In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 149 In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest Brian Tucker Wabash College Abstract: When the serial publication of Effi Briest concluded in 1895, many readers were indignant at the novel’s outcome. Fontane addressed this reader response in his letters, casting the empathy for Effi as virtually unanimous, with some readers rejecting Innstetten as repulsive. At first glance, this looks like a typical three-person scene of empathy, but the present article aims to complicate the understanding of side-taking and moral judgment in the reception of Effi Briest. Though there are certainly moments of conflict in Fontane’s novels that accord with a three-person scene of empathy, I argue that Effi Briest is different, that Fontane’s final and most famous adultery novel adds further involutions to questions of moral judgment. Effi Briest does not just situate the reader as a third-party observer to marital conflict. It builds the dilemma of side-taking into the story itself, positioning the reader as a fourth party who observes an intradiegetic moment of side-taking when Innstetten must choose on which side he will fall. The reader response is thus predicated on the reaction to an intradiegetic conflict between empathy and spite. Readers want to see Innstetten punished for the malicious and excessive punishment that he inflicts on others. Keywords: Effi Briest, altruism, empathy, punishment, reception When the serial publication of Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest ended in 1895, it was received warmly by critics and the public alike, and the subsequent book sales led Fontane to view it as his first real literary success. 1 At the same time, numerous readers reacted to the story’s outcome with indignation, and they were incensed less by Effi’s transgression than by Innstetten’s punitive attitude. We can attribute this reaction not to an implied reader or authorial audience but rather to actual, flesh-and-blood readers because Fontane’s letters repeatedly 150 Brian Tucker comment on the novel’s reception. 2 As Rolf Selbmann puts it, Fontane “mühte […] sich ab, seinen Roman gegenüber den ersten Lesern in Schutz zu nehmen oder vermeintliche Missverständnisse auszuräumen” (57). He famously writes to Clara Kühnast in October, 1895, for example, “Ja, Effi! Alle Leute sympathisiren mit ihr und Einige gehen so weit, im Gegensatze dazu den Mann als einen ‘alten Ekel’ zu bezeichnen” (HA IV/ 4: 493). Although Fontane describes his audience “sympathizing” with the protagonist, in the contemporary parlance of emotion studies and cognitive approaches to literature, one would more likely speak of readers empathizing with a fictional character. As Fontane casts it, this readerly empathy for Effi’s plight is unanimous, with some going so far as to reject Innstetten as repulsive. How can one account for the lopsided intensity of the readers’ response? Why would it come as a surprise to Fontane? And what does this unusual situation have to say about narrative empathy and judgments more generally? Fritz Breithaupt, working from a three-person model of empathy, argues that adultery novels push readers to take a side, and this side-taking decision then engenders the sort of empathy that gets reflected in reader reactions such as the one cited above (Dark Sides 130). Breithaupt argues persuasively that, while most theories of empathy begin with a scene involving two people, it is more illuminating to consider the mechanisms that enable and block empathy in a three-person setting. The three-person model involves one person observing two parties in some form of discord, conflict, or tension. The observer sides with one party or the other, which allows the observer to empathize with that party. 3 Novels of adultery naturally center on a conflict between two aggrieved spouses, both of whom feel wronged and one of whom has committed an act of infidelity. The depiction of this conflict creates a literary example of a three-person scene of empathy, in which the reader functions as an observer registering discord between two fictional parties. Within this framework, many adultery novels encourage their readers to suspend their typical moral judgment and side with the party who has strayed. Margrethe Bruun Vaage has investigated how spectators empathize with antiheroes who are “severely morally flawed” or “morally transgressive,” and she refers in this vein to the protagonists of TV series such as The Sopranos and Dexter (Antihero 90—91). The heroines of adultery novels, including Effi Briest, as well as Melanie van der Straaten in L’Adultera and Franziska Franz in Graf Petöfy, could be seen as nineteenth-century forerunners to the contemporary taste for morally flawed antiheroes. These novels push their readers to look past strenuous moral prohibitions and side with the wife who has done wrong rather than with the husband. The challenge for this sort of adultery novel is to create an empathetic response strong enough to overcome the inherent tendency to In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 151 punish guilt and reward virtue. Regarding Effi Briest, Anja Haberer writes that the narrator’s robust attention to the protagonist’s inner life pushes the reader to side with Effi and guarantees for her “die Sympathie und das Mitleid der Leser” (163). Dieter Krohn agrees, and he sees the competition for the audience’s empathy as a zero-sum game: “Je mehr die Leser Effi in ihr Herz schließen und zu verzeihen bereit sind, desto mehr sinken Innstettens Sympathiewerte” (157). To side with Effi is to side against Innstetten; to sympathize with her plight is to deny sympathy to his. Fontane’s letter to Clara Kühnast suggests that something similar is going on in the reception of Effi Briest: readers choose to side with Effi, and against Innstetten, and thus empathize with her suffering. And yet the present paper aims to complicate the understanding of side-taking and moral judgment in the reception of Effi Briest. There are certainly moments of marital conflict in Fontane’s novels that accord with a three-person scene of empathy, positioning the reader as an observer who takes the side of one spouse over the other. L’Adultera delivers perhaps the clearest example in Fontane’s oeuvre, when