XLIV
In 1928, Leverkühn’s sister Ursula Schneidewein, whose wedding in chapter XXII precipitated L.’s and Z.’s conversation about the “strict style,” entrusts her five-year-old son Nepomuk, who is recovering from a case of the measles, to the care of her brother in Pfeiffering. Nepomuk is one of the most complex and also most contentious characters in Doctor Faustus. He is modeled on TM’s own beloved grandson Frido, who was six years old when his grandfather wrote these lines. Nepomuk is depicted as an elfin, even angelic, child, and also repeatedly compared to the wind spirit Ariel from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611), songs from which L. is at that time setting to music. L, Z., and all the other residents of the Schweigestill farm are exceedingly taken by the boy. L. even seems to experience something resembling paternal love.
Time of composition: November 7–December 11, 1946. Time of narration: Late March 1945. Narrated time: 1928.
| “Echo,” as […] he called himself | “Echo” is a figure from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Critics have also compared Nepomuk to Ariel, the wind spirit from Shakespeare’s Tempest, whose songs L. is setting to music, and to Mignon, a child with a tragic fate in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795/96). |
| solemn and imposing Swiss drawl | Frido Mann (1940–), TM’s grandson on whom the figure of Nepomuk is based, had a Swiss mother who influenced his childhood speech patterns. Swiss German also maintains many elements that sound antiquated in contemporary High German, linking Echo to the early modern past with which L. is so studiously engaged. TM doubles down on this by having the child occasionally quote from early modern literary sources in the following pages. |
| sweet light of the azure smile | Nepomuk’s “azure” eyes offer yet another variation on the theme of blue eyes that runs throughout DF. “Azure” is also a synonym for “sky-blue,” emphasizing the child’s possible relationship to the wind-spirit Ariel. |
| | Der Struwwelpeter (1845) is an instructional children’s book by Heinrich Hoffmann (1809–1894), highly influential in the German-speaking world until the late twentieth century. Significantly, all the children in the book meet with cruel and untimely fates. |
| A puppy dog and no one else | The children’s rhymes on this page appear to be TM’s own invention. |
| A conceptual sphere that is mythic and timeless | This has been a recurring theme throughout the novel. See, e.g., 39/57. |
| he was not allowed into the abbot’s study | TM’s own children similarly remembered how they were not allowed into their father’s study for hours on end when he was writing. |
| A letter opener […] the chiming table clock | These are all objects from the Mann household that were favorite toys of Frido’s when he came to visit his grandparents. |
| “Come unto these yellow sands” […] “Where the bee sucks, there suck I” | These songs can be found in I.2 and V.1 of The Tempest, respectively. |
| “Where should this music be? I’ th’ air or th’ earth?” | |
| Sycorax and her little servant | The servant is, of course, Ariel. |
| Rumpelstiltskin […] Leaping Lark | All characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. |
| For whoso heedeth Goad’s command | TM adapted Echo’s evening prayers from a book of thirteenth-century verses. He overshot the mark a little, however. “Goad” (Got in the original) may sound like a Middle High German pronunciation of “God” but is not authentic. |