Im alten Eisen

Im alten Eisen, a short novel (Eine Erzählung) by W. Raabe, written in 1884-6, and published in 1887. Raabe gives it the Latin motto Similia similibus. Set in Berlin, the story occupies four days, from the death of the penniless Erdwine Wermuth on Sunday to her pauper funeral on Wednesday. When Erdwine dies, her two children are left untended through the caution and cowardice of neighbours, and for three days the 13-year-old boy Wolf and his little sister Paula keep watch, unvisited, over the corpse. Wolf has as his sole possession his grandfather's sword. When he perforce pawns it for a handful of coffin-nails, the first step is, by a strange chance, taken. The sword is recognized by two acquaintances from Erdwine's days in Lübeck. They are the former theatre director, Frau Wendeline Cruse, now a general dealer, to whom Wolf brings the sword, and the rolling stone Peter Uhusen. They recruit a third acquaintance to trace the children, Hofrat Dr Albin Brokenkorb, a spoilt darling of fortune and of the ladies, whose nerves are not up to the exhausting task. Eventually the children are found with the help of a fourth character, referred to as the light-of-love Rotkäppchen, who knew Erdwine. Henceforth Wolf and Paula are cared for, though only after harrowing experiences culminating in the hastily arranged interment.

Repeated references to Märchen reinforce the atmosphere of this modern fairy-tale, which shows Berlin grim, grimy, ugly, and unfriendly. Only the three eccentrics Frau Wendeline, Uhusen (who is constantly referred to as der Schmied von Jüterbog), and the mercurial Rotkäppchen measure up to the test; the neighbours, respectable and less respectable, and the sophisticated man of culture, Hofrat Brokenkorb, fail in humanity.