Melanie confronts her husband with her unhappiness, her infidelity, and her intention to leave him (GBA I/ 4: 117). Adapting Haberer’s reading of Effi Briest to Fontane’s first society novel, one notes that here, too, the narrator provides frequent access to Melanie’s state of mind. Because one knows how much her husband’s talk demeans and humiliates her, the reader, as a third-party observer, is more likely to side with Melanie, see the conflict from her perspective, and thus empathize with her. My point is that Effi Briest is different, that Fontane’s final and most famous adultery novel adds further involutions to questions of moral judgment, and that it thus requires a more complex critical model. For this novel does not just situate the reader as a third-party observer to marital conflict. Rather, it builds the dilemma of side-taking into the story itself, thus positioning the reader as a fourth party, as one who observes an intradiegetic moment of side-taking when Innstetten must choose on which side he will fall - with Effi or the dictates of Prussian society. 4 While most scholarship on empathy and Effi Briest focuses on the textual mechanisms that encourage empathy, my reflections take as their point of departure the reader reactions documented in Fontane’s correspondence and contemporaneous reviews. This shift in focus requires us to consider not just readers’ empathy with Effi but also their disgust with Innstetten, as well as Fontane’s perplexity over his readers’ reaction. Indeed, as Fontane characterizes the contemporaneous reader response, Effi is almost an afterthought; the center of attention (of ire, that is) falls on Innstetten. In my view, that is because the novel gives Innstetten the role that would typically fall to the empathetic reader in other adultery novels - namely, that of judge and side-taker. The read- 152 Brian Tucker er response is thus no longer predicated solely on an extradiegetic feeling of empathy with a fictional character but also on the reaction to an intradiegetic conflict between empathy and spite, vindication and vindictiveness. In short, readers want to see Innstetten punished in turn for the malicious and excessive punishment that he inflicts on others. Fontane describes his novel’s central dilemma as a conflict over “Moralitäten” (HA IV/ 4: 506). It is a question of whether one is willing to punish the bad and reward the good, even when the transgressive figure arouses compassion. Innstetten is certainly willing to punish Effi and Crampas, and one could describe his decision to do so as an instance of “altruistic punishment” (Flesch 31). That is, Innstetten is willing to accept a cost to himself, to his own happiness, in order to punish someone else’s bad behavior. Fontane’s contemporaneous audience saw the same issue but arrived at a different conclusion: to them, the way Innstetten punishes Effi and Crampas is not altruistic but rather vindictive, excessive, and unjust. Hence the sense of revulsion with which they greeted his character. They saw Innstetten acting not out of unselfish regard for the greater good but rather out of spite. Readers thus rendered a judgment that indicts the character’s own bad judgment. They read the punishment that he exacts as being grounded in petty ill will rather than societal welfare or morality, and many readers thus found him disgusting. In his letter to Kühnast, Fontane characterizes his novel as pitting morality and empathy against one another. Regarding his readers’ tendency to sympathize with Effi, he writes: Das amüsiert mich natürlich, giebt mir aber auch zu denken, weil es wieder beweist, wie wenig den Menschen an der sogenannten ‘Moral’ liegt und wie die liebenswürdigen Naturen dem Menschenherzen sympathischer sind. Ich habe dies lange gewußt, aber es ist mir nie so stark entgegengetreten wie in diesem Effi Briest und Innstetten-Fall. (HA IV/ 4: 493—94) In other words, the novel sets the principles of morality in opposition to those of the heart, and Fontane is simultaneously amused and troubled that readers fall so strongly to one side. His remark points out that the outcome of this judgment is far less straightforward and predictable than one might expect. According to the moral expectations of nineteenth-century Germany, this should be a clearcut case. Innstetten seeks in retribution nothing more than what he is entitled to - divorce, custody, Effi’s social estrangement, and the chance to reaffirm his honor vis-à-vis Crampas in a duel. At the novel’s close, Effi accepts her fate with equanimity and admits to herself, “daß er in allem recht gehandelt.” Even regarding how he trained Effi’s own daughter to push her mother away, she says, “so hart es mir ankommt und so weh’ es mir thut, er hat auch darin recht In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 153 gehabt” (GBA I/ 15: 348). In this moment, Effiis finally able to accept Innstetten’s punishments as just, and yet many readers obviously cannot share in that same degree of acceptance and resignation. In another letter, Fontane admits to being puzzled by this unanticipated consensus on the part of his readers. The whole thing leaves him “stutzig,” he writes (HA IV/ 4: 506). His perplexity derives from the fact that, in many ways, his audience’s judgment flies in the face of typical moral justice, in which transgression leads to a conflict, which leads to the transgressive character’s comeuppance. That is exactly what happens in Effi Briest, but many readers reject in this case the standard narrative arc of transgression and punishment and reserve their scorn instead for Innstetten. Fontane seems to have expected his audience to perceive the punitive subtext in Innstetten’s ambiguous words to Effi, “Zuletzt ist es doch so: was man empfängt, das hat man auch verdient” (GBA I/ 15: 174). He means ostensibly that she has earned all the affection that people show her, but her guilty conscience leads her to think she might hear in his remark a more accusatory note of “you’ll get what you deserve.” Under normal circumstances, one might agree and decide simply that, by the end of the novel, Effi gets what she deserves. But readers do not arrive at this outcome under normal circumstances; they are led there by the mechanisms of narrative fiction. Hence, the novel’s audience is willing to look past questions of guilt and moral blame because they are more likely to see the world from Effi’s point of view and empathize with her. Kathryn Ambrose echoes Fontane’s own assessment of the readerly response, writing that, “for all the concern over Effi’s morality within the text, the reader tends to sympathize with her plight” (142). Fontane’s surprise at his readers’ reaction is itself surprising. Unless his perplexity is merely feigned, he seems to have been genuinely taken aback by the response to his novel. This is remarkable, first because Fontane himself created the narrative situation that implicitly leads to Innstetten’s condemnation, and second, because scholars tend to talk about empathy and moral judgment in narrative fiction in ways that are frankly intentional. Even if we do not make the mistake of ascribing that intent to the author’s person, it remains ingrained in the analysis of narrative structure and design. 