Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 187 Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich John B. Lyon University of Pittsburgh Abstract: In Unwiederbringlich Theodor Fontane represents the connection of “Vorstellung” to power in both personal and national relationships; unstable and false “Vorstellungen” lead to the downfall of both a marriage and a nation. The failure of Holk’s marriage is due to his misguided “Vorstellungen,” and Fontane links this failure in an individual relationship to national affairs, specifically to Denmark’s loss to Prussia in the Second Schleswig War of 1864. The false Prussian ideas about Danish lands and false Danish ideas about themselves manifest as two types of Nordic Orientalism, one that frames Nordic lands as exotic and inferior on the one hand, and one that frames them as progressive and liberal on the other. These Orientalist modes of thinking lead to failed marriages and failed nations. They are geographical transpositions that bind personal relationships to national identity and justify dominance of one person or one nation over another. In transposing a story from Prussia to a territory that was neither national nor wholly transnational, and framing this territory through an Orientalist lens, Fontane’s adultery novel demonstrates how the imagination perpetuates power inequities, whether in failed relationships of national and transnational entities or in irretrievably lost marital bliss. Keywords: Theodor Fontane, Unwiederbringlich, Nordic Orientalism, transnationalism, adultery Nations are built on imagination. According to Benedict Anderson, a nation is not a geographical or ethnic entity as much as it is an “imagined political community” (B. Anderson 15). Edward Said has argued along similar lines that our relationships to national and ethnic others are products of our cultural imagination. An Orientalist perspective tells us less about the groups it targets 188 John B. Lyon and more about the cultural beliefs of those who hold it. As Said writes: “Orientalism responded more to the culture that produced it than to its putative object, which was also produced by the West” (Said 22). Said, drawing on Foucault’s notion of discourse, asserts that Orientalist discourse is an exercise not only of the imagination, but also of the imagination bound to power. He sees “Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient” (Said 3). Said’s study focuses primarily on French and British relationships to the Orient, as these empires had the largest colonial footprint in eighteenthand nineteenth-century Oriental lands. German lands, in contrast, were not united into an empire until 1871 and began to acquire colonies in Africa, China, and the Pacific only in the 1880s, after the Berlin Conference of 1884. As a result, for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Germans experienced colonialism without colonies, through what Susanne Zantop has labeled “colonial fantasies” (1—2). Zantop and Said point to how an Orientalized other and the power of the imagination shape national identity. Theodor Fontane, in his 1891 novel Unwiederbringlich, represents the crucial role of the imagination for both national and transnational endeavors. For example, the protagonist’s brother-in-law asserts that for a nation to endure, it needs more than money and borders, it needs “eine Vorstellung, ein Glauben” (GBA I/ 13: 30). Fontane had witnessed firsthand the politics of national identity in Europe, for he served as a foreign correspondent in London in the 1850s and wrote a number of accounts of his international travel, including Der Schleswig-Holsteinische Krieg im Jahre 1864 (1866). His novel draws on these experiences and represents the connection of “Vorstellung” to power in Danish lands, whether in national or personal relationships. In the novel, unstable and false “Vorstellungen” lead to the downfall of both a marriage and a nation. The plot traces the story of Graf Holk, who temporarily leaves his wife and home in Glücksburg, near Flensburg, to serve at a princess’s court in Copenhagen. While there he becomes infatuated and has a brief adulterous encounter with one of the princess’s ladies in waiting, after which he rushes home to announce his separation from his wife, only to return to Copenhagen to find that his adulterous partner wants nothing more to do with him. After international travels as a bachelor, Holk reconciles with and remarries his former wife, but their happiness cannot overcome his previous deceit, and she commits suicide at the end of the novel. Their previous happiness is irretrievable, as the novel’s title suggests. The failure of Holk’s marriage is due to misguided “Vorstellungen” - he imagines his adulterous relationship as something that it wasn’t, a power relationship where he felt himself superior but ended up powerless. Fontane links this failure in an individual relationship to national affairs and links Denmark’s loss to Prussia in the Second Schleswig War of 1864 to false “Vorstellungen” - to Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 189 false Prussian ideas about Danish lands and false Danish ideas about themselves. These “Vorstellungen” are two types of Nordic Orientalism, one that frames Nordic lands as exotic and inferior on the one hand, and one that frames them as progressive and liberal on the other. These Orientalist modes of thinking lead to failed marriages and failed nations. The novel is set in the duchy of Schleswig, and alternates between Flensburg, Copenhagen, and Castle Frederiksborg, all a few years before the Second Schleswig War (Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg) of 1864. This war was a consequence of the Schleswig-Holstein question that troubled Northern Europe around the middle of the nineteenth century. The duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were officially united by the treaty of Ribe in 1460, but by the nineteenth century the majority of Holstein had aligned itself more with the conservative German Federation, whereas the majority of Schleswig had aligned itself more with the liberalizing tendencies in Denmark. There were, of course, pro-Prussian and pro-Danish factions in each duchy, so there were ongoing tensions between the duchies as well as within them. Although officially part of Denmark, the duchies were in what was called a real union - on the one hand, they shared institutions, yet on the other they were not tied in a personal union under a single monarch. One might view them as a precursor to a transnationalist organization, something that spanned nation states without itself being a nation state. Following the First Schleswig War, the 1852 London Protocol reaffirmed this real union, and Schleswig and Holstein were allowed to remain part of Denmark. But Holstein maintained its connections to the German Federation, and Denmark agreed not to bind Schleswig any closer to Denmark than to Holstein. The Second Schleswig War in 1864 - just a few years after the timeframe in Unwiederbringlich - would undo this protocol and Prussia would take control of both Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. According to Fontane scholars, Graf Holk represents a conservative position in this debate - he wants to maintain the status quo, to keep Schleswig bound to but also somewhat independent of Denmark as a multi-national state. 