Beate and Mareile

Lovis Corinth :
Eduard Graf von Keyserling
* 1855 † 1918

Beate and Mareile is a novel by Eduard von Keyserling that was published in 1903 by S. Fischer in Berlin as a journal version ( Die neue Rundschau ) and book.

The "handsome, reckless" Count Günther von Tarniff met his master around 1870 in the form of the old Berlin Prince Kornowitz.

prehistory

Beate and Mareile were brought up together at Kaltin Castle . Beate and Günther belong to the long-established Baltic gentry. Baroness Beate von Losnitz and Günther von Tarniff are neighborhood children. The estates of both families are contiguous. Günther married Beate and moved in as a gentleman at Kaltin Castle. Mareile Ziepe, the inspector's daughter at Gut Kaltin, was very lucky. Princess Elise Kornowitz took them to Berlin. In the metropolis Mareile rose to be the "most celebrated" singer. “Prince Kornowitz languishes” on the beautiful.

action

Mareile Ziepe, now called Mareile Cibò and is considered a friend of Princess Elise, travels from Berlin and visits her parents in Kaltin. A little later, the young painter Hans Berkow stops by his friend Günther.

Beate is expecting her first child. Mareile follows Berkow to Bordighera . Günther, who stayed at home in Kaltin with the mother-to-be, would have loved to have owned the beautiful singer. The count goes on a hunt. The starting point is the Waldkrug. There old Mankow is waiting for his master . Günther not only hunts in the forest, but also has fun with Eve, Mankow's daughter, in her room. The count is only satisfied after he has made the "wild girl" sexually subservient.

Beate gives birth to a parent, little Went. Günther triumphs. Mareile marries Hans Berkow, separates from him and moves again to Berlin to live with Princess Elise. It was through Hans that Mareile understood her own sensuality. During their upbringing at Kaltin Castle, the physical love aspect was suppressed. In any case, the singer feels free again. She admits the right to freedom. The painter Hans was not the right one. The singer wants to go higher. The next time Mareile visits his parents in Kaltin, Günther decides to be unfaithful to his wife again. Mareile accepts the resolution and should - like her predecessor Eve - become sexually subservient to the count. Günther does not quite complete his project. Eve overhears the couple, intends to murder, but does not have the strength to act.

Continued adultery outside the castle walls does not go unnoticed. Beate becomes suspicious. When she finds out, she sends Mareile away in anger. Before Beate's old mother dies, she gives the angry daughter rules of conduct. A woman always waits for the father of her child. Because men always come home. Beate keeps the last word. The mother is right. First of all, Princess Elise Kornowitz travels from Berlin and regrets Beate because Günther has followed Mrs. Cibò-Berkow to Berlin. The landed gentry friend in the area around Kaltin Castle is pretty unanimous in saying that the Tarniff deserves a lesson. He receives it immediately. Prince Kornowitz seriously wounded Günther in a pistol duel.

At home with his wife Beate at Kaltin Castle, Günther is looking forward to his recovery. Mareile comes from Berlin and wants to get her lover back. Günther rejects Mareile with a friendly, binding letter. Mareile is not Eve Mankow. The singer reads the rejection and clenches her fist towards the lock.

Form and interpretation

The lecture appears to be undemanding. The narrator puts himself in the position of the character whose thoughts and feelings he is following. When, for example, Beate found out shortly before her delivery that Günther had cheated on her with Eve Mankow, it was described how the heavily pregnant woman could not get rid of the image of the "big, busty" girl and how she was disgusted with her own plump body. When Günther undertakes the next adultery, then it is Günther's line of thought. Soon the wife finds out about the offense. Beate can now think in quick succession.

The characters, even if they do not come from the people, speak a Baltic dialect: "Beating", for example, calls Beate's dying noble mother her daughter. Some Keyserling's humor appears macabre. When Beate's aunt Seneïde kneels on her mother's deathbed, the pious woman is intoxicated by the nearness of death.

Keyserling has Mareile declaim from Lucinde : “Destroy and create, one and all; and so the eternal spirit floats forever on the eternal world flow of time and life and perceives every bolder wave before it dissolves. "

Accompanying sexual circumstances are bluntly named: "... she [Eve Mankow] sighed so deeply that the rough tips of her breasts almost wanted to pierce her shirt." Count Günther von Tarniff commands his servants almost like hunting dogs. Immediately before the sexual act, he orders the half-naked Eve Mankow: "Sit! ... Turn your face to the fire. Let the braids hang over your shoulders. "

filming

Hajo Gies filmed the novel for television in 1981 (with Herlinde Latzko as Beate, Anne-Marie Kuster as Mareile, Rüdiger Vogler as Günther, Dietrich Mattausch as Hans Berkow, Monica Gruber as Eve Mankow, Marianne Kehlau as Princess Elise Kornowitz and Herbert Weissbach as Prince Kornowitz).

literature

Used edition

Eduard von Keyserling: Beate and Mareile. A castle story . GRIN Verlag (1st edition 2008), ISBN 978-3-640-23112-6

Secondary literature

Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A - Z . Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 3-520-83704-8

Web links

Beate and Mareile in the Gutenberg-DE project
The film in the IMDb

Remarks

↑ The time of the action can be guessed at a single point in the text: General practitioner Doctor Joller searches “the newspapers for new meannesses of the French”. (Edition used, p. 89, 2nd Zvu)
↑ On going to press (typesetting, typography): For example, the final punctuation mark “.” Is often missing.
On p. 76, 10. Zvu it says “window panes”. On p. 89, 5. Zvu, a paragraph is inserted after the verb in the sentence “In the library sat the old family doctor ...” and on p. 58, 4. Zvo begins a sentence with the gibberish “Die == five o'clocks == the princess ... “.

Individual evidence

↑ Wilpert, p. 331, right column, 6. Zvo
↑ Steffen Brondke: Journal and book prints of the literary texts Keyserling . In: Eduard von Keyserling and classical modernism (= treatises on literary studies ). JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-476-04892-9 , pp. 287-290 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-04892-9_19 .
↑ Edition used, p. 96, 5th Zvu
↑ Edition used, p. 90, 2nd Zvu
↑ Friedrich Schlegel : Lucinde: Allegory of the cheek
↑ Edition used, p. 48, 8. Zvo
↑ Edition used, p. 50, 8th Zvu

[A1-3] The time of the action can be guessed at a single point in the text: General practitioner Doctor Joller searches “the newspapers for new meannesses of the French”. (Edition used, p. 89, 2nd Zvu)

[A2-9] On going to press (typesetting, typography): For example, the final punctuation mark “.” Is often missing.
On p. 76, 10. Zvu it says “window panes”. On p. 89, 5. Zvu, a paragraph is inserted after the verb in the sentence “In the library sat the old family doctor ...” and on p. 58, 4. Zvo begins a sentence with the gibberish “Die == five o'clocks == the princess ... “.

[1] Wilpert, p. 331, right column, 6. Zvo

[2] Steffen Brondke: Journal and book prints of the literary texts Keyserling . In: Eduard von Keyserling and classical modernism (= treatises on literary studies ). JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-476-04892-9 , pp. 287-290 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-04892-9_19 .

[4] Edition used, p. 96, 5th Zvu

[5] Edition used, p. 90, 2nd Zvu

[6] Friedrich Schlegel : Lucinde: Allegory of the cheek

[7] Edition used, p. 48, 8. Zvo

[8] Edition used, p. 50, 8th Zvu