5 In other words, scholars tend not to assume that readers’ reactions are simply side-effects or unintended consequences of storytelling. They examine instead how narratives promote empathy, how they push readers toward certain kinds of judgments, and how they are generally designed to produce the effects that we observe when reading them. James Phelan has described the approach as one that “assumes that texts are designed by authors in order to affect readers in particular ways” and furthermore that reader responses are “a test of the efficacy of those designs” (4). Fontane constructs a narrative that clearly pushes readers to empathize with 154 Brian Tucker Effi and to see Innstetten’s actions as unjust and spiteful. It is thus all the more noteworthy that Fontane purports to have been taken aback by his audience’s reaction. It is as if he believes that, even if the novel does not quite present a clear-cut case of right and wrong, at a minimum it poses a moral dilemma for which there are no easy answers. Yet his readers see it differently: Effi is the victim, despite her infidelity, and Innstetten is nauseating - a position far too one-sided for Fontane’s taste. One way to account for Fontane’s bemusement is to note that he does not present the novel’s moral dilemma as a standard side-taking decision, in which the reader, as a third-party observer, would take the side of either Innstetten or Effi in their marital conflict. The conundrum of deciding between forgiveness and the abstract dictates of morality is not left to the reader to make alone. Rather, the novel builds that question into its plot through Innstetten’s dilemma, once he discovers the old letters between Crampas and Effi. As soon as Wüllersdorf arrives and Innstetten explains his desire to challenge Crampas to a duel, the conversation turns to questions of punishment and forbearance. They ask, in other words, whether Innstetten still sympathizes with his wife enough to forgive her, or whether his actions must conform with the dictates of morality and the Prussian code of honor. The characters initially discuss the issue in the same terms that Fontane ascribes to those readers who side with Effi. Recall that he sees the reader response proving “wie die liebenswürdigen Naturen dem Menschenherzen sympathischer sind” (HA IV/ 4: 494). Fontane speculates that people tend, when confronted with sympathetic figures, to set aside strict morals in favor of leniency. Indeed, the lenient, understanding sentiment attributed to Fontane’s readers is also one that the author himself voices in an 1895 letter to Colmar Grünhagen. Of his female characters such as Cécile and Effi, Fontane writes, “ich verliebe mich in sie, nicht um ihrer Tugenden, sondern um ihrer Menschlichkeiten d. h. um ihrer Schwächen und Sünden willen” (HA IV/ 4: 487- 88). Readers might sympathize with Effi despite her sins, but in this instance at least, Fontane describes himself as even more partisan: he sympathizes with her precisely because of her weaknesses and sins, a position that stands in apparent tension with his defense of Innstetten. 6 Innstetten’s initial inclination is, similarly, to let the affair go, to stay with Effi, and he explains the sentiment in terms that echo those from Fontane’s correspondence: “ich bin so sehr im Bann ihrer Liebenswürdigkeit […], daß ich mich, mir selbst zum Trotz, in meinem letzten Herzenswinkel zum Verzeihen geneigt fühle” (GBA I/ 15: 277). Innstetten reacts to Effi’s transgression the same way Fontane imagines his readers do. Effi is exceptionally “liebenswürdig” - in a concrete sense, worthy of love - and he remains so spellbound by her charms that he is inclined to forgive her. It appears in this moment that Innstetten, In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 155 like an empathetic reader, will side with Effi and against the expectations of a punitive Prussian morality. Ultimately, he turns against his initial wave of empathy and forgiveness, rejecting both as impossible. In a second step, his side-taking judgment broadens its scope to consider not just his personal feelings of affection but also the needs of society and the greater good. He says, “Man ist nicht bloß ein einzelner Mensch, man gehört einem Ganzen an, […] wir sind durchaus abhängig von ihm” (GBA I/ 15: 278). If he lived in isolation, he could move on from the transgression and forgo any punitive action. But he is not an isolated individual; he belongs to a social whole: “im Zusammenleben mit den Menschen hat sich ein Etwas ausgebildet, das nun mal da ist und nach dessen Paragraphen wir uns gewöhnt haben, alles zu beurteilen, die andern und uns selbst” (GBA I/ 15: 278). Innstetten’s reference to “beurteilen” reinforces the adjudicative role that he must play, and it is probably this second step in his reasoning - this appeal to ineluctable social norms - that loses the reader. These lines of Innstetten’s have been frequently cited and just as frequently pilloried, for their vagueness, their coldhearted abstraction, or their just-following-orders evasion of personal responsibility. 