Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision (2013) - full transcript
Jakob longs for a new life for himself and his troubled family in Brazil.
"On the 16th, when we stood aproximately
on 58 degree of southern latidude,
the sea shone at night, which,
on account of the high degree of latidude
and the cold temperature in the sky,
struck us as curious,
although that glowing therein was visible
merely within single sparks.
At noon, the thermometer
climbed up to 33,5 degrees Celsius.
There were strong winds
across this entire area
We saw lots of seaweed,
foremost rocktop,
a huge amount of petrels and shearwaters,
and else seabirds.
Amongst the latter, we were amused
by some of big gray seagulls,
when they were hunting
a big, white albatross."
Jakob!
"Despite of his long wings
he could not escape them."
Jakob!
"They tried to get to him from below,
towards his belly, where he..."
Give me that book!
- Lazy boy, I'll teach him what work is!
- I didn't hear you.
- Come out of here!
- Jakob!
Get out of here!
- Give me the book.
- Give me the book.
- I didn't hear you.
- Come out of there!
Not the book, father.
You rascal, next time I catch you skiving,
I'll break your neck!
Give me that book!
- Jakob!
- As long as you live under my roof,
you do as I say.
Where are you going?
And you always stick up for the lout!
Trouble and strife all day...
Thinks he's an Indian himself,
the halfwit!
HOME FROM HOME
Chronicle of a Vision
Uncle!
What is it?
On this,
the first day of April
in the year 1842,
in Schabbach,
commenced his journal
Jakob Adam Simon,
son of the master blacksmith
Johann Simon
and his wedded wife Margarethe,
my dearly beloved mother,
spurred by the promptings of my heart
to explore the world
as it is described in books
and in the records
left by intrepid travelers,
chiefly for the sake of the languages of
faraway peoples which I intend to study.
The moon is full,
that's why you can't sleep.
It's all right, grandmother.
Be careful what you dream.
Dreams have a way of
coming true one day.
This is my vowed intent
to entrust to this book
each of my steps
and earnest resolutions,
until I stand at the edge of the great ocean
that will bear me to the New World.
In the night,
slumber has often forsaken me,
and in my mind's eye
I see the multitude of men and women,
servant girls, children and youths
who have abandoned their homes
in these years.
In long battalions their pilgrim shadows
wend their way to the surging waves
that will take them out
to the New World.
But why,
asks my pining heart,
why leave home for ever?
The hardship that besets us
will surely relent,
and rarely does good fortune
smile on the exiles.
Why do all these wagons
stand heavy-laden,
outward-bound in the lanes
and farmyards of the Rhineland,
the Palatinate, nay,
so rumor has it, all over Europe.
This is it then.
The Kuhn brothers are emigrating.
All three of them.
Many retire for the night irresolute and
swear that they will stay for the duration,
only to awake determined to tear up
their roots that very same day
and follow the call of the times,
a call stronger than all our resolve.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
and give you принесетпр.
God bless you, amen.
Our Father,
which art in Heaven,
hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
in earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them
that trespass against us...
These are the last.
Just imagine, mother,
over there the fields are
five hundred times bigger than here,
and there is no winter.
They can harvest corn,
maize and wheat twice a year.
On the Rio Grande!
The biggest forest is in the north.
It's not just hundred, it's thousand times
bigger than the whole Hunsrück!
Where do you get it from, Jakob?
It makes me come over all funny
when I look in your eyes.
There's something in
those eyes of yours, Jakob...
I don't know where it comes from.
It's just from a few books, mother.
There are hundreds of them,
thousands.
No, Jakob.
You've always been different,
even when you were small.
Always staring into the distance.
Gran said,
be careful he doesn't die young,
gazing into the other world like that.
Father doesn't see it that way.
With this hymn
we welcome the spring in a year
that with God's help
will bring us the just reward
for all the hard work
of the last years: a rich harvest.
It's God's will that the lean years
will be followed by the fat years.
We look back on seven years of hardship,
poor harvests, darkness
and the deaths
of many of our little children.
Some of us have understood the hymn:
"Go seek my heart the joys of life"
as an injunction to seek their fortune
on the other side of the ocean.
But even in Brazil, God's paradise
is not merely there for the asking!
The paths of destiny are legion,
and I shall follow their beckoning
when once my brother Gustav shall return
from His Majesty's infantry in Wesel,
where he acquits his military service
as a hoof-smith for the dragoons.
For the greater glory
of that Prussian king
so oblivious and unmindful
of his subjects!
There is a better cause
that I can serve.
It's name is Liberty!
Hence my resolve,
before the year is out,
to turn my back on
this faithless homeland
that has nothing but servitude to offer
to its children and to go in quest
that realm of dreams described
in so many books and travelogues.
They're all in church.
It's so nice to have you back, Gustav.
Good day, Gran.
I'm so tired.
Go ahead and sleep.
You're home now.
Uncle.
Uncle!
- Uncle, Gustav's home.
- Yes, yes.
The time has come.
It's the end of the world.
But not for me.
It's in my sister's will.
And she shook Napoleon by the hand
and knitted a bit of his shroud!
- And the awful hunger...
- Ah, yes.
Hunger came with the false emperor.
But the Swedes couldn't frighten us.
We were too tough for them
here in Schabbach.
But that was 200 years ago, Uncle.
When the world ends,
it'll be on a Sunday.
When they're all in church.
- Mark my words!
- Listen, Uncle!
Gustav is home.
When they're all in church.
And God in heaven
can look down on them all.
- He never forgets. The day of reckoning!
- He's right there in the kitchen.
Uncle, they're waiting for us.
Jakob, does your father
still make your life a misery?
It's time to go home.
When the Republic
comes marching down the hill
The rascals
In their palaces
Will have to pay the bill
They'll all cough up
until they cough up blood!
Jakob, when you go to the Indians,
can I come too?
Yes, for sure.
- And will you teach me to read?
- Yes.
And then we can read
all those books I hid for you.
Yes, I promise.
When the Republic
Comes marching down the hill...
Come here, Margot,
say good-day to Gustav.
He was nearly two years in the army.
Margot!
You backhanded halfvvit!
You little fiend! You ugly cripple!
Stupid creature that you are!
You're the Devil's work
and no mistake!
With your club foot...!
Satan is your father,
we've always known.
My father died in the war!
What war'? Napoleon's?
There was no sign of you then.
It's good you're back.
Things will be better now.
Attention!
Jakob, old lad.
You held the fort while I was gone?
You've grown.
The villagers call him the Indian.
Where's Lena then?
Has anything happened to her?
Your sister married a Mosel man.
A strapping fellow he is.
Protestant or Catholic,
character is the main thing!
She lives in Wolf an der Mosel,
her husband is
a winegrower called Zeitz.
You won't know him.
And that little Catholic bastard
in her oven has no place here.
- Am I right?
- You are.
- Smearcase cheese for supper!
- Fold your hands.
All eyes are raised to thee, O Lord,
For Thou shalt feed us
when the time is come,
The fullness of Thy hands
pours blessings on all creatures.
Amen.
The Cayucachua believe that
it brings misfortune, hing-ti-tuyu,
to speak of things long past
or yet to come.
If they do so,
they either refrain from
any reference to time at all
or the so-called ancestral tense.
Only the native Indians
are permitted to use this form
because it is also the tense in which
their sacred narratives are couched.
For example:
"Place where the sun rises",
kla-kulo.
Come on, I'll show you.
It's good for it to be wet. Come on.
Listen, will it really help?
Do you swear?
On anything you like.
I've tried it myself.
All the sores were gone by nightfall.
Look.
Come on, we have to undress.
And sing that song.
It is cold.
It has to be.
Can you remember the words?
We won't go home, we won't go home,
We won't go home no more
Till all the nasty scabs are gone
And no more sores on hands or bum
We won't go home no more
Three, two one, the spell is done,
and soon the scurf will all be gone
Know what I was thinking of?
A handsome prince.
With a little todger hanging down.
- No looking! Turn your back!
- Turn around, I say!
All right, you can look now.
- Will you tell on us?
- No, never!
- Never?
- Never and a day.
She has this rash on her arms.
It won't go away.
Look what I found. It's a wing feather
from a falco rusticolus islandus,
up on Soon Hill.
- You can have it, if you like.
- It's pretty.
Is it a love story?
- No, it's about the tropics.
- Tropics?
Is that an illness?
The tropics are a place where...
at midday the shadow of your head
falls right on your feet.
Tropics...
Florine, you're a barmy.
Wait for me!
The tropics...
You can keep it.
It's pretty.
- Rusticulus oswaldus romandus.
- No, falco rusticolus islandus.
From the high north.
A gyrfalcon.
The Cayucachlilas call it kl-u-i-kl.
But they have lots of other birds
that are much more colorful.
You can't imagine what the birds
in South America look like.
Some are the size of wasps.
Others are as big...
as big...
as big as you are!
The condor, say, or the pelican.
Florine, you are barmy!
Wait for me!
You're barmy!
Equally uncongenial was
our first encounter with sand fleas.
These insects sought out
our heels and toes
and deposited their unhatched offspring
under the skin.
Jakob!
Now you're in for it!
Come out of here!
Shamming! Lying!
Get into the smithy!
Give me that book!
- Finished?
- Yes, we're finished.
Shouldn't we be glad that
the boy has learned so much?
What's he learned?
Nothing useful!
Two left hands
and lazier than a dead bat.
I wish I could read books.
No, mother. Father's right,
I'm no good for anything.
We all have to earn our bread.
Look at your brother!
Am I right, Gustav?
Florine!
Florine, where are you?
No one could see us now
if we took all our clothes off.
I don't need to. Look!
Not one little pimple left!
- Not even a scar on your fingers.
- It did help.
But we can still
take our clothes off, right?
I'd die if someone saw us.
You mean if the Indian comes.
Or the prince.
The wolf prowls through
the tall, tall grass
Across the muddy ground
And sinks his fangs in little lass
Before she can look round
Florine... there!
It is a prince!
Are you familiar with the area?
Ah, you took the short cut
over Koppenstein hill.
All rocks and granite...
Napoleon came a cropper up there.
Yes and no.
- Nauert?
- Yes?
Come here.
Take a look at this.
- Gustav!
- Your services are no longer required.
Here.
A token of my gratitude.
They need a hand.
It's the young baron from Gmünden.
Look after the horses
before your father gets nasty again.
Aren't you girls from the gemstone mill
near Kirchwiller?
Henriette is. I'm from Morsch's tannery
down near Fischbach.
Aha.
Did it help?
See you around, maybe.
- She's still got that feather.
- Hush!
The baron, your uncle,
did you drop him off at Kreuznach?
- No, he sent me there...
- I see.
...because his lady wife
is taking the waters.
I see. It fits.
- Now it fits.
- Yes, it fits.
Right up your street, eh?
Better than hard work in the smithy.
Can you understand that?
Yes.
It's Spanish.
It means something like...
"in the night after
I had spoken with him
"came a strong wind
and blew so hard
"that part of the roof flew away."
The savages were angry with me.
Lingua...
In their language they said:
Hua-ka-atra-aku. Sti-she santi-kulu hem.
That's Xancaréu dialect
and means...
"The evil one, the medicine man
has made the wind come."
He meant the book I was holding.
You're quite a wizard, eh?
Nice and slow, my pretty one,
otherwise we'll make sausage out of you.
And slow.
And what does this mean?
That's English.
"In earlier issues
we published some news
"on the state of the slaves
in the plantations..."
Jakob!
- Oh, it's my father.
- Where are you skulking?
That'll be six florins.
The wheel is better than it was before.
What I say is true.
Keep it for me till the next time.
It's all Greek to me.
Father!
Father!
Have you heard?
Florine's brothers
are going abroad, too.
I know what you're thinking.
But don't worry your head.
I'll stay with you.
With your mother.
Otherwise you wouldn't have anyone
who understands you.
Don't worry your head.
And I haven't got a sweetheart either...
What are you thinking?
Lovely.
So far away.
It's endless.
You could lose yourself in it for ever.
Across the sea and out yonder.
It's like the sky.
It never ends.
Paradise.
Often, when we were children,
my brother Gustav, three years my elder,
had to take me by the hand and guide me
through our village when it was dark.
Who cannot see must have
the world in his head, he would say.
All he meant was the position of
the houses and the holes in the road,
so as not to fall into them.
What I say is that the whole world
is a dark place
that has to be lit up in our minds
so we can find our way around in it
at night, like natives.
Beware of that ferret!
Its nest is right where your bed is.
And are not such wise people
to be found everywhere?
And can we not solicit their guidance
once we have learned their languages
and know the names they give to things?
How to address members of a tribe.
Example:
"The Chieftain speaks to
the woman great with child",
Tamjuk vatuksh-talem Hanya Ktekel.
Or, "The woman great with child
speaks to the chieftain",
Tamyuk himya takel
Sikta tuk chat yokel.
Nota bene,
all members of a tribe and all strangers
would use the first form of address.
By so doing, they express the veneration
in which they hold the chieftain.
My mother can neither read
nor write like all
who toil to earn a living from the soil
like many generations before her.
She protected me.
As we say in our language:
she was my soul's ease.
Often I half believed
I could fly like a bird,
but she never laughed me to scorn.
Instead, she exhorted me
not to let the envious derision
of my detractors clip my wings.
Thanks to her wisdom
I have evaded the snares
laid by them
whose feet stick to the ground.
- These are the big ones.
- Good.
We're digging potatoes.
How stupid do you think I am?
Johann, don't do it!
- Johann!
- Not even the press gang would take you!
Get out of my sight!
Trying to hoodwink me like that!
Our Indian!
You won't catch him!
I'll teach you what work is.
With a cudgel, if need be!
Fürchtegott!
Fürchtegott!
Have you seen my husband?
No. No one's been here.
Fürchtegott Niem
from the gemstone mill in Kirchwiller.
He's not been home all night.
Help me look for him, please!
I know Henriette, your daughter.
Is that your husband?
Fürchtegott!
Come out of the water!
Fürchtegott!
Come.
Hold the wheel, would you?
Here I am. Yes.
Come on, Mr Niem.
Fürchtegott?
My husband stopped talking
twelve years ago.
He's not said a word since.
Twelve years!
Would you credit it?
Henriette's not here.
She's never here when I need her.
Probably hanging around with
that friend of hers from the sinky tannery.
It wouldn't kill her to give me a hand.
Are you hungry?
You must be.
That's all I can give you.
Put it in there.
Times are hard.
Much obliged.
I will need to speak of hardship.
I have legs to take me
as far as I would go,
instead of abiding
and obeying and keep in the peace.
When I set out one day
to lay eyes on the New World,
I shall not take toils with me
like all the others,
encumbered with their provisions
and utensils, even their bedsteads
and their chamber pots.
How benighted is
their vision of the New World!
We should not seek to make it
a rehearsal of our distress
but a reflection of our dreams.
I shall take nothing with me
but the knowledge of all those
who have gone this way before me and
recorded in books what has befallen them.
For all can be lost, sent plunging down
to the depths by some tempest.
But not what we know in our hearts.
