In this classic German novella, originally published in 1888, the individual wrestles with the mass, and man with the most elementary forces of nature. It is Storm's last complete work. The scene of the novella is characterized with vividness and grandeur in its setting of marsh and sea. Like the stories of Storm's youth, it glorifies love, the love of two beings who are faithful to each other unto death, and at the same time it touches themes which deeply occupied Storm, such as the problem of heredity or the relation between father and son. The charm of youth, to which Storm was always most susceptible, invests the chief characters, and they have that chaste reserve that holds all internal life sacred. Happiness is won, but it ends in tragedy. It is a man of sober intellect who tells the whole story - and yet, like human life itself, it stands out against a mystic background.