7 As Jeffrey Schneider notes, critics often take Innstetten’s justification for going ahead with his punitive designs “as a sign of his conformity to archaic social conventions or as a rational calculation in accord with his coldness toward Effi” (265). Fontane’s letters suggest, however, that he wanted the consideration of social norms and prevailing morality to be taken seriously enough to balance against the reader’s empathy for Effi. He did not mean for Innstetten’s thinking to be dismissed as simply disingenuous. This is why, in his letter to the critic Joseph Victor Widmann, he congratulates him on doing justice to the figure of poor old Innstetten - since the vast majority of contemporaneous readers and critics did not (HA IV/ 4: 506). 8 Widmann’s review allows Fontane to set his own attitude toward Innstetten in contrast to that of his readers, and Fontane’s attitude is much more positive. Responding to Kühnast, he calls Innstetten “ein ausgezeichnetes Menschenexemplar” and makes the case that readers reject him for being too proper: “alle korrekten Leute werden schon blos um ihrer Korrektheiten willen, mit Mißtrauen, oft mit Abneigung betrachtet” (HA IV/ 4: 494). Innstetten is not a callous monster; he is decent and proper and simply does what is expected of him in a painful situation. Fontane thus distinguishes his own response from that of his readers: if he sounds here like a staunch supporter of Innstetten, he takes a position that aims to offset and complicate an audience response that feels lopsided in the other direction. At the same time, he also makes a finer, internal distinction between his reaction as a writer and his reaction as a “Mensch.” The writer in him does 156 Brian Tucker not care whether readers like or dislike any particular character, by which he most likely means that his reaction is not simply an authorial ego wounded by negative reader feedback. Rather, he’s troubled as a human being by readers’ disapproving reaction to Innstetten. When Fontane describes his reaction “als Mensch” (HA IV/ 4: 506), he draws on an implicit notion of human nature that informs Innstetten’s attitude but never gets properly articulated. The perceived necessity of seeking retribution and exacting punishment implies an understanding of “strong reciprocity,” a term from evolutionary theory that describes the innate tendency to punish the guilty and reward the virtuous for behaviors that affect the social group (Flesch 22). According to William Flesch, there is a biological component to our interest in fiction: humans have evolved an interest in stories as a way to track behavior because they want to see reciprocators mete out punishments and rewards for the benefit of the group. Flesch says of strong reciprocity and altruistic punishment that they are “necessary to the maintenance of cooperation within […] most human societies,” and he writes further that reciprocators “insure social cohesion,” especially “when they punish those who cheat others” (22). Flesch’s explication of altruistic punishment is consonant with the position (admittedly not fully articulated) that Innstetten takes in his discussion with Wüllersdorf. This innate human tendency to want to see good behavior rewarded and bad behavior punished - indeed, the necessity of that reciprocity for social cohesion - could fill in some of the blanks in what Innstetten appeals to as the ineluctable, governing “Etwas” in human society (GBA I/ 15: 278). Of course, he fails to spell out that vague “something” in any detail, and critics have often read it less charitably, as a simple fear of ridicule, as concern over a career impediment, or as an expression of what Fontane in Schach von Wuthenow refers to as “einer falschen Ehre” (GBA I/ 6: 153). 9 Frances Subiotto, for example, sees in these lines Innstetten’s “desire to conform to superstitious belief in the necessity of a duel” (143). But Innstetten points here to something bigger than superstition or a hypocritical notion of honor. He tethers his duty to punish (in this case, to move forward with the divorce and the duel) to the necessity of cohesion and cooperation within human society, “im Zusammenleben mit den Menschen” (GBA I/ 15: 278). He argues, “auf das Ganze haben wir beständig Rücksicht zu nehmen,” and the good of the group requires its members not only to track the behavior of others, but to evaluate that behavior in terms of right and wrong, and to punish and reward accordingly. This fundamental consideration, “nach dessen Paragraphen wir uns gewöhnt haben, alles zu beurteilen” (GBA I/ 15: 278), also explains why Innstetten rejects the idea of Verjährung or a statute of limitations, as well as his own feelings of affection for Effi. From the perspective of strong reciprocity and social cooper- In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 157 ation, neither matters. If the group neglects to punish cheaters and free-loaders, there is no disincentive to cheating and free-loading. Likewise, if altruists are not rewarded, there is no incentive to altruism. Marc Hauser, writing from a sociobiological perspective, argues similarly that “providing opportunities for punishing cheaters” is “the only way to guarantee stable, cooperative societies” (81). Innstetten presents his decision along these lines as a form of altruistic punishment. He still loves his wife and is inclined to forgive her, but he sees his hand being forced by society’s requirements. Moreover, he casts the decision as a sacrifice made for the greater good, for social cohesion and the wellbeing of the group. Carl Busse picks up this thread in his 1895 review for Die Gegenwart� He remarks that “der Preußendichter” is a well-deserved title for Fontane, “weil er den Einzelwillen bricht zu Gunsten der Gesamtheit, weil das Individuum sich unterordnet der Allgemeinheit” (cited in GBA I/ 15: 386). Though Busse views the Prussian virtue of self-subordination with a critical eye, his review reflects Innstetten’s own assessment of his situation - namely, that he is obligated to carry out the punishment for the benefit of the social whole. The novel thus contains at its core an essential side-taking dilemma, where Innstetten must decide between the incompatible demands of leniency and punishment, between sympathy for another person and the abstract dictates of social cooperation. As a result, Effi Briest positions its reader not as a typical third-party observer who takes the side of one spouse over the other but rather as a witness to a character’s side-taking and decision to exact punishment. Fontane’s epistolary sympathy for Innstetten suggests that he expected his audience - his hypothetical, authorial audience - to take the appeals to social cohesion seriously and to accept, at least reluctantly, this course of action. As James Phelan puts it, we should assume “that authors will take ethical stands on the events and characters they represent and will guide us explicitly or implicitly, heavy-handedly or subtly […] to adopt those stands” (53). 