Johnny, Johnny, come with me
Brazil's the place we're off to see
A land so big, a land so free
With taters the size of a giant's knee
Where every day you can kill a pig
And wash it down with a deep long swig
And all the pots are much too small
for trotters, liver, innards and all
So Johnny Johnny, don '1' delay,
your fortune 's just a step away
Gentlemen!
The likeness of the gracious Emperor.
And here a parrot from Brazil.
From Brazil, my friends. A parrot.
Brazil is paradise on earth.
No ice in Brazil, no snow.
None of your cold winters.
Plenty to eat,
the land of the eternal sun.
Many before you have grown rich in Brazil.
And so can you.
Do you understand?
Good fortune awaits you there.
Welcome, spake the emperor
I bid you welcome all
For I would wish to share with you
The bounty in my thrall
Fear not, my hand will keep you
From harm and from ill-will
When once you are my subjects
In the fair land of Brazil
Fear not, my hand will keep you
From harm and from ill-will
When once you are my subjects
In the fair land of Brazil
Gentlemen, gentlemen!
Today not only the wine is free.
The Emperor of Brazil
offers every settler
four hundred acres of land,
a yearly salary of two thousand gulden,
twelve slaves, a house,
ten head of cattle and ten pigs.
For skilled craftsmen
the passage is free.
For their families
it costs next to nothing.
Here are the papers.
Sign your name
and make your fortune!
Lots of old people.
- One or two will sign.
- One or two?
- Not many.
- You know how it is.
We'd go to Rio de Janeiro like a shot.
But we come from a Hunsrück tannery.
And if we can't make ends meet here,
what chance is there for us in Brazil?
In Rio the demand for leather goods
is 200 times higher than it is here,
but there are only a tenth as many tanners
well-versed in their trade.
Tell us another one!
Our trading house Delrue in Bruges
is your warranty.
Looking around the room,
I can see what you're thinking.
After the poor harvests, the levies,
the drudgery in the army
and the despotism of your masters
you say to yourselves:
Any fate is better than death.
Huh? Am I right?
And what is better than death?
A good life, a better life!
And that is what our trading house Delrue
offers you.
Our secretary
Antonio Alvares de Mirandan Varejao
has negotiated these contracts
personally with the Brazilian president
Aureliano de Souza e Oliveiro Coutinho
and his minister Aranje Ribeiro
has signed and sealed them.
Antonio Alvares de Mirandan Varejao,
Aureliano de Souza Coutinho,
minister Aranje Ribeiro...
All those names make my head spin.
If we wear red or yellow tunics,
hats or helmets, boots or shoes
If we sew woman’s dresses
or put curls into their tresses
It makes no odds,
we've nothing more to lose
If we sew woman's dresses
or put curls into their tresses
It makes no odds,
we've nothing more to lose
Hey, comrade,
won't you come with us?
- Me?
- Yes, you! Come on!
But where are you going?
We're on our way, we're on our way
To topple the king in Mainz
Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah
Then we're off to America!
My sister lives on the way to Mainz!
Down the hatch!
Freedom lives!
Five years in jail
for each of these books,
if they catch you with them.
"An execrable civilization,
"adding that most despicable
and corruptible of all aristocracies,
"the moneyed class,
"to inherited nobility
"and making a horde of fawning
sycophants into rulers of the nation...
"But the revolutions were not long
in exercising that devil."
Hold up! Put ashore!
Are you deaf? That's an order!
Rise up, German brothers,
the fatherland's at stake
It's the rights of man we fight for,
and the citizens we smite for
Slaves we shall never be
in the republic of the free...
Up there in the sunshine
of earthly bliss,
I saw huge venomous plants
rearing up from swamp and sludge...
Спешиться
...bloated leeches,
institutions masquerading
as havens of liberalism
but merely serving to bemantle
the excesses of royalty and the rich...
I have severed the cord that
binds me to the world of my parents.
Adieu, comrade! Bonne chance!
My journey to liberty begins with
a new way of regarding things.
I have banished familiar things
to the outer regions.
My eyes are blessed with
this acuity of vision
because they have glimpsed the liberty
I cherish deep in my heart.
Wolf an der Mosel,
the tenth day of September,1842,
on my way to my sister Lena's house.
You must tell me all the news, Jakob.
How you hurt your arm.
How things are with father and mother.
And in Schabbach.
And why father will not relent.
It makes me all daft in the head.
It's not my baby's fault
that her father's a Catholic.
I have disowned my parents.
What are you saying?
No one disowns his parents.
And you're mother's favourite.
Jakob, you're safe here with me.
never in all my life.
Uncle?
Uncle?
What's wrong?
It's Uncle...
Chick, chick, chick...
I'll get round the back of him.
- Wait, I'll take his feet.
- OK.
Take his feet first.
I'll take the arms.
He's a weight, isn't he?
Wait, I've got to pull him round.
- One, two, three...
- Let's get him away from here.
- He'll be all right like that.
- Take his foot.
I'll untie this shoe, you do the other.
He's heavy!
Off with his trousers!
- One, two, three.
- You'll have to raise him a bit.
Give me that rag, would you?
Are you all right?
You look a bit green about the gills!
The awful stench!
- I'll do his arse.
- This'll do.
I'll just scour his toes,
so he looks presentable, the Uncle.
Do the head, nothing else.
Just the head.
I can do his neck as well.
No need to see the rest of him.
Now we can put him in his grave.
- All washed and tidy.
- You've forgotten something.
Let me do it.
Hold him up, you two.
You fancy him, don't you?
- Come and get it!
- Straight from the wine-press.
Good. I'm thirsty.
Come down here, all of you.
Refreshments!
- What is it?
- Grape juice.
- Tastes good!
- Be careful, though.
Why?
Most people drink too much of it
and have to crap all day.
It can go straight through you.
Wait a minute...
You can drink as much as you like.
Grape juice, fresh from the press.
Drink!
But not so much that
it comes out the back of you.
Out of the back of you?
I'm so thirsty.
It's good!
Henriette, be careful!
Walter's father died just where
you're standing, last July third.
We only found him next morning.
He was behind the altar,
so we couldn't see him.
I never knew Walter's mother.
She died last winter.
Walter says,
his father died of grief.
So would I,
if anything happened to Walter.
We're made for each other, Jakob.
If only father would see that
two people can belong together
even if they have different religions.
A Catholic can be
just as god-fearing as a Protestant.
Walter is a fine man,
and wise with it.
That's such a boon
in these terrible times.
Lena...
I'm all set to emigrate.
- What's put that in your head?
- I want to be...
...where the sun goes
when it sets here.
Do you see?
When it gets dark here...
...it gets light over there.
Much lighter
than it can ever be here.
Will you read to me?
ls it about the tropics?
No.
I only got it from
the lending library yesterday.
It's by Paulino Reitz
on the Rio Grande.
He's a Catholic missionary.
He explains in Portuguese
how the different rainforest tribes
talk to one another.
And what do they say?
The Cayucachfla Indians, for example,
have 22 words for "green",
but no words for "left" and "right".
But the Xancaral
do have direction words,
like "downstream" or "nose direction"
or "treetop direction".
The Cayucachfla always know where to
find things and what they're looking for.
And how do they say "arm"?
Arm?
Ko-yu.
But a raised arm is galk-yu.
- Ko-yu.
- Ko-yu.
- Galk-yu.
- Galk-yu.
- Stretch it sideways and it's ptak-yu.
- Ptak-yu.
Because in the jungle
every motion counts.
And like this?
The natives don't do that.
They... cross their arms
on their chest,
bend forward a bit and say:
Na ana mana sezu.
Na ana mana sezu.
Right.
I... I thought I'd got over it,
but now it's starting all over again.
It's because you drank too much.
Tay yuk am si-u uklu tand-la-o.
What's that mean?
- "Can you keep a secret"?
- In Caca-Coochie?
Cayucachua.
Well, can you?
You've got a secret?
Our secret. Remember?
- I'm leaving the country.
- For Brazil?
I'm putting in a request
for an emigration permit.
Is that why you're learning
those jungle languages?
Yes. Because if you suddenly
come across natives in the jungle,
you can tell what they're planning.
Do you see?
You can say:
na ana mana sezu,
and they'll know
you have good intentions.
Or if they come up to you and say:
talu tatem-tel,
it means they're on the warpath and
you have to say that you come in peace.
- Chentu hime ya-ye.
- Chentu hime ya-ye.
Yes. Or... you offer them a gift.
- An ulma pta-keel.
- What on earth is that?
"Ulma" means gift
and "pta-keel" means fire.
It just means a box of matches.
They've never seen them before.
And then you're their friend
straightaway.
Will you take me to see the natives,
Jakob?
Look, I'm serious.
Look who's here. Gustav.
How did you find me?
Grandmother knows all.
Jakob, come back home.
We need you.
And what about our sister? Isn't it time
she came back to Schabbach too?
It's about time.
Jakob...
Uncle is dead.
But there was nothing wrong with him.
The funeral is on Friday.
He was always on my side.
Friday?
No one in the village understood him.
No one.
The three of us.
Yes... the three of us.
It's true.
- Only mother's not here.
- And father.
I miss them all.
Leave-taking comes naturally
to all human creatures.
The days of our lives pass one by one
and we shall never see any of them again.
Just as the dead take a part of us
with them into their silent graves,
so time and youth pass away from us,
never to return.
Remembrance of lost love
is reunion and farewell in one.
All poets tell us this,
and I felt the truth of it
at the Smearcase Fair
on the seventh day
of November, 1842,
when the sun set on my endeavours,
not to shine again for many a long day.
Strange as it may seem to say so,
the Smear case Fair was
the disaster of my life.
They call it "Cold Feet Fair"
because it comes
in the early days of November
when the work in the fields is done
and the quiet rooms
wait for the loved ones to come home
and sit in tranquil reunion.
All the lads and lasses from the villages
of Simmern and Herrstein county came,
as I did though I had no skill
or knowledge of the dance.
My brother bade me accompany him,
so I went.
Smearcase!
Smearcase from Schabbach!
Buy Schabbach Smearcase!
It's the best smearcase
in all the world,
what am I saying:
in all of the Hunsrück!
Three farthings for
a slice of bread with smearcase.
In the pot there are agate marbles.
If you find one,
you can keep it, and you can get
another slice of smearcase.
- The other's for my friend.
- There are two pieces of silver.
If you find one, you can keep it,
and you'll get another slice of smearcase.
- What about us?
- Smearcase from Schabbach!
- Henriette! I've got a marble!
- What have you got?
Oh, that's pretty.
You got a slice of bread for me?
We must claim our reward.
Come!
Smearcase from Schabbach!
No money back if you don't like it.
We never had any truck with that.
Who's got a marble?
Who's got a marble?
Of course they're in there,
Florine found one.
She's got her hands full.
Enjoy it while it's hot.
Look at your brother!
He's no slouch!
- Jakob, are you not dancing?
- No.
I'll show you how.
...two, jump-
One, two, jump.
Gustav was in the army.
- Na ana mana sezu.
- Na ana mana sezu.
Does that mean,
fancy something to drink?
- Yes.
- Then come.
- Butterling!
- Gustav!
- Give me four glasses of wine.
- I can't.
My cellars are full of wine,
but I'm not allowed to sell it.
You're having men on. What kind of fair
would it be without wine?
The baron in Gemünden has the
exclusive right to sell wine till Christmas.
But that's impossible.
It's possible here, all right.
Ancient privileges, they call it.
- Skulduggery, if you ask me.
- So what now?
- I can give you schnapps.
- Then give me schnapps. Four glasses.
I'd love to hear all those 22 words
the natives have for "green".
You know them all?
Let's see.
See those pine branches down there?
That is "lika-la-itu".
And...
what about that woman's frock?
Fim-sa-la.
- Fim-sa-la?
- Fim-ssa-la, with a proper
All right, fim-ssa-la.
And that little copper lamp up here?
I'm not sure
if the Cayucachfla have copper.
Yuki-hem? Ka-yi?
No. Holm-huo.
- Holm-huo?
- Yes, that's holm-huo.
In another context
holm-hu-ho also means "heart's ease".
But if you say it about a lamp,
then it means "green".
I always knew Henriette and Jakob
would end up together. I just knew it.
Honestly.
No one, not a single person anywhere
in the Hunsrück is like you, Jakob.
Have you ever heard
Florine and her brothers sing?
- No.
- No?
Then you ought to. Come on!
- Wait a minute. I've got to sing.
- Well, sing then!
When they go marching through
the streets, the soldier's boys so brave
All the pretty girls in town
stand at the door and wave
- But why?
- Because!
Because they go toot-toot,
Boom-boom, chingsa-rassada...
Well? Why aren't you dancing?
- I think Jakob's scared to.
- Scared, is he? But you aren't!
You're a proper little spinning top!
Here, hold this!
When the bombs and hand grenades
go woosh and bang out in the glades
The girls all weep and make a noise
for the poor soldier boys
But why?
When they come back from the trenches
All the girls are someone else 's
- But why?
- Because!
What's going on here?
Get out of the way!
Get out of the way!
They're unloading those barrels.
Get that out of here!
Give us a hand!
When will you finally learn?
These are established privileges,
set down in writing.
They say we can only drink
the baron's wine at the fair.
That's how it's always been,
- even before the French came.
- Put a rag in it!
The Smearcase Fair
has always been in November.
We see no reason why those blackguards
should line their pockets at our expense.
Did you call me a blackguard?
Do you know who I am?
You're in their pay, that's all.
Robbers they are!
First the French,
now the accursed gentry!
They won't leave us anything,
not even the ground to sit our arses on!
That's right!
This is our fair!
And this is my shop,
and I want to sell our wine.
So that at least
a few farthings stay in the village.
If we don't stand up for ourselves,
we've had it!
The baron's got enough.
- He won't starve. Am I right?
- Yes!
He's right!
From now on
we only sell our own wine.
And we're not coughing up
to feed those layabouts.
Like that fat slob over there!
They don't give a damn
whether we live or die.
No more free wine and sweetmeats for
the beadle and the forestry commissioner!
Egalité!
It's time the word became law!
How about a little dance, Mr overseer?
Come down!
Sedition!
This is sedition!
What's wrong with you people?
ls this your idea of diversion?
Disband!
- The times are changing.
- You!
Unload those barrels!
We'll shit in their golden dishes!
Have you seen your brother?
Is he not on the dance-floor?
This is sedition! Revolution!
Resistance to the authorities!
And you've not seen Henriette either?
Best regards to the baron!
From now on
he can guzzle his own wine!
Down from there!
Don't you dare!
- Revenge is underway!
- Up yours, overseer!
It's time to celebrate!
Drink, drink!
They'll make you pay in the end.
Drink and enjoy!
We've got enough to go round.
Drink!
It's like the earth has swallowed them up.
- Who do you mean?
- Your brother and Henriette.
Did you see the bashing
your brothers gave them?
Who?
The baron's men.
I'm going home.
Hold it up!
Come on, have some more.
It's free today.
Here. Another swig for you.
The fair is over.
It must close down forthwith.
The fair is closed due to public insolence,
sedition and insubordination.
Stop the music, stop dancing!
Stop the music!
The ringleaders are to be arrested
and taken into custody.
Those who resist,
will be clapped in jail.
- Who started the rioting?
- What rioting?
It was the baron.
You've got a big mouth,
but we'll soon close it for you.
