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(1811–1875), a family friend, he started a job in the Deaconess Hospital Bethanien
in Kreuzberg, Berlin. His task was to prepare two deaconesses for their
examination and to work in the hospital pharmacy. Both women passed their
exams very well, which is evidence of Fontane’s pharmaceutical knowledge. After
this job he considered his future and decided to abandon the pharmacist
profession, because he feared to end up like his father. His father Louis Henri
Fontane (1796–1867) was a gifted man, a delightful narrator, but also a gambler
and drinker.
Theodor Fontane realized that his fortune did not suffice to buy a good
pharmacy, so he quitted his profession. In the following years he worked as editor,
corrector, press agent and finally as the secretary of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
In 1878 he published his first novel ‘Before the Storm’ (‘Vordem Sturm’) (8).
Only one year later Fontane mentioned plans for a contemporary novel
titled ‘All Kinds of Luck’ (‘Allerlei Glück’), the
protagonist of which was a pharmacist who
resembled his former master Wilhelm Rose
very much. However, the novel remained
fragmentary, but Fontane incorporated many
sketchily drawn characters and milieu
depictions in his later works. The publishers
rather preferred shorter narrations or novellas.
Besides,
Fontane did not want to be
distinguished as a ‘writing pharmacist’ (10).
In 1892, Fontane was taken ill with an
age-‐related depression. His physician was about
to admit him to a mental asylum. Fontane
believed that he would die at the age of 72 like
his father. When he was recovering – without
medicine which he as a former pharmacist was disinclined to take – his doctor
recommended, “If you want to get well again, write.” Fontane started to write
down his childhood memories and proceeded with his novel ‘Effi Briest’. In both
works pharmacist characters appear: his own father in his childhood memories
and Dr. Alonzo Gieshübler in ‘Effi Briest’, the last of which without a doubt shares
features of his father, and according to Georg Urdang he is “one of the most
likeable, though authentic representatives of his profession ever created by a
writer.” Gieshübler, who affirmed that he had never been young, is presented as an
exceedingly positive figure feeling a lot of sympathy for other people (8).
Another writer originating from the profession of pharmacists is the
dramatist and novelist Hermann Sudermann (1857–1928), whose dramas were
successful in Berlin and other theatres in his lifetime. Currently, Sudermann is
Figure 4.-‐ Theodor Fontane.
