make reparations (here, spiritual) for past crimes. He seeks peace and accepts his just punishment as long as it does not involve innocent bystanders. This is a very nice robber. His profession remains unsavory - as we and he still disapprove of highway and home robbery - but its practitioners emerge as reasonable human beings. The threat of the unknown malefactor is significantly diminished by this point and it will be even further diminished as the story continues. One of the themes of the second novel, Ferrandino, is a heightened transformation of the bad man Rinaldino regrets having been but probably never was. Rinaldo dies at the end of Rinaldo Rinaldini, not long after he utters the prayer above. He is stabbed by the father figure, Nikanor, who at this point is known as «Der Alte von Frontera.» «Der Alte» kills the hero out of love, lest he be publicly shamed, tortured, and executed by the authorities who are about to capture him. Yet sales of Rinaldo Rinaldini were so good and demand for a sequel so strong that Vulpius brought him back to life, noting that the knife wound that caused his apparent death was not fatal after all. Rinaldo resurfaces as Ferrandino, who repeatedly insists that he is no longer who he was. The death and resurrection of the hero merely add to the high pile of declarations and incidents that situate him as really, really reformed. Though it was done for reasons of commerce, the resuscitation gambit is also an allegory of Rinaldo’s interior will to transcend the robber persona; he «dies» and is reborn with a new name and the mantra that he is no longer who he was. Even without this extreme instance of character development, Rinaldo is a reformed hero. With it, Vulpius shows, without any pretense of subtlety, that his hero is a good man, albeit one with an interesting past. Because of his errant nature and the events of the past and the ‹Schicksal› that plagues him, Ferrandino will also have to fight, flee, deceive, seduce, and abandon. He will be threatened and nearly apprehended and provide all of the entertainment the reader requires, while remaining a fundamentally decent human being who gives the lie to the robbers we fear. He will die in battle, «mit ehrenvollen Wunden bedeckt» (Ferrandino, III 9, 196) and, this time, they will bury him. His honorable wounds mirror the paternally inflicted wound of Good Bad Men 283 the first novel, which marked him as loved and forgiven. Collectively they add to the huge aggregation of points in Rinaldo/ Ferrandino’s favor, making the argument for his rehabilitation even more overwhelming. Additionally, as if addition were needed, we have throughout the text objective illustrations of ethical banditry. Rinaldo teaches his underlings not to rob the poor, and he establishes a system of regulation for the many bandits he has united and organized. And we are given to understand that banditry was far more threatening before he introduced order and light. The rationalizing of highway robbery (the poor are off limits and no one may be robbed twice) indicates a guiding intelligence that soothes the reader’s fears. We know this man’s mind and heart because we have seen it so often in private reflective moments. Vulpius has created a figure with considerable surface appeal, as his many lovers confirm, but Rinaldo is mainly an interior on display or an «open book,» who reiterates figuratively the physical object that conveys him - repetition being the guiding trope of this piece and redundancy a near impossibility. We look deep into these interior regions again and again and establish the trust and reassurance that guarantees that The Robber is not merely one of us, but a decent and admirable one of us. Zschokke’s Abaellino reaches this conclusion by other means: rather than letting us peek into the thoughts and emotions of its robber, the novel thematizes surface and appearance. Abaellino is a chameleon, a master of disguise, who illustrates types and stereotypes with his appearance. The novel itself is relatively obscure: there are no listings for it in most recent bibliographies of periodical and secondary literature, 19 and it would be almost inaccessible if it were not for the 1994 edition in the Röhrig series, Kleines Archiv des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. However, Abaellino was very influential in its time both as a prose text and in its theatrical versions, some of which were published, and in its «prequel,» Giulio degli Obizzo oder Abällino unter den Calabresen (1805-06). The drama revised the sequencing of the novel and was itself revised for production and publication. The novel was also revised, and the last version was published in 1823. There were also spin-offs and versions by other writers, including Peter Sievers, Der weibliche Abällino oder das Mädchen in vielerlei Gestalten (1802). 20 Orthography was not stable, yielding Abaellino, Abällino, and Abellino both in Zschokke’s further developments of the tale and in the titles and texts of his imitators. I am working here with the original 1794 version, which is considered to be the first German robber novel. 