Chapters 1-3 Summary

Facing the village street of Hohen-Cremmen stands the von Briest ancestral home. Mother and daughter are in the garden. Effi epitomizes grace and abandon, good sense, a zest for life and kindness. When three friends, the good-natured Jahnke twins, Bertha and Hertha, and boring, conceited Hulda Niemeyer, approach, Mamma gives them privacy, noting that company is due in half an hour. Effi explains that Mamma's old friend is coming, a handsome, manly Landrat. Baron Geert von Innstetten at age 20, loses Mamma's hand to the better-established von Briest, leaves the army, studies law, reenlists for the war of 1870, attracts the attention of Bismarck and the Kaiser and is named Landrat for Kessin District. The girls give leftover gooseberry skins a solemn burial at sea. Effi recalls how women used to be drowned for infidelity. Mamma waves her in. Effi objects, saying that...