The Au River is a small watercourse linked to Schwartau and to the countryside around the Riesebusch Inn. In the novel, it is both a feature of the landscape and a point where family history, local memory, and the changing town meet: Thomas explains its course during an outing, then recalls that Lübeck itself was once situated on the river before a fire led to the town’s rebuilding on the Trave.

Course and Setting

The river is introduced during a carriage excursion through the Duchy of Oldenburg. After the party passes through a village square and crosses a bridge over the Au River, it arrives at the Riesebusch, a low inn beside lawns, flower beds, and wooded slopes. The river thus marks a transition in the journey from settled streets to a rural place of recreation.

Thomas describes the Au River to Herr Permaneder as the source of the stream on which Schwartau lies. The party later visits its spring, reaching a wooded spot where a wooden bridge crosses a small ravine. Elisabeth uses a collapsible silver cup to draw water from a stone basin below the source, giving the river a specific, practical presence within the excursion rather than leaving it as distant scenery.

Local History and Memory

Thomas connects the Au River to an account of Lübeck’s earlier location. He says that in the Middle Ages the town stood on the Au until it burned down and was rebuilt on the Trave. He presents this past with a joking aside about how impermanent the town once seemed, making the river a reminder of a vanished settlement as well as a point of geographical orientation.

The name also recalls Thomas’s childhood. He tells Herr Permaneder that, when he and the other boys were young, they would pinch one another’s arms and ask for the name of Schwartau’s river; the answer was the Au, and the pinches made the game memorable. His anecdote turns local geography into family and childhood lore, at once affectionate and uncomfortable.

Narrative Significance

The river links different scales of the novel’s world: a source in a wooded ravine, a stream associated with Schwartau, and a past in which Lübeck was said to have stood on its banks. Thomas’s explanation makes local topography part of his way of interpreting the town’s history, while the childhood game shows how place names persist in ordinary family memory. The excursion’s route and the spring visit give these associations a present-day setting, joining landscape, recollection, and conversation.