1 I would modify this understanding, for Holk’s perception of this situation is influenced by Orientalist thinking, a set of “Vorstellungen” bound to the Orient and to Prussian domination of these duchies. His own “Vorstellungen” prove self-deceptive and lead to failure. Just as Holk’s marriage will fail due to his false conceptions, so, too, will Denmark lose its power in Europe, as Schleswig and Holstein will lose their autonomy to Prussia. His outward alignment with Denmark veils Orientalist thinking that ultimately aligns him more closely with Prussia. Orientalism in this novel takes two different forms, and each shapes national identity. The first is Orientalism from a Danish perspective, that is, the Danish relationship to the Orient. The second is Orientalism from a Prussian perspec- 190 John B. Lyon tive, the Prussian relationship to the Danish lands that it has Orientalized. Both view Denmark in relation to Oriental culture, yet only the Prussian form - to which Holk adheres - frames this explicitly in terms of power and dominance. Danish Orientalism sees Oriental cultures less in terms of dominance and superiority and more in terms of possibility and freedom. Danish Orientalism is embodied in the two Cophenhagen amusement parks that the novel mentions, Tivoli and Alhambra. In reflecting on his affair with Ebba, Holk refers to the diversions of Copenhagen (he rejects them, realizing that he wants Ebba most of all): “… so erschrak er, wie sehr ihm alle diese Dinge widerstanden. Alhambra und Tivoli, Harlekin und Colombine, Thorwaldsen-Museum und Klampenborg, alles, die schöne Frau Brigitte mit eingerechnet, hatte gleichmäßig seinen Reiz für ihn verloren …” (GBA I/ 13: 243). This passage references the many engagements with Oriental culture in Copenhagen. The Thorvaldsen museum, for example, includes numerous Egyptian motifs and looks like an Egyptian sarcophagus in places. Both Tivoli Gardens - opened in 1843 by Georg Carstensen and referred to multiple times in the novel - and its competitor, Alhambra - opened in 1857, also by Georg Carstensen after he was removed from the board of Tivoli - were Oriental-themed amusement parks in Copenhagen. Their architecture, establishments, and decorations all pointed to the Orient: “a new concert hall had a vaulted ceiling, towers and a spire decorated with a crescent, and the bazaar had a blue, onion-shaped dome, ten high minarets and lots of Arabic ornaments, the so-called arabesques” (Zerlang, Orientalism 91); and “Oriental architecture was chiefly used for buildings with a light-hearted purpose; often decidedly ‘pleasure’ establishments such as Turkish baths, Turkish cafes, casinos, variety theatres and the like” (Zerlang 92). Music and theater referenced the Orient, as well, and in the late 1870s and 1880s Tivoli began inviting “ethnic caravans” or “folk caravans” to establish small villages of “primitive civilizations” for its patrons to observe (Zerlang 102). The Orient, or more precisely, a specifically Danish conception of the Orient was on full display in Tivoli. And this mentality permeated Danish society. As Elisabeth Oxfeldt writes: “In the 1840s, Denmark’s last absolute monarch enjoyed wearing a fez and dressing in Oriental garbs while, towards the end of the century, the bourgeoisie increasingly turned their living rooms into exotic Oriental caves (klunkehjem) with adjoining smoking room” (11). Danish identity was closely bound to Oriental culture. Clearly, this was an artificially constructed Oriental culture, but Martin Zerlang reads it as a counterpoint to the modern world for the prudish, reserved, and somewhat backward Danes of the late nineteenth century: The Orient became a metaphor of three things: fantasy, freedom and the foreign. The foreign Orient reflected the experience of alienation from the world at home, or even Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 191 alienation within the familiar world which, with its urbanisation and industrialisation, changed character completely. The free Orient mirrored the freedom which, with the liberalism of the nineteenth century, had become the ideological order of the day. And the fantastic Orient mirrored the endless possibilities that opened up with that which was summed up by the word Progress. In the Oriental and therefore foreign Tivoli the Copenhageners, formerly so oppressed and self-repressed, could experiment with modern ways of life within the nevertheless safe walls of Tivoli. (Zerlang, Orientalism 104) The Orient, as represented by Tivoli, Alhambra, the Thorvaldsen museum, and other venues, represented an alternative to modern life, an alternative to the tension between freedom and restriction that characterized the modern world. As such it was notably different from other manifestations of Orientalism in Europe. Because Denmark had lost all of its Asian colonies by 1848, it had no political stake in the Orient. Orientalism for Denmark was less an assertion of one nation’s dominance over another, and more an opportunity to define itself through comparison and contrast. As Zerlang notes, for Denmark “nationalism and Orientalism were two related answers to the ongoing process of modernization” (Zerlang, Danish Orientalism 132). Yet this is not the lens through which Holk views Denmark. Rather than seeing the Danes in a particular relationship to the Orient, he sees Denmark as the Orient itself. The passage cited above refers to Tivoli, Alhambra, and the Thorvaldsen Museum as diversions, distractions that have lost their appeal for Holk and now seem empty. For Holk, and also for his wife Christine, Copenhagen and the island of Seeland stand in for the Orient, and Prussia has an Orientalist, colonialist relationship to them. It considers them as both exotic and dissolute, inferior and in need of a steadying hand. This Prussian Orientalism is a power relationship that will drive Prussia to conquer the duchy of Schleswig within a few short years. The result of Prussian Orientalism is that Denmark acquires a romantic and specifically Oriental-like quality (in Said’s sense) in contrast to Prussia, which Fontane associates, however ironically, with the classical south. This is another manifestation of Fontane’s tendency to reconfigure the map of Europe according to “Vorstellungen.” 