Effi von Innstetten née Briest

The novel's protagonist, Effie Briest is a pampered, 17-year-old aristocratic girl, something of a tomboy in playing with the daughters of the town pastor and schoolteacher. In school, Effi's best subject is mythology. Everything changes in the course of an hour as her mother's former suitor, 38-year old Geert von Innstetten, comes to Hohen-Cremmen and asks for Effi's hand in marriage. Her parents worry about the age difference and her reckless desire for fun and adventure but consent. Effi is exhausted and somewhat bored by their pedantic honeymoon touring art galleries in Italy and quickly gets over the apparent charm of Innstetten's house in backwater Kessin, a coastal resort in Eastern Pomerania. She makes only one good friend, the chemist Alonzo Gieshübler. Led by Sidonie Grasenabb, the religious faction in town considers Effi a deist if not an atheist. Effi is not...