Das goldene Bett (1913)

At the center of the story is the gravely ill Princess Arnulf, who lies in her golden bed and seems to float like a good spirit among all the people she meets. She is a friend, patron, and benefactor all in one. The poet Nehls values her because she believes in him and supports him; her banker loves her because she places her trust in him; other women adore her because, even in her moribund state, she still tries to bring their wayward husbands back to the family hearth; and friends in financial trouble are eternally grateful when the highborn woman opens her purse for them. In this microcosm, her admirers circle the golden bed and soon become part of it themselves. Yet each of them is markedly different from all the others. The bank director, orderly and focused on clear goals, remains the calmest, since he does not seek life’s ideal value. The poet Frank Nehls is the most restless, despite having everything: genius and fame, and his delightful daughter Pieps, whom even a count vies for. And yet he is tormented by an idealism that can never truly be satisfied. His life soon becomes a wreck: he is no longer interested in his own wife, a one-dimensional character; the bailiffs are constantly at his door; and the count, a source of hope in Pieps’s life, dies tragically in a car accident. Thus Frank’s life becomes one disappointment after another, one catastrophe after another. Eventually, Nehls—like the others—also loses the princess, who dies in her golden bed. She was the one who had always given him support, his best friend, and the only person who could tear him away from his mistress and pave the way for him to return to his wife. Nehls is on the verge of losing his footing in life when, in his hour of greatest need, his brother Felix steps in. Felix is head of the securities department, and the bank director is his superior. Felix gives Frank some financial breathing room through an operation that borders on embezzlement. Even so, the poet has grown weary of struggle, is emotionally isolated, and has lost his creative powers. The golden bed as a fixed point, as a safe haven of rest—all of that is over. Even when Pieps becomes the bank director’s wife and he knows his daughter is provided for, Nehls can no longer be lifted out of his despair. Weary of life, he is one day found dead in a mountain ravine, lying beneath the wreckage of a crushed car.