2 Here, northern lands serve as both a political and moral other, a land of exoticism and danger for Graf Holk. The implicit message is that these lands need a stronger, more disciplined culture and nation to lead them. This type of Nordic Orientalism justifies dominance and colonialization. At first glance, Holk seems opposed to Prussian dominance. But his tacit adoption of Prussian Orientalism towards Denmark ultimately aligns his thinking with Prussia’s. 192 John B. Lyon The seductive power, exoticism, and supposed danger in the Oriental North are evident in the two female temptresses whom Holk encounters in Copenhagen: Brigitte Hansen, whose beauty purportedly tempted even the King of Siam, and Ebba von Rosenberg, Holk’s eventual adulterous partner, whose Jewish ancestry likewise makes her an exotic object of desire, both tempting and unavailable. As we learn more about the Danish court, we see that it is replete with adultery and extra-marital liaisons. The frequency of adulterous affairs and court intrigues, and the lures of cosmopolitan city life in Copenhagen transform this staid Northern land into an exotic realm. It is as if, for Holk, the North had displaced the East as the Orient. Yet for Holk, and particularly for his wife, Christine, it embodies the degeneracy of the modern world. Early on in the novel, as she and Holk deliberate over his visit to Copenhagen, Christine criticizes the members of the Princess’s court for their lack of self-restraint, and among them she includes “dieser gute Baron Pentz, der, glaub’ ich, das Tivoli-Theater für einen Eckpfeiler der Gesellschaft hält” (GBA I/ 13: 51). For Christine, the Tivoli theater stands for all that is wrong in modern society—it represents a culture that lacks self-control. She characterizes Copenhagen as Oriental, espousing the Prussian Orientalist view of Denmark, for she equates the city with its amusement parks. Although Holk resists Christine’s moralizing tone, his desire to pursue a transgressive relationship reflects a similar view of Copenhagen—as a resource to be controlled—simply without the moral condemnation she offers. Stated otherwise, Holk and his wife Orientalize the Orientalism of Copenhagen. She views it as an inferior other that requires correction and control; he views it as a place of escape and indulgence. These “Vorstellungen” of an Orientalized North as a realm of exoticism and transgression prepare readers for Holk’s trip to Denmark. In Copenhagen he stays at the pension of a Widow Hansen, a house filled with Chinese and Japanese porcelain (GBA I/ 13: 78). Widow Hansen’s husband was a “Chinafahrer” and her son-in-law is, as well (GBA I/ 13: 90). Her daughter, Brigitte, is portrayed as an Oriental temptress; her beauty is so striking that she is said to have tempted the King of Siam. In Chapter eleven, Brigitte’s mother recounts this story to Holk. He invites her to sit down close to him, claiming that he doesn’t hear so well, but she responds: “Ich glaube, Sie hören alles, was Sie hören wollen, und sehen alles, was Sie sehen wollen” (GBA I/ 13: 91). She articulates Holk’s problem in the novel: he lives according to his “Vorsetullung,” not according to reality— he sees only what he wants to. And so we see that he willingly lets himself be deceived. She goes on to tell him about Brigitte’s visit to the King of Siam, where the King finds her so attractive that he put “die schöne german lady” (GBA I/ 13: 95) on display for his court, rewarding her with a string of pearls in the end. Holk is impressed by the story, but remains “in Zweifel, ob er die Geschichte Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 193 glauben oder als eine kühne Phantasieleistung und zugleich als dreistes Spiel mit seiner Leichtgläubigkeit ansehen solle” (GBA I/ 13: 96-97). It is only when he asks about the pearls, which have somehow gone missing, that he begins “klarer zu sehen” (GBA I/ 13: 97). Fontane shows us that Holk’s “Vorstellung” is labile, that he is initially all too willing to believe a story about Brigitte’s exotic adventure in Oriental lands. He exoticizes a land that is not as different as he would make it, reinforcing his notion of her as an exotic, Oriental other. Only when the proof of the story disappears does he question his own gullibility. Stated simply, Holk is a poor judge of reality because he filters it through his “Vorstellung,” here an Orientalist imagination that he projects onto Denmark. He views the cosmopolitanism of Copenhagen—including the Princess’s court—through a similarly exotic, Orientalist lens. In particular, he views one of the Princess’ ladies in waiting, Ebba Rosenberg, as exotic, other, and eastern. Ebba represents not the Asian Orient, however, but the Semitic Orient. She is “eine Rosenberg-Meyer oder richtiger eine Meyer-Rosenberg, Enkeltochter des in der schwedischen Geschichte wohlbekannten Meyer-Rosenberg, Lieblings- und Leibjuden König Gustav’s III” (GBA I/ 13: 114). She combines both Nordic and Semitic worlds—her Jewish/ Swedish grandfather embodies the complex blending of these two worlds. 3 And, like Brigitte, she is associated with transgression and temptation. She tells Holk: “Ebba ist Eva, wie Sie wissen, und bekanntlich gibt es nichts Romantisches ohne den Apfel” (GBA I/ 13: 113). In addition, she tells him that she was born in Paris “und zwar am Tage der Juli-Revolution. Einige sagen, man merke mir’s an” (GBA I/ 13: 114). She is a Semitic, revolutionary temptress for Holk, and she becomes the object of his adulterous affection. Yet he also recognizes that her allures are temporary, for Holk describes her as a fast-burning rocket: “Ebba war eine Rakete, die man, so lange sie stieg, mit einem staunenden ‘ah’ begleitete, dann war’s wieder vorbei, schließlich doch Alles nur Feuerwerk, Alles künstlich” (GBA I/ 13: 159). She is as stunning, artificial, and ephemeral as a firework. And Holk finds all of this appealing. Where his wife would want a “steadying hand” to control such behavior, Holk wants a different kind of control. He wants to possess Ebba. Fontane portrays these women as products of a city that shares similar traits. He associates Copenhagen with sensuality, pleasure, and foreignness, characteristics typically associated with Oriental culture in European thought and the frequent references to Oriental objects and travel strengthen this association. The city’s inhabitants are thus dissolute and lazy. Before Holk leaves for Copenhagen, Christine warns him: “In Kopenhagen ist alles von dieser Welt, alles Genuß und Sinnendienst und Rausch, und das gibt keine Kraft. Die Kraft ist bei denen, die nüchtern sind und sich