- What's your name, fellow?
- Call me... Liberté!
Call me Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
- Go home, lad.
- Liberté!
- Sleep it off!
- Liberté!
- Long live Young Germany!
- If that's how you want it.
Liberté!
Liberté!
In the name of His Majesty,
the King of Prussia,
and the royal household
administrations,
pay heed to the following decree!
The gathering of foliage, litter,
moss, heath, turf and grass
in the royal woodlands is forbidden,
as is the breaking of stone.
It is prohibited, on pain of retribution,
to dig up mud, clay, sand or marl
for the construction or reinforcement
of buildings, paths and cattle tracks,
fields, meadows and gardens
or whatever else.
In the royal hunting grounds
it is prohibited to bring down game,
birds or any other creatures,
to plunder nests for eggs,
and to make use
of the royal waters for fishing,
retting flax, irrigation of land
or any other purpose whatsoever.
No one is permitted to avail themselves
of dry, green, cut or uncut wood
standing or lying in forests,
enclosures or flowing water,
nor to possess themselves
of kindling, acorns, beech mast
or other fruits of the woods,
tree-bark for tanning,
wild fruit, berries,
mushrooms, and so forth.
The keepers and wardens
have been instructed
to report any violations of this decree
to their superiors forthwith
and to ensure that any offence
against the laws of the forest
be punished severely, in accordance
with the edicts of the state...
What higher aspiration can there be
than to join forces and seek a path
on which to escape from tyranny
and heartlessness?
Olm is a true friend.
I have learned so much from him.
Now I understand where wrongdoing
and hardship have their origins,
not in God, but in our own hearts.
Freedom
is not the opposite of captivity.
It is a holy right vouchsafed to us all.
What do you see?
Snow.
Snow.
- They told me Florine's ill.
- She's up there in bed, snorting.
- What's wrong with her?
- We don't know. The snots.
Look.
I've brought you some apples.
And a jar of smearcase
from the fair.
And two bars of
our good lavender soap.
To make you smell nice.
Are you still angry with me?
I've brought you something else.
Look!
- Don't give me anything.
- It's Christmas time.
You can give it back
when you get well again.
You're with child, aren't you?
Does it show?
Gustav“ have to marry you.
But I hardly know him.
I mean, not like you.
Do you want to know how Jakob is?
They'll put a stop
to his mad ideas there.
It'll make a man out of him.
Am I right?
If only I knew...
Knew what?
How I can help him.
We must get him out 0f that dungeon.
Can I leave this basket with you
while I visit my son?
You don't mind
if I put the basket down here?
I won't be long.
Right,
I'll be putting it down here, then.
Jakob...
Those warders are all crooks,
I can tell.
They'd do anything for money.
Where am I supposed to
get money from?
Look!
This is enough
to get you out of here twice over!
Mother, where did you
get so much money?
I'll tell you when we've got you home.
Gee up!
It's a sign, all right.
But still no sign of Jakob.
How often has that louis d'or
scorched my skin like hell fire!
A thousand times
I have asked myself
whether the value of freedom
can be expressed in gold coin.
Such questions
torment my tremulous heart.
Even my friend Olm, so contemptuous
of the clergy and the Prussian king,
beseeches me to hold out with him
and not to pay money
for something that is priceless.
He says a sign from Heaven will come
and warn us that liberty is nigh,
that mother to us all, seated on
a throne more precious than gold.
Is it the end of the world, pastor?
On the second day of March 1843,
the comet will attain such brightness
as to be visible by day.
It belongs to the Kreutz group
and its tail has the extraordinary length
of two astronomical units.
It's a sign.
A sign of nothing, Frau Niem.
I've come about my Henriette.
Why? What ails her?
You're a decent lad.
Henriette thinks so,
so do my husband and me,
all three of us think so.
Or should I say all four?
No one can hear us in here.
Now we can talk.
I'm here to tell you that Henriette,
my husband and me,
we're all in favour of you.
So we thought you might first
have a word with your parents,
then could come out to Kirchwiller
and ask for Henriette's hand.
But you mustn't wait too long,
otherwise it'll show at the wedding.
You understand, don't you?
She deserves
to be married in a nice dress,
such a nice-looking girl as she is.
You understand
what I'm saying, don't you?
I do, but...
I've got this steam engine to build.
Father?
Where are you going?
One, two, three, up!
- Has it gone in?
- It has.
It's fine.
I'll just get the crank
to put in the mechanism.
The blocks.
- Is it all right?
- Yes.
The cuffs.
The screws.
They fit?
They fit.
Go and get Henriette from the carriage.
Look after father for me.
Put her down here.
- That's right.
- Here?
Here.
Gustav!
The pastor!
Put her down here.
Come along!
Here! The foghorn.
- Good morning.
- One moment, pastor.
- You're the bridesmaid, you have to...
- Oh, do stop fussing!
Go on ahead.
And take the flowers with you!
Father!
Mother?
Wait a moment.
Mother?
Everything in its time.
And you're too late.
Is my husband in here?
He wasn't in church,
I thought he was
with the Morsch brothers.
Now he's vanished again.
He can't just ignore his daughter
on the biggest day of her life.
Fürchtegott!
Fürchtegott!
Gustav!
Gustav, you have to escort her in.
Wait, Henriette!
- Gustav, carry her over the threshold!
- Right.
Here goes!
That's right!
High time, Pastor Wiegand!
An uplifting ceremony, am I right?
I'm famished.
- Take no notice of me.
- Now you two cut the cake. Together.
Me?
Now we're all related, I can say it.
When we were rolling in money,
and Henriette was about 10 years old,
my idea of a wedding was
something very different from this.
Then,
all of a sudden,
it petered out.
No more agate anywhere.
It wasn't our fault.
Did you know that,
over here in Schabbach?
Listen, all of you! Jakob's back.
Your Jakob!
I saw him with my own eyes.
It was him all right.
Jakob's back.
Jakob?
Yes. Come out here, all of you.
Where did you see him?
Jakob!
- No point looking in the smithy!
- I saw him here.
- He was sitting just there.
- Didn't he say anything?
Where's he gone?
Down that way.
You've been hitting the bottle again!
I saw him, I tell you!
Anyone home?
Luise?
I don't want to intrude.
I can sleep somewhere else.
Luise.
Remember? Your hat?
My friend
shared all his thoughts with me,
but never a word passed his lips
about the dire straits he was in.
The pride of an honorable craftsman
sealed his lips,
and hardly anyone
so richly deserves that description.
Hardship was a disgrace, a secret
to be kept from the world at all costs.
Olm and his family endured their
blameless lot, suffering in silent shame.
Without sustenance
there can be no dignity.
Would that some great storm
finally came to blow away
injustice and despotism for all time!
For my lodging.
Here we are.
Thanks for everything.
Much obliged!
Fürchtegott!
Are you still at work?
Your home will be with me now.
We will get to know each other
much better.
We had no time before.
And the baby!
I have to make things up to you.
Any fate is better than death.
What do you say in Herrstein dialect?
"I sayed"?
No, here we say "I sedd".
It's like the Cayucachua dialects.
"The ceremony was successful"
is either "Tua tush tatekel hum dam a"
or "Tau tush tatekel ham dum a".
They just exchange
a couple of vowels.
- People are the same everywhere.
- Oh no.
If it were that simple,
we wouldn't need to emigrate.
We could just stay put.
There must be something
all languages have in common,
a secret law,
otherwise we could never communicate.
For example, how could we say...
Mother!
You've got here.
This is the place!
Take the basket!
Mother, you've arrived.
It has pleased God to turn
everything I do into a paradox.
On my return, the homesickness
that plagued me in the prison house
transformed
into pining affection for a girl
I was not sure I loved
until I had lost her forever.
I shall not write down her name here,
and henceforth
I shall shun her presence.
The happiness she has found
with another breaks my heart.
So I cannot go back
to my parents' house.
But my mother's love for me
will never die.
I owe her not only my life
but new sustenance every day.
Here are some carrots...
Bacon!
29 July 1843.
Stay in bed with Matilda!
They're lovely!
Now we're coming in under the porch
and into the smithy.
That's the big flue,
you're never to go near it on your own.
Do you hear me?
The man standing at the anvil
is your grandfather, the blacksmith.
And here's the steam engine
built by your father.
It's almost finished.
We've christened you Matilda,
after your great-grandmother.
The name is much too big for you,
but there's plenty of time.
You'll grow into it, never fear!
You're barmy!
Mathilda,
1843.
I'll just go and see to the fire.
Turn the wheel a bit!
Father! Say something!
It's working! Where are you all?
Nauert! Father! Mathilda's running!
She's running!
It works! I said it would!
It works!
Faster! My lovely little lass,
you have to go faster!
- Gustav, where are you?
- I couldn't stop her!
You nearly ruined the place!
- Gustav!
- Henriette!
She went faster and faster!
Are you injured?
- No, no.
I couldn't stop her.
Faster all the time.
I thought she'd fly away.
I tried to close the vent. I was lucky.
The old wall held up.
- Have you come to any harm?
- No.
Then we leave the coast of
Mauretania to our left
and sail past the Canaries,
west-south-west.
The Horse Latitudes
are a place on the ocean
where the wind sometimes
stops blowing for days on end.
Not a breath of air!
And when we cross the equator,
the captain
will open a vat of wine for us all.
Six to eight weeks later
we reach Bahia,
passing by Pernambuco,
just here.
Through the porthole
you can see the vast forests that
come right down to the water's edge.
And marvel at
one or two tribes of Indians
who have never seen
a four-mast schooner like ours.
Then onwards, further south,
to our destination:
Porto Alegre.
Once there,
we'll have reached eternal summer.
No sign of winter,
even at Christmas.
And we're never coming back?
On the thirteenth day of August,
the news of mother's haemorrhage
alarmed me greatly.
With the image of
my dying mother before my eyes,
I ran not for my life, but for hers.
It seemed to me that if I defied nature
and accomplished the journey
across mountains and streams,
through woods and thickets
without rest or fresh water,
then that might suffice
to ward off the hand of death.
I wagered the only thing I had:
my belief that I could save
my beloved mother.
- How is my mother?
- You can't go in, the doctor's with her.
- But she may need me.
- Who knows?
Help me shoe the doctor's horse.
Father, Jakob's back.
Good day, father. How's mother?
You know how to do it.
She's breathing freely again.
It's like I said. The lungs.
Come away, it's no sight for you.
Like I said. The lungs!
If only I could help your mother
like you minister to my horse.
I'm in your debt, you know.
Your mother's lungs
have been rattling for years.
Hard labor night and day, and nothing
to eat but curds and mashed potato.
Consumption battens on hunger.
I have had as many
as ten cases in some villages.
There is only one remedy:
fresh air, sunshine,
and rest, rest and more rest.
Square meals too,
but you know that.
I don't know
where you're going to get them from,
but you must.
At least there's a young woman
in the house now to do the work.
After the comet,
spring came much later than usual.
The cherry trees
blossomed with the chestnut trees,
it was August
before the flax came out.
And last year that plague of sparrows.
Everything is out of joint.
Mother's bedded down in the kitchen.
Gran is with her.
She's asleep now.
She called for you.
- Where shall we put her?
- I don't know.
What do you say?
In the field, down there?
That storm yesterday
has left much havoc.
This is a good place.
- Breathe deeply, in and out!
- Come on.
Mother, what's wrong?
Mother?
Mother!
I just saw all the children
the Lord God took from me.
All your little brothers and sisters.
Tony,
dead in his cot.
Freda, my first little girl,
who was only three when she died,
in that cold winter of 1816.
Anna,
who came into the world
all blue in the face,
little Sebastian
with his pale blue eyes
and his lovely laugh.
Katie,
burning up with fever
all the year round, every single day.
And Hans,
whose lungs caused him
so much anguish
until that dreadful, lovely day in summer
when he couldn't get up any more.
Six children, big and small.
I just saw them all with my own eyes,
waving to me from the other side.
I have heard of a secret place,
a land hidden
in the jungles of Amazonia
that bestows its paradise delights
only on those who go there free
of all cupidity, pure at heart
and mindful of their duties
to father and mother.
But mother's illness
and the hardships of this winter
are so dreadful as to
stifle all faith in any El Dorado.
They thrust us into the cold muck,
blameless though we be and pure at heart.
Set down with icy fingers
in the winter of our distress,
the year of the comet, 1843.
They're all doomed
up there in the Hunsrück.
How could they survive?
We have each other.
Every night I think of mother and father
and my brothers.
Religions are the Devil's invention.
They only cause strife in the world.
It is futile!
For hours on end
I drove through the villages,
not a soul to be seen,
not even a dog in the road.
It's not the cold. It's fear.
They shut themselves in
because they're afraid.
But death gets through all doors.
Today four more children choked to death.
There was nothing I could do.
Not even prayer
helps against diphtheria.
Dead children everywhere,
seven in one night in Schabbach,
and four in Kirchweiler.
Sometimes I think I may be spreading
the disease myself with my visits.
Sunday last, toward the seventh hour
of the morning,
Gustav and Henriette's little girl
died of diphtheria in her mother's arms,
smothered by a scourge that had already
sought to carry us off in our childhood.
We can gird our loins
against all enemies
save death,
that gaunt and grinning specter
that has wormed its way
into our homes
and will not budge an inch.
At the last,
we will be forced to take flight,
if we want to escape from this hell.
Where are the parents? It's time.
Get up, do!
There's no help for it.
Gustav, who'll be carrying
the little one?
We two.
- Father'?
- Come here!
Take the cross and go on in front.
They're waiting.
For the first time
in human recollection,
the frost has penetrated
further into the ground
than the earth consecrated
for our graves.
So we shall take leave of the souls
of our little children here on this spot,
in memory of Christ's agony.
Then we shall accompany their bodies
across the bridge to the cemetery,
where we shall guard over them
with a constant vigil
until winter's dreadful fury is worn out
and the earth is set free to take them.
The flowers slumber
through the night...
Even in this, our great distress and trial,
God is hope for us all.
We Christians believe
that there is a better life to come
than this vale of tears on earth.
These little children
have not left us behind,
they have gone on before us
to the heavenly kingdom.
Before us, Pastor?
Where to?
Is this what you call
the heavenly kingdom?
Hell is what it is.
Hush, little baby...
Sheer hell!
...close your eyes
- Can I help?
- Where do the Olms live?
They live opposite.
Letters for you.
Olm?
Sign here.
Go up into the classroom,
warm yourselves, put a log of wood on
and stay there until school is out.
And be careful of the fire!
- Ernst Bodtländer?
- At last!
Are the papers
for the blacksmith's son here too?
Yes, and for Heinrich Nauert
and his wife and daughter.
They're not moving.
It's like they were dead.
Gustav!
Hetty!
Open the door!
Gustav! Hetty!
- They've got to eat!
- Open the door!
I have something for Jakob.
Is he home?
I'll get my tools from the smithy.
I got my tools,
I'll break the door open.
The Key's in the lock.
I'll have to break it down.
Father.
God be praised!
We all have to live.
It's God's will.
The first day of February, 1844.
Six weeks or forty-one days till we
take leave of the land of our fathers.
This book has been
my true companion in the face of God.
Now the ocean awaits us.
