Carsten Curator

Carsten Curator, a Novelle by Th. Storm, first published in Westermanns Monatshefte in 1878. Carsten Carstens runs with his sister Brigitte a small family wool shop. He has won by popular acclaim the honorary title ‘Curator’ for his devoted services as legal adviser and custodian to bereaved families. At the age of 40 he marries a young orphan, Juliane, who is not of local parentage. She dies after giving birth to a son, Heinrich, who grows up as the image of his seductive and light-hearted mother, and causes Carsten's tragic ruin. In a vain bid to save Heinrich, Carsten's young foster-daughter Anna marries him. But soon after he has become the father of a son, Heinrich relapses into his old ways. On a wild night which brings storms and floods, Carsten refuses his son's desperate plea to save him from bankruptcy and hears no more of him. But during that night a man is drowned and only Carsten knows that it was his son. Personal responsibility weighs on Carsten's conscience when he allows Anna to marry his son without telling her the full truth about Heinrich's disreputable past. But the emphasis Storm places on heredity and a deterministic view of life draws attention to the conflicting forces of daemonic sensuality and dedicated spiritual awareness which are symbolized by the two wives, Juliane and Anna. The historical perspective opens with Napoleon's continental blockade which challenges the stability of the small North German shipping and trading community. The estate agent and ‘Stadtunheilsträger’ Jaspers adds an element of the grotesque.