bezwingen” (GBA I/ 13: 32). She tells him, “Es ist eine Stadt für Schiffskapitäne, die sechs Monate lang umhergeschwommen und nun 194 John B. Lyon beflissen sind, alles Ersparte zu vertun und alles Versäumte nachzuholen. Alles in Kopenhagen ist Taverne, Vergnüngungslokal” (GBA I/ 13: 50). In referencing the ship captains, Christine suggests that Copenhagen’s licentiousness is linked to international trade and to a foreign other. Even in complimenting the Danes in Copenhagen, Christine cannot refrain from criticizing them: Es ist eigentlich ein feines Volk, sehr klug und sehr begabt, und ausgerüstet mit vielen Talenten. Aber so gewiß sie die Tugenden haben, die der Verkehr mit der Welt gibt, so gewiß auch die Schattenseiten davon. Es sind lauter Lebeleute; sie haben sich nie recht quälen und mühen müssen, und das Glück und der Reichtum sind ihnen in den Schoß gefallen. Die Zuchtrute hat gefehlt und das gibt ihnen nun diesen Ton und diesen Hang zum Vergnügen, und der Hof schwimmt nicht nur bloß mit, er schwimmt voran … . (GBA I/ 13: 50—51) For Christine, the court embodies the admixture of virtue and vice that typifies Copenhagen. Both the virtues and the vices are products of “Verkehr mit der Welt”; it is as if the travelling sea captains bring back the vices of the Orient. Clearly, these Orientalist perceptions are Christine’s own perceptions, and the narrator subverts them; they highlight her strictness and inflexibility. Nonetheless, they also cast Copenhagen and its female inhabitants in terms of Orientalism typical of nineteenth-century Prussia and reflect a binary mode of thinking - a country is either European or Oriental - to which Holk also ascribes. It is as if Siam or the Levant had been magically transplanted in Denmark. These geographical distortions reflect the distortions of thought that shape Holk’s understanding of nation and transnationalism. Christine’s invocation of a “Zuchtrute” points to the need for “discipline,” for an outside power to control this degenerate people. And Holk, too, would like to control this Oriental world, not for Christine’s moral aims, but for his own pleasure. This type of Nordic Orientalism in Fontane ultimately reveals less about the nature of the North and Denmark and more about the nature of those who view the North in this Orientalist way. The Nordic Orient is a product of “Vorstellung” and the morally weak protagonist, Holk; it is also a product of the Prussian world that Fontane inhabits, for it indulges in a form of Orientalist thinking by making the other exotic and then viewing that exoticism as both morally inferior and enticing. Such thinking justifies colonialist violence and presages the thinking that leads to Prussian aggression in the Prussian-Danish wars. And it also leads to failed marriages. Unwiederbringlich is a novel of adultery, a popular genre in late nineteenth-century Europe. 4 But it subverts many conventions of this genre. The protagonist is not an adulterous wife, but an adulterous husband. And although the novel implicitly condemns his adulterous act, he receives comparatively Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 195 little comeuppance for it in relation to contemporary adulteresses in literature, who usually die at the end of the novel. Instead, his faithful, deceived wife, Christine, commits suicide in the end, as if she were punished for his adulterous act. In addition, the marriage in crisis in this novel is more mature than others in contemporary adultery novels; Holk and Christine have had three children, experienced the loss of one of them, and established an otherwise happy existence over decades together. This adultery novel represents a fundamental challenge to a seemingly stable marriage and reflects more than the dissatisfaction of a bored young bride. It is not unusual among nineteenth-century adultery novels, however, insofar as it links the marriage relationship to national and international relationships. 5 In these novels, the threat of adultery to the marriage relationship often mirrors a threat to the nation state. Alan Bance asserts this in saying that “The union of Holk and Christne resembles the troubled ‘marriage’ of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein on the eve of the German-Danish war …” (Bance 109). Dieter Lohmeier also links Holk’s and Christine’s marriage to the Schleswig-Holstein question and sees this question “als ein Symptom einer historischen Krise … -einer Krise, in der der liebenswürdig-altmodische Gesamtstaat sich auflöst, um dann durch das nüchternmoderne Preußen endgültig vernichtet zu werden” (Lohmeier 43). And Walter Müller-Seidel acknowledges this link between history and the institution of marriage: “Aber das neunzehnte Jahrhundert ist ein Jahrhundert der Geschichte, deren Vertreter in immer neuen Variationen den Wandel der Dinge erfahren. Da kann auch die Ehe nicht bleiben, was sie war” (Müller-Seidel 386). In this novel, the national and the personal share a common problem in “Vorstellungen,” for “Vorstellungen” are simultaneously the basis and the weak link in both the institution of marriage and the institution of the nation. The novel highlights this by representing Holk’s distorted “Vorstellungen,” both on a personal and a national level. These distortions assume various forms, but I focus here on distortions of geography and space implicit in Orientalism, which are crucial to understanding Holk’s journey of self-deception. In the novel, Fontane’s characters contrast stable or bounded spaces with unstable and unbounded spaces, yet we find these constructions to be products of individual and national self-deception; they rely on false constructions of geography in the service of power. Michael White sees in Fontane’s topographical moves “a conflict between bordered and unbordered spaces” (White, “Hier ist die Grenze” 116), but similarly finds in them an unawareness of the artificiality of this binary construction. Although the novel is based on actual historical events, Fontane transposed these both temporally and geographically. He took a real-life instance of adultery, reconciliation, and suicide in Prussia - the relationship between Karl von 196 John B. Lyon Maltzahn and his wife Caroline von Bilfinger, which also ended in her suicide in 1855—and transposed it both geographically and temporally. The shift from Prussia in the 1840s and 50s to Denmark-controlled Schleswig in the early 1860s - less than half a decade before the Prussian-Danish war - makes the novel resonate with “nordisch Romantisches,” according to Fontane in a Nov 21 1888 letter to Julius Rodenberg (Brinkmann 415). The novel thus traces a transnational journey of the imagination, which Fontane shows to be ultimately a journey of self-deception through geographical