The Lake of the Bees

Described by the author himself as a “pearl of German poetry,” The Lake of the Bees is one of his earliest novellas. In it, he explores the bittersweet sorrow of memory. An old man looks back on his life and remembers Elizabeth—the only woman he ever loved. The two of them had shared their childhood, shared their summer holidays and family picnics. Yet somehow all had been lost—the joy, excitement, and hope slowly replaced by the melancholy, resignation, and inertia that comes from broken dreams. Now, at the end of his life, he is left only with the knowledge of what might have been. Theodor Storm is a leading figure of German Poetic Realism; his novellas are some of the finest in German literature.