Hermann Hesse’s "Roshalde", summary

The artist Johann Veraguth lives in an ancient, secluded estate with his family, transforming their familial coexistence into a cold, alien neighborhood. The artist’s personal collapse reveals the incompatibility of absolute devotion to art with the domestic hearth, where the only connection between the spouses is their youngest child. The story was written in 1912–1913 and published as a book in 1914. The author conceived the idea during a profound personal crisis, the collapse of her first marriage in Gaienhofen, and a recent trip to India.

House above a forest lake

Ten years ago, Johann Veraguth acquired the neglected Roshalde estate. Deep in the park, on the site of a dilapidated park pavilion, he built a spacious studio. Over time, discord with his wife, Adele, forced the artist to add two living rooms to the studio. Since then, the owner has lived there in seclusion, like a bachelor.

The wife occupied the top floor of the manor house. Their eldest son, Albert, was sent to a boarding school. The estate was divided into two separate zones. Only seven-year-old Pierre ran freely between the manor house and the studio by the pond.

The boy considered himself the rightful owner of the estate. The favorite of both parents, he enjoyed unlimited freedom.

Returning from the city on foot at night, Veraguth took a secret path through dense thickets. The dark water of the small lake shimmered faintly. He quickly shed his clothes and bathed in the frigid depths.

Bright electric lights glowed in the studio. On the easel stood a canvas depicting a fisherman on a gray river. Before going to bed, the artist always lingered long in his memory for the colors of the unfinished canvas.

In the morning, Robert, the valet, brought coffee, a slice of rye bread, and fresh cherries. The master’s gaze carefully examined the cold, silvery water in the painting and the wide-open mouth of the caught fish. Among the morning correspondence was a letter from Naples. An old school friend, Otto Burckhardt, announced his imminent arrival for a visit.

Otto Burckhardt’s arrival

On June 16th, the roar of a car engine was heard in front of the main porch. Pierre was the first to rush out onto the gravel yard to greet his guest. The visiting planter brought the boy a wicker basket filled with exotic seashells, a carved ebony elephant, and Chinese paintings.

Madame Adele received her guest in the living room over a glass of liqueur. Burckhardt’s arrival brought a breath of forgotten lightness to the frozen house. Later, the guest descended to the studio and carefully examined his friend’s sparse bedroom. A monastic austerity reigned there. The walls bore no knick-knacks or signs of a woman’s presence.

Above the narrow bed hung only a photograph of little Pierre, next to a faded tropical photograph of Otto himself. The men stood for a long time before the new canvas.

At dusk, the friends went swimming, racing each other across the small lake. The shady water quickly refreshed their tired shoulders. Sitting on the stone steps, they ate ripe cherries from a brown paper bag and reminisced about their high school crush on Meta Heilemann. Burkhardt had never admitted to anyone that he had kept the girl’s stolen glove.

Family split

At midday, Albert arrived in the garden. The young man resembled his mother in appearance, having inherited her dry, oval face and cold manner. The eldest son maintained aloofness toward his father.

In the music room, Albert showered his father with reproaches in a conversation with his mother. The young man confessed to a burning resentment toward his father for the ruined childhood he had. Mrs. Veraguth attempted to calm her son by performing Beethoven’s Second Symphony together, four-handed.

An icy silence fell over dinner. The young man politely declined a glass of red wine. Conversation about Richard Wagner and Johann Sebastian Bach instantly died down. Veraguth stared silently at his plate, feeling a sense of humiliation before his friend.

Night revelations in the workshop

After a dreary feast, Burckhardt found his friend in the garden near the empty workshop. He was sitting in a wicker chair, his face buried in his hands. Robert brought a bottle of fine Moselle wine, crushed ice, and strong Havana cigars.

A gray moth circled the lamps in the dim light. Veraguth spoke of his long-standing impasse. The marriage had been a plague from the very first years. Adele responded to her husband’s passionate advances with icy patience and stubborn silence, withdrawing into her own nobility. The artist sought refuge in painting, turning his craft into a fortress.

When Albert sided with his mother, his second son became his salvation. For the sake of little Pierre, his father voluntarily became a powerless hanger-on at his own estate. Madame Adèle flatly rejected divorce if her husband took their youngest child.

Burckhardt called this situation a cowardly compromise. The planter persistently urged his friend to cut the knot and sail with him to the East in the fall. The artist listened to the reproaches for a long time. Alcohol had broken his usual restraint. He bitterly admitted that he had carried a vial of potassium cyanide in his pocket for years and needed warm sympathy. In the morning, the guest left, extracting from his host a promise to consider escaping to India.

Picture and premonition

Loneliness gripped the artist with renewed vigor. Johann furiously set to work on a large three-figure canvas. At the center of the composition, a child played serenely among wildflowers. A man and woman sat to either side, frozen in a profound isolation and cold.

Pierre ran into his father’s workshop. The pungent smell of turpentine made the boy feel nauseous. His father stroked the child’s silky hair, never taking his eyes off the stretched canvas. The offended boy quietly slipped out the door. On the lawn, he fell into the damp grass and cried for a long time from an incomprehensible melancholy. Soon, the child curled up on the unmade bed in the guest room.

At lunchtime, the mother had difficulty finding her son. The boy complained of a heavy head. At the table, he suddenly vomited the soup he’d eaten. The father carried his beloved son into the children’s bedroom.

Pierre’s sudden illness

In the morning, Pierre felt a brief sense of relief. The artist cautiously spoke to Adèle about his imminent departure overseas. The woman accepted the news with outwardly submissiveness, offering to sell the estate after his departure.

The attack soon returned with renewed vigor. The town doctor initially suspected a common indigestion caused by unripe fruit. Two days later, the doctor summoned Veragut to his office.

The glass table clock ticked monotonously in the quiet room. The doctor bluntly announced the dreadful diagnosis to my father: meningitis. Inflammation of the meninges left little chance of survival.

The artist returned to the estate broken. The thick curtains in the nursery were drawn. Pierre screamed from the unbearable pain in his temples at the slightest rustle or ray of light. Adèle kept constant vigil by the crib.

In a fit of remorse, the mother promised to forever surrender her recovered son to her husband. This belated concession sounded like a terrible mockery of fate on both spouses.

The last morning

A few days later, a deceptive calm set in. The boy woke up clear and calm. Smiling, he asked for a picture book and ate two eggs with gusto.

Father read aloud funny children’s rhymes about the pharmacist Plyushchik. It seemed the crisis had receded. Pierre quietly whispered his love and asked her never to scold him again.

A sudden, wild scream pierced the silence of the house during the midday meal. In the bedroom, a child’s body arched in a violent spasm. The boy thrashed against the metal headboard, bruising his arm until it bled.

The little patient’s left leg began rhythmically beating against the mattress with the mechanical frequency of a clock’s pendulum. By morning, the convulsions had subsided. The father placed his palm on the child’s chest and felt the last beats of the heart fade away.

The artist sat down at the bedside and sketched a final portrait of his deceased son on cardboard.

An empty estate

After the funeral, Adèle and Albert immediately packed for the trip to Montreux. Veragut accompanied them to the train station.

In Roskhold, a carpenter hammered together wooden boxes for finished paintings. A painter wandered beneath the dark chestnut trees, clutching a forgotten wooden shovel from a child’s sandbox. The estate was immersed in autumnal silence. Ahead lay only the distant ocean liner, pure craftsmanship, and the stern passion of creation.