SOURCE: "How It Seems and How It Is: Marriage in Three Stories by Siegfried Lenz," in Orbis Litterarum, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, 1974, pp. 170-79.

[In this essay, Elstun analyzes the discrepancy between appearance and reality in three Lenz stories: "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe, " "Der längere Arm, " and "Der sechste Geburtstag."]

In the afterword to Siegfried Lenz's Gesammelte Erzählungen Colin Russ speaks of a "moment of truth" in these stories, "den Augenblick, in dem ein Mensch preisgegeben und auf die Probe gestellt wird." A reading of the Erzählungen confirms his observation and reveals this additional fact: in a striking number of the stories the "moment of truth" concerns the deterioration of a male-female relationship, and the woman's role is a decisive one. My purpose here is to analyze three of these "moments of truth"—in "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe" (1952), "Der längere Arm" (1959) and "Der sechste Geburtstag" (1964)—giving particular attention to the female characters and the roles they play.

The external action of "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe" consists of the observations and experiences of a student during a baby-sitting assignment in the home of a wealthy industrialist. At the same time, and much more importantly, the external action serves as a means of treating the real subject, which is a household whose members give the lie to the story's title: everything the student/narrator observes and experiences in the brief course of the evening reveals devastating discrepancies between appearance and reality, between the industrialist's protestation of his own and his wife's familial love and the actual state of affairs (the alcoholic old father—an obvious embarrassment to the couple—is locked away in an upstairs room and the wife has a lover).

The exposure of these discrepancies begins in the opening sentences of the story, where the description of the house is at striking odds with the title: "Es war ein neues, stroh-gedecktes Haus, die kleinen Fenster zur Strassenseite hin waren vergittert, sie sahen feindselig aus wie Schießscharten, und keins der Fenster war erleuchtet."

Lenz uses the same effective juxtaposition of appearance and reality in his masterful characterization of the industrialist's wife. Before she herself appears, her husband remarks to the student: "Es fällt uns so schwer, dass ich schon absagen wollte. Wir bringen es nicht übers Herz, die Kinder abends allein zu lassen . . . Wir leben nur für unsere Kinder, wir kennen nichts anderes, meiner Frau geht es genauso." Just as the description of the house belies the title, these remarks create a deliberately false impression of the wife that is contradicted by her actual character, as subsequently revealed.

Milly is a superb example of Lenz's skill at characterization; with remarkable economy of language and style he has achieved a character sketch of her that is both vivid and complete. Through his sure but minimal strokes of the pen, Milly emerges as a hard, sensual, dishonest young woman who accepts the status and material security of marriage to a wealthy industrialist while holding him in contempt. Lenz conveys none of this through detailed description or exposition. Milly's character is instead revealed by brief but telling allusions to her walk, features, gestures and dress. Her vocation is itself a symbol of the hollowness and falsity of her marriage: she is an actress. Her hardness is suggested by repeated references to her footsteps, each time described as "hart und schurfend" her physical appearance ("blond und schmalstirnig und sehr jung") and especially her mouth ("breit" and "übergeschminkt") suggest her sensuality. The only jewelry she wears is a cross, but it is thin and black. A single gesture symbolizes her silent contempt for her husband: "Die sehr junge Frau drehte ihm den kräftigen Rücken zu . . ." These are the student/narrator's and the reader's impressions of Milly; her lover's subsequent telephone call does not greatly surprise us, but merely confirms already existing impressions.

Can one properly speak of a "moment of truth" in "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe"? Russ contends: "Es zieht sich aber durch alle Variationen hindurch—und mit oder ohne Ich-Erzähler—der rote Faden des 'Falls', der unvermittelt eintretenden, verhängnisvollen—aber möglicherweise auch komischen—Entwicklung, die einen Menschen um sein Ansehen, sein Glück, sein Selbstgefühl, ja sogar um sein Leben bringen kann. Diese Entwicklung kann die dargestellte Handlung krönen . . . oder aber sie lauert in einer unabwendbaren Zukunft, welcher die Charaktere hilflos entgegensehen . . ." If this applies to "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe," then only in a limited sense. The story does not present an overt crisis that disrupts the lives of the characters; instead, it shows the effects of a hollow relationship whose disintegration obviously began long before, if indeed a true relationship ever existed at all. Neither does the story indicate a future development that will force the industrialist and his wife to confront the truth of their lives. If anything, the story's ending suggests that the future will be the same as the present, a continuation of the role-playing and self-delusion that have been revealed as the reality of life in this household. To the factory owner's question, "Sie waren doch alle brav, meine Lieben?" the student/narrator, now fully aware of the realities of the situation, replies: "Ja, sie waren alle brav." Like Lenz himself, the narrator remains "der gelassene Mitwisser," presenting the characters and their situation without comment, let alone intervention.

