a german cultural question
This isn't a language question, in point of fact. But there seem to be an awful lot of knowledgable people about in this forum. And undoubtedly a speaker of the language is likely to be familiar with the culture as well. So I'm bringing it here in hopes of a solution.
Anyway, it concerns a passage in The Riddle of the Sands, a novel from the early 1900s by Erskine Childers. I've tried posting on a livejournal book forum, but with no success. I even emailed the professor who did the footnotes for a 1996 Oxford annotated edition. She said that was for her PhD thesis, she hadn't looked at the book since, and could not help me.
The book has some renown as an early example of the espionage genre, and is credited with stirring up English anxiety about a German invasion in the years leading up to the First World War. (Churchill, for example, was said to have been so alarmed by the German plot described in the book that he stepped up his advocacy for British naval development.)The plot involves two young Englishmen who believe they have stumbled on a German scheme to launch an invasion of England from the chain of islands off the German coast. The passage in question occurs near the end of XXVII. Carruthers hides aboard a German boat so he can eavesdrop on a conversation. He hears what he needs to and goes to make a stealthy getaway. But:
"On the way I cannoned into one of the passengers and pressed him into my service; incidentally seeing his face, and verifying an old conjecture. It was one who, in Germany, has a better right to insist than anyone else."
Who is it that, in Germany circa 1904, has "a better right to insist"? The gender of the pronoun rules out some chivalrous explanation (ie the daughter of the German 'spy' that Carruthers has been watching) I wonder if I'm missing something completely obvious that's internal to the plot. Other people have suggested that this is some 'lost' cultural issue, which has impelled my curiosity.
Thank you to anyone who can shed light on this. I'm sorry to have sullied the language forum with a literary question, but I'm at the end of my rope...
Anyway, it concerns a passage in The Riddle of the Sands, a novel from the early 1900s by Erskine Childers. I've tried posting on a livejournal book forum, but with no success. I even emailed the professor who did the footnotes for a 1996 Oxford annotated edition. She said that was for her PhD thesis, she hadn't looked at the book since, and could not help me.
The book has some renown as an early example of the espionage genre, and is credited with stirring up English anxiety about a German invasion in the years leading up to the First World War. (Churchill, for example, was said to have been so alarmed by the German plot described in the book that he stepped up his advocacy for British naval development.)The plot involves two young Englishmen who believe they have stumbled on a German scheme to launch an invasion of England from the chain of islands off the German coast. The passage in question occurs near the end of XXVII. Carruthers hides aboard a German boat so he can eavesdrop on a conversation. He hears what he needs to and goes to make a stealthy getaway. But:
"On the way I cannoned into one of the passengers and pressed him into my service; incidentally seeing his face, and verifying an old conjecture. It was one who, in Germany, has a better right to insist than anyone else."
Who is it that, in Germany circa 1904, has "a better right to insist"? The gender of the pronoun rules out some chivalrous explanation (ie the daughter of the German 'spy' that Carruthers has been watching) I wonder if I'm missing something completely obvious that's internal to the plot. Other people have suggested that this is some 'lost' cultural issue, which has impelled my curiosity.
Thank you to anyone who can shed light on this. I'm sorry to have sullied the language forum with a literary question, but I'm at the end of my rope...