Jellyfish

Jellyfish are part of the changing coastal life of Travemünde and, in Tony’s memory, the center of a small failed experiment that becomes a recurring comic story. Their appearance links the specific material life of the shore—where sea creatures wash up with the tide—to the affectionate recollections Tony shares years later with Hanno.

Appearance and Coastal Setting

During a walk along the beach, Tony and Morten pass shells, seaweed, and jellyfish in the water and along the shore. The jellyfish include both simple translucent kinds and reddish-yellow poisonous ones that can sting swimmers. The account places them among the ordinary details of the beach rather than treating them as mysterious or supernatural creatures.

The sea’s conditions shape when and how marine life reaches the beach. During Hanno’s holiday, days of changing winds and weather include a northeast wind that drives a blackish-green flood tide into the bay, covering the beach with seaweed, mussels, and jellyfish and threatening the pavilions. In this setting, the jellyfish are one element of a powerful, shifting coastal environment, alongside the dark water and waves.

Tony’s Attempt to Preserve Their Colors

As a young visitor, Tony wants the pretty colored stars she believes jellyfish contain. She gathers several in her handkerchief and lays them out in the sun on a balcony, expecting them to dry until only the colored parts remain. When she returns, nothing has been preserved: there is only a large wet spot, which smells of rotting seaweed. The episode’s humor rests on the distance between her simple plan and the creatures’ material reality.

Tony recounts the same incident during her beach walk with Morten, presenting it as an example of how foolish she used to be. The story turns an unsuccessful attempt to treat living marine creatures as objects that can be neatly separated and saved into an amusing exchange between the young companions. It also gives the encounter a concrete local detail: the shore’s jellyfish are not merely scenery but become part of Tony’s experience of the place.

Recollection and Narrative Significance

Years later, Tony tells Hanno the episode while describing her holiday in Travemünde and the family she stayed with. She remembers the Schwarzkopfs as honest, kind, thoughtful, clever, and well-read, and recalls that she learned from them. Her account of the jellyfish sits within this wider recollection of a formative, happy time; the failed experiment is one of the precise details through which that past remains vivid to her.

The repeated story connects Tony’s youthful holiday to Hanno’s own longing for the sea. The creatures recur in distinct contexts: first as beach life encountered during Tony’s walk, then as the subject of her comic experiment and later retelling, and finally as part of the sea’s forceful changes during Hanno’s stay. Across these appearances, jellyfish remain natural parts of the coastal world, while Tony’s remembered mistake gives them a personal and affectionate place in the family’s shared memory.