21 In brief, the plot, which is more rounded and structured than that of the almost exclusively additive Rinaldo Rinaldini, goes like this: Graf Obizzo of Naples, betrayed by his family, cheated of his inheritance, and running for his 284 Gail K. Hart life, comes to Venice, penniless and starving. He decides he can be a beggar and that there is honor in begging if the circumstances require it. But on his first night on the job, he rescues a man named Buonarotti from an ambush by robbers. Rather than rewarding him and granting his request for alms, Buonarotti pulls a gun on him, assuming his complicity with the robbers, and refuses to give him anything. Our hero then reencounters the robbers he foiled, and they give him alms, food, and shelter (there is a social point here). Like Rinaldini, Abaellino lives with the robbers and soon becomes their leader or, as Müller- Fraureuth puts it, «Dieser geheimnisvolle übermenschliche Held tritt bald als zähnefletschender Mordhund in schmutzigen Banditenhöhlen auf.» 22 However, he longs to serve Venice and he surfaces simultaneously in the Doge’s court as the handsome Flodoard, a Florentine nobleman. Since Flodoard is good-looking, elegant, and relatively well-to-do and Abaellino is living in a cheap hotel, where the maid (and the narrator) speak at length of his ugliness, we are apparently not meant to understand immediately that they are the same person - though this is rather obvious because the narrator lavishes so much attention on each man. In any case, the distinction handsome-ugly, the most obvious reading of surfaces, prevents overt identification of the two as one and supports the suspense and mystery. As Flodoard-Abaellino, the hero is able to find and arrest the bandits, leaving only Abaellino as the prime bandit for those seeking assassins. A group of highly placed plotters engage his services, but he is able to hide the intended victims and then reveal himself (Flodoard = Abaellino) before the court and the plotters, as he exposes the latter and wins the Doge’s favor and the hand of his extremely beautiful niece: «‹Abaellino! › jauchzte Rosamunde, und küßte den schönen Banditen mit Glut. ‹Rosamunde! › rief Abaellino und vergaß in dieser Umarmung die ganze Welt.» (Zschokke 78). This embrace concludes a very deliberate performance by the protagonist who, as Flodoard, had requested twenty-four hours to apprehend Abaellino. He specified that the Doge was to assemble the full court and wait for his/ their appearance. Thus there is also an internal audience for the spectacle of the grand revelation, and they wait in great suspense for dashing Flodoard to enter with the malefactor in chains, anticipating the triumph of beauty and good over the bad and the ugly. Abaellino is significant as a robber narrative for the ultimate conclusion that Obizzo/ Abaellino/ Flodoard is only able to reach his worthy social goal of saving Venice from the plotters by becoming a robber. 23 This is not an absolute masquerade since he commits crimes along with his new colleagues and the disguise is wholly a matter of clothing and his ability to hold his facial features in an «ugly» position. Indeed he has used tape and make-up, but as he reveals in his performance before the court, it was his own face: Good Bad Men 285 Abaellino riß das Pflaster vom Auge, rieb mit seinem Tuch im Gesicht umher, faltete die verzogenen Mienen in ihre natürliche Ordnung zurück, strich die schwarzen Haare von der Stirn, und siehe da, der schöne Flodoard stand in Abaellinos Banditentracht vor den Augen der Versammlung. (Zschokke 73; my emphasis) Beauty here masquerades as ugliness or it feigns ugliness. The matter is complicated since we are reading appearances and this is not so much a matter of a mismatch between Sein and Schein (good Flodoard looking like a bad bandit), but of a return to the true Schein which signifies or is Sein. Abaellino can really become Flodoard only by looking like him and he organizes the spectacle in order to transform his appearance before onlookers. But the return to Flodoard is only gradual, and it is arrested in a liminal moment in which Flodoard’s head protrudes from Abaellino’s bandit clothing. Just previous to the unmasking, the narrator had described this clothing along with the proper inhabitant: Abaellino stand ruhig da in seiner ganzen furchtbaren Häßlichkeit, in seinem Banditenhabit, mit dem Gürtel voller Pistolen und Dolche, mit dem abscheulichen, verzerrten, gelben Gesicht, über dem rechten Auge ein Pflaster, das linke hinter Fleischrunzeln halb verschwollen. (72) The clothes remain, but the head changes, signifying both beauty-goodness and the dark and frightening garb of crime. This hybrid is the savior of Venice, a good man who had to resort to criminal activity and the visible attributes of criminal activity in order to uncover and prevent greater crimes. Good, handsome Flodoard need only change his expression to become bad, ugly Abaellino (who is of course not that