10 According to Phelan’s view, when Innstetten takes the opportunity to explain that he must go ahead with the duel and the divorce out of a sense of duty to the greater good, rather than a thirst for vengeance, this represents a narrative means to push the reader to adopt a similar stance - to accept that even sympathetic transgressors need to be punished. There is good reason to assume that many readers would have come to the same conclusion as Innstetten, that the actual audience would overlap largely with the intended authorial audience. Flesch, for example, notes that people tend to admire altruism in general and altruistic punishment in particular; they typically want to see altruism rewarded (66—67). Vaage agrees that “humans are altruistic or pro-social punishers who desire to see wrongdoers punished even if no harm has been done to them personally” (“On Punishment” 545). Something 158 Brian Tucker like this seems to be what bothers Fontane in the reception of Effi Briest: if we refuse to reward altruism, refuse to punish those who cheat others, or refuse even to accept the condemnation of their cheating, then social cohesion is likely to suffer as a result. Herein lies some degree of his resistance to the audience’s full-throated support for and empathy with Effi. He wants to hold on to the necessity - for the greater good - of seeing transgression punished. As Fontane’s post-publication letters attest, however, his readers do not feel gratified by the spectacle of Crampas’s death, nor Effi’s shunning, her illness and demise. They derive no satisfaction from the punishments in the novel’s last third and reject the punisher out of hand. Indeed, most of their opprobrium is directed at the punishment and at Innstetten himself, “der,” Fontane writes in another letter, “übrigens von allen Damen härter beurtheilt wird als er verdient” (HA IV/ 4: 454). Notable is how Fontane repeatedly uses gender as a way to bracket and account for the critical reactions to this character; he writes in another instance of “Frauenherzen” being particularly lenient (HA IV/ 4: 506). He seems to suggest that women lack the mettle to see discipline through and that their hearts are overly susceptible to indulging in empathy. Although Fontane expresses in his letters a general aversion to “Tugendmeier” (HA IV/ 4: 487), in the case of Effi Briest, he is willing to defend men such as Innstetten who present themselves as sticklers for virtue. Despite Fontane’s appeal to essentialized gender differences, there is a simpler explanation for the negative response: many readers disagreed with the insistence on punishment and reacted negatively to it. 11 Flesch explains that the logic of judgment and punishment can be applied to punishment itself. “Among those we wish to punish or see punished are bad altruistic punishers,” he writes, which include both “fake or hypocritical punishers” as well as “altruistic punishers who are mistaken in their judgments” (62). To Fontane’s contemporaneous readers, Innstetten could appear as either a hypocritical or mistaken punisher, depending on whether they see his rationale for pursuing punishment as disingenuous or as earnest but nonetheless wrong-headed. Even in the most generous light, one could take Innstetten at his word and still come to the conclusion that the duel and the divorce do nothing to advance the greater good. Is it not a bit grandiose to suggest that the very fabric of human society - our “Zusammenleben mit den Menschen” (GBA I/ 15: 278) - could be rent asunder by an exceptional act of forgiveness? In a more critical light, one could take Innstetten’s rationale as insincere and self-serving. Even though he purports to be acting “ohne jedes Gefühl von Haß oder gar von Durst nach Rache” (GBA I/ 15: 277), he is willing to inflict a great deal of harm on others in order to vindicate his own position as the victim of their transgression. Though In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 159 he argues that his hand is forced, many readers see the punishment he insists on as a choice made out of spite. Spite can fall under the banner of altruistic punishment, but the term typically reflects a critical moral judgment regarding someone else’s punishment. It occurs when an instance of altruistic punishment turns out to be wrong-headed. Flesch describes “spite” as “a word we tend to use when we think the altruism it indicates has no prosocial benefits - when it doesn’t contribute to our sense of justice or fairness. It feels opposed to the sense of vindication we celebrate when it looks like justice and fairness are being promoted” (157). “Prosocial benefit” is the key idea for connecting this passage to the reception of Innstetten’s actions in Effi Briest. Despite his appeal to some social “something” that requires that bad actors be punished, there is an opposing consensus that the divorce and the duel serve no greater purpose and do nothing for the greater good. They contribute to neither justice nor fairness. And if there is no benefit to be gained from Crampas’s death and Effi’s estrangement from everyone she loves, then Innstetten’s resolute pursuit of the duel and the divorce presents a clear example of acting out of spite. The novel includes one scene in particular that depicts Innstetten’s punitive attitude as unjust - as especially excessive and spiteful - and it occurs when Effifinally gets the chance to see her daughter, Annie, from whom she has been estranged. Effi looks forward to the visit with feverish excitement, but it does not go as planned. When they finally are together, Annie deflects every attempt to plan future visits with the infuriatingly rote sentence, “O gewiß, wenn ich darf” (GBA I/ 15: 324). Her response indicates, first, that Innstetten has equipped Annie with a kind of rhetorical armor, a way to avoid committing to any further contact with her mother. The conditional clause, “wenn ich