Aristocrat, the: Boetius Von Orlamunde     by Ernst Weiss, Translated by M Chalmers Original title: Der Aristocrat Original language: German Published by Serpent's Tail Pub. Date: August 1995 Format: Paperback Dimensions: 0.62 x 7.79 x 5.41 in. ISBN: 1852422629 List Price: $13.99, £8.90 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £8.90 Buy online from Amazon.com for $13.99 Published by Serpent's Tail Pub. Date: 1994 Format: Paperback, 202 pages List Price: £8.99 Not available for ordering

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Ernst Weiss was a Jewish doctor born in Moravia, now in the Czech Republic, when it was still part of the Habsburg Empire. He lived in Prague, Vienna and Berlin and was a close friend of Franz Kafka. In 1934 he went into exile in Paris, where he died in 1940. In the 1920s he was widely regarded as one of the leading figures in modern German fiction but exile and the loss of his manuscripts during the war meant that he was largely forgotten until his novels were republished in Germany in the 1980s.

The Aristocrat has been described as his most optimistic work. Its brief plot, set during a few months of summer in 1913, analyses the values of aristocratic, pre-First World War society, and looks forward to a new world when an individual’s function is based on his ability rather than inherited social rank.

The main character, who also narrates the story, is Botius von Orlamünde, the last scion of an impoverished aristocratic family, who is attending the exclusive school of Onderkuhle in Belgium. He has completed his schooling, which lays emphasis on the noble arts of fencing, riding, plus bearing and etiquette, rather than on academic subjects, but stays on as a boarder since he has not yet found a role in the world. Eventually he runs away to the city and finds work in a factory, earning his living by manual labour. He has renounced the role of aristocrat; but it is not a complete break with he past, more an adaptation to the present, as he wears the family signet ring which his father hands on to him before he dies.

Most of the story is set in the school, which develops character rather than the intellect. The most important figure in the hierarchy is the slightly mysterious former cavalry sergeant known as the Master of Ceremonies, not the head or the abbé who is in charge of academic studies. In order to ‘prove’ himself, Orlamünde constantly undertakes challenging tasks and it is on these tests that the narrative focuses with an intensity which grips the reader and takes him inside the mind of ‘the aristocrat’. He is, for example, asked to break in a spirited stallion, and the process is a battle of wills between two noble beasts. Orlamünde envies animals their naturalness, their amoral joy in living and it is perhaps significant that the challenges he faces often involve helping others in ways which mean doing violence to them. When, for example, he saves his friend from drowning, he has to knock him unconscious to stop himself being dragged under by the panicking boy.

Eventually he fails one of these ‘tests’ when a fire breaks out in the school and he (who has already brought out one man) is told to go back to free a schoolboy who has been locked in a room (by Orlamünde) as a punishment. His response to this failure is the radical break with his world, a break which is not tragic, but forward-looking, leading, as it does, to his integration in modern society.

The Aristocrat won the silver medal for prose fiction at the 1928 Olympic Games, in a more idealistic phase of the Games’ existence when they celebrated more in human achievement than mere meat and muscle.

‘My first task is to remain motionless, unflinching and above all impassive in the middle of the room. The horse twists wildly. Without my intending it he has got messily tangled up in the reins as if in tethering ropes. The fine skin bulges out in swellings, whose edges, under the surface, immediately fill with pulsing blood, weals which will still be visible after months. Unavoidable. The horse cannot hold himself, he staggers, falls, he opens his mouth in astonishment. He does not whinny, however, he quickly wants to struggle up again. The floor of the high, oval space is shaken by the dull impact of the falling horse. The white patches on the forehead gleam with the violent movement. The horse begins to roll from side to side, to hide his head in the bark, but there is too little of it, again and again the horse’s eyes become visible, and the eyelashes, already sprinkled with dirt, have lost their beautiful unbroken order. Lying there on his side, he whinnies and groans. But then he explodes, he shoots up from the floor, shaking up a cloud of brown dust, violently jerking his head, mechanically, angrily, unthinkingly. But he does not free himself. The steely rings of the well arranged and cleverly concealed bonds tighten once again, and it is as if nothing had happened.’ p48