distortions. Peter Demetz views these disillusions in terms of personal relationships (166), but it is clear that they also apply to the historical and political context. Geographical transpositions are evident from the novel’s opening paragraphs, which focus on Holk’s house, a pseudo-Greek temple set on a seaside dune in Glücksburg in Schleswig. From the sea it looks something like a classical temple, so that one could speak of “einem neugeborenen ‘Tempel zu Pästum,’” but “Natürlich Alles ironisch” (GBA I/ 13: 5). It has “etwas Südliches,” even though it is decidedly in Northern Europe. This geographical transposition is somewhat ironic, if not an act of self-deception (Holk’s house is indeed built on sand) and it prefigures similar geographical deceptions that follow in the novel. References to southern and middle-eastern lands appear throughout the text; one of the most common is to palm trees. As Christine discusses plans for a new building with Holk, she insists that the interior decorations include “Engel und Palmenzweige” (GBA I/ 13: 15). When Holk encounters a watercolor of these “Palmen,” he states: “Soll man selbst unter diesen nicht ungestraft wandeln dürfen? ” (GBA I/ 13: 20), referencing Goethe’s Die Wahlverwandschaften, where the East and Oriental lands are associated with transgression and punishment. Palm trees and their transgressive associations have moved to Nordic lands. In light of these Orientalist geographic transpositions, it is no surprise to see similar geographic and topographic distortions throughout the novel, distortions that connect the personal to the national. And although the references to Orientalism taper off in the second half of the novel, after Holk leaves Copenhagen, false “Vorstellungen” persist, as does the relationship between “Vorstellungen,” geography, and power, as elucidated by Said. One example is the role of Iceland in the novel. Iceland was a dependency of Denmark during the nineteenth century (according to the Kalmar Union of 1397 and reaffirmed by the 1814 Treaty of Kiel after the Napoleonic wars) and becomes a topic of conversation when the Princess and her entourage, including Holk, travel to Castle Frederiksborg. Here they encounter Dr. Bie, Pastor Schleppegrell’s brother-in-law, who served as a ship’s doctor for fourteen years in Greenland and Iceland. He speaks about Iceland on at least two occasions and these events highlight two different Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 197 ways of seeing the world: one, associated with both Holk and the ruling figures in Copenhagen, that views cultural and geographical differences in terms of power and inequality; and one that views cultural and geographical differences as regional manifestations of human sameness. Dr. Bie criticizes the Copenhageners’ tendency to view Icelanders as backwards, particularly when they have never visited the island. Daß die Isländer unsere Zeitungen um zwölf Monate zu spät lesen, immer gerade die Nummern vom Jahre vorher, das ist alles eine hochmütige Kopenhagener Einbildung; die Isländer schreiben sich ihre Zeitungen selbst, können auch… […] Ach, Königliche Hoheit, ich möchte beinah sagen, es ist überhaupt kein Unterschied zwischen einem Dorf und einer Residenz; überall wohnen Menschen und hassen und lieben sich, und ob eine Sängerin eine Minute lang einen Triller schlägt oder ob ein Fiedler den ‘dappren Landsoldaten’ spielt, das macht keinen großen Unterschied, wenigstens mir nicht. (GBA I/ 13: 210) He criticizes the Copenhageners’ condescension towards Icelanders - their “hochmütige Kopenhagener Einbildung” - asserting that what is newsworthy in Reykjavik need not be newsworthy to the Danes. Dr. Bie would undermine a hierarchical, colonialist discourse of the Danes towards Iceland. Instead he asserts a democratic, equalizing perspective, one that would overlook regional and even class differences. He claims a fundamental sameness of humanity that transcends national and cultural boundaries. We see a similar contrast when Holk speaks to him about Icelandic culture. Holk tells him that he envies Bie’s experiences in Iceland and Greenland, not as a doctor, but for “ethnographic” reasons, because in Iceland one finds foundational documents of the German literary tradition: aber die Isländer sind doch unsre halben Brüder und beten jeden Sonntag für König Friedrich geradeso gut wie wir und vielleicht noch besser. Denn es sind ernste und fromme Männer. [… ] Was wäre … beispielsweise die ganze germanisch-skandinavische Literatur, wenn wir den Snorre Sturleson, diesen Stolz der Isländer, nicht gehabt hätten? Was wäre es mit der Edda und vielem andren? Nichts wär’ es damit. (GBA I/ 13: 224) Holk asks if Dr. Bie has seen evidence of these classics in the daily life of Icelanders. Dr. Bie is bewildered at first, but ultimately responds: “Ja, das weiß eigentlich alles mein Schwager Schleppegrell viel besser, der nicht da war; Personen, die nicht da waren, wissen immer alles am besten” (GBA I/ 13: 225). Dr. Bie then lists a number of differences between Iceland and other countries: their bedlinens are uncomfortable, they aren’t as clean as the English, yet their hospitality is generous and their whiskey is better than anywhere else. 198 John B. Lyon This exchange highlights contrasting approaches towards cultural differences. Holk views Icelandic culture in terms of its value for his ideal of a dominant Germanic culture and its support for the idea of a greater Germanic “Bund” (Icelanders and Danes are united politically -they both pray every Sunday for King Frederick). He views Iceland in terms of high culture and of its relevance to notions of a transnational alliance, where German culture would be seen as its culmination. Yet Dr. Bie emphasizes that this is an outsider’s perspective. His assertion that those who haven’t been there always know better undermines the credibility of Holk’s claims and shows them to be based on imaginations and projections, “Vorstellungen” and “Einbildungen,” rather than on firsthand experience. Although Iceland is not framed in terms of Oriental culture, a similar type of othering and of creating knowledge for the sake of domination is evident in this exchange. Dr. Bie responds by listing elements of material and “low” culture, associating the differences between Iceland and Denmark not with the superiority of one type of people over another nor with political systems, but with the particularities of climate and natural resources. Whereas differences for Dr. Bie are only regional and all people are fundamentally similar, regardless of geography, Holk values people in other lands only in terms of their utility for a dominant Germanic culture. This is intellectual colonialism. In this context, Holk’s ice-skating “expedition” with