Old Mamsell's secret

The cover of the first episode in the gazebo

The secret of old Mamsell (also: The mysterious orphan girl ) is a novel (family drama, detective novel , romance novel ) that E. Marlitt published in 1867 as a serial in the " Gartenlaube ". The first book edition followed in 1868 in the Leipziger Gartenlauben-Verlag Ernst Keil . The illustrations for the early book editions are by Carl Koch .

The novel tells the story of the young orphan Felicitas, who ends up in a pietist family in which she encounters many prejudices, until in the end it turns out that she is an heir to the old noble family who were cheated of their fortune by their pious foster family.

action

Relationships between characters in The Secret of Old Mamsell

The location of the action is a small town in Thuringia, which is only marked with an X (meaning Arnstadt ), the time is the author's present, i.e. the 1860s.

Chapters 1-4. Jasko d'Orlowsky, a traveling Polish artisan , is a guest in the town . His young wife Meta appears in the performance as a shield maiden: "Six military men will shoot you with an armed rifle, and she will cut the six bullets in the air with one blow of her sword." The trick goes wrong and Meta becomes one of them Bullet fatally hit. Among the spectators is Fritz Hellwig, a wealthy retired businessman. The showman couple has a child, the four year old Felicitas, called "Fee". Since it was Meta's last wish that the daughter should not grow up with the traveling people , Hellwig takes her into his household, where the girl is carefully raised by private tutors.

Chapter 5. dies five years later when Fritz Hellwig, begins Felicitas a time of suffering, because due to its obscure origin they will be openly rejected by the rest of the family: from Hellwig's widow Brigitte, a sanctimonious and prejudice -driven Pietist , and by the two sons House, Johannes and Nathanael. Because Hellwig had decided that Felicitas should not be expelled from the house, she can stay, but the private lessons end and Felicitas is degraded to a maid. Nathanael, who is three years older than her, shocks her with information about her origins that has previously been hidden from her. Like pieces of a puzzle, she will find more and more clues to her identity in the course of the plot. Johannes Hellwig is appointed to Felicitas' guardian , but he remains largely invisible because he lives in Bonn: first as a pupil in the institute of his strictly Protestant relative Paul Hellwig, then as a medical student.

Chapters 6–9. Felicitas is only weighed in by the house servant Heinrich, who is also on friendly terms with the "old Mamsell ": Fritz Hellwig's unmarried sister Cordula, who lives hidden from the world in an attic of the rear building. Responsible for Cordula's banishment is the devout Brigitte, who had always rejected Cordula's “unholy piano playing”. Cordula is considered a free spirit and a denier of God. Above all, Cordula is resented for having once brought her father to the grave. Attracted by her piano playing, Felicitas climbs over the roofs into Mamsell's apartment. What she finds there is a truly paradisiacal little refuge: rooms full of birds, flowers and precious autographs by old composers, from which Cordula plays on the piano. In the years that followed, she took over the motherhood of the girl, educated and raised her and taught her true Christianity in the sense of active charity , which is in sharp contrast to the cold-hearted Protestantism of the rest of the Hellwig family. The old Mamsell, however, has a secret that she hides in a gray box: "It has to die before me ... and I can't watch it die!"

Chapters 10-13. Nine years later. Johannes became an ophthalmologist and professor in Bonn. Through his relative Paul Hellwig, Johannes had contact with his daughter Adele, who would like to be his wife. The young widow of a government councilor is charming and pretty, but soon turns out to be extraordinarily illiterate, materialistic and superficial. Since Adele's daughter, little Anna, suffers from scrofula , Johannes sends them both to his hometown, where a newly discovered healing spring gives hope for relief. They move into his parents' house, to which he returns a little later. Felicitas, who has meanwhile matured into a young woman, gradually arouses his love; Felicitas, however, cannot forget how prejudiced and loveless he used to treat her, and at first only feels hatred for him. In fact, Johannes shows himself changed and turns away from his mother's rigid prejudice thinking. He treats Felicitas with tact, he treats his patients without regard to their solvency, and he is on friendly terms with the young lawyer Frank, an advocate for the education of women that his mother detests so much.

Chapters 14-17. Frank and Johannes are under the impression of the (absurd) charm of Adele and the (profound) magic of “Fee”, whereby the comparison is always in favor of the latter. When little Anna accidentally sets her dress on fire while playing with matches, it is Felicitas who saves the child's life, while Adele only has in mind to bring her own toilet to safety. Felicitas put out the fire by jumping into the Mühlbach with the child, of course with the result that Anna contracted a life-threatening cold fever. Felicitas and Johannes come closer to their sick bed, which lasts many days, and gradually begin to understand each other better.

Chapters 18-19. After Johannes and Adele set off on a vacation trip together, Cordula suffers a stroke . Brigitte locks her up temporarily so that Felicitas cannot notify the court immediately, as the dying woman wishes. After Cordula's death, she ransacked her apartment for valuables, but only finds the autographs that she considers not only sinful but also worthless and burns them, including the irretrievable original score of Johann Sebastian Bach's only opera .

Chapters 20-23. When Johannes and Adele return from their trip, Johannes has continued to walk and feels even closer to Felicitas. Meanwhile, Cordula's will has been opened. The deceased had appointed the noble family von Hirschsprung as heir, of which, however, only one side line in Kiel should exist. As the curator of the legacy, attorney Frank goes on a search. Cordula had also determined that the autographs should be sold and that the proceeds should go to the brothers Johannes and Nathanael. Brigitte now owes her sons a large amount of money.

Chapters 24-25. Felicitas has long since returned Johannes' love. However, as their affection grows, so does their concern that the “old Mamsell” secret might become known. Because this secret can obviously be detrimental to his family, and thus also to him. To retrieve the gray box, she climbs over the roofs of Cordula's apartment one more time. Happy she finds the hiding place and discovers that the box contains an old diary. The author was Joseph von Hirschsprung, son of a poor shoemaker and later a student in Leipzig. Joseph and Cordula had been lovers, and during a serious illness Cordula had forbidden to follow him to Leipzig and cared for him until his death.

In addition to the love story, the diary also contains the real secret of the "old Mamsell": Joseph was a descendant of the knight Adrian von Hirschsprung. As a good Catholic , he had been killed by Swedish soldiers in the Thirty Years War , but had been able to bury the family treasure beforehand. When it happened to come to light again centuries later during construction work, Fritz and Paul Hellwig kept the treasures that by right belonged to the Hirschsprung heirs - Joseph - for themselves. Cordula, the real discoverer of the treasure, confronted her father at the time, but this brought him so in armor that he died over it. Guilty about his death, Cordula decided to take the family shame to her grave.

Chapters 26-27. Before Felicitas can destroy the diary, the suspicious and jealous Adele succeeds in snatching the little book from her. Johannes witnesses this scene and demands that Adele give him the book. After reading it, he is aware of the shame of his ancestors and decides to compensate the Hirschsprung heirs. Adele, who had previously often worn a striking golden arm ring, confesses that her father let her in on the matter shortly before his death and that she also gave her this precious gem from the Hirschsprung estate.

Chapter 28. The heirs are finally found, the manor Lutz von Hirschsprung travels from Kiel. It turns out that Meta d'Orlowsky, Felicitas' mother, was his sister. Her parents rejected her after marrying the sleight of hand. Now that the rightful owner gets back the property withheld from him and Hellwig's family shame has been wiped out, Felicitas Johannes can finally say I do.

Origin, reception and effect

The inspiration for the figure of Meta (