Seejungfrauen (Mermaids) (page 56)
Theodor Fontane wrote about Effi Briest and the story of the Chinese in Swinemünde, before he wrote about the Stechlin Brandenburg nobles and Melusine. Melusine was one of a school of mermaids known to yearning men of letters and men of song, men of the brush and men long gone. From Loreley to Rusalka to Undine or Ondine.
One of Melusine’s most unforgettable painters was Heinrich Vogeler, who in the introduction to his posthumously published memoir wrote: "Perhaps this book will come to people who are looking for a way to a new life and who recognize in my story the false paths that they no longer need to tread themselves." Before his marriage fell apart, before he had turned their home into a commune, before he had emigrated to the former Soviet Union, before he had died in Kazakhstan on a collective farm, when they were still young and in love, she, who would become his first wife Martha, had written to her mother: “Another hour at Vogeler’s yesterday. This is as always a treat like a pretty fairy tale. He's too lovely to look at with his dreamy eyes. He showed us a booklet of sketches for etchings from his earliest days up to now, many fine original things."