51. Gottfried Keller, William Tell (the actor) shoots the apple off his son's head

The community performance of Schiller's William Tell drew a great crowd, and everybody awaited this unforgettable, exciting scene, William Tell's shooting the apple off his son's head.  Tell was played by a serious and sober actor who in real life was an innkeeper.  Several generations of his family had managed the inn before him, and most likely, more generations succeeded him.   Thus, he himself was an icon.   Altdorf is where the original event took place.   Mr. Gessler is the enemy.

This is my final installment of passages from Gottfried Keller's Green Henry, though this is not the finale in the play.      


[Note: Permission to quote from Gottfried Keller's book was granted to me on May 2, 2013 from Alma Books / Alma Classics, London House, 243-253 Lower Mortlake Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 2LL, United Kingdom.]
    

Excerpt from Chapter 14

Tell

by Gottfried Keller

Then quite unexpectedly, Tell appeared, going on his way alone with his boy.  He was a competent, solid innkeeper, and a marksman, a respected and dependable man of about forty years old, who had been spontaneously and unanimously chosen for Tell.  He had dressed himself just as the people had always imagined the old Swiss to be dressed -- in red and white with a great deal of puffing and braiding, red and white feathers in his little crenellated red and white hat.   In addition, he wore a silk scarf across his breast, and even if all this were anything but appropriate for the simple huntsman, yet the seriousness of the man showed how greatly he was honouring the conception of the hero, as he understood it, by this pomp;  for in this sense, Tell was not merely a plain huntsman, but was also a political protector and a saint, who could not be imagined otherwise than in the colours of his country, in velvet and silk, with waving plumes.   But in his honest simplicity, our Tell had no suspicion of the irony of his splendid attire;  he walked composedly on... with his young son who was decked out like a kind of little god...

At last we arrived at the small market town which for today was our Altdorf.   When we rode through the ancient gateway, we found the little town which consisted simply of one rather large square, quite lively already, full of music and banners, and all the houses decorated with branches of fir.   Mr. Gessler was just riding out to commit a few evil deeds in the surrounding neighbourhood... 

[People] soon streamed in at the gateway;  for... the majority of them did want very much to see the chief events which were so venerated and so full of significance, and above all, Tell's shot.   Already, from the window of the town-hall, we could see the pikemen arriving with their detested pole, setting it up in the middle of the market-place, and proclaiming the decree to the beating of drums.   Now the square was cleared, all the people, in costume and otherwise, were made to stand aside, and the crowds swarmed at all the windows, on the steps, on the wooden balconies, on the roofs.   The two guards were marching up and down near the pole; now came Tell, walking across the market square with his boy, greeted by roaring applause;  he did not hold the conversation with the child but at once engaged in the sinister dispute with the officers, which the people followed in tense excitement...

Now we rode in, to the sound of the trumpets, and found the scene in full swing, Tell in great distress, and the people all agog, and only too much disposed to snatch their hero away from his oppressors.   But when the Governor began his speech, there was quiet.   The speeches were not delivered theatrically and with gesture, but more in the manner of a public reading, sonorously, monotonously, and in rather a singsong tone, because after all, it was poetry;  they were audible to the whole market-place and if someone, being over-awed, failed to make himself understood, the people called out:  "Louder, louder!"  they were greatly delighted to hear the passage once again, and did not allow the repetition to destroy their illusion... But the national humour asserted itself in the very kernel of the play, when it came to Tell's shot. 

At this point, whenever Tell's deed was enacted in the old fashion, it had from time immemorial been the customary joke for the boy to take the apple off his head during the altercation and coolly to begin to eat it, to the huge delight of the people.   This diversion was smuggled into today's performance too, and when Gessler furiously demanded of the boy what he meant by it, the boy returned impudently:  "Sir!  My father is such a good marksman that he would be ashamed to shoot at an apple as big as this one!   Put an apple on my head that is no bigger than your mercy and my father will be all the better able to hit it!"

When Tell shot, he seemed almost to regret that he had not his rifle in his hand but had to content himself with a "stage shot."  He really did tremble involuntarily as he took aim, so keenly did he feel the honour of being allowed to enact this sacred scene.  And when he held the second arrow threateningly under the tyrant's eyes, while all the people looked on in breathless anxiety, then the hand holding the arrow trembled again, his eyes gave Gessler a piercing look, and for a moment his voice raised to such a pitch of passion that Gessler turned pale, and a shiver of terror went through the whole market-place.  Then a glad, deep-voiced murmur arose, they all shook hands and said the innkeeper was a real man, and so long as we had such men as he, we were in no danger.   

[excerpts from pp. 268-272]