Short stories
Clothes Make the Man
Kleider machen Leute
Gottfried Keller · 1874
Synopsis
Wenzel Strapinski, a journeyman tailor out of work, leaves Seldwyla dressed with an elegance that nothing justifies, a fur-collared coat on his back. An empty carriage gives him a lift. At Goldach, the neighbouring town where it stops, the coachman passes him off as a Polish count, and the innkeeper and then the notables treat him as a lord. The tailor, too shy to undeceive them, lets himself be feted, and sees Nettchen, the Amtmann's daughter, fall in love with the character he is taken for. The day comes when he must choose between disappearing and keeping up his role as far as the engagement.
Context
The story appeared in 1874, in the third volume of the second edition of the cycle of the people of Seldwyla, whose first edition dated from 1856. Seldwyla is an invented small town where people live on appearances and credit; Goldach, where the tailor arrives, is its neighbour. The material has fed two operas, Alexander von Zemlinsky's in 1910 and Joseph Suder's in 1934, and several adaptations, from 1921 to 1963, including the 1940 one with Heinz Rühmann.
Who it is for
In German, about fifty pages. It is best to know that the hero almost never lies: he keeps silent, and it is the town that builds the character in his place.
Prizes and reception
The best-known story in his collection; translated into French as early as 1933, under two titles.
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