In this story, then, there is a "moment of truth" only for the student/narrator and the reader. The characters are exposed and unmasked, but not to each other. Within the framework of the story they continue to preserve appearance and illusion, albeit for different reasons: the industrialist, one suspects, because he is too weak to face the truth, his wife for selfish reasons of her own.

In "Der längere Arm," by contrast, the characters are unmasked to each other as well as to the reader. This tightly-compressed story relates in little more than eight pages a fateful "moment of truth" between a husband and wife. Their argument, which exposes the husband as a shabby and ineffectual blackmailer, represents the final step in the disintegration of their relationship. The argument has just begun as the story opens: "'Immer, wenn du Pech hast,' sagte Ruth Eisler gereizt, 'denkst du gleich an diesen alten Godepiel. Du glaubst wohl, er habe nichts anderes zu tun, als für dein Pech zu sorgen.' 'Er hat nichts anderes zu tun,' sagte Eisler, 'oder doch nichts Besseres.'" This preliminary "exchange of shots" lays the groundwork for the verbal duel that ensues, mounting in intensity and in the awfulness of its disclosures until it shatters their lives.

The expository passage that follows serves several functions simultaneously. It first sets the scene, an "Alltagsszene" of a husband and wife at the breakfast table. This deliberately deceptive use of the familiar and commonplace is a very effective means of heightening the reader's sense of shock at the revelations which follow; the crisis, or more exactly, its impact upon the reader, is all the more profound because of the ordinariness of the setting. On the symbolic level this descriptive passage provides a kind of "Vorausdeutung" of the Eislers' confrontation, beginning as it does with the words, "Sie sass ihm gegenüber . . . " Finally, this passage gives us Lenz's initial characterization of the wife, and though other details are added later, the character sketch is essentially complete at this early point in the story.

Like Milly, Ruth Eisler is young and blond, but the similarity ends there. Ruth is a tired housewife, and her husband is clearly the source of her weariness and dissatisfaction. Again, Lenz conveys almost none of this by direct and detailed description of Ruth herself; the impressions are instead evoked by references to her reactions as she watches her husband eat. She looks at him with an expression of "müder Missbilligung." Her hands lie folded on the table, a gesture that suggests her effort at restraint and self-control. She glances at the crumbs and eggshells around her husband's plate "mit unhörbarem Seufzen . . . als kalkulierte sie bereits das Mass an Arbeit, das er ihr heute hinterlassen würde." A later passage tells us that "in den letzten beiden Jahren ihrer Ehe hatte sie damit angefangen, ihn bei seinem Nachnamen zu nennen"—a clear sign of Ruth's contempt for her husband, but also an indication of how long she has lived with the situation in a posture of weary resignation. It is likewise clear that she no longer exerts the effort to hide her feelings from Eisler: "Unsicher blickte er auf sie hinab; er hasste es, sie vorwurfsvoll zurückzulassen, wenn er fortging, aber diesmal wusste er, dass er lange brauchen würde, um ihre müde Missbilligung, diese träge Verachtung, die sie für ihn zu empfinden schien, aus der Welt zu schaffen."

Though the Eisler's marriage had begun to deteriorate before the affair with the insurance executive, Godepiel, it is Eisler's obsession to get even with him that brings Ruth to the point of no return. For months she has listened to Eisler's threats and promises ("Ich werde es schon machen, Ruth . . . Und eines Tages werde ich Godepiel alles zurückzahlen"); by now his cliché-ridden litany has become intolerable: "Sie blickte sich schnell um, als ob sie etwas suchte, womit sie sich beschäftigen könnte, nur um ihm nicht zuhören zu müssen; doch ehe sie sich erhob, begann es wieder, setzte ein wie eine Grammophonnadel, die mehrere Rillen der Platte übersprungen hat, so dass sie, einem stärkeren Zwang nachgebend, sitzen blieb." Hearing it all again, Ruth is driven to abandon her posture of resigned endurance; she precipitates the final crisis in their relationship by baring the facts and confronting Eisler with the truth and her awareness of it. By the time she has finished, he is stripped of whatever "Selbstgefühl" he possessed, and the damage to their relationship is clearly irreparable: "[er] sah sie hasserfüllt an, mit dem verblüfften Hass eines Mannes, der sich von seiner Frau durchschaut fühlt." These lines confirm the accuracy of Ruth's assessment of her husband and their present situation, and at the same time suggest that their relationship will never be the same again. If the reader has any doubts about this, they are dispelled by the closing passage of the story: "Er hockte unbeweglich da, schob dann tastend seine Hand zu ihr hinüber und fragte, indem er in die Tasse blickte: 'Was soll denn werden, Ruth?'" Her rejection of his proffered hand symbolizes her final rejection of him.

