At the gate of heaven

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Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury (1847): Galileo before the Roman Inquisition

At the gate of heaven is a novella by Gertrud von le Fort , which was published in 1954 by Insel-Verlag in Wiesbaden.

The author pursues a question: Is science a curse of humanity?

Time, place and form

The frame story takes place around 1945 in a German city, the internal story in the first third of the 17th century in Padua and Rome. There is a first-person narrator for each of the two times in question. The young German narrator from the 17th century withholds important names out of fear of the Inquisition - such as the Galileo or the "that cardinal".

content

1945 , shortly before the end of the war : The first-person narrator lives in the country and travels to relatives in the city to save precious old family documents from the threat of bombing. A young, highly talented scientist with a doctorate who worked in an armaments factory helps the narrator with the sighting and selection. The Galilean Document is a paper worth saving . A scholar from the family, a student of Galileo, reports on the trial of the famous Italian.

17th century : From the gate of heaven, that is a high room, that young German, who escaped the great war , watches the Medicean stars together with the secretly loved Diana, a niece and student of Galileo . When Diana saw them, Diana had doubts about her faith. She suspects that there are the laws of nature, ourselves and nothing more. No god is there for us.

Galileo is held in Rome in the Palace of the Inquisition. His students are advised on the orders of "that cardinal" to travel to their home countries immediately. The young German disregards the order and follows Diana to Rome. That cardinal is Diana's uncle. He has ordered her to Rome for her protection. In Rome, the young German is not allowed to leave the cardinal's palace. The first-person narrator is interrogated by a guest of the cardinal. Only after the "conversation" does he become aware of its character; learns that his "interlocutor" was the censor of the Holy Office . The censor had remarked on the subject of curiosity that little people should not try to unravel the mysteries of God. The young German then brought up his idea of ​​truth. The researcher questions nature; not god. The Holy Church determined what was truth, the censor had sternly countered, and the cardinal's company suddenly fell silent.

In a dispute between uncle and niece, irreconcilable opposing views of the world come to light. The cardinal sums up the terrible. If no researcher believes in God any more, then in the end man will no longer have any fear at all. The cardinal has a plan. He wants to take his niece out of the line of fire by marrying her to a marquis. Diana refuses and is taken to a monastery. The young German confesses his love for Diana beforehand. The woman cannot answer this because she loves Galileo. Diana knows that her love will not be returned either. Galileo only loves the stars. But Diana asks the young German for one thing. He should keep the teaching of Galileo. That is his job. Before the young German leaves for his war-torn homeland, he has a conversation with the cardinal. In it he confesses his love for Diana. This is the most precious thing he knows. The cardinal instructs him that there is something greater. That is the voluntary renunciation of the beloved. The young German then overhears the trial of Galileo from a hiding place. The revered master forswears; revokes its own teaching. The German eavesdropper hears that Galileo is being pardoned. When the German leaves, he is disappointed in his church and wants to explore the vast cosmos.

1945 : During a bombing raid, the house in which the narrator is sitting is hit. All documents collected - including Galilean - are irretrievably lost. The narrator and the young Dr. rer. nat. get away with life. A few months after the end of the war , the narrator met again with the young doctor to reconstruct the Galilean document from memory. She is astonished to learn that he was not captured, but will continue in US research. The young German from the family of the two actually preserved the research results from the 17th century. It is after Hiroshima go . The doctor doesn't listen to his elderly relative, the narrator. He is anxious to get ahead in the American defense industry. The doctor thinks that Diana's fear of overlooking God when exploring the cosmos is irrelevant. In his opinion, however, it would be critical if God were found again through research. Then there would arise the problem of its classification in the scientific structure of thought.

Quote

  • "Knowledge is always paid for with death."

reception

literature

source
  • Gertrud von le Fort: At the gate of heaven. Novella. 29th to 40th thousand. 87 pages. Insel-Verlag Wiesbaden 1957.
First edition
  • Gertrud von le Fort: At the gate of heaven. Novella. 87 pages. Insel-Verlag Wiesbaden 1954, linen, red, gold-stamped cover, color headed cut, with dust jacket.
expenditure
Secondary literature
  • Rolf Füllmann: Gertrud von le Forts 'At the Gate of Heaven' - the end of the neo-renaissance in a novella about the end of the renaissance. In: Ders .: The novella of the neo-renaissance between 'Gründerzeit' and 'Untergang' (1870-1945): reflections in the rear-view mirror. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2016. pp. 455-502, ISBN 978-3-8288-3700-3
  • Nicholas J. Meyerhofer: Gertrud von LeFort (= heads of the 20th century. Vol. 119). Morgenbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-371-00376-0 .
  • Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors A - Z. 4th, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 382, ​​left column, 9th Zvo

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meyerhofer, p. 103, entry from 1954
  2. ↑ a b source, p. 21, 11. Zvo
  3. ↑ Source, p. 34, 8. Zvu: Diana's mother and the cardinal are siblings.
  4. ↑ Source, p. 83, 14. Zvo
  5. ↑ Source, p. 56, 5. Zvo
  6. ↑ Meyerhofer, p. 82