Horacker

Horacker, a short novel written by W. Raabe in the second half of 1875, and published in the following year. Horacker, a youth who has escaped from a reformatory, haunts the woods, and rumour falsely attributes all manner of outrageous crimes to him. On the afternoon of the story he accidentally encounters two schoolmasters and is brought by them, starving and exhausted, to the parsonage of the village of Gansewinckel. There, too, is Lottchen Achterhang, an orphan like Horacker, who is deeply attached to him and has made her way on foot, having heard that he is at large and in trouble. The inflated bubble of Horacker's alleged crimes bursts, and the story ends with the couple asleep in the parsonage with their troubles assuaged. The quality of the book lies not in this simple plot, but in the idyllic atmosphere and in the skilful convergent structure. The whole action takes place in the few hours of a blazing July afternoon and cloudless evening. The dozen or so characters are brought to the Gansewinckel parsonage, including the ripe and genial eccentrics, Konrektor Eckerbusch and his wife Ida, Zeichenlehrer Windwebel, and Staatsanwalt Wedekind. At the centre are the rich characters of parson Winckler and his wife Billa. A dash of vinegar, provided by the pedantic and conceited young schoolmaster Dr Neubauer, tempers the sweetness.