from the cramping environment of a German province, may well
have found his own melody, "die seine Seele immer mitsingt im
Wachen oder Traum", in those lives more deeply rooted in his own
region. Landscape and people of that country "wo der Strom stiller
wird" ⁽²⁹⁾ are the inspiration of his greatest work.

In the Reise nach Tilsit, ⁽³⁰⁾ first of the Litauische Geschichten,
the well-to-do Lithuanian Ansas Balczus, tiring of his wife Indre,
has with the girl Busze devised a cruel plot. He invites Indre to come
with him in their little boat for a treat in the town. Knowing the
currents, and the precise spot where he can count on danger, he
has made everything ready so that the boat will capsize in the night
as they return, and he himself will be saved by floating on the
rushes which he has stowed away in a sack by her feet. They have
what seems a happy time together in Tilsit, and then there comes,
very simply, a change of feeling in Ansas. In the inn, as they are
eating and drinking together, in all the charm and gaiety of their
peasant costume, the husband hears some words spoken by a
German who has caught sight of his wife; the German is full of
admiration and respect for the beauty of "these Lithuanian
women". Late in the evening, the two get into their boat and set
out for home on the quiet, moonlit water. There is a death on that
voyage, and there is poignant sadness in it, but it is not tragic. With
love and trust completely restored, the young wife has lost all the
stifling apprehensions of the morning's journey. As they had set out
for Tilsit Indre had seen the sack and had wondered what was in
it. Her suspicions have been stirred; hanging on every syllable of
her husband's words, every change of expression in his eyes, she
lives from moment to moment of dread--dread giving way to
hope, and hope stifled by mounting dread, a nightmare whirlpool
of anguish from which there seems no escape. The passage, in itself
and in the contrasting context, makes strangely impressive reading.
It shows the artist's control of uncontrollable feeling in the heart of
a woman far removed from the great and the petty order of
civilization. It is exquisite tracing of the graph of elemental feeling,
but in it there is a wealth of human sympathy. It is the anatomy of
fear, which Sudermann, in spite of all his vigour and renown, his
laughter and his wayward wanderings, must somehow have come
to know.