The 280-ton, brand new,
eminently handsome,
copper-girded, three-mast packet boat
"Emilie" of Bremen,
captained by J. Meyerwind,
will set sail for Rio de Janeiro
on the fifteenth day of March.
The ship is built specially
for passenger travel,
has uncommonly generous
and extremely elegant cabins,
better described as staterooms,
and a very ample
and spacious between-deck
warmly recommended
for passenger use.
Eternity, O thunderous word
O sword that pierces my soul
Beginning without end
Eternity, time without time
So heavy is my heart
I know not where to turn
My trembling heart so shudders
My tongue sticks to my teeth
We thank Thee for Thy martyrdom,
for all the shame and fear
Thou withstood for us.
We are the cause of Thy misery.
Help us now, O Lord,
to acknowledge our sins
and be thankful for
Thy faithful charity.
What is it?
My wife Henriette and I have resolved,
after sober reflection
and without influence from others,
to leave our unhappy home for ever
and to emigrate to Brazil,
the country
where the roses bloom at Christmas.
So help us God.
Gustav!
Must you take everything?
I wanted to explain.
- Explain?
- Yes.
Explain that I have
to look after our parents,
that I can inherit the smithy,
that I can follow you out there later,
but not before I've started a family!
Was that it?
Well, it's true, isn't it?
No, it's not.
You sail for the New World unforgiven.
There is no pardon for the rift
you've driven between us!
Written in Schabbach
on the eighth day 0f July, 1844.
Today I shall close
my diary for all time
and conclude this account of all
my dreams that have come to nought.
As long as my parents live, I must stay
here and be the staff for them to lean on,
until the hour of their death,
and my thankful heart must go on beating,
stout and stalwart.
As I write this,
my friend Franz Olm and his family
are on the high seas
seas in the Bremen packet boat Emilie,
guided to its final haven
by Captain Meyerwind.
Our thoughts will meet
out there in the cosmos!
Jakob Adam Simon
And what if your father
sends us packing again?
If Gustav has gone on the Rhine steamer
at Bacharach, it's too late anyway.
It's four hours to Schabbach
and it's noon already.
I wanted to see Gustav and Henriette,
just one more time.
They're going for good.
We're almost there.
The cherry tree.
You've been so pale all day, mother.
- Where are we going?
- To the cherry tree.
Take your time!
Careful now!
You can turn her now.
Come on, sit her straight.
She'll be fine now.
That's it.
- Gustav.
- Yes, mother.
- I want you to promise me something.
- I surely will.
Write and tell us when you get there.
I promise.
Tell us
you're well.
I promise, mother, by all that's holy.
What ails you?
Mother!
Jakob, hold her!
Mother?
What's the matter with her, Jakob?
- I'm going for help.
- Mother, calm down.
Calm down.
Mother!
Calm yourself, mother.
I'm here with you. Mother!
Mother!
Mother! Mother!
Wake up! Mother!
Mother...
Our Father, which art in Heaven...
- Sophie!
- Gustav, what's the matter?
Mother's in a bad way.
She can't get her breath.
Who can help us?
She's out in the fields with Jakob.
- Maybe she's...
- No, no...
No, Gustav,
we were almost gone.
Dear God,
let mother live a little longer!
Where is she?
Where's Margret?
Out in the fields.
- I won't let this happen! Not today!
- I'll come too.
It would be awful if she died on us.
If she's not dead already,
we have to get her back home.
Jakob!
Mother!
Jakob!
Margret, bear up!
I'm almost there.
Mother!
Quick!
- Is she still alive?
- Yes.
We don't need you now.
It'd be a blow for the whole village.
Not just for you and Henriette.
Get out of the way!
- Put her down there.
- What's the matter with her?
The other way round.
With her head up there.
- I've got her.
- Let me do it.
Give me that pillow.
- Another pillow. Go and get a pillow!
- Another pillow?
You can go now.
- You too.
- Yes.
Henriette, hold her
so I can get at her back
and hear her lungs.
Keep her still. That's it.
Breathe nice and deep.
You can lie her down again.
When you emigrate,
you're never alone.
I got this list from
the district administrator's office.
There are 850 names on it
from the Koblenz region alone,
63 of them from around here.
Let's see.
We'll see them all on the boat.
I know where they come from,
how much property they have
and whether they are
law-abiding citizens or not.
You always were a little busybody.
Well, you can't be too careful.
Where's your father?
Has anyone seen father?
He'll be in the smithy.
All we can do now is wait.
Not so loud!
When you're grown up,
they'll take you
to a famous doctor in Mainz.
He'll grab your foot,
break it off, turn it round
and put it back on again
to grow properly.
And then you'll find
a handsome sweetheart to marry.
Break it off? I'd be scared!
No need for that.
Come on, help me make
some potato salad.
We need salt, bacon fat
and nutmeg.
In the language of the Cayucachua
there is a word
that means approximately
"return to the end of time".
Tapa-na-ma,
the arrow that flies back
to the archer's hand.
Tapa-na-ma.
Here I am, following time's arrow -
and my mother's breath.
Jakob! You're not at home?
- I'm going soon.
- But it's their last evening.
- I know.
- You've got to be there.
I know.
I'm taking Henriette
her trousseau for Brazil.
Wait for me!
Are you coming?
Hurry UP-
The progress of these last hours is
inevitable and aimless at the same time.
We can never know where there is
treasure to be found
or where happiness resides.
My father has always been sure
of what is right.
Now he has been assailed
by doubt and scrabbles for hidden gold
under the rotting boards
of his own floor.
But that gold exists only
in his poor distempered mind,
not in the castles and dungeons of
the robber barons and despots of yore.
Tapa na-ma.
Say something!
Where does it hurt?
Why did you go off like that
without saying anything?
Have you found
the Highwayman's Treasure?
I just wanted to know.
Today of all days!
Tomorrow would have been too late.
A French lieutenant gave me this soap.
He was billeted with us
when the French were here.
I must have been nine or ten.
That was ages ago.
I bet it's lost its scent.
You have to spoil everything!
This bodice still fits.
I wish I could go with you to Brazil
and never come back.
Finest lace this is.
I made it myself.
Look!
Aren't they nice plates?
They say the upper classes
are very posh in Rio de Janeiro.
I wouldn't want my daughter feeling
ashamed because she comes from here.
Where's Henriette?
What are you doing?
You're supposed to take it easy.
This is our Gretchen.
Walter's outside on the cart.
What a beautiful girl.
And you're expecting another baby?
Lena?
Everything in its time.
I knew it.
You can't go on like this.
Tomorrow
would have been too late.
You thought,
if you found the treasure,
we'd stay here.
- Father!
- I just wanted to know.
- Johann!
- Over to the sink!
What are you doing?
Leave me alone!
It needs looking at.
ls that all right?
I know it hurts.
Lena?
- Didn't you see Walter, out on the cart?
- No.
Come on. Leave me be.
I want to have a wash.
Mother, give me some water.
I need a towel.
Let me see.
It's a Simon all right.
What's her name?
Gretchen.
And the boy?
We sometimes call him Hans,
if it's a boy.
It's a boy all right.
This is Walter.
I'm sorry. Make room!
Matilda!
Na ana mana sezu.
Na ana mana sezu.
Come on.
No one can hear us here.
Te-yu kam-si u-uklu tand-la-o.
- You remember that?
- Yes.
And I know exactly what it means.
Si u-uklu.
The secret.
I'll be gone tomorrow, Jakob.
Early.
Hold it up!
I'll let you.
Look in my eyes, Jakob,
look in my eyes!
Stay like that. Nice and slow.
Can you hold it?
I'm with you.
The passports, the confirmation
of release from Prussian nationality,
the certificates of good character
for you and me,
reservation of passage from Rotterdam
to Rio de Janeiro and from there
to Porto Alegre, plus receipt of payment,
and the passenger tickets
from the steamer company
for the lower and central Rhine
to Rotterdam.
Then they add the donation from
the Brazilian ambassador in Hamburg.
Once again:
the passports, the release documents
from Prussian nationality,
the certificates of good character
for you and me...
...born in Schabbach,
district of Simmern,
residing in Schabbach with his wife,
Henriette Simon,
née Niem, 19 years old,
to emigrate to Brazil.
This passport must be shown
to the police authorities
in all places where the holder
remains for longer than 24 hours,
with no distinction between states.
Look, Henriette: "All persons
listed here receive the assurance
"that when once they have been issued
their release papers by their present..."
I can't read that.
"...or their government,
then they will become...
"citizens of the Empire of Brazil."
Mother.
Those that go away,
my brother and all the neighbours
so soon to bid us farewell forever,
will blench anon at the desire to stay
that will seize them covertly
in the last hour before they leave.
Yet go they must,
and tear out their hearts,
and never grieve
for what they have left behind.
Morning!
Morning.
Come here.
Stand still. And turn.
Come on.
Drink!
You too.
Maybe you have no use for it,
but I've brought you
a little sack of Hunsrück earth.
You can grow some flowers in it
when you're in Brazil
to remind you of us, if you want.
Thank you, Florine.
Father, mother,
I'll not be long gone.
I offered the wagoner in Gehwiller that I'd
bring back the horses and the empty cart.
Someone has to do it.
Is that true, Jakob?
Or are you going too?
I'll be back, never fear!
Hammer.
Wrench.
Henriette.
Henriette, my only solace!
Don't leave me! You can't leave
your poor mother all alone!
Who'll sit with me when I'm dying?
If the ship sinks,
it'll be the end of me.
- Stay with me! Stay with me!
- Mother!
Stay with me.
- That's enough, mother!
- Don't go!
Gee up!
Farewell, beloved home of you're
I must go down to the sandy shore
I'm off to places strange and new
Farewell, my home, forget me not
Remember me, at least a while
My lass, be true, save me a smile
I have no choice, it is my lot
Farewell, my home, forget me not
Post scriptum.
We live more than once.
He who has weathered
the stormy waves of life
will gladly follow me
to the thickened forests,
through the endless steppes and
across the mighty backs of the Andes.
And the worldly spirit will tell him:
In the pursuit of science is freedom.
Father! I have the answer!
- We must build a centrifugal governor.
- A what?
A centrifugal governor.
It's in this book.
Look.
"Centrifugal force activates
a joint-and-lever mechanism
"that throttles the steam pressure when
the machine starts running too fast.
"Otherwise it would rotate at
maximum speed until it destroyed itself."
Now we know what Gustav did wrong.
- Centrifugal governor?
- Centrifugal governor!
We can make it ourselves.
Or rather... you make it,
and I'll tell you if it's right or not.
Mother?
I've got something to say to you.
I've just been telling father
about centrifugal governor.
Be quiet and listen!
What is it?
I've been thinking.
Maybe you should marry.
Are you quite right in the head?
I know what I'm saying.
Who am I supposed to marry?
Florine is a dear girl.
- And she has a lovely singing voice.
- Florine?
She hardly knows me at all.
She comes by every week
and asks what my Jakob is doing.
And what do you tell her?
That you're always on your own.
And then she says
she's all on her own too.
I can't think of marrying!
I'm corresponding with this famous
privy councillor in Berlin.
He made a mistake and I proved it!
He wants to know how I got the idea.
In this book he says
the languages of the Cayucachua
and the Xancarao are different dialects,
but they're not,
they're languages in their own right.
He said I was wrong,
and we've been exchanging letters.
Since Christmas!
On my own?
I'm not.
Mother, don't you understand?
I'm not on my own.
Such a lovely voice.
Do you really think so?
Yes.
Northerly direction.
Synchronize!
The reading is accurate!
Take up your position
at the edge of the field.
Stop!
Tell me, my good man,
what is the name of that place?
Over there? That's Schabbach.
Benjamin!
Father, that means we have
a machine that can look after itself.
You can leave it to run all on its own.
I'm proud of you.
Start her up.
I want to try it out.
Come a little closer.
Do you know a certain Jakob Simon?
What do you want from my husband?
I am speechless.
Give me pen and paper!
"Esteemed Jakob Simon!
"On our way from Berlin to Paris,
"we would gladly have paid
our respects to a born master.
"But overawed by his own repute,
he has fled from our sight.
"Be true to science!
"My best regards.
"Alexander von Humboldt"
Letters from Berlin.
So it was true after all!
- How light you are. Like a bird.
- Stop it, you make me dizzy.
Soon you can fly.
I'm scared.
This is a lovely view.
Down there is Henriette's mother's mill.
Further off Gehwiller and Hene.
The whole world is at your feet.
I just need to close my eyes
and I can go anywhere.
Faraway countries,
unknown cities in the jungle,
the shores of the ocean.
If I could fly, Jakob...
do you know where I'd go?
To Brazil,
to see how Gustav is doing.
No.
To Hennwiller,
where we lived when I was small.
You don't have to fly
to go to Hennwiller.
At my age you do.
If only Gustav would write.
It's been 13 months.
Margarethe...
has stopped breathing.
Next to you in bed?
You don't need to look.
She's at peace now.
That's how it is.
I hope nothing's happened
to Gustav and Henriette.
Anyone home?
A letter for Simon.
Jakob! It's from Gustav!
"Dear family and friends back home.
"After almost 60 days at sea
we arrived in Rio de Janeiro.
"The passage was often hazardous.
"Seven children and three adults
died on board
"and were committed to the waves.
"With bribery the cook was persuaded
"to give some passengers
twice as much to eat
"and nothing to the others, although
the rations were agreed in the contract.
"On our arrival we were put into collective
accommodation for weeks on end.
"Our documents proved worthless there.
"But then Gustav
complained to the governor,
"and one of his agents
put us on a boat to Porto Alegre.
"Once there, another agent
showed us our land on a map
"and gave us documents of ownership.
"Most of it was jungle,
one very small part had been worked,
"then abandoned
and left to grow over again.
"We had to toil day and night to wrest
arable soil from that plot, inch by inch.
"Franz Olm and his family
live one day's journey away,
"his daughter Frieda
has gone into service in Porto Alegre.
"Ploughing their fields, the Olms
found agate and precious stones
"that they could have made
good use of at home.
"Tell my mother that.
"It has been six months now,
and things are looking up.
"The livestock
has finally been delivered.
"Gustav has 40 cows,
"124 acres of land,
"and the wooden house we have built
has a lock on the door.
"The snakes have been driven away.
"There is no sign of any natives,
"so I cannot try out
Jakob's message on them:
"Te-yu kam-si u-uklu tand-la-o."
That was Henriette.
This is from Gustav.
"Dear family, we are doing well.
"240 square yards of wheat
have taken root.
"On the eighth day of March
Henriette bore me a daughter.
"We have christened her Jakobine.
"A sturdy child,
"with God's succour she will grow up
a fine girl in this, our home from home.
"Remember us fondly!
Gustav and Henriette.
"We send our best greetings
"to mother, father,
"Lena, her husband and grandmother.
"Tell Jakob to give our best wishes
to Lotte Niem and the Morsches
"and above all to Florine, and tell her
that her brothers are doing well.
"They live 10 days' journey to the north
and have found work in a tannery.
"And remember us to Sophie and Margot,
and to all the neighbours,
"the Nauerts and Linnemanns
in Schabbach
"and the Linnemanns in Kirchwiller."