darf,” furthermore underscores Innstetten’s role as judge and guardian. Effi can see her daughter only at his pleasure and with his blessing. Although he has allowed them to meet this time; in the future, he might not. Annie’s evasive repetition of this sentence becomes more than Effi can bear, and when she abruptly sends Annie away, she collapses in a fit of bitter laughter and recrimination. Her monologue in this moment is significant, because it represents a first and unequivocal instance of someone rendering judgment on Innstetten’s acts of punishment. She says to herself: ich will meine Schuld nicht kleiner machen, … aber das ist zuviel. Denn das hier, mit dem Kind, das bist nicht Du, Gott, der mich strafen will, das ist er, bloß er! Ich habe geglaubt, daß er ein edles Herz habe, und habe mich immer klein neben ihm gefühlt; aber jetzt weiß ich, daß er es it, er ist klein. Und weil er klein ist, ist er grausam. (GBA I/ 15: 325) 160 Brian Tucker From Effi’s perspective, this latest infliction of punishment is both too great and too small. Too great, because it goes too far; to turn her own daughter against her in this way is excessive. Too small, in the sense that it is petty and small-minded. Innstetten’s desire to punish Effi has become spiteful in that he desires to injure her well beyond any injury done to him. Holly Yanacek, analyzing expressions of female anger in Fontane’s works, notes that the narrator casts Effi in this instance as being indignant: “Significantly, the narrator describes Effi’s reaction not as Wut or Zorn (anger), but Empörung (indignation), which suggests that the narrator sympathizes with Effi and views her anger in response to her perceived mistreatment as justified” (41). Yanacek’s point is that the narrative’s choice of words casts Effi and her reaction in a more charitable light, that it presents her small act of emotional revolt in a way that readers are more likely to accept and understand. I would add to this analysis the point that indignation is a specific form of anger, one that is aroused by injustice or unwarranted cruelty. To label her reaction as Empörung is a terminological choice - like saying that an act is “spiteful” - one that implicitly reflects a moralizing judgment that a witness would make upon observing Innstetten’s actions. 12 When the narrative voice characterizes Effi’s emotion as indignation, it implicitly casts Innstetten’s actions as unjust, as spiteful and cruel. Yanacek focuses on women’s anger within the novels, but, as Fontane’s letters indicate, this intradiegetic anger seeps out of the story and comes to characterize the novel’s reception as well. Fontane’s correspondence points not just to empathy (specifically, female empathy) with the novel’s protagonist but also to a degree of indignation over her treatment in the story. When Effi, who has heretofore accepted the consequences of her affair with remorse and equanimity, finally rejects her punishment as excessive and vindictive, she provides readers with a template for their own reaction. In this crucial moment, Effi functions not only as the object of punishment but also as its witness and judge. She shows the audience how to evaluate Innstetten’s behavior and gives them a vocabulary with which to express their indignation. One can see a thread of influence from the character’s reaction to the audience’s reaction through the semantic overlap between them. In his letter to Widmann, Fontane quotes a particular reader (“eine reizende Dame,” in fact) as saying, “ja, Effi; aber Innstetten ist ein Ekel” (HA IV/ 4: 506). 13 The repeated characterization of Innstetten as an Ekel, as a creep or a loathsome, disgusting figure, is not coincidental, as it draws directly from Effi’s most forceful condemnation of her former husband. Effi, on the verge of collapse, concludes her bitter monologue with the lines, “Mich ekelt, was ich gethan; aber was mich noch mehr ekelt, das ist Eure Tugend” (GBA I/ 15: 325—26). The language in this In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 161 passage is acute and particular: Effi is disgusted by her own behavior, but even more disgusting is how Innstetten inflicts upon her a yet graver injury, and does so all in the name of virtue. It is telling that, when Fontane writes in his own voice about the novel’s reception, one hears an echo of Innstetten’s rhetorical rationale, but when he speaks in the audience’s collective voice, one hears instead an echo of Effi’s indignation. To describe Innstetten as an object of Ekel, of disgust or revulsion, taps into a long-standing discourse of aesthetic and moral judgment. 14 Winfried Menninghaus, in his historical exploration of disgust in aesthetics and philosophy, calls it a “maximally negative predicate.” Explaining how disgust transcends matters of mere aesthetic taste, Menninghaus points to “its normative and quasi-moral moment; for disgust apprehends qualities, not simply as givens, but always as something that should not be” (5). Disgust is a reflexive reaction to something so alien, so repulsive, that it cannot be digested or assimilated. The object of disgust poses a threat to bodily integrity, either the individual body or the collective body politic. Menninghaus describes disgust as an instinctive revulsion that can be neither ignored nor postponed. Because it overtakes the subject, it implies “a compulsion to say no, an inability not to say no” (2). When Effi describes her reaction to Innstetten as a feeling of profound disgust, she chooses an apt term that reflects her moral judgment. In this moment of distress, alienated from everyone she loves and despondent over a failed reunion with her daughter, Effi is finally compelled to reject Innstetten’s punishments. She can no longer not say no, at least to herself. Though Innstetten, following the norms of Prussian morality, takes the renunciation of all family bonds as a given, Effi apprehends this punishment as something that should not be. When Fontane’s readers use this same term to convey their own reaction to the fictional figure of Innstetten, it functions as a short-hand formulation for the same sort of moral judgment. The degree to which he seeks to inflict punitive harm on others is repulsive. The readerly rejection of Effi’s punishment goes against the grain of some of the critical