AUF DER HOHE, 'On the Heights' (1865) reflects a period of constitutional po litical conflict in Germany, and is the most widely known of Auerbach's novels. The cen tral figure is a king whose self-confident indi viduality comes in conflict with his love of popular freedom. Anticipating the "superman* of later writers, he feels that his nature is cast in too large a mold to be confined by consti tutional restraints or ethical conventions. In conflict with a majority of the elected repre sentatives of the people over some ecclesiastical question, he dissolves the assembly in his im patience of any outer control. The same char acteristics are manifesting themselves mean time in his domestic life. His queen is a gentle lady of domestic instincts. He loves her, yet finds in the forceful, energetic Countess Irma, one of her ladies in waiting, a spirit so answer ing to his own that they Loin to transgress, he the bond of marriage, she of loyalty to her queen. Atonement comes first to Irma, who withdraws from the court into solitude, recog nizing that one who would live a life of nature may not claim we protection of me social order. Thus the king is brought to realize that
life for its full unfolding depends not only on following the law of nature or the law of cus tom, but in the co-ordination of them, when man of his own free will yields obedience to law. He dismisses his autocratic counsellors and bows to the will of his people. The stress of this psychic drama is relieved by scenes be tween the queen and Wallpurga, the little prince's peasant nurse, who passes, as does her husband, through a conflict parallel to that of Irma and the king, though both are saved from straying by their unsophistocated respect for the folk-ways. The contrast between court and peasant life is a primary interest in 'On the Heights.' There are translations by S. A. Stern and others.