In memory of my brother,
Guido Reitz (1946-2008). E.R.
on 58 degree of southern latidude,
the sea shone at night, which,
on account of the high degree of latidude
and the cold temperature in the sky,
struck us as curious,
although that glowing therein was visible
merely within single sparks.
At noon, the thermometer
climbed up to 33,5 degrees Celsius.
There were strong winds
across this entire area
We saw lots of seaweed,
foremost rocktop,
a huge amount of petrels and shearwaters,
and else seabirds.
Amongst the latter, we were amused
by some of big gray seagulls,
when they were hunting
a big, white albatross."
Jakob!
"Despite of his long wings
he could not escape them."
Jakob!
"They tried to get to him from below,
towards his belly, where he..."
Give me that book!
- Lazy boy, I'll teach him what work is!
- I didn't hear you.
- Come out of here!
- Jakob!
Get out of here!
- Give me the book.
- Give me the book.
- I didn't hear you.
- Come out of there!
Not the book, father.
You rascal, next time I catch you skiving,
I'll break your neck!
Give me that book!
- Jakob!
- As long as you live under my roof,
you do as I say.
Where are you going?
And you always stick up for the lout!
Trouble and strife all day...
Thinks he's an Indian himself,
the halfwit!
HOME FROM HOME
Chronicle of a Vision
Uncle!
What is it?
On this,
the first day of April
in the year 1842,
in Schabbach,
commenced his journal
Jakob Adam Simon,
son of the master blacksmith
Johann Simon
and his wedded wife Margarethe,
my dearly beloved mother,
spurred by the promptings of my heart
to explore the world
as it is described in books
and in the records
left by intrepid travelers,
chiefly for the sake of the languages of
faraway peoples which I intend to study.
The moon is full,
that's why you can't sleep.
It's all right, grandmother.
Be careful what you dream.
Dreams have a way of
coming true one day.
This is my vowed intent
to entrust to this book
each of my steps
and earnest resolutions,
until I stand at the edge of the great ocean
that will bear me to the New World.
In the night,
slumber has often forsaken me,
and in my mind's eye
I see the multitude of men and women,
servant girls, children and youths
who have abandoned their homes
in these years.
In long battalions their pilgrim shadows
wend their way to the surging waves
that will take them out
to the New World.
But why,
asks my pining heart,
why leave home for ever?
The hardship that besets us
will surely relent,
and rarely does good fortune
smile on the exiles.
Why do all these wagons
stand heavy-laden,
outward-bound in the lanes
and farmyards of the Rhineland,
the Palatinate, nay,
so rumor has it, all over Europe.
This is it then.
The Kuhn brothers are emigrating.
All three of them.
Many retire for the night irresolute and
swear that they will stay for the duration,
only to awake determined to tear up
their roots that very same day
and follow the call of the times,
a call stronger than all our resolve.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
and give you принесетпр.
God bless you, amen.
Our Father,
which art in Heaven,
hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
in earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them
that trespass against us...
These are the last.
Just imagine, mother,
over there the fields are
five hundred times bigger than here,
and there is no winter.
They can harvest corn,
maize and wheat twice a year.
On the Rio Grande!
The biggest forest is in the north.
It's not just hundred, it's thousand times
bigger than the whole Hunsrück!
Where do you get it from, Jakob?
It makes me come over all funny
when I look in your eyes.
There's something in
those eyes of yours, Jakob...
I don't know where it comes from.
It's just from a few books, mother.
There are hundreds of them,
thousands.
No, Jakob.
You've always been different,
even when you were small.
Always staring into the distance.
Gran said,
be careful he doesn't die young,
gazing into the other world like that.
Father doesn't see it that way.
With this hymn
we welcome the spring in a year
that with God's help
will bring us the just reward
for all the hard work
of the last years: a rich harvest.
It's God's will that the lean years
will be followed by the fat years.
We look back on seven years of hardship,
poor harvests, darkness
and the deaths
of many of our little children.
Some of us have understood the hymn:
"Go seek my heart the joys of life"
as an injunction to seek their fortune
on the other side of the ocean.
But even in Brazil, God's paradise
is not merely there for the asking!
The paths of destiny are legion,
and I shall follow their beckoning
when once my brother Gustav shall return
from His Majesty's infantry in Wesel,
where he acquits his military service
as a hoof-smith for the dragoons.
For the greater glory
of that Prussian king
so oblivious and unmindful
of his subjects!
There is a better cause
that I can serve.
It's name is Liberty!
Hence my resolve,
before the year is out,
to turn my back on
this faithless homeland
that has nothing but servitude to offer
to its children and to go in quest
that realm of dreams described
in so many books and travelogues.
They're all in church.
It's so nice to have you back, Gustav.
Good day, Gran.
I'm so tired.
Go ahead and sleep.
You're home now.
Uncle.
Uncle!
- Uncle, Gustav's home.
- Yes, yes.
The time has come.
It's the end of the world.
But not for me.
It's in my sister's will.
And she shook Napoleon by the hand
and knitted a bit of his shroud!
- And the awful hunger...
- Ah, yes.
Hunger came with the false emperor.
But the Swedes couldn't frighten us.
We were too tough for them
here in Schabbach.
But that was 200 years ago, Uncle.
When the world ends,
it'll be on a Sunday.
When they're all in church.
- Mark my words!
- Listen, Uncle!
Gustav is home.
When they're all in church.
And God in heaven
can look down on them all.
- He never forgets. The day of reckoning!
- He's right there in the kitchen.
Uncle, they're waiting for us.
Jakob, does your father
still make your life a misery?
It's time to go home.
When the Republic
comes marching down the hill
The rascals
In their palaces
Will have to pay the bill
They'll all cough up
until they cough up blood!
Jakob, when you go to the Indians,
can I come too?
Yes, for sure.
- And will you teach me to read?
- Yes.
And then we can read
all those books I hid for you.
Yes, I promise.
When the Republic
Comes marching down the hill...
Come here, Margot,
say good-day to Gustav.
He was nearly two years in the army.
Margot!
You backhanded halfvvit!
You little fiend! You ugly cripple!
Stupid creature that you are!
You're the Devil's work
and no mistake!
With your club foot...!
Satan is your father,
we've always known.
My father died in the war!
What war'? Napoleon's?
There was no sign of you then.
It's good you're back.
Things will be better now.
Attention!
Jakob, old lad.
You held the fort while I was gone?
You've grown.
The villagers call him the Indian.
Where's Lena then?
Has anything happened to her?
Your sister married a Mosel man.
A strapping fellow he is.
Protestant or Catholic,
character is the main thing!
She lives in Wolf an der Mosel,
her husband is
a winegrower called Zeitz.
You won't know him.
And that little Catholic bastard
in her oven has no place here.
- Am I right?
- You are.
- Smearcase cheese for supper!
- Fold your hands.
All eyes are raised to thee, O Lord,
For Thou shalt feed us
when the time is come,
The fullness of Thy hands
pours blessings on all creatures.
Amen.
The Cayucachua believe that
it brings misfortune, hing-ti-tuyu,
to speak of things long past
or yet to come.
If they do so,
they either refrain from
any reference to time at all
or the so-called ancestral tense.
Only the native Indians
are permitted to use this form
because it is also the tense in which
their sacred narratives are couched.
For example:
"Place where the sun rises",
kla-kulo.
Come on, I'll show you.
It's good for it to be wet. Come on.
Listen, will it really help?
Do you swear?
On anything you like.
I've tried it myself.
All the sores were gone by nightfall.
Look.
Come on, we have to undress.
And sing that song.
It is cold.
It has to be.
Can you remember the words?
We won't go home, we won't go home,
We won't go home no more
Till all the nasty scabs are gone
And no more sores on hands or bum
We won't go home no more
Three, two one, the spell is done,
and soon the scurf will all be gone
Know what I was thinking of?
A handsome prince.
With a little todger hanging down.
- No looking! Turn your back!
- Turn around, I say!
All right, you can look now.
- Will you tell on us?
- No, never!
- Never?
- Never and a day.
She has this rash on her arms.
It won't go away.
Look what I found. It's a wing feather
from a falco rusticolus islandus,
up on Soon Hill.
- You can have it, if you like.
- It's pretty.
Is it a love story?
- No, it's about the tropics.
- Tropics?
Is that an illness?
The tropics are a place where...
at midday the shadow of your head
falls right on your feet.
Tropics...
Florine, you're a barmy.
Wait for me!
The tropics...
You can keep it.
It's pretty.
- Rusticulus oswaldus romandus.
- No, falco rusticolus islandus.
From the high north.
A gyrfalcon.
The Cayucachlilas call it kl-u-i-kl.
But they have lots of other birds
that are much more colorful.
You can't imagine what the birds
in South America look like.
Some are the size of wasps.
Others are as big...
as big...
as big as you are!
The condor, say, or the pelican.
Florine, you are barmy!
Wait for me!
You're barmy!
Equally uncongenial was
our first encounter with sand fleas.
These insects sought out
our heels and toes
and deposited their unhatched offspring
under the skin.
Jakob!
Now you're in for it!
Come out of here!
Shamming! Lying!
Get into the smithy!
Give me that book!
- Finished?
- Yes, we're finished.
Shouldn't we be glad that
the boy has learned so much?
What's he learned?
Nothing useful!
Two left hands
and lazier than a dead bat.
I wish I could read books.
No, mother. Father's right,
I'm no good for anything.
We all have to earn our bread.
Look at your brother!
Am I right, Gustav?
Florine!
Florine, where are you?
No one could see us now
if we took all our clothes off.
I don't need to. Look!
Not one little pimple left!
- Not even a scar on your fingers.
- It did help.
But we can still
take our clothes off, right?
I'd die if someone saw us.
You mean if the Indian comes.
Or the prince.
The wolf prowls through
the tall, tall grass
Across the muddy ground
And sinks his fangs in little lass
Before she can look round
Florine... there!
It is a prince!
Are you familiar with the area?
Ah, you took the short cut
over Koppenstein hill.
All rocks and granite...
Napoleon came a cropper up there.
Yes and no.
- Nauert?
- Yes?
Come here.
Take a look at this.
- Gustav!
- Your services are no longer required.
Here.
A token of my gratitude.
They need a hand.
It's the young baron from Gmünden.
Look after the horses
before your father gets nasty again.
Aren't you girls from the gemstone mill
near Kirchwiller?
Henriette is. I'm from Morsch's tannery
down near Fischbach.
Aha.
Did it help?
See you around, maybe.
- She's still got that feather.
- Hush!
The baron, your uncle,
did you drop him off at Kreuznach?
- No, he sent me there...
- I see.
...because his lady wife
is taking the waters.
I see. It fits.
- Now it fits.
- Yes, it fits.
Right up your street, eh?
Better than hard work in the smithy.
Can you understand that?
Yes.
It's Spanish.
It means something like...
"in the night after
I had spoken with him
"came a strong wind
and blew so hard
"that part of the roof flew away."
The savages were angry with me.
Lingua...
In their language they said:
Hua-ka-atra-aku. Sti-she santi-kulu hem.
That's Xancaréu dialect
and means...
"The evil one, the medicine man
has made the wind come."
He meant the book I was holding.
You're quite a wizard, eh?
Nice and slow, my pretty one,
otherwise we'll make sausage out of you.
And slow.
And what does this mean?
That's English.
"In earlier issues
we published some news
"on the state of the slaves
in the plantations..."
Jakob!
- Oh, it's my father.
- Where are you skulking?
That'll be six florins.
The wheel is better than it was before.
What I say is true.
Keep it for me till the next time.
It's all Greek to me.
Father!
Father!
Have you heard?
Florine's brothers
are going abroad, too.
I know what you're thinking.
But don't worry your head.
I'll stay with you.
With your mother.
Otherwise you wouldn't have anyone
who understands you.
Don't worry your head.
And I haven't got a sweetheart either...
What are you thinking?
Lovely.
So far away.
It's endless.
You could lose yourself in it for ever.
Across the sea and out yonder.
It's like the sky.
It never ends.
Paradise.
Often, when we were children,
my brother Gustav, three years my elder,
had to take me by the hand and guide me
through our village when it was dark.
Who cannot see must have
the world in his head, he would say.
All he meant was the position of
the houses and the holes in the road,
so as not to fall into them.
What I say is that the whole world
is a dark place
that has to be lit up in our minds
so we can find our way around in it
at night, like natives.
Beware of that ferret!
Its nest is right where your bed is.
And are not such wise people
to be found everywhere?
And can we not solicit their guidance
once we have learned their languages
and know the names they give to things?
How to address members of a tribe.
Example:
"The Chieftain speaks to
the woman great with child",
Tamjuk vatuksh-talem Hanya Ktekel.
Or, "The woman great with child
speaks to the chieftain",
Tamyuk himya takel
Sikta tuk chat yokel.
Nota bene,
all members of a tribe and all strangers
would use the first form of address.
By so doing, they express the veneration
in which they hold the chieftain.
My mother can neither read
nor write like all
who toil to earn a living from the soil
like many generations before her.
She protected me.
As we say in our language:
she was my soul's ease.
Often I half believed
I could fly like a bird,
but she never laughed me to scorn.
Instead, she exhorted me
not to let the envious derision
of my detractors clip my wings.
Thanks to her wisdom
I have evaded the snares
laid by them
whose feet stick to the ground.
- These are the big ones.
- Good.
We're digging potatoes.
How stupid do you think I am?
Johann, don't do it!
- Johann!
- Not even the press gang would take you!
Get out of my sight!
Trying to hoodwink me like that!
Our Indian!
You won't catch him!
I'll teach you what work is.
With a cudgel, if need be!
Fürchtegott!
Fürchtegott!
Have you seen my husband?
No. No one's been here.
Fürchtegott Niem
from the gemstone mill in Kirchwiller.
He's not been home all night.
Help me look for him, please!
I know Henriette, your daughter.
Is that your husband?
Fürchtegott!
Come out of the water!
Fürchtegott!
Come.
Hold the wheel, would you?
Here I am. Yes.
Come on, Mr Niem.
Fürchtegott?
My husband stopped talking
twelve years ago.
He's not said a word since.
Twelve years!
Would you credit it?
Henriette's not here.
She's never here when I need her.
Probably hanging around with
that friend of hers from the sinky tannery.
It wouldn't kill her to give me a hand.
Are you hungry?
You must be.
That's all I can give you.
Put it in there.
Times are hard.
Much obliged.
I will need to speak of hardship.
I have legs to take me
as far as I would go,
instead of abiding
and obeying and keep in the peace.
When I set out one day
to lay eyes on the New World,
I shall not take toils with me
like all the others,
encumbered with their provisions
and utensils, even their bedsteads
and their chamber pots.
How benighted is
their vision of the New World!
We should not seek to make it
a rehearsal of our distress
but a reflection of our dreams.
I shall take nothing with me
but the knowledge of all those
who have gone this way before me and
recorded in books what has befallen them.
For all can be lost, sent plunging down
to the depths by some tempest.
But not what we know in our hearts.
Johnny, Johnny, come with me
Brazil's the place we're off to see
A land so big, a land so free
With taters the size of a giant's knee
Where every day you can kill a pig
And wash it down with a deep long swig
And all the pots are much too small
for trotters, liver, innards and all
So Johnny Johnny, don '1' delay,
your fortune 's just a step away
Gentlemen!