bad). The beautiful aspect of the fearsome criminal is at all times accessible - he need only «fold» his twisted features back to the Flodoard/ Obizzo position. Where Rinaldo and Ferrandino are the same person with different names, Abaellino and Flodoard are the same person with different surfaces or appearances. That Flodoard is not really Flodoard but Graf Obizzo is not particularly stressed as yet another level of masquerade, and one assumes from the comments and reactions of other figures that Flodoard looks exactly like Obizzo. This deception was just a change of name or designation and does not affect appearances. Vulpius was a successful crowd pleaser, one who shamelessly gave the people what they wanted, and who knew while writing Ferrandino that what they wanted was more of Rinaldo, his adventures, his ladies, and his inner integrity. In Abaellino, which preceded Rinaldo by five years, Zschokke was also pandering to popular taste (robbers, Venice, corrupt Venetian politics, adventure, disguise, love), but he either had higher ambitions than he actually realized with his novel, or he merely protests too much in his rambling and pugnacious Vorrede. Unlike the compliant Vulpius who would later bring his robber back from the dead in response to the public clamor for more, Zschokke baldly 286 Gail K. Hart states that a good writer does not produce fiction like a band taking requests from the dance floor. Writers are not «Musikanten, die nach der Laune der Tänzer bald eine Menuet leiern, bald einen Walzer geigen müssen» (Zschokke 7). He rejects entertaining subjects like «romantische Szenen der Vorwelt, Rittergeschichten, Sagen der Vorzeit, Begebenheiten aus den Tagen des Faustrechts» (Zschokke 7), and turns to what most of us would classify directly along with them, namely robbers. That Abaellino is the first German robber novel may explain this apparent contradiction - though Schiller’s play had certainly established the mass entertainment value of the subject of robbers. What I believe Zschokke was attempting was a more serious examination of the subject than one would find in a romantic or merely entertaining tale. He emphasizes the manner of narration over the content (much as Flaubert would do over half a century later): «Sobald ich nun einmahl den Einfall habe meinen Lesern etwas zu erzählen; so ists mir gleichviel, was ich ihnen erzähle, aber mehr darauf denk’ ich wie ich ihnen erzähle» (Zschokke 7). If he is abjuring entertainment in favor of aesthetic quality, the narrative itself does not really support these principles inasmuch as the plot is very exciting and ordered in a way that increases the entertaining suspense. The book is dramatic in character, and also in form, since much of it consists of dialogue and the narrator’s comments could often just as well be stage directions. Like a dramatist, Zschokke stays outside of the figures’ heads and lets emotion, motivation, reaction emerge through the dialogue and gesture. Like spectators in the theater, readers have to see and hear the action. The narrator will fill in events, but he does not convey the characters’ thoughts and emotions. These figures, especially Abaellino, are therefore more closed than those of Vulpius. We are dealing with surfaces and what we can read from those surfaces. For example, when the beautiful Rosamunde is pining for Flodoard, we hear only that she is ill, that she stays in bed or in her room. We can conclude that she is pining for Flodoardo from the evidence before us, but there is no direct account of her feelings. The narrator observes and guides our reading of what he presents as external appearance, and there is a palpable reluctance, supported by some awkward gyrations, to go further. 24 Another aspect of the narrative that is more edifying or thought-provoking than entertaining are the philosophical reflections on the nature and purpose of life or the construction of society that interrupt and punctuate the adventures. Matteo, the bandit leader (before Abaellino deposes him), articulates a theory of predestination that radically relativizes virtue and vice and with them the reigning social structure: Was ist Tugend? Was ist Laster? nichts als ein Etwas, welches die Landesverfassung, Gewohnheit, Sitte, Erziehung geheiligt hat; und was Menschen heiligen, können auch Menschen entheiligen; hätte der Senat die freimüthigen Urtheile über die ve- Good Bad Men 287 netianische Polizei nicht verboten: so wäre die Aeusserung solcher Urtheile keine Sünde. Gott fragt nicht nach Menschensazzungen, sondern nach seinem Willen. Wen er von uns zur Seligkeit bestimmt hat, der wird einmal selig, und wen er verdammt hat, der bleibt verdammt in aller Ewigkeit, und wenn er gleich nach menschlicher Meinung ein Heiliger wäre. Wir sind Menschen so gut wie der Doge und seine Senatoren; wir können so gut, wie sie Gesezze geben, und aufheben, und bestimmen, was Sünde und Tugend sein soll. (Zschokke 19) Matteo, son of a nun («eine keusche Nonne vom Orden der Urselinerinnen» [Zschokke 20]) and a prelate, embodies Zschokke’s critique of Roman Catholicism. 