Ebba - a prefiguration of their adulterous liaison - functions not as a venture into the unknown, but as a colonial expedition, transposed geographically. With the princess’ entourage they approached a partially-frozen lake, but Fontane’s description frames it as an unbounded, borderless space: “Immer näher rückten sie der Gefahr, und jetzt schien es in der Tat, als ob beide, quer über den nur noch wenig hundert Schritte breiten Eisgürtel hinweg, in den offnen See hinauswollten” (GBA I/ 13: 219). Holk grabbed Ebba’s hand and “wies nach Westen zu, weit hinaus, wo die Sonne sich neigte” (GBA I/ 13: 219). The two conversations about Iceland mentioned above frame this event, suggesting that Fontane structures it as a symbolic move towards Iceland, a transgressive move towards a politically subordinate country located in the West. This demonstrates again that geography and direction are less significant for Fontane. Instead, power relations are most significant, so that an inferior, Orientalized land can lie in the North, West, East, or South. Holk’s invitation, “Hier ist die Grenze, Ebba. Wollen wir drüber hinaus? ” (GBA I/ 13: 219), is thus also an attempt at transnational conquest, both personal, of Ebba, and national, whether reasserting Danish dominance over Iceland or Prussian dominance over Schleswig-Holstein. Links between interpersonal relationships and the nation appear frequently throughout the novel. They are products of distortions in “Vorstellungen,” specifically connections between geography, power, and relationships. Such Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 199 connections are described as exceptions throughout the novel, yet their frequency indicates that these exceptions form a rule of their own. This is evident in chapter seventeen, where Holk accompanies the court to a historical exhibition in a museum, a rarity for this country, as the narrator describes: “Denn was es da zu sehen gab, war etwas nie Dagewesenes, eine dänische Nationalausstellung” (GBA I/ 13: 142). The narrator subsequently indicates that the rarity of the exhibition has less to do with the lack of material and more to do with the lack of interest in a Danish nation, daß das ganze Interesse für Admiräle nur Schein und Komödie war und daß die jungen Prinzessinnen immer nur andächtig vor den Bildnissen solcher Personen verweilten, die, gleichviel ob Männer oder Frauen, mit irgendeiner romantisch-mysteriösen Liebesgeschichte verknüpft waren. (GBA I/ 13: 142—43) Just like Oriental fantasies, romantic-mysterious fantasies underlie belief in nation and its representatives. Anne-Bitt Gerecke labels this as a “von Sensationslust und dem Bedürfnis nach effektvoller Drâperie der Gegenwarts-Leere geleitete Rückwärtsgewandtheit” and considers it “symptomatisch für die kollektiven Verdrängungsmechanismen der dänischen Gesellschaft des Jahres 1859 …” (Gerecke 116). The Danish elites are just as guilty as Holk of indulging in false “Vorstellungen.” Where his “Vorstellungen” are spatio-geographical, theirs are temporal-historical. And it is evident that this is not only a critique of the Danes, but also of the Prussians, who, as Juljana Gjata Hjorth Jacobsen points out, have much in common with their neighbors ( Jacobsen 106). Along similar lines, Michael White emphasizes that the distinctions between the Prussians and the Danes are not as clear as one might initially assume—for the supposed binaries on which these “Vorstellung” rely are themselves suspect (White, Space 117). The Princess undermines these binary “Vorstellungen” when she speaks with Countess Schimmelmann about Castle Frederiksborg. The Countess states: “Ebba, denk ich, hat recht, wenn sie von einem guten Schlosse spricht. Unser liebes Frederiksborg ist doch eigentlich nur ein Museum, und ein Museum, denk ich, ist immer das Allerunschuldigste …” (GBA I/ 13: 166). The Princess responds: Ja, das sagt man und ist auch wohl die Regel. Aber es gibt auch Ausnahmen. Altar, Sakristei, Grab und natürlich auch Museum - alles kann entheiligt werden, alles hat seine Sakrilegien erlebt. Und dann bleibt auch immer noch die Frage, was ein Museum alles beherbergt und aufweist. Da gibt es oft wunderliche Dinge, von denen ich nicht sagen möchte, sie seien unschuldig. Oder zum mindesten sind sie trüb und traurig genug. (GBA I/ 13: 166—67) The Princess undermines the binaries of sacred/ profane and innocent/ tainted. Whether in an older religious context or in the emerging field of museum 200 John B. Lyon science, “sacrilege” is always possible. Objects on display in a museum are not innocent simply due to their context within a museum, as the earlier Nationalausstellung demonstrated. Essentially, the Princess accuses Countess Schimmelmann of self-deception, of failing to recognize the flaws in her own “Vorstellungen.” Another example appears as Holk writes to his wife’s friend, Julie von Dobschütz. He recounts a discussion about the Danish literary historian, Svend Grundtvig, a nineteenth-century champion of Danish literature. The Princess comments about Grundtvig: Grundtvig ist ein bedeutender Mann und so recht angetan, ein Dänenstolz zu sein. Aber einen Fehler hat er doch, er muß immer etwas Apartes haben und sich von dem Rest der Menschheit, auch selbst der dänischen, unterscheiden, und wiewohl ihm nachgesagt wird, er stelle Dänemark so hoch, daß er ganz ernsthaft glaube, der liebe Gott spräche dänisch, so bin ich doch sicher, daß er von dem Tag an, wo dies allgemein feststände, mit allem Nachdruck behaupten und beweisen würde: der liebe Gott spräche preußisch. (GBA I/ 13: 201) According to the Princess, Grundtvig’s interest in a Danish national literature arises less from a genuine interest in the Danish nation and more from a desire to be an exception, “etwas Apartes.” She maintains that, should Danish national literature gain international recognition, Grundtvig would most likely champion Prussian language and literature, simply to be different. Stated otherwise, his relationship to Danish national identity arises from a position of inferiority, from a lack of international recognition and power. He is most invested in this power relationship and less in a specific national identity. Again and again, Fontane connects these exceptions to “Vorstellungen,” to constellations of personal and national power within relationships. One more example underscores this. At Castle Fredercksborg, Holk and the Princess’ entourage encounter a large stone with an engraving in its hollow, with the carved words: “Christian IV. 1628.” Holk assumes “daß es mutmaßlich ein bevorzugter Sitz- und Ruheplatz des Königs gewesen sei,” and Schleppegrell responds: “Ja, so war es; es war ein Ruheplatz. Aber nicht ein regelmäßiger, sondern nur ein einmaliger. Und es knüpft sich