The likeness of the gracious Emperor.
And here a parrot from Brazil.
From Brazil, my friends. A parrot.
Brazil is paradise on earth.
No ice in Brazil, no snow.
None of your cold winters.
Plenty to eat,
the land of the eternal sun.
Many before you have grown rich in Brazil.
And so can you.
Do you understand?
Good fortune awaits you there.
Welcome, spake the emperor
I bid you welcome all
For I would wish to share with you
The bounty in my thrall
Fear not, my hand will keep you
From harm and from ill-will
When once you are my subjects
In the fair land of Brazil
Fear not, my hand will keep you
From harm and from ill-will
When once you are my subjects
In the fair land of Brazil
Gentlemen, gentlemen!
Today not only the wine is free.
The Emperor of Brazil
offers every settler
four hundred acres of land,
a yearly salary of two thousand gulden,
twelve slaves, a house,
ten head of cattle and ten pigs.
For skilled craftsmen
the passage is free.
For their families
it costs next to nothing.
Here are the papers.
Sign your name
and make your fortune!
Lots of old people.
- One or two will sign.
- One or two?
- Not many.
- You know how it is.
We'd go to Rio de Janeiro like a shot.
But we come from a Hunsrück tannery.
And if we can't make ends meet here,
what chance is there for us in Brazil?
In Rio the demand for leather goods
is 200 times higher than it is here,
but there are only a tenth as many tanners
well-versed in their trade.
Tell us another one!
Our trading house Delrue in Bruges
is your warranty.
Looking around the room,
I can see what you're thinking.
After the poor harvests, the levies,
the drudgery in the army
and the despotism of your masters
you say to yourselves:
Any fate is better than death.
Huh? Am I right?
And what is better than death?
A good life, a better life!
And that is what our trading house Delrue
offers you.
Our secretary
Antonio Alvares de Mirandan Varejao
has negotiated these contracts
personally with the Brazilian president
Aureliano de Souza e Oliveiro Coutinho
and his minister Aranje Ribeiro
has signed and sealed them.
Antonio Alvares de Mirandan Varejao,
Aureliano de Souza Coutinho,
minister Aranje Ribeiro...
All those names make my head spin.
If we wear red or yellow tunics,
hats or helmets, boots or shoes
If we sew woman’s dresses
or put curls into their tresses
It makes no odds,
we've nothing more to lose
If we sew woman's dresses
or put curls into their tresses
It makes no odds,
we've nothing more to lose
Hey, comrade,
won't you come with us?
- Me?
- Yes, you! Come on!
But where are you going?
We're on our way, we're on our way
To topple the king in Mainz
Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah
Then we're off to America!
My sister lives on the way to Mainz!
Down the hatch!
Freedom lives!
Five years in jail
for each of these books,
if they catch you with them.
"An execrable civilization,
"adding that most despicable
and corruptible of all aristocracies,
"the moneyed class,
"to inherited nobility
"and making a horde of fawning
sycophants into rulers of the nation...
"But the revolutions were not long
in exercising that devil."
Hold up! Put ashore!
Are you deaf? That's an order!
Rise up, German brothers,
the fatherland's at stake
It's the rights of man we fight for,
and the citizens we smite for
Slaves we shall never be
in the republic of the free...
Up there in the sunshine
of earthly bliss,
I saw huge venomous plants
rearing up from swamp and sludge...
Спешиться
...bloated leeches,
institutions masquerading
as havens of liberalism
but merely serving to bemantle
the excesses of royalty and the rich...
I have severed the cord that
binds me to the world of my parents.
Adieu, comrade! Bonne chance!
My journey to liberty begins with
a new way of regarding things.
I have banished familiar things
to the outer regions.
My eyes are blessed with
this acuity of vision
because they have glimpsed the liberty
I cherish deep in my heart.
Wolf an der Mosel,
the tenth day of September,1842,
on my way to my sister Lena's house.
You must tell me all the news, Jakob.
How you hurt your arm.
How things are with father and mother.
And in Schabbach.
And why father will not relent.
It makes me all daft in the head.
It's not my baby's fault
that her father's a Catholic.
I have disowned my parents.
What are you saying?
No one disowns his parents.
And you're mother's favourite.
Jakob, you're safe here with me.
never in all my life.
Uncle?
Uncle?
What's wrong?
It's Uncle...
Chick, chick, chick...
I'll get round the back of him.
- Wait, I'll take his feet.
- OK.
Take his feet first.
I'll take the arms.
He's a weight, isn't he?
Wait, I've got to pull him round.
- One, two, three...
- Let's get him away from here.
- He'll be all right like that.
- Take his foot.
I'll untie this shoe, you do the other.
He's heavy!
Off with his trousers!
- One, two, three.
- You'll have to raise him a bit.
Give me that rag, would you?
Are you all right?
You look a bit green about the gills!
The awful stench!
- I'll do his arse.
- This'll do.
I'll just scour his toes,
so he looks presentable, the Uncle.
Do the head, nothing else.
Just the head.
I can do his neck as well.
No need to see the rest of him.
Now we can put him in his grave.
- All washed and tidy.
- You've forgotten something.
Let me do it.
Hold him up, you two.
You fancy him, don't you?
- Come and get it!
- Straight from the wine-press.
Good. I'm thirsty.
Come down here, all of you.
Refreshments!
- What is it?
- Grape juice.
- Tastes good!
- Be careful, though.
Why?
Most people drink too much of it
and have to crap all day.
It can go straight through you.
Wait a minute...
You can drink as much as you like.
Grape juice, fresh from the press.
Drink!
But not so much that
it comes out the back of you.
Out of the back of you?
I'm so thirsty.
It's good!
Henriette, be careful!
Walter's father died just where
you're standing, last July third.
We only found him next morning.
He was behind the altar,
so we couldn't see him.
I never knew Walter's mother.
She died last winter.
Walter says,
his father died of grief.
So would I,
if anything happened to Walter.
We're made for each other, Jakob.
If only father would see that
two people can belong together
even if they have different religions.
A Catholic can be
just as god-fearing as a Protestant.
Walter is a fine man,
and wise with it.
That's such a boon
in these terrible times.
Lena...
I'm all set to emigrate.
- What's put that in your head?
- I want to be...
...where the sun goes
when it sets here.
Do you see?
When it gets dark here...
...it gets light over there.
Much lighter
than it can ever be here.
Will you read to me?
ls it about the tropics?
No.
I only got it from
the lending library yesterday.
It's by Paulino Reitz
on the Rio Grande.
He's a Catholic missionary.
He explains in Portuguese
how the different rainforest tribes
talk to one another.
And what do they say?
The Cayucachfla Indians, for example,
have 22 words for "green",
but no words for "left" and "right".
But the Xancaral
do have direction words,
like "downstream" or "nose direction"
or "treetop direction".
The Cayucachfla always know where to
find things and what they're looking for.
And how do they say "arm"?
Arm?
Ko-yu.
But a raised arm is galk-yu.
- Ko-yu.
- Ko-yu.
- Galk-yu.
- Galk-yu.
- Stretch it sideways and it's ptak-yu.
- Ptak-yu.
Because in the jungle
every motion counts.
And like this?
The natives don't do that.
They... cross their arms
on their chest,
bend forward a bit and say:
Na ana mana sezu.
Na ana mana sezu.
Right.
I... I thought I'd got over it,
but now it's starting all over again.
It's because you drank too much.
Tay yuk am si-u uklu tand-la-o.
What's that mean?
- "Can you keep a secret"?
- In Caca-Coochie?
Cayucachua.
Well, can you?
You've got a secret?
Our secret. Remember?
- I'm leaving the country.
- For Brazil?
I'm putting in a request
for an emigration permit.
Is that why you're learning
those jungle languages?
Yes. Because if you suddenly
come across natives in the jungle,
you can tell what they're planning.
Do you see?
You can say:
na ana mana sezu,
and they'll know
you have good intentions.
Or if they come up to you and say:
talu tatem-tel,
it means they're on the warpath and
you have to say that you come in peace.
- Chentu hime ya-ye.
- Chentu hime ya-ye.
Yes. Or... you offer them a gift.
- An ulma pta-keel.
- What on earth is that?
"Ulma" means gift
and "pta-keel" means fire.
It just means a box of matches.
They've never seen them before.
And then you're their friend
straightaway.
Will you take me to see the natives,
Jakob?
Look, I'm serious.
Look who's here. Gustav.
How did you find me?
Grandmother knows all.
Jakob, come back home.
We need you.
And what about our sister? Isn't it time
she came back to Schabbach too?
It's about time.
Jakob...
Uncle is dead.
But there was nothing wrong with him.
The funeral is on Friday.
He was always on my side.
Friday?
No one in the village understood him.
No one.
The three of us.
Yes... the three of us.
It's true.
- Only mother's not here.
- And father.
I miss them all.
Leave-taking comes naturally
to all human creatures.
The days of our lives pass one by one
and we shall never see any of them again.
Just as the dead take a part of us
with them into their silent graves,
so time and youth pass away from us,
never to return.
Remembrance of lost love
is reunion and farewell in one.
All poets tell us this,
and I felt the truth of it
at the Smearcase Fair
on the seventh day
of November, 1842,
when the sun set on my endeavours,
not to shine again for many a long day.
Strange as it may seem to say so,
the Smear case Fair was
the disaster of my life.
They call it "Cold Feet Fair"
because it comes
in the early days of November
when the work in the fields is done
and the quiet rooms
wait for the loved ones to come home
and sit in tranquil reunion.
All the lads and lasses from the villages
of Simmern and Herrstein county came,
as I did though I had no skill
or knowledge of the dance.
My brother bade me accompany him,
so I went.
Smearcase!
Smearcase from Schabbach!
Buy Schabbach Smearcase!
It's the best smearcase
in all the world,
what am I saying:
in all of the Hunsrück!
Three farthings for
a slice of bread with smearcase.
In the pot there are agate marbles.
If you find one,
you can keep it, and you can get
another slice of smearcase.
- The other's for my friend.
- There are two pieces of silver.
If you find one, you can keep it,
and you'll get another slice of smearcase.
- What about us?
- Smearcase from Schabbach!
- Henriette! I've got a marble!
- What have you got?
Oh, that's pretty.
You got a slice of bread for me?
We must claim our reward.
Come!
Smearcase from Schabbach!
No money back if you don't like it.
We never had any truck with that.
Who's got a marble?
Who's got a marble?
Of course they're in there,
Florine found one.
She's got her hands full.
Enjoy it while it's hot.
Look at your brother!
He's no slouch!
- Jakob, are you not dancing?
- No.
I'll show you how.
...two, jump-
One, two, jump.
Gustav was in the army.
- Na ana mana sezu.
- Na ana mana sezu.
Does that mean,
fancy something to drink?
- Yes.
- Then come.
- Butterling!
- Gustav!
- Give me four glasses of wine.
- I can't.
My cellars are full of wine,
but I'm not allowed to sell it.
You're having men on. What kind of fair
would it be without wine?
The baron in Gemünden has the
exclusive right to sell wine till Christmas.
But that's impossible.
It's possible here, all right.
Ancient privileges, they call it.
- Skulduggery, if you ask me.
- So what now?
- I can give you schnapps.
- Then give me schnapps. Four glasses.
I'd love to hear all those 22 words
the natives have for "green".
You know them all?
Let's see.
See those pine branches down there?
That is "lika-la-itu".
And...
what about that woman's frock?
Fim-sa-la.
- Fim-sa-la?
- Fim-ssa-la, with a proper
All right, fim-ssa-la.
And that little copper lamp up here?
I'm not sure
if the Cayucachfla have copper.
Yuki-hem? Ka-yi?
No. Holm-huo.
- Holm-huo?
- Yes, that's holm-huo.
In another context
holm-hu-ho also means "heart's ease".
But if you say it about a lamp,
then it means "green".
I always knew Henriette and Jakob
would end up together. I just knew it.
Honestly.
No one, not a single person anywhere
in the Hunsrück is like you, Jakob.
Have you ever heard
Florine and her brothers sing?
- No.
- No?
Then you ought to. Come on!
- Wait a minute. I've got to sing.
- Well, sing then!
When they go marching through
the streets, the soldier's boys so brave
All the pretty girls in town
stand at the door and wave
- But why?
- Because!
Because they go toot-toot,
Boom-boom, chingsa-rassada...
Well? Why aren't you dancing?
- I think Jakob's scared to.
- Scared, is he? But you aren't!
You're a proper little spinning top!
Here, hold this!
When the bombs and hand grenades
go woosh and bang out in the glades
The girls all weep and make a noise
for the poor soldier boys
But why?
When they come back from the trenches
All the girls are someone else 's
- But why?
- Because!
What's going on here?
Get out of the way!
Get out of the way!
They're unloading those barrels.
Get that out of here!
Give us a hand!
When will you finally learn?
These are established privileges,
set down in writing.
They say we can only drink
the baron's wine at the fair.
That's how it's always been,
- even before the French came.
- Put a rag in it!
The Smearcase Fair
has always been in November.
We see no reason why those blackguards
should line their pockets at our expense.
Did you call me a blackguard?
Do you know who I am?
You're in their pay, that's all.
Robbers they are!
First the French,
now the accursed gentry!
They won't leave us anything,
not even the ground to sit our arses on!
That's right!
This is our fair!
And this is my shop,
and I want to sell our wine.
So that at least
a few farthings stay in the village.
If we don't stand up for ourselves,
we've had it!
The baron's got enough.
- He won't starve. Am I right?
- Yes!
He's right!
From now on
we only sell our own wine.
And we're not coughing up
to feed those layabouts.
Like that fat slob over there!
They don't give a damn
whether we live or die.
No more free wine and sweetmeats for
the beadle and the forestry commissioner!
Egalité!
It's time the word became law!
How about a little dance, Mr overseer?
Come down!
Sedition!
This is sedition!
What's wrong with you people?
ls this your idea of diversion?
Disband!
- The times are changing.
- You!
Unload those barrels!
We'll shit in their golden dishes!
Have you seen your brother?
Is he not on the dance-floor?
This is sedition! Revolution!
Resistance to the authorities!
And you've not seen Henriette either?
Best regards to the baron!
From now on
he can guzzle his own wine!
Down from there!
Don't you dare!
- Revenge is underway!
- Up yours, overseer!
It's time to celebrate!
Drink, drink!
They'll make you pay in the end.
Drink and enjoy!
We've got enough to go round.
Drink!
It's like the earth has swallowed them up.
- Who do you mean?
- Your brother and Henriette.
Did you see the bashing
your brothers gave them?
Who?
The baron's men.
I'm going home.
Hold it up!
Come on, have some more.
It's free today.
Here. Another swig for you.
The fair is over.
It must close down forthwith.
The fair is closed due to public insolence,
sedition and insubordination.
Stop the music, stop dancing!
Stop the music!
The ringleaders are to be arrested
and taken into custody.
Those who resist,
will be clapped in jail.
- Who started the rioting?
- What rioting?
It was the baron.
You've got a big mouth,
but we'll soon close it for you.
- What's your name, fellow?
- Call me... Liberté!
