Die drei gerechten Kammacher

The novella was first published in 1856 in a collection of stories about the imaginary but totally Swiss little town called Seldwyla at which Keller pokes fun in a more or less (mostly less) loving manner. Three poor journeymen work for a master combmaker and compete, in silent torment, to be the one who'll buy the shop off him when he retires. The poor sods work non-stop, sleep three to a bed and subsist mostly on cabbage, and yet rather than think to organise and present a united front to their outrageous exploiter, they suffer ever-longer hours with ever-decreasing pay. As the prospects for the shop get worse--they have enriched the master so much he decides to fire them all--they start competing for the one eligible girl within show more their reach, the town washerwoman's somewhat oldish and bizarre daughter.

The story is contemporary but the work system looks medieval--the journeymen are hired on a temporary basis and expected to take off in spring--skilled migrant labour then as now. They carry little ledgers with good conduct testimonies and references that they present in each new town. Completely at the mercy of the town authorities, the masters, and the weather.

The story ends with the youngest journeyman getting the insufferable girl, while the other two end up one a suicide and the other a lunatic. Almost to the end it still reads as a protracted joke, and then--bam! Swiss Realismus painting the need for Socialismus! show less