auch eine kleine Geschichte daran …” (GBA I/ 13: 190). Holk views the stone through the lens of power: it was constructed by Christian IV and so must have been a preferred resting place for the king. Yet Schleppegrell qualifies this; although it was a resting place, it was an exceptional one, not a regular one. And this leads to subsequent narration, where Schleppegrell shares two narratives about the stone, one that reaffirms Christian IV’s power through its continuity and stability, and another that subverts it through exception and disruption. Essentially, Schleppegrell undermines Holk’s false Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 201 “Vorstellungen” about the monument and shows them to be grounded in preconceptions of both royal and patriarchal power. Ultimately, the stone marks not the King’s power, but his powerlessness. Schleppegrell first shares a narrative explaining that “es sei der Stein, wo Christian IV., als er, nach seinem Regierungsantritt, den großen Umbau des Schlosses zu leiten begann, gleich am ersten Samstage die Arbeiter um sich versammelt und ihnen allerpersönlichst den Wochenlohn ausgezahlt habe” (GBA I/ 13: 193). This narrative asserts the king’s power - political (after his “Regierungsantritt”), constructive (“Umbau des Schlosses”), and financial (it marks payment of the workers). It aligns with a “Vorstellung” of stable monarchical authority. Yet Ebba and the Princess push back against this narrative, compelling Schleppegrell to relate a second version of the story, which, it turns out, is “more correct”: … es gibt noch eine zweite Lesart, von der es allerdings heißt, daß sie die richtigere sei. Der König ging mit Christine Munk, die seine Gemahlin war und auch wieder nicht war, etwas, das in unsrer Geschichte leider mehrfach vorkommt, im Schloßgarten spazieren, … und als sie bis an diesen Stein gekommen waren, setzten sie sich, um eine Plauderei zu haben. Und der König war so gnädig und liebenswürdig wie nie zuvor. Aber Christine Munk, aus Gründen, die bis diesen Augenblick niemand weiß oder auch nur ahnen kann (oder vielleicht auch hatte sie keine), schwieg in einem fort und sah so sauertöpfisch und griesgrämig drein, daß es eine große Verlegenheit gab. Und was das Schlimmste von der Sache war, diese Verstimmung Christinens hatte Dauer und war noch nicht vorüber, als der Abend herankam und der König in das Schlafgemach wollte. Da fand er die Tür verriegelt und verschlossen und mußte seine Ruh an einer andern Stelle nehmen. Und da solches dem Könige vordem nie widerfahren war, weil Christine nicht nur zu den bestgelaunten, sondern auch zu den allerzärtlichsten Frauen gehörte, so beschloß der König diesen merkwürdigen Ausnahmetag zu verewigen und ließ Namen und Jahreszahl in den Stein einmeißeln, wo der rätselvolle eheliche Zwist seinen Anfang genommen hatte. (GBA I/ 13: 194—95) Schleppegrell’s narrative stance is noteworthy here: while conceding that this may be the more correct version of the story, he takes pains to emphasize the correctness of the king’s actions (“war so gnädig und liebenswürdig wie nie zuvor”) and the incomprehensibility of Christine Munk’s actions (“aus Gründen, die … niemand weiß oder auch nur ahnen kann”). Clearly, his narrative stance favors monarchical and patriarchal power. Yet the narrative itself undermines both. Rather than asserting the security and solidity of the king’s rest, as embodied in the stone, it describes the king’s uncertainty and inability to address Christine Munk’s temporary rejection of 202 John B. Lyon him. The stone marks an “Ausnahmetag” that questions and destabilizes the king’s monarchical and masculine power. The story undermines Schleppegrell’s and Holk’s understanding of male monarchical power and demonstrates that power in political and personal relationships is bound to “Vorstellungen” that do not rest on a solid foundation. The large stone monument thus marks not certainty and stability, but the uncertainty of both political and personal “Vorstellungen,” where a woman threatens a man’s authority. These repeated “Ausnahmen” expose flaws in the “Vorstellungen” of those in power, whether in national or personal relationships. In light of these many examples, it is no surprise then that Holk draws on flawed “Vorstellungen” to justify his liaison with Ebba. The narrator offers the reader insight into Holk’s flawed thinking in chapter twenty-eight, where Holk solidifies his plan to leave Christine and marry Ebba: In einem Kreise drehten sich all’ seine Vorstellungen, und das Ziel blieb dasselbe: Beschwichtigung einer inneren Stimme, die nicht schweigen wollte. Denn während er sich alles bewiesen zu haben glaubte, war er doch im letzten Winkel seines Herzens von der Nichtstichhaltigkeit seiner Beweise durchdrungen, und wenn er sich außerhalb seiner selbst hätte stellen und seinem eigenen Gespräche zuhören können, so würde er bemerkt haben, daß er in allem, was er sich vorredete, zwei Worte geflissentlich vermied: Gott und Himmel. Er rief beide nicht an, weil er unklar, aber doch ganz bestimmt herausfühlte, daß er im Dienst einer schlechten Sache focht und nicht wagen dürfe, den Namen seines Gottes mißbräuchlich ins Spiel zu ziehen. Ja, das alles würde er gesehen haben, wenn er sich wie ein Draußenstehender hätte beobachten können; aber das war ihm nicht gegeben, und so schwamm er denn im Strome falscher Beweisführungen dahin, Träumen nachhängend und sein Gewissen einlullend, und schrieb sich ein gutes Zeugnis nach dem anderen. (GBA I/ 13: 240—41) The narrator frames Holk’s false “Vorstellungen” in terms of self-deception. His “Vorstellungen” turn in circles because he wants to quiet an inner voice that troubles him. He refuses to invoke absolute arbiters of truth - God and heaven - because he senses that he is in the wrong. The narrator attributes this to Holk’s incapability of self-reflection - he cannot stand outside himself and reflect on his own actions and thoughts. The narrator’s final image in this passage—that Holk writes himself one good attestation or certificate after the other—is significant, for it transposes these false “Vorstellungen” from the language of personal action to a more formal, institutional register. “Zeugnis” refers metaphorically to thoughts and feelings, but it also carries a more official, institutional connotation with it—it is a testament, an official or legal certificate. Here we see, in nuce, the transition point between false “Vorstellungen” on an individual and those on an institutional level. Although the narrator does not explicitly name Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 203 the nation, we see a linkage between the personal and more abstract institutions such as the nation with the term, “Zeugnisse.” Holk does not recognize his false “Vorstellungen” until after he proposes marriage to Ebba and she exposes his false thinking to him. She tells him: “Sie wollen Hofmann und Lebemann sein und sind weder das eine noch das andere. Sie sind ein Halber und versündigen sich nach beiden Seiten hin gegen das Einmaleins, das nun mal jede Sache hat und nun gar die Sache, die uns hier beschäftigt” (GBA I/ 13: 266). Just as Holk wants to sustain both Schleswig and Holstein in their current political configuration, so he also wants to be both a courtier and a bon vivant, when, as Ebba points out, nature has given him the material to be a good husband instead. He is, per Walter Müller-Seidel, the “Typus des halben Helden” (Müller-Seidel 382) - he does not fully inhabit who he is. Ebba states: “… wer das tut und … feierlich auf seinem Schein besteht, als ob es ein Trauschein wäre, der ist kein Held der Liebe, der ist bloß ihr Don Quixote” (GBA I/ 13: 266). Holk’s “Vorstellungen” are quixotic, divorced from reality. He wants to insist that his illusion is certifiably real, when everyone else recognizes it as an illusion. And with the phrase, “auf seinem Schein besteht, als ob es ein Trauschein wäre,” Ebba emphasizes the deceptive slippage between individual thought and institutional relations. Holk wants to give false appearances (“Schein”) institutional reality (“Trauschein”). In this context, we see that Holk’s imaginations are but one manifestation of false “Vorstellungen,” failed fantasies that plague his relationships and marriage. The re-marriage of Holk and Christine at the end highlights the two meanings of “Trauschein” here - they have an official certificate of marriage, but in reality, only the appearance of marriage, as her suicide proves. These failed fantasies are bound not only to marriage and relationships, but to the national and international politics that serve as the historical context for this novel. These false “Vorstellungen” are frequently geographical transpositions that would bind personal relationships to national identity. But they are also bound to power inequities that justify dominance of one person or one nation over another. In transposing a story from Prussia to a disputed territory, a territory that was neither national nor wholly transnational, and then framing this territory through an Orientalist lens, Fontane’s adultery novel demonstrates how the imagination perpetuates power inequities, whether in failed relationships of national and transnational entities or in irretrievably lost marital bliss. 204 John B. Lyon Notes 1 Sven-Aage Jørgensen asserts that Holk is for the older, multinational state and against the German and Danish nationalists, against the modern nation state that will soon annex Schleswig-Holstein (40). Paul Irving Anderson reads the seduction of Holk as an effort to win both him and his homeland “für einen pan-skandinavischen Staat” (P. Anderson 200). 2 See my “Disjunctive Transnationalisms in Fontane’s Frau Jenny Treibel” for another example of this practice. 3 See Oxfeldt for a more detailed discussion of the complex role that Jews played in Danish Orientalism: “On the one hand, Danes went on defining themselves in relation to an imaginary Orient while, on the other, they increasingly defined themselves in opposition to the domestic Jewish Oriental” (56). See Fleischer for a more detailed discussion of Fontane and the Jewish question, particularly pp. 250—52 for a discussion of Jewishness in Unwiederbringlich: “So wird im Roman auch die Jüdin Ebba Rosenberg zum Verhängnis für den biederen Holk, der im leichtlebigen Kopenhagen der ebenso verführerischen wie oberflächlichen Hofdame zum Opfer fällt” (252). Norbert Mecklenburg finds such antisemitism typical for Fontane’s time, such that Jewishness is perceived even in daily speech: “Juden sind eben Orientalen und neigen also dazu, blumig zu reden, und auch sonst zu geschmacklosem Prunk” (57). Thanks to Brian Tucker for this reference. 4 For introductions to this genre and its relationship to Europe see Tony Tanner’s Adultery in the Novel, Bill Overton’s The Novel of Female Adultery, and Wolfgang Matz’s Die Kunst des Ehebruchs. See also Peter Pfeiffer’s article in this volume. 5 See Tatiana Kuzmic’s Adulterous Nations for more examples. Works Cited Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1983. Anderson, Paul Irving. Ehrgeiz und Trauer. Fontanes offiziöse Agitation 1859 und ihre Wiederkehr in Unwiederbringlich. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 2002. Bance, Alan. Theodor Fontane: The Major Novels. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1982. Brinkmann, Richard with Waltraud Wiethölter, eds. Fontane, Theodor. Teil II. Vol 12/ II of Dichter über ihre Dichtungen. Ed. Rudolf Hirsch and Werner Vortriede. Munich: Heimeran, 1973. Demetz, Peter. Formen des Realismus: Theodor Fontane. München: Carl Hanser, 1964. Fleischer, Michael. “Kommen Sie, Cohn.” Fontane und die “Judenfrage.” Berlin: M. Fleischer, 1998. Nordic Orientalism: Imagination and Power in Unwiederbringlich 205 Fontane, Theodor. Große Brandenburger Ausgabe. (GBA) Ed. Gotthard Erler et al. Berlin: Aufbau, 1994 ff. Gerecke, Anne-Bitt. “Theodor Fontanes Unwiederbringlich: Das Ende des historischen Romans? ” Kunstautonomie und literarischer Markt. Konstellationen des Poetischen Realismus. Eds. Heinrich Detering and Gerd Eversberg. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2003. 111—122. Jacobsen, Juljana Gjata Hjorth. “Schleswig-Holstein Meerumschlungen and the Call for Nationalism: National Identity Under Construction on the German and Danish Border in Selected Works by Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, and Herman Bang.” Diss. Rutgers University, 2012. Jørgensen, Sven-Aage. “Dekadenz oder Fortschritt: Zum Dänemarkbild in Fontanes Roman Unwiederbringlich.” Text & Kontext 2.2 (1974): 28—49. Kuzmic, Tatiana. Adulterous Nations: Family Politics and National Anxiety in the European Novel. Evanston, IL: Northwestern, 2016. Lohmeier, Dieter. “Vor dem Niedergang. Danemark in Fontanes Roman Unwiederbringlich.” Skandinavistik 2.l (1972): 27—53. Lyon, John B. “Disjunctive Transnationalisms in Fontane’s Frau Jenny Treibel.” Fontane in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. John B. Lyon and Brian Tucker. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2019. 103—20. Matz, Wolfgang. Die Kunst des Ehebruchs: Anna, Effi und ihre Männer. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014. Mecklenburg, Norbert. Theodor Fontane: Realismus, Redevielfalt, Ressentiment. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2018. Müller-Seidel, Walter. Soziale Romankunst in Deutschland. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1980� Overton, Bill. 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