Having been exposed as a shabby profiteer and would-be blackmailer, Eisler obviously does not command the reader's respect at this point. The closing lines of the story raise the question of whether Ruth is any more deserving of the reader's esteem than her husband. Eisler says: "O Gott, was soll ich denn tun, Ruth?" Having reduced him to this state of shame, helplessness and defeat, she replies, "Trink deinen Kaffee aus, ich kann ihn nicht wegschütten." Her words betray a complete lack of compassion, a terrible indifference to the devastating effect her disclosures have had upon him. Eisler has unquestionably caused her to suffer, but her face now bears an expression of triumph. She has (literally and otherwise) had the last word, and in this sense the title of the story refers even more to her than to Godepiel. Ruth's answer also re-focuses attention upon the everyday setting of the story; in this sense her words are a final confirmation of the fact that there is nothing left between her and Eisler except the routine motions and superficial activities of everyday life.

Like the other two stories discussed here, "Der sechste Geburtstag" begins with a disarmingly familiar "Alltagsszene": a husband saying goodbye to his wife as he leaves for the office. The reader quickly learns, however, that the life of this family is far from ordinary, despite the parents' efforts to preserve the appearance of normalcy.

The external action of the story consists of the preparations for and the celebration of the sixth birthday of the couple's son—on an arbitrarily selected date, because he is dying of leukemia and will not live to see his real birthday. Again, however, the external action serves as a framework for the author's treatment of a deeper subject: the effects of this personal tragedy upon the family, and especially upon the relationship of the parents.

Lenz's characterization of the wife in "Der sechste Geburtstag" is both less and more than his sketches of Milly ("Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe") and Ruth Eisler ("Der längere Arm"). We do not know what this woman looks like; Lenz does not even tell us her name. In this instance, instead of using outward appearance or other external elements to create impressions of character, Lenz has the wife "characterize" herself, by making her the first-person narrator of the story. This use of the first person is familiar to the modern reader as a highly effective means of transmitting the inner state of a character in the most direct and immediate way. It also establishes the point of view that prevails throughout the story: we accompany the wife as she shops for the birthday party, we suffer with her as she struggles to keep her promise to her husband, Alfred, not to drink on this day, we observe the artificial birthday celebration through her anxious eyes, and we experience her ultimate failure, the breaking of her promise, from her point of view.

For this woman, the sixth birthday is one long day of trial, a "moment of truth" expanded to excruciating proportions.

Her suffering becomes apparent very early in the story, when she boards a crowded streetcar to go shopping: "Meine Knöchel schwollen, meine Lippen brannten . . . Ich sah auf meine Hand hinab, sah, dass sie zitterte, und wusste, warum ich dieser Fahrt so wenig gewachsen war; mit einem einzigen Schluck hätte ich sie leichter ertragen."

In the department store the enormity of her task—selecting birthday gifts for a boy who will soon be dead—overwhelms the reader as it does her. Her mental images of the birthday toys several months hence, standing ownerless in Richard's room or stored in the attic, render her incapable of making a selection and her need for a drink becomes acute: "Ich wusste, unter welchen Umständen mir ein Kauf leichter gefallen wäre. Die Schwäche kehrte wieder, eine kleine unbestimmte Übelkeit. Meine Haut sträubte sich gegen etwas oder verlangte etwas. Ich spürte ein wohlvertrautes Schwindelgefühl."

Every other preparation for the birthday party, to say nothing of the celebration itself, constitutes a similar trial for this woman, but she keeps her promise until Richard's sister, in a fit of childish anger and disappointment, reveals to him that today is not his birthday at all: "Ich ging nicht zu ihnen [den Kindern] hinein, wartete auch nicht auf Richards Antwort, die Übelkeit wurde so gross, dass ich ins Badezimmer ging, nicht einmal abschloss, sondern einfach nur einen Schluck nahm und die Flasche sofort wieder wegstellte und auf den Korridor trat . . ." Here again Lenz has fostered a false impression in the reader, in order to heighten the impact of the woman's ultimate failure: as the story progresses and she manages to pass each test despite intense mental and physical suffering, we begin to think that she will have the strength to survive this day after all. Her failure is then all the more crushing for the fact that it comes when the day is nearly over.

Having accompanied this woman throughout the day, the reader feels only compassion for her as she fails the final test. Her husband feels no such compassion; the last sentence of the story leaves no doubt that her failure signals the end of any genuine relationship between them: "Ich wischte mir die Lippen ab, zündete eine Zigarette an, als Alfred lächelnd aus der Küche kam, auf Zehenspitzen zu mir, dann etwas flüstern wollte und es nicht tat, sondern einfach an mir vorbeiging, als hätte er mich gar nicht dort stehen sehen." Thus, as in "Der längere Arm," the closing passage of the story presents the final breakdown of the relationship between husband and wife. It is precipitated by the wife's failure to keep her promise, but the encounter presented in the closing passage suddenly becomes a "moment of truth" for the husband as well. It is now he who is put to the test, and he does not pass it. Instead, his lack of compassion and understanding constitutes a failure that parallels his wife's.