25 He was raised in a monastery to be a priest, but «fühlte [sich] zu einer Mordbrennerfakkel tauglicher» (Zschokke 20). His discourses on «Ehre» as variable and «Selbstliebe» as the legitimate first principle of action («Gott schuf aus Selbstliebe das unermessliche Universum» [Zschokke 20]) are the underpinnings of an attack on the rigid moral assumptions of a society that would condemn robbers while ignoring the greater crimes of politicians. This particular outburst levels the difference between bandits and the ruling class and articulates a theme that Josef Morlo develops in the afterword to his edition of the novel, namely Abaellino’s incorporating «bürgerliche[n] Aufstiegshoffnungen» (84). Class borders are porous for Abaellino, master of disguise, and appearances are central to this tale which is essentially a series of masquerades. «Abaellino» is a disguise assumed by the deposed and persecuted Graf von Obizzo, and «Flodoard» is one assumed by Abaellino to better serve the republic. Neapolitan nobleman becomes Venetian bandit becomes Florentine nobleman. It is, as the fictitious film director Stanley Motss states in Wag the Dog, «just a change of wardrobe,» 26 though wardrobe is not as trivial a factor for Zschokke as it is for Motss. Exteriors, though contingent, have solid standing in this text, and nowhere is appearance mere. The reassurance that Abaellino offers to readers concerned about crime is an almost Brechtian understanding of the criminal, geared more to thought than to «Aristotelian» empathy. The change of wardrobe is conspicuously enacted in Flodoard’s great revelation (plotters masquerading as patriots intend to take over Venice) and transformation (Flodoard to Abaellino and back again) scene, a performance before the entire court. Robber to nobleman or nobleman to robber or, more importantly, bad guy to good guy is also a change of wardrobe, but one that here points only in the positive, exculpatory, and therefore reassuring direction. Obizzo used his double persona to root out the plotters, foil their assassination plans, and deliver them to justice. He also used the masquerade to demonstrate the level of merit that would correspond to Rosamunde’s level of beauty and win her as his wife. Given the intricacy of the 288 Gail K. Hart plot against the Doge, the protagonist had to use these costumes or these surfaces to make a lasting contribution to the republic. Costume, wardrobe, and appearance situate the disguised or undisguised subject with regard to class, profession, and moral character. When the surface shifts, so does our apprehension of the subject. As Abaellino transforms into Flodoard, the threatening robber becomes a highly admirable and good-looking pillar of the republic rather than the criminal element that threatened its stability. The Robber - and Abaellino had become the robber in Venice after capturing or killing all the others - is ultimately a tactical persona, assumed by the protector of the reigning order and defender of law. What looked like a bad man, a representative of robbers, murderers, incendiaries, and linen thieves turns out to be our ally and friend - inasmuch as we pick up the cues in the narrative that ultimately favor the rule of law and the propagation of good government. Where Vulpius shows his hero thinking, reflecting, lyricizing, and praying in order to expose the soft center of the hard-living robber, Zschokke withholds inner monologues and instrumentalizes surface appearance to situate the frightening Abaellino as someone (Flodoard, Obizzo) who ultimately looks like a good man. What both accomplish is the revision of a fear-inspiring figure and its representation as benign. Literary fiction, which draws the reader in for lengthy and pleasurable concentration on particular characters and events, is perhaps the best medium for soothing the fears of those threatened, however mildly, by crime. By creating the illusion of familiarity with the criminal, intellectual or empathic, these novels and others of their kind rehabilitate the bad man and give readers the (fictional) knowledge that will enhance their feelings of security and help them to hang their linen in peace. Notes 1 Recent exceptions include Roberto Simanowski’s nuancing of the adventure/ entertainment aspect, Die Verwaltung des Abenteuers: Massenkultur um 1800 am Beispiel Christian August Vulpius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1998) and Edward T. Larkin’s article on the edification project, «Christian August Vulpius’ Rinaldo Rinaldini: Beyond Trivial Pursuit,» Monatshefte 88 (1996): 462-79. A very thorough account of the moral-didactic function of robber fiction can be found in Hainer Plaul, Illustrierte Geschichte der Trivialliteratur (Hildesheim: Olms Presse, 1983). 