After Christmas, Crampas and Effi begin an affair, during which Effi hears Roswitha's story about the youthful pregnancy that nearly destroys her life. He talks obliquely of Innstetten's 'mystical leanings' and being a 'born pedagogue,' wanting to improve Effi. Crampas becomes a riding companion, first of Innstetten, then of Innstetten and Effi, and finally of Effi alone (albeit chaperoned). Major Crampas comes to town, Innstetten's former comrade, a flirtatious gossip with a jealous wife. Effi knows that she is too young to become a mother, but Annie is born, cared for by Roswitha, who Effi rescues from unemployment and depression shortly beforehand. Nevertheless, she adapts but is truly comfortable only with Gieshübler and his protégée, the singer Marietta. When work takes the groom away, fear of a ghost debilitates Effi. Innstetten and maid Johanna are uncomfortable talking about the upstairs 'gallery,' where Effi hears noises. Effi's delight at her new 'oriental' surroundings in Kessin is brief. Honeymoon letters home show enthusiasm but little joy.

Hectic preparations include shopping in Berlin for a trousseau.

She agrees to marry her mother's 38-year-old ex-suitor, a rising politician in Eastern Pomerania. Seventeen-year-old, free-spirited Effi Briest lives happily in the quiet Prussian town of Hohen-Cremmen. Thomas Mann once wrote that if one's library had to be reduced to six books, Effi Briest should be one of them.Effi Briest tells the story of a young Prussian girl in the 1880s, who marries a rising politician incapable of love, loses everything in the aftermath of a brief affair, and makes peace with leaving too brief a life early. The tragedy unfolds as a consequence of Instetten's strict following of his duties in society in response to his wife's indiscretions. This tragic tale tells the story of Effi, a young woman from an old and respectable family who, due to a sense of duty, marries Geert von Instetten, a much older Prussian official. Cooper (1868 - 1939)Įffi Briest is a classic of Prussian Realism, relatively unknown in the English speaking world, but widely taught in German schools.

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