expectations regarding punishment and empathy. Vaage, for instance, argues not just that humans typically want to see wrongdoers punished but further that audiences of fictional stories particularly enjoy depictions of punishment, revenge, and vigilante justice. She points to evidence that audiences enjoy a fictional story even more when the punishment inflicted is out of proportion to the misdeed, when it is severe to the point of excess (“On Punishment” 546). According to this view, Fontane’s readers should not cry out alongside Effi when Annie is distant and non-committal; they should not adopt Effi’s language of disgust to describe Innstetten. Instead, they should celebrate this scene in particular, for this is the moment in which he exacts the most severe revenge against his former wife. 162 Brian Tucker Breithaupt speculates that Effi Briest reveals a perverse side of empathy. If the reader empathizes with Effi’s weakness and suffering, then the continued participation in her emotional world requires “die Perpetuierung dieser Schwäche und dieses Leidens” (Kulturen 176). He writes, “der Leser muss die […] Misshandlung der weiblichen Protagonistin wollen, da seine Involviertheit und seine Existenz als Leser davon abhängen” (Kulturen 182). And yet readers reported feeling disgusted by Innstetten’s callous perpetuation of Effi’s suffering. An involuntary reaction, disgust demands an end to an intolerable sensation. The term gets repeatedly invoked in the reception of Effi Briest because the readers who took the time to speak out to Fontane want - like Effi herself - to stop rather than to perpetuate her suffering. These readers are not just taking Effi’s side over Innstetten’s; they are rendering a meta-judgment on the judgment that Innstetten has already rendered within the story, on the punishments that he has exacted. Fontane seems to recognize this point, again in gendered terms, when he responds to the charge of “alten Ekel,” writing, “Männer - und nun gar wenn sie Prinzipien haben - sind immer ‘alte Ekels’” (HA IV/ 4: 491). In other words, those who judge and punish based on principle will always run the risk of being dismissed as creeps, Prinzipienreiter, or worse. 15 Their principled judgments expose them to the second-order judgments of others. To account for how readers interact with the story of Effi Briest and empathize with its protagonist, we thus need a more complex model that moves from a three-person scene to at least four people. In this case, the reader acts as a fourth party who witnesses a three-person scene of empathy and makes judgments about the side-taking decision that plays out there. The primary reaction is revulsion at how Innstetten grinds Effi down under a wrong-headed, myopic insistence on exacting retribution. Taking a broader, gendered view, these principled men come across as revolting because they carry out the “systematic repression of women,” in Edith Krause’s words, as when Effi comes into conflict with “the historical, moral, and psychological codes of her time and her interpreters” (451). Readers cannot take vicarious pleasure in Effi’s comeuppance because it is never clear that such vengeance is warranted. Fontane paints the portrait of this marriage in hues of gray rather than black and white. Even if Innstetten has been wronged, Effi has also been wronged in various ways - by her mother, who pushes her into a marriage for which she is not prepared, and by her husband, who is both inattentive and condescendingly didactic. Effi’s boredom, loneliness, and stifled youthful spirit are mitigating factors that make it possible to view her as a victim as well. 16 Of the novel’s final scene and Luise’s speculation that perhaps Effi was in fact too young to marry, Russell Berman writes, for example, “if Luise were to admit her guilt, then Effi could be vindicated and re- In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 163 deemed” (341). And if the novel blurs the lines between wrongdoers and victims, then it becomes difficult to view Innstetten’s penchant for retribution as just. Flesch calls this tension a fundamental aspect of plot, “the conflict between true and false vindication, that is, the conflict between laudable vindication and … blameworthy vindictiveness” (167). The divergence between Fontane and his readership that becomes apparent in the post-publication correspondence reiterates precisely this conflict. Whereas Fontane casts Innstetten’s vindication, if not exactly as laudable, then at least as justifiable, his readers see it rather as blameworthy vindictiveness. In this sense, the judgment that readers must make with Effi Briest regards two conflicting interpretations of Innstetten’s actions - a question of whether one reads them as prosocial, altruistic punishment (that is, true vindication) or as vindictive spite. What is more, Fontane’s letters add yet another involution to this set of judgments upon judgments. The pattern proceeds as in an infinite regress of Romantic reflection: a fictional character judges another character’s behavior (as good or bad, as forgivable or meriting retribution) and decides what further action to take. Readers must then judge that fictional character’s judgment and behavior as to whether it was justified or misguided. And now the author of those fictional characters, trying to come to terms with his readers’ reactions, renders a third-order judgment on the readers’ judgment (on the character’s judgment of the other character’s behavior), likewise assessing whether it is right or wrong. On his readers’ empathy with Effi and rejection of her punishment, for example, Fontane puts the question to Widmann: “Hängt das mit etwas Schönem im Menschen - und namentlich im Frauenherzen zusammen, oder zeigt es, wie schwach es mit den Moralitäten steht […]” (HA IV/ 4: 506). Rather than render a judgment, however, Fontane concludes the epistolary discussion of Effi Briest with this open question. Norbert Mecklenburg has written perceptively about Fontane’s talents as a dialogic or polyphonic novelist, one who weaves together a variety of voices. 