2 See Simanowski, especially 352-56; Carl Müller-Fraureuth also stresses the entertainment function which he sees in part as pacification: «Man könnte […] behaupten, daß die Romane die Revolution hintanhielten: wie wir Deutsche von jeher nur in der Literatur revolutioniert haben, so befriedigten insbesondere die Romane den Unwillen des klei- Good Bad Men 289 nen Mannes gegen die Höfe.» Die Ritter- und Räuberromane: Ein Beitrag zur Bildungsgeschichte des deutschen Volkes (Halle a.S., 1894) 95. 3 Holger Dainat gives detailed statistics for the period 1795-1850 in Abaellino, Rinaldini, und Konsorten: Zur Geschichte der Räuberromane in Deutschland (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1996) 40-46. Dainat speculates that 320 German-language robber novels appeared during this 55-year period, along with 70 new editions or reprints of popular individual titles (43). Uwe Danker notes that 55 «triviale Räuberromane» appeared between 1797 and 1807 in Die Geschichte der Räuber und Gauner (Düsseldorf: Artemis und Winkler, 2001) 31. 4 Marion Beaujean notes of Thomas Mann’s novel, «Während Lotte in Weimar absteigt, fragt ihr Kammerkätzchen nach dem Verfasser des ‹herrlichen Rinaldo, des touchanten Romanbuches,› das sie schon fünfmal gelesen habe.» The joke is of course that Goethe awaits, but the maid thinks only of Vulpius and his robber novel. Der Trivialroman im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert (Bonn: Bouvier, 1964) 1. 5 Danker 83. 6 An excellent examination of the effects of fear of arson that could rapidly destroy whole towns in sixteenth (and eighteenth-) century Germany can be found in Bob Scribner’s «The Mordbrenner Fear in Sixteenth-Century Germany: Political Paranoia and the Revenge of the Outcast,» in Richard Evans, ed. The German Underworld: Deviants and Outcasts in German History, London: Routledge, 1988) 29-56. As Scribner notes, the persecution of marginal groups as scapegoats for the crimes that threatened the populace was a «form of ‹crisis management›» (43). 7 See Evans’s editor’s introduction The German Underworld, especially 1-3. 8 Scribner 43. 9 «Der Tod eines Bettlers: dörfliche Lynchjustiz 1727: Ein Experiment in Narration und Analyse,» Historie und Eigen-Sinn, ed. Axel Lubinski (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1997) 379-97. It is cited at length in Danker 67-78. 10 This is Danker’s concise summary of the event (68). 11 Ulbricht 388. 12 Abaellino der große Bandit, ed. Josef Merlo (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1994) 38. 13 An exception from fiction is Wilhelm Hauff’s Das Wirtshaus im Spessart, which follows a group of travelers who are holed up in a suspicious inn and tell each other tales in order to stay awake for the robber attack they anticipate. Most tales deal with the pitfalls of acquiring wealth magically more or less in an instant, and the feared robbers do arrive and take several hostage, providing an opportunity for those taken hostage to tell more tales. 14 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 17. 15 For more commentary on the entertainment aspect of robber fiction, see Müller-Fraureuth 55-105; J.W. Appell, Die Ritter-, Räuber- und Schauerromantik (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1859) 42-73. 16 Tag- und Jahresheften 1795. Cited in Josef Morlo’s «Nachwort» to the Röhrig edition of the novel, 81; Appel 68; Müller-Fraureuth 74. 17 Plaul 208. 18 Vulpius, Rinaldo Rinaldini der Räuber Hauptmann, Leipzig, 1799 (Hildesheim: Olms Presse, 1974) 3 vols. There are two novels that make up the three-volume reprint edition, and they are divided into parts and books, and pagination often begins again with new parts and books. Citations within the text will include the title of the novel, either RR or Ferrandino, and the part, book, and page numbers: RR III 8, 184. 290 Gail K. Hart 19 Some larger scholarly works that give Abaellino more than a title listing are Beaujean, Dainat, and Plaul. Dainat’s book, despite its title, has little to say about Abaellino or Rinaldo Rinaldini, except as products on the market or examples of a trend. Dainat mentions both works with reasonable frequency but he confines himself to referring to general characteristics of the genre and then citing numerous novels that have these characteristics. 20 See Morlo’s Nachwort, 84-88, for information on the various versions by Zschokke and others. 21 Plaul 144 and passim; Morlo 86; Beaujean 140. Morlo mentions an earlier effort by Zschokke, a short piece called ‹Die falschen Münzer,› which is lost (80). 22 Müller-Fraureuth 73-74. 23 See Beaujean: «die verbrecherische Weltordnung ist nur mit gleichen schändlichen Mitteln zu überwinden» (142). 24 There are a few insignificant violations of this practice, including a passage where the narrator indicates what Rosamunde felt: «Sie dachte an den armen Jüngling» (50), but one page later, she is once again speaking her thoughts. 25 See Beaujean, «Zschokke kämpft also offensichtlich nach zwei Seiten; gegen den Aberglauben der positiven, dogmatischen Religion und gegen den zum puren Formalismus erstarrten, aus dem Protestantismus säkularisierten Aufklärungsglauben» (144). 26 Wag the Dog, dir. Barry Levinson; perf. Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche; New Line Cinema, 1997.