It is apparent that the three stories discussed here share some important similarities. Indeed in many respects they are variations on a single theme. Stated in general terms, the underlying theme of all three stories is the glaring discrepancy between appearance and reality: in "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe" we find the appearance of familial love and the reality of marital infidelity and cruel treatment of an aging father; in "Der längere Arm" the husband appears to be a successful, self-assured architect and turns out to be a shabby (and unsuccessful) blackmailer; in "Der sechste Geburtstag" there is an overwhelming discrepancy between the appearance of festivity and the cruel reality of the son's impending death.

Stated more specifically, all three stories treat the theme of appearance and reality in terms of eroded marital relationships and domestic and marital crisis in an everyday setting. Each of the stones begins with an "Alltagssituation": a couple going out for the evening ("Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe"); a husband and wife at the breakfast table ("Der längere Arm"); a husband and wife saying good-bye as he leaves for work ("Der sechste Geburtstag"); and each story ends in the same familiar household setting. In "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe" there is no crisis in the overt sense, no occurrence or confrontation that leads to a final breakdown of the marital relationship. In a sense, however, the situation is one of on-going crisis: the relationship is revealed as an empty edifice, a house of cards that might tumble at any moment, or (as the ending suggests) that may remain precariously intact as long as the industrialist and his wife go through the necessary motions, outwardly preserving the fictions of love and contented family life. In the other two stories, of course, the crisis is painfully apparent to the characters as well as to the reader, and leads to the overt breakdown of the relationship.

Another element the three stories have in common is the motif of failure, a variation of the theme of guilt. One is reminded in this connection of Günther Busch's observation that "Lenz schildert den Werdegang von Opfern, nicht die Karriere von Siegern" ["Eine Rechtfertigung?" Frankfurter Hefte, Vol. XVIII, No. 7, 1963]. In two of the stories there is first of all the patent failure of one partner (the husband in "Der längere Arm" and the wife in "Der sechste Geburtstag"), which leads to a critical confrontation that signals the end of the relationship. For the purposes of this discussion, however, the important point is that in all three stories the failure of one partner is matched by the failure of the other: in "Der sechste Geburtstag" the wife breaks her promise and the husband refuses to forgive her; in "Der längere Arm" the husband is revealed as a contemptible blackmailer and his wife, in the final analysis, as a pitiless and unforgiving woman; and in "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe" the faithlessness of the wife is paralleled by the hypocrisy and self-delusion of the husband. In all three stories both partners in the marital relationship carry a burden of guilt, both appear as "Versager." They are also "Opfer"—victims of themselves and of each other.

In addition to the thematic elements discussed above, the three stories reveal certain similarities of technique and structural development. First of all, the structure of each story comprises an integral part of Lenz's treatment of his central theme. In fact in this respect the "what" and the "how" of the stories are so skillfully meshed that it would be difficult to draw a clear dividing line between them. In each case the external action serves two purposes: it depicts the realm of appearances and at the same time functions as a frame for the author's portrayal of the inner reality. This places the two realms in sharp and immediate juxtaposition and intensifies the reader's recognition of the discrepancy between them.

Finally, each story confines itself to a single episode in the life of the family the author has chosen to scrutinize. That of itself is not unusual, given the limitations of the short-story genre. What is unusual is that despite their episodic nature, these stories are open-ended. That point has already been made with respect to "Ein Haus aus lauter Liebe," but it applies equally to "Der längere Arm" and "Der sechste Geburtstag": Lenz does not resolve the crisis he presents, he makes no moral pronouncements, offers no solutions and gives no indication of whether the crisis will be followed by a literal parting of the ways. (On the thematic level that question is immaterial, of course; it is clear that, whatever happens, these are relationships that have ceased to exist in any meaningful sense of the word.) In terms of craftsmanship, however, Lenz achieves a triple effect by giving the episodic story an open ending. In severing the story-line at the chosen point he (1) re-focuses our attention upon each story's underlying theme, the discrepancy between everyday appearance and the inner reality; (2) strengthens the impact of the crisis, forcing the reader to reflect upon its unnerving implications (thus making a "co-creator" of the reader); and (3) heightens the sense of realism, i.e. the reader's awareness that each of these fictitious episodes, like life itself, is fraught with unresolved problems. Structurally and technically, then, these stories corroborate the narrative stance we have come to associate with Lenz, aptly summed up by Reich-Ranicki's phrase, "der gelassene Mitwisser."