17 Here, too, in his response to a reader response, Fontane manages to capture both the voice of empathy and compassion and the voice of principled morality. Perhaps his readers’ propensity for leniency and empathy indicates widespread moral decadence; then again, maybe it reflects something beautiful in human nature - surely forgiveness and forbearance in the face of transgression can also have prosocial benefits. But in this letter to Widmann, Fontane merely opens the question. He points to an either/ or choice but does not take a side, and this strikes me as an important glimpse into Fontane’s own view of his novel and of narrative judgments more generally. Perhaps his unease over his readers’ rejection of Innstetten emanates not from the bedrock of Prussian virtue and honor but rather from a deep distrust of moral certainty, of the ability to divide the world neatly into categories of right and wrong. Fon- 164 Brian Tucker tane’s novels aim to present a world in which there are numerous competing perspectives but few easy answers, which, it seems to me, helps explain why he is uneasy with the reader response to Effi Briest. Their judgment, empathetic and compassionate though it may be, feels far too adamant, too self-assured, for the murkiness and moral ambivalence of human behavior. When Fontane initially inquired in 1890 about submitting his Effi Briest manuscript to Die Gartenlaube, he expressed to the editor, Adolf Kröner, the hope that “nicht blos Ihre Gerechtigkeit, sondern auch ihre Milde wird zu Gericht sitzen” (Dichter 2: 441). When judgments must be made, Fontane pleads for a perspective that tempers the principled commitment to justice with leniency and indulgence - the same sort of alloyed, conflicted attitude that readers missed in Innstetten and that Fontane missed in his readership’s reception of Effi Briest� Notes 1 In his diary entry summarizing the year 1895, Fontane calls Effi Briest “der erste wirkliche Erfolg, den ich mit einem Romane habe” (GBA XI/ 2: 263). 2 Peter Rabinowitz has defined four audiences of fictional narrative: the actual audience, the authorial audience, the narrative audience, and the ideal narrative audience (Rabinowitz, 126—27 and 134). For present purposes, the key distinction resides between the actual and authorial audiences, that is, between flesh-and-blood readers and the hypothetical audience for whom Fontane believed himself to be writing. 3 For a detailed account of this process, see Breithaupt, “A Three-Person Model of Empathy,” 89, especially the remarks on patterns of side-taking. 4 One might object that Innstetten’s side-taking decision does not, strictly speaking, occur within a three-person scene of empathy: he chooses not between two people but rather between person and principle. It is important to keep in mind, though, that Innstetten will ground his principled decision in the necessity of social cohesion. He decides, that is, to side with the collective group of people and against the individual person. 5 On this point, see Roland Barthes’s canonical essay “The Death of the Author.” The divergence between Fontane and his readers brings to mind several of Barthes’s points. Barthes calls for a new criticism that foregrounds precisely what traditional criticism has heretofore ignored - namely, the reader - and he closes the essay writing, “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (148). In the reception history of Effi Briest, Fontane’s own appraisal of the novel’s moral conundrum gives way to a readerly consensus that sees it quite differently. In Spite of Altruism: Empathy and Disgust in the Reception of Effi Briest 165 6 Rolf Zuberbühler reflects further on Fontane’s sympathy for “the natural,” that is, for human weakness and fallibility, and his aversion to “Tugendmeier,” especially with regard to female characters such as Effi (9). 7 Krohn comments on the vagueness and abstraction in Innstetten’s language, writing that his rationale relies on “semantisch weitgehend leere Konzepte” (160). 8 For Fontane, Widmann is one of the most astute contemporaneous readers of Effi Briest because his review emphasizes those aspects of the novel that the author himself finds essential. Fontane congratulates Widmann for getting two important things right - both Innstetten and the ghost story. Fontane favors critics such as Widmann, “die das betonen, worauf es einem beim Schreiben angekommen ist” (HA IV/ 4: 506). 9 When Effi reaches a breaking point in chapter 33, for instance, she complains bitterly of Innstetten, “Ein Streber war er, weiter nichts. - Ehre, Ehre, Ehre …” (GBA I/ 15: 325). 10 Though Fontane apparently felt compelled post-publication to clarify his ethical position: “Ich bin schon ohnehin gegen todtschießen,” he writes in June of 1895 (HA IV/ 4: 454). 11 Furthermore, Lynne Tatlock points to evidence that women readers constituted the majority of Fontane’s audience (204). If it seems to Fontane that it is mostly women who are reacting strongly to his novel, that could be explained by the fact that it is mostly women who are reading his novel. 12 On the terminological binary of spite and altruism, see Flesch, 62. 13 An October, 1895 letter to Anna Witte also quotes readers referring to Innstetten as “einen ‘alten Ekel’” (HA IV/ 4: 491), a characterization that Fontane repeats a few days later in the letter to Clara Kühnast (HA IV/ 4: 493). 14 In this special issue, Edith Krause employs Julia Kristeva’s concept of “the abject” to pursue similar themes of disgust and revulsion in Fontane’s Schach von Wuthenow. Menninghaus addresses Kristevan abjection in chapter 9 of Disgust� 15 Yanacek notes that, in an early draft of Effi’s embittered monologue in chapter 33, she calls Innstetten “ein Prinzipienreiter,” though the term was not included in the published version (43). 16 On the narrative presentation of boredom, see Tucker, “Performing Boredom in Effi Briest: On the Effects of Narrative Speed.” 17 Mecklenburg continues to explore issues of Vielstimmigkeit in the newly updated book Theodor Fontane: Realismus, Redevielfalt, Ressentiment� 166 Brian Tucker Works Cited Ambrose, Kathryn. The Woman Question in Nineteenth-Century English, German, and Russian Literature: (En)gendering Barriers. Leiden: Brill Rodopi, 2015. Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 142—48. Berman, Russell. “Effi Briest and the End of Realism.” A Companion to German Realism� Ed. Todd Kontje. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2002. 339—64. 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