Call me Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
Liberté!
- Go home, lad.
- Liberté!
- Sleep it off!
- Liberté!
- Long live Young Germany!
- If that's how you want it.
Liberté!
Liberté!
In the name of His Majesty,
the King of Prussia,
and the royal household
administrations,
pay heed to the following decree!
The gathering of foliage, litter,
moss, heath, turf and grass
in the royal woodlands is forbidden,
as is the breaking of stone.
It is prohibited, on pain of retribution,
to dig up mud, clay, sand or marl
for the construction or reinforcement
of buildings, paths and cattle tracks,
fields, meadows and gardens
or whatever else.
In the royal hunting grounds
it is prohibited to bring down game,
birds or any other creatures,
to plunder nests for eggs,
and to make use
of the royal waters for fishing,
retting flax, irrigation of land
or any other purpose whatsoever.
No one is permitted to avail themselves
of dry, green, cut or uncut wood
standing or lying in forests,
enclosures or flowing water,
nor to possess themselves
of kindling, acorns, beech mast
or other fruits of the woods,
tree-bark for tanning,
wild fruit, berries,
mushrooms, and so forth.
The keepers and wardens
have been instructed
to report any violations of this decree
to their superiors forthwith
and to ensure that any offence
against the laws of the forest
be punished severely, in accordance
with the edicts of the state...
What higher aspiration can there be
than to join forces and seek a path
on which to escape from tyranny
and heartlessness?
Olm is a true friend.
I have learned so much from him.
Now I understand where wrongdoing
and hardship have their origins,
not in God, but in our own hearts.
Freedom
is not the opposite of captivity.
It is a holy right vouchsafed to us all.
What do you see?
Snow.
Snow.
- They told me Florine's ill.
- She's up there in bed, snorting.
- What's wrong with her?
- We don't know. The snots.
Look.
I've brought you some apples.
And a jar of smearcase
from the fair.
And two bars of
our good lavender soap.
To make you smell nice.
Are you still angry with me?
I've brought you something else.
Look!
- Don't give me anything.
- It's Christmas time.
You can give it back
when you get well again.
You're with child, aren't you?
Does it show?
Gustav“ have to marry you.
But I hardly know him.
I mean, not like you.
Do you want to know how Jakob is?
They'll put a stop
to his mad ideas there.
It'll make a man out of him.
Am I right?
If only I knew...
Knew what?
How I can help him.
We must get him out 0f that dungeon.
Can I leave this basket with you
while I visit my son?
You don't mind
if I put the basket down here?
I won't be long.
Right,
I'll be putting it down here, then.
Jakob...
Those warders are all crooks,
I can tell.
They'd do anything for money.
Where am I supposed to
get money from?
Look!
This is enough
to get you out of here twice over!
Mother, where did you
get so much money?
I'll tell you when we've got you home.
Gee up!
It's a sign, all right.
But still no sign of Jakob.
How often has that louis d'or
scorched my skin like hell fire!
A thousand times
I have asked myself
whether the value of freedom
can be expressed in gold coin.
Such questions
torment my tremulous heart.
Even my friend Olm, so contemptuous
of the clergy and the Prussian king,
beseeches me to hold out with him
and not to pay money
for something that is priceless.
He says a sign from Heaven will come
and warn us that liberty is nigh,
that mother to us all, seated on
a throne more precious than gold.
Is it the end of the world, pastor?
On the second day of March 1843,
the comet will attain such brightness
as to be visible by day.
It belongs to the Kreutz group
and its tail has the extraordinary length
of two astronomical units.
It's a sign.
A sign of nothing, Frau Niem.
I've come about my Henriette.
Why? What ails her?
You're a decent lad.
Henriette thinks so,
so do my husband and me,
all three of us think so.
Or should I say all four?
No one can hear us in here.
Now we can talk.
I'm here to tell you that Henriette,
my husband and me,
we're all in favour of you.
So we thought you might first
have a word with your parents,
then could come out to Kirchwiller
and ask for Henriette's hand.
But you mustn't wait too long,
otherwise it'll show at the wedding.
You understand, don't you?
She deserves
to be married in a nice dress,
such a nice-looking girl as she is.
You understand
what I'm saying, don't you?
I do, but...
I've got this steam engine to build.
Father?
Where are you going?
One, two, three, up!
- Has it gone in?
- It has.
It's fine.
I'll just get the crank
to put in the mechanism.
The blocks.
- Is it all right?
- Yes.
The cuffs.
The screws.
They fit?
They fit.
Go and get Henriette from the carriage.
Look after father for me.
Put her down here.
- That's right.
- Here?
Here.
Gustav!
The pastor!
Put her down here.
Come along!
Here! The foghorn.
- Good morning.
- One moment, pastor.
- You're the bridesmaid, you have to...
- Oh, do stop fussing!
Go on ahead.
And take the flowers with you!
Father!
Mother?
Wait a moment.
Mother?
Everything in its time.
And you're too late.
Is my husband in here?
He wasn't in church,
I thought he was
with the Morsch brothers.
Now he's vanished again.
He can't just ignore his daughter
on the biggest day of her life.
Fürchtegott!
Fürchtegott!
Gustav!
Gustav, you have to escort her in.
Wait, Henriette!
- Gustav, carry her over the threshold!
- Right.
Here goes!
That's right!
High time, Pastor Wiegand!
An uplifting ceremony, am I right?
I'm famished.
- Take no notice of me.
- Now you two cut the cake. Together.
Me?
Now we're all related, I can say it.
When we were rolling in money,
and Henriette was about 10 years old,
my idea of a wedding was
something very different from this.
Then,
all of a sudden,
it petered out.
No more agate anywhere.
It wasn't our fault.
Did you know that,
over here in Schabbach?
Listen, all of you! Jakob's back.
Your Jakob!
I saw him with my own eyes.
It was him all right.
Jakob's back.
Jakob?
Yes. Come out here, all of you.
Where did you see him?
Jakob!
- No point looking in the smithy!
- I saw him here.
- He was sitting just there.
- Didn't he say anything?
Where's he gone?
Down that way.
You've been hitting the bottle again!
I saw him, I tell you!
Anyone home?
Luise?
I don't want to intrude.
I can sleep somewhere else.
Luise.
Remember? Your hat?
My friend
shared all his thoughts with me,
but never a word passed his lips
about the dire straits he was in.
The pride of an honorable craftsman
sealed his lips,
and hardly anyone
so richly deserves that description.
Hardship was a disgrace, a secret
to be kept from the world at all costs.
Olm and his family endured their
blameless lot, suffering in silent shame.
Without sustenance
there can be no dignity.
Would that some great storm
finally came to blow away
injustice and despotism for all time!
For my lodging.
Here we are.
Thanks for everything.
Much obliged!
Fürchtegott!
Are you still at work?
Your home will be with me now.
We will get to know each other
much better.
We had no time before.
And the baby!
I have to make things up to you.
Any fate is better than death.
What do you say in Herrstein dialect?
"I sayed"?
No, here we say "I sedd".
It's like the Cayucachua dialects.
"The ceremony was successful"
is either "Tua tush tatekel hum dam a"
or "Tau tush tatekel ham dum a".
They just exchange
a couple of vowels.
- People are the same everywhere.
- Oh no.
If it were that simple,
we wouldn't need to emigrate.
We could just stay put.
There must be something
all languages have in common,
a secret law,
otherwise we could never communicate.
For example, how could we say...
Mother!
You've got here.
This is the place!
Take the basket!
Mother, you've arrived.
It has pleased God to turn
everything I do into a paradox.
On my return, the homesickness
that plagued me in the prison house
transformed
into pining affection for a girl
I was not sure I loved
until I had lost her forever.
I shall not write down her name here,
and henceforth
I shall shun her presence.
The happiness she has found
with another breaks my heart.
So I cannot go back
to my parents' house.
But my mother's love for me
will never die.
I owe her not only my life
but new sustenance every day.
Here are some carrots...
Bacon!
29 July 1843.
Stay in bed with Matilda!
They're lovely!
Now we're coming in under the porch
and into the smithy.
That's the big flue,
you're never to go near it on your own.
Do you hear me?
The man standing at the anvil
is your grandfather, the blacksmith.
And here's the steam engine
built by your father.
It's almost finished.
We've christened you Matilda,
after your great-grandmother.
The name is much too big for you,
but there's plenty of time.
You'll grow into it, never fear!
You're barmy!
Mathilda,
1843.
I'll just go and see to the fire.
Turn the wheel a bit!
Father! Say something!
It's working! Where are you all?
Nauert! Father! Mathilda's running!
She's running!
It works! I said it would!
It works!
Faster! My lovely little lass,
you have to go faster!
- Gustav, where are you?
- I couldn't stop her!
You nearly ruined the place!
- Gustav!
- Henriette!
She went faster and faster!
Are you injured?
- No, no.
I couldn't stop her.
Faster all the time.
I thought she'd fly away.
I tried to close the vent. I was lucky.
The old wall held up.
- Have you come to any harm?
- No.
Then we leave the coast of
Mauretania to our left
and sail past the Canaries,
west-south-west.
The Horse Latitudes
are a place on the ocean
where the wind sometimes
stops blowing for days on end.
Not a breath of air!
And when we cross the equator,
the captain
will open a vat of wine for us all.
Six to eight weeks later
we reach Bahia,
passing by Pernambuco,
just here.
Through the porthole
you can see the vast forests that
come right down to the water's edge.
And marvel at
one or two tribes of Indians
who have never seen
a four-mast schooner like ours.
Then onwards, further south,
to our destination:
Porto Alegre.
Once there,
we'll have reached eternal summer.
No sign of winter,
even at Christmas.
And we're never coming back?
On the thirteenth day of August,
the news of mother's haemorrhage
alarmed me greatly.
With the image of
my dying mother before my eyes,
I ran not for my life, but for hers.
It seemed to me that if I defied nature
and accomplished the journey
across mountains and streams,
through woods and thickets
without rest or fresh water,
then that might suffice
to ward off the hand of death.
I wagered the only thing I had:
my belief that I could save
my beloved mother.
- How is my mother?
- You can't go in, the doctor's with her.
- But she may need me.
- Who knows?
Help me shoe the doctor's horse.
Father, Jakob's back.
Good day, father. How's mother?
You know how to do it.
She's breathing freely again.
It's like I said. The lungs.
Come away, it's no sight for you.
Like I said. The lungs!
If only I could help your mother
like you minister to my horse.
I'm in your debt, you know.
Your mother's lungs
have been rattling for years.
Hard labor night and day, and nothing
to eat but curds and mashed potato.
Consumption battens on hunger.
I have had as many
as ten cases in some villages.
There is only one remedy:
fresh air, sunshine,
and rest, rest and more rest.
Square meals too,
but you know that.
I don't know
where you're going to get them from,
but you must.
At least there's a young woman
in the house now to do the work.
After the comet,
spring came much later than usual.
The cherry trees
blossomed with the chestnut trees,
it was August
before the flax came out.
And last year that plague of sparrows.
Everything is out of joint.
Mother's bedded down in the kitchen.
Gran is with her.
She's asleep now.
She called for you.
- Where shall we put her?
- I don't know.
What do you say?
In the field, down there?
That storm yesterday
has left much havoc.
This is a good place.
- Breathe deeply, in and out!
- Come on.
Mother, what's wrong?
Mother?
Mother!
I just saw all the children
the Lord God took from me.
All your little brothers and sisters.
Tony,
dead in his cot.
Freda, my first little girl,
who was only three when she died,
in that cold winter of 1816.
Anna,
who came into the world
all blue in the face,
little Sebastian
with his pale blue eyes
and his lovely laugh.
Katie,
burning up with fever
all the year round, every single day.
And Hans,
whose lungs caused him
so much anguish
until that dreadful, lovely day in summer
when he couldn't get up any more.
Six children, big and small.
I just saw them all with my own eyes,
waving to me from the other side.
I have heard of a secret place,
a land hidden
in the jungles of Amazonia
that bestows its paradise delights
only on those who go there free
of all cupidity, pure at heart
and mindful of their duties
to father and mother.
But mother's illness
and the hardships of this winter
are so dreadful as to
stifle all faith in any El Dorado.
They thrust us into the cold muck,
blameless though we be and pure at heart.
Set down with icy fingers
in the winter of our distress,
the year of the comet, 1843.
They're all doomed
up there in the Hunsrück.
How could they survive?
We have each other.
Every night I think of mother and father
and my brothers.
Religions are the Devil's invention.
They only cause strife in the world.
It is futile!
For hours on end
I drove through the villages,
not a soul to be seen,
not even a dog in the road.
It's not the cold. It's fear.
They shut themselves in
because they're afraid.
But death gets through all doors.
Today four more children choked to death.
There was nothing I could do.
Not even prayer
helps against diphtheria.
Dead children everywhere,
seven in one night in Schabbach,
and four in Kirchweiler.
Sometimes I think I may be spreading
the disease myself with my visits.
Sunday last, toward the seventh hour
of the morning,
Gustav and Henriette's little girl
died of diphtheria in her mother's arms,
smothered by a scourge that had already
sought to carry us off in our childhood.
We can gird our loins
against all enemies
save death,
that gaunt and grinning specter
that has wormed its way
into our homes
and will not budge an inch.
At the last,
we will be forced to take flight,
if we want to escape from this hell.
Where are the parents? It's time.
Get up, do!
There's no help for it.
Gustav, who'll be carrying
the little one?
We two.
- Father'?
- Come here!
Take the cross and go on in front.
They're waiting.
For the first time
in human recollection,
the frost has penetrated
further into the ground
than the earth consecrated
for our graves.
So we shall take leave of the souls
of our little children here on this spot,
in memory of Christ's agony.
Then we shall accompany their bodies
across the bridge to the cemetery,
where we shall guard over them
with a constant vigil
until winter's dreadful fury is worn out
and the earth is set free to take them.
The flowers slumber
through the night...
Even in this, our great distress and trial,
God is hope for us all.
We Christians believe
that there is a better life to come
than this vale of tears on earth.
These little children
have not left us behind,
they have gone on before us
to the heavenly kingdom.
Before us, Pastor?
Where to?
Is this what you call
the heavenly kingdom?
Hell is what it is.
Hush, little baby...
Sheer hell!
...close your eyes
- Can I help?
- Where do the Olms live?
They live opposite.
Letters for you.
Olm?
Sign here.
Go up into the classroom,
warm yourselves, put a log of wood on
and stay there until school is out.
And be careful of the fire!
- Ernst Bodtländer?
- At last!
Are the papers
for the blacksmith's son here too?
Yes, and for Heinrich Nauert
and his wife and daughter.
They're not moving.
It's like they were dead.
Gustav!
Hetty!
Open the door!
Gustav! Hetty!
- They've got to eat!
- Open the door!
I have something for Jakob.
Is he home?
I'll get my tools from the smithy.
I got my tools,
I'll break the door open.
The Key's in the lock.
I'll have to break it down.
Father.
God be praised!
We all have to live.
It's God's will.
The first day of February, 1844.
Six weeks or forty-one days till we
take leave of the land of our fathers.
This book has been
my true companion in the face of God.
Now the ocean awaits us.
The 280-ton, brand new,
eminently handsome,
copper-girded, three-mast packet boat
"Emilie" of Bremen,
captained by J. Meyerwind,
will set sail for Rio de Janeiro
on the fifteenth day of March.
The ship is built specially
for passenger travel,
has uncommonly generous
and extremely elegant cabins,
better described as staterooms,
and a very ample
and spacious between-deck
warmly recommended
for passenger use.
Eternity, O thunderous word
O sword that pierces my soul
Beginning without end
Eternity, time without time
So heavy is my heart
I know not where to turn
My trembling heart so shudders
My tongue sticks to my teeth
We thank Thee for Thy martyrdom,
for all the shame and fear
Thou withstood for us.
We are the cause of Thy misery.
Help us now, O Lord,
to acknowledge our sins
and be thankful for
Thy faithful charity.
What is it?
My wife Henriette and I have resolved,
after sober reflection
and without influence from others,
to leave our unhappy home for ever
and to emigrate to Brazil,
the country
where the roses bloom at Christmas.
So help us God.
Gustav!
Must you take everything?
I wanted to explain.
- Explain?
- Yes.
Explain that I have
to look after our parents,
that I can inherit the smithy,
that I can follow you out there later,
but not before I've started a family!
Was that it?
Well, it's true, isn't it?
No, it's not.
You sail for the New World unforgiven.
There is no pardon for the rift
you've driven between us!
Written in Schabbach
on the eighth day 0f July, 1844.
Today I shall close
my diary for all time
and conclude this account of all
my dreams that have come to nought.
As long as my parents live, I must stay
here and be the staff for them to lean on,
until the hour of their death,
and my thankful heart must go on beating,
stout and stalwart.
As I write this,
my friend Franz Olm and his family
are on the high seas
seas in the Bremen packet boat Emilie,
guided to its final haven
by Captain Meyerwind.
Our thoughts will meet
out there in the cosmos!
Jakob Adam Simon
And what if your father
sends us packing again?
If Gustav has gone on the Rhine steamer
at Bacharach, it's too late anyway.
It's four hours to Schabbach
and it's noon already.
I wanted to see Gustav and Henriette,
just one more time.
They're going for good.
We're almost there.
The cherry tree.
You've been so pale all day, mother.
- Where are we going?
- To the cherry tree.
Take your time!
Careful now!
You can turn her now.
Come on, sit her straight.
She'll be fine now.
That's it.
- Gustav.
- Yes, mother.
- I want you to promise me something.
- I surely will.
Write and tell us when you get there.
I promise.
Tell us
you're well.
I promise, mother, by all that's holy.
What ails you?
Mother!
Jakob, hold her!
Mother?
What's the matter with her, Jakob?
- I'm going for help.
- Mother, calm down.
Calm down.
Mother!
Calm yourself, mother.
I'm here with you. Mother!
Mother!
Mother! Mother!
Wake up! Mother!
Mother...
Our Father, which art in Heaven...
- Sophie!
- Gustav, what's the matter?
Mother's in a bad way.
She can't get her breath.
Who can help us?
She's out in the fields with Jakob.
- Maybe she's...
- No, no...
No, Gustav,
we were almost gone.
Dear God,
let mother live a little longer!
Where is she?
Where's Margret?
Out in the fields.
- I won't let this happen! Not today!
- I'll come too.
It would be awful if she died on us.
If she's not dead already,
we have to get her back home.
Jakob!
Mother!
Jakob!
Margret, bear up!
I'm almost there.
Mother!
Quick!
- Is she still alive?
- Yes.
We don't need you now.
It'd be a blow for the whole village.
Not just for you and Henriette.
Get out of the way!
- Put her down there.
- What's the matter with her?
The other way round.
With her head up there.
- I've got her.
- Let me do it.
Give me that pillow.
- Another pillow. Go and get a pillow!
- Another pillow?
You can go now.
- You too.
- Yes.
Henriette, hold her
so I can get at her back
and hear her lungs.
Keep her still. That's it.
Breathe nice and deep.
You can lie her down again.
When you emigrate,
you're never alone.
I got this list from
the district administrator's office.
There are 850 names on it
from the Koblenz region alone,
63 of them from around here.
Let's see.
We'll see them all on the boat.
I know where they come from,
how much property they have
and whether they are
law-abiding citizens or not.
You always were a little busybody.
Well, you can't be too careful.
Where's your father?
Has anyone seen father?
He'll be in the smithy.
All we can do now is wait.
Not so loud!
When you're grown up,
they'll take you
to a famous doctor in Mainz.
He'll grab your foot,
break it off, turn it round
and put it back on again
to grow properly.
And then you'll find
a handsome sweetheart to marry.
Break it off? I'd be scared!
No need for that.
Come on, help me make
some potato salad.
We need salt, bacon fat
and nutmeg.
In the language of the Cayucachua
there is a word
that means approximately
"return to the end of time".
Tapa-na-ma,
the arrow that flies back
to the archer's hand.
Tapa-na-ma.
Here I am, following time's arrow -
and my mother's breath.
Jakob! You're not at home?
- I'm going soon.
- But it's their last evening.
- I know.
- You've got to be there.
I know.
I'm taking Henriette
her trousseau for Brazil.
Wait for me!
Are you coming?
Hurry UP-
The progress of these last hours is
inevitable and aimless at the same time.
We can never know where there is
treasure to be found
or where happiness resides.
My father has always been sure
of what is right.
Now he has been assailed
by doubt and scrabbles for hidden gold
under the rotting boards
of his own floor.
But that gold exists only
in his poor distempered mind,
not in the castles and dungeons of
the robber barons and despots of yore.
Tapa na-ma.
Say something!
Where does it hurt?
Why did you go off like that
without saying anything?
Have you found
the Highwayman's Treasure?
I just wanted to know.
Today of all days!
Tomorrow would have been too late.
A French lieutenant gave me this soap.
He was billeted with us
when the French were here.
I must have been nine or ten.
That was ages ago.
I bet it's lost its scent.
You have to spoil everything!
This bodice still fits.
I wish I could go with you to Brazil
and never come back.
Finest lace this is.
I made it myself.
Look!
Aren't they nice plates?
They say the upper classes
are very posh in Rio de Janeiro.
I wouldn't want my daughter feeling
ashamed because she comes from here.
Where's Henriette?
What are you doing?
You're supposed to take it easy.
This is our Gretchen.
Walter's outside on the cart.
What a beautiful girl.
And you're expecting another baby?
Lena?
Everything in its time.
I knew it.
You can't go on like this.
Tomorrow
would have been too late.
You thought,
if you found the treasure,
we'd stay here.
- Father!
- I just wanted to know.
- Johann!
- Over to the sink!
What are you doing?
Leave me alone!
It needs looking at.
ls that all right?
I know it hurts.
Lena?
- Didn't you see Walter, out on the cart?
- No.
Come on. Leave me be.
I want to have a wash.
Mother, give me some water.
I need a towel.
Let me see.
It's a Simon all right.
What's her name?
Gretchen.
And the boy?
We sometimes call him Hans,
if it's a boy.
It's a boy all right.
This is Walter.
I'm sorry. Make room!
Matilda!
Na ana mana sezu.
Na ana mana sezu.
Come on.
No one can hear us here.
Te-yu kam-si u-uklu tand-la-o.
- You remember that?
- Yes.
And I know exactly what it means.
Si u-uklu.
The secret.
I'll be gone tomorrow, Jakob.
Early.
Hold it up!
I'll let you.
Look in my eyes, Jakob,
look in my eyes!
Stay like that. Nice and slow.
Can you hold it?
I'm with you.
The passports, the confirmation
of release from Prussian nationality,
the certificates of good character
for you and me,
reservation of passage from Rotterdam
to Rio de Janeiro and from there
to Porto Alegre, plus receipt of payment,
and the passenger tickets
from the steamer company
for the lower and central Rhine
to Rotterdam.
Then they add the donation from
the Brazilian ambassador in Hamburg.
Once again:
the passports, the release documents
from Prussian nationality,
the certificates of good character
for you and me...
...born in Schabbach,
district of Simmern,
residing in Schabbach with his wife,
Henriette Simon,
née Niem, 19 years old,
to emigrate to Brazil.
This passport must be shown
to the police authorities
in all places where the holder
remains for longer than 24 hours,
with no distinction between states.
Look, Henriette: "All persons
listed here receive the assurance
"that when once they have been issued
their release papers by their present..."
I can't read that.
"...or their government,
then they will become...
"citizens of the Empire of Brazil."
Mother.
Those that go away,
my brother and all the neighbours
so soon to bid us farewell forever,
will blench anon at the desire to stay
that will seize them covertly
in the last hour before they leave.
Yet go they must,
and tear out their hearts,
and never grieve
for what they have left behind.
Morning!
Morning.
Come here.
Stand still. And turn.
Come on.
Drink!
You too.
Maybe you have no use for it,
but I've brought you
a little sack of Hunsrück earth.
You can grow some flowers in it
when you're in Brazil
to remind you of us, if you want.
Thank you, Florine.
Father, mother,
I'll not be long gone.
I offered the wagoner in Gehwiller that I'd
bring back the horses and the empty cart.
Someone has to do it.
Is that true, Jakob?
Or are you going too?
I'll be back, never fear!
Hammer.
Wrench.
Henriette.
Henriette, my only solace!
Don't leave me! You can't leave
your poor mother all alone!
Who'll sit with me when I'm dying?
If the ship sinks,
it'll be the end of me.
- Stay with me! Stay with me!
- Mother!
Stay with me.
- That's enough, mother!
- Don't go!
Gee up!
Farewell, beloved home of you're
I must go down to the sandy shore
I'm off to places strange and new
Farewell, my home, forget me not
Remember me, at least a while
My lass, be true, save me a smile
I have no choice, it is my lot
Farewell, my home, forget me not
Post scriptum.
We live more than once.
He who has weathered
the stormy waves of life
will gladly follow me
to the thickened forests,
through the endless steppes and
across the mighty backs of the Andes.
And the worldly spirit will tell him:
In the pursuit of science is freedom.
Father! I have the answer!
- We must build a centrifugal governor.
- A what?
A centrifugal governor.
It's in this book.
Look.
"Centrifugal force activates
a joint-and-lever mechanism
"that throttles the steam pressure when
the machine starts running too fast.
"Otherwise it would rotate at
maximum speed until it destroyed itself."
Now we know what Gustav did wrong.
- Centrifugal governor?
- Centrifugal governor!
We can make it ourselves.
Or rather... you make it,
and I'll tell you if it's right or not.
Mother?
I've got something to say to you.
I've just been telling father
about centrifugal governor.
Be quiet and listen!
What is it?
I've been thinking.
Maybe you should marry.
Are you quite right in the head?
I know what I'm saying.
Who am I supposed to marry?
Florine is a dear girl.
- And she has a lovely singing voice.
- Florine?
She hardly knows me at all.
She comes by every week
and asks what my Jakob is doing.
And what do you tell her?
That you're always on your own.
And then she says
she's all on her own too.
I can't think of marrying!
I'm corresponding with this famous
privy councillor in Berlin.
He made a mistake and I proved it!
He wants to know how I got the idea.
In this book he says
the languages of the Cayucachua
and the Xancarao are different dialects,
but they're not,
they're languages in their own right.
He said I was wrong,
and we've been exchanging letters.
Since Christmas!
On my own?
I'm not.
Mother, don't you understand?
I'm not on my own.
Such a lovely voice.
Do you really think so?
Yes.
Northerly direction.
Synchronize!
The reading is accurate!
Take up your position
at the edge of the field.
Stop!
Tell me, my good man,
what is the name of that place?
Over there? That's Schabbach.
Benjamin!
Father, that means we have
a machine that can look after itself.
You can leave it to run all on its own.
I'm proud of you.
Start her up.
I want to try it out.
Come a little closer.
Do you know a certain Jakob Simon?
What do you want from my husband?
I am speechless.
Give me pen and paper!
"Esteemed Jakob Simon!
"On our way from Berlin to Paris,
"we would gladly have paid
our respects to a born master.
"But overawed by his own repute,
he has fled from our sight.
"Be true to science!
"My best regards.
"Alexander von Humboldt"
Letters from Berlin.
So it was true after all!
- How light you are. Like a bird.
- Stop it, you make me dizzy.
Soon you can fly.
I'm scared.
This is a lovely view.
Down there is Henriette's mother's mill.
Further off Gehwiller and Hene.
The whole world is at your feet.
I just need to close my eyes
and I can go anywhere.
Faraway countries,
unknown cities in the jungle,
the shores of the ocean.
If I could fly, Jakob...
do you know where I'd go?
To Brazil,
to see how Gustav is doing.
No.
To Hennwiller,
where we lived when I was small.
You don't have to fly
to go to Hennwiller.
At my age you do.
If only Gustav would write.
It's been 13 months.
Margarethe...
has stopped breathing.
Next to you in bed?
You don't need to look.
She's at peace now.
That's how it is.
I hope nothing's happened
to Gustav and Henriette.
Anyone home?
A letter for Simon.
Jakob! It's from Gustav!
"Dear family and friends back home.
"After almost 60 days at sea
we arrived in Rio de Janeiro.
"The passage was often hazardous.
"Seven children and three adults
died on board
"and were committed to the waves.
"With bribery the cook was persuaded
"to give some passengers
twice as much to eat
"and nothing to the others, although
the rations were agreed in the contract.
"On our arrival we were put into collective
accommodation for weeks on end.
"Our documents proved worthless there.
"But then Gustav
complained to the governor,
"and one of his agents
put us on a boat to Porto Alegre.
"Once there, another agent
showed us our land on a map
"and gave us documents of ownership.
"Most of it was jungle,
one very small part had been worked,
"then abandoned
and left to grow over again.
"We had to toil day and night to wrest
arable soil from that plot, inch by inch.
"Franz Olm and his family
live one day's journey away,
"his daughter Frieda
has gone into service in Porto Alegre.
"Ploughing their fields, the Olms
found agate and precious stones
"that they could have made
good use of at home.
"Tell my mother that.
"It has been six months now,
and things are looking up.
"The livestock
has finally been delivered.
"Gustav has 40 cows,
"124 acres of land,
"and the wooden house we have built
has a lock on the door.
"The snakes have been driven away.
"There is no sign of any natives,
"so I cannot try out
Jakob's message on them:
"Te-yu kam-si u-uklu tand-la-o."
That was Henriette.
This is from Gustav.
"Dear family, we are doing well.
"240 square yards of wheat
have taken root.
"On the eighth day of March
Henriette bore me a daughter.
"We have christened her Jakobine.
"A sturdy child,
"with God's succour she will grow up
a fine girl in this, our home from home.
"Remember us fondly!
Gustav and Henriette.
"We send our best greetings
"to mother, father,
"Lena, her husband and grandmother.
"Tell Jakob to give our best wishes
to Lotte Niem and the Morsches
"and above all to Florine, and tell her
that her brothers are doing well.
"They live 10 days' journey to the north
and have found work in a tannery.
"And remember us to Sophie and Margot,
and to all the neighbours,
"the Nauerts and Linnemanns
in Schabbach
"and the Linnemanns in Kirchwiller."
In memory of my brother,
Guido Reitz (1946-2008). E.R.