Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. IMMENSEE BY THEODOR W. STORM TRANSLATED BY C. W. BELL M. A. PREFACE We are at the beginning of a new era which will, it is to be hoped, be marked by a general _rapprochement_ between the nations. The need to know and understand one another is being felt more and more. It follows that the study of foreign languages will assume an ever-increasing importance; indeed, so far as language, literature, and music are concerned, one may safely assert that _fas est et ab hoste doceri_. All those who wish to make acquaintance with the speech of their neighbours, or who have allowed their former knowledge to grow rusty, will welcome this edition, which will enable them, independently of bulky dictionaries, to devote to language study the moments of leisure which offer themselves in the course of the day. The texts have been selected from the double point of view of their literary worth and of the usefulness of their vocabulary; in the translations, also, the endeavour has been to unite qualities of style with strict fidelity to the original. INTRODUCTION Theodor W. Storm, poet and short-story writer (1817-1888), was born in Schleswig. He was called to the Bar in his native town, Husum, in 1842, but had his licence to practise cancelled in 1853 for 'Germanophilism,' and had to remove to Germany. It was only in 1864 that he was able to return to Husum, where in 1874 he became a judge of the Court of Appeals. As early as 1843 he had made himself known as a lyrical poet of the Romantic School, but it was as a short-story writer that he first took a prominent place in literature, making a most happy _début_ with the story entitled _Immensee_. There followed a long series of tales, rich in fancy and in humour, although their inspiration is generally derived from the humble town and country life which formed his immediate environment; but he wrote nothing that excels, in depth and tenderness of feeling, the charming story of _Immensee_; and taking his work all in all, Storm still ranks to-day as a master of the short story in German literature, rich though it is in this form of prose-fiction. IMMENSEE THE OLD MAN One afternoon in the late autumn a well-dressed old man was walking slowly down the street. He appeared to be returning home from a walk, for his buckle-shoes, which followed a fashion long since out of date, were covered with dust. Under his arm he carried a long, gold-headed cane; his dark eyes, in which the whole of his long-lost youth seemed to have centred, and which contrasted strangely with his snow-white hair, gazed calmly on the sights around him or peered into the town below as it lay before him, bathed in the haze of sunset. He appeared to be almost a stranger, for of the passers-by only a few greeted him, although many a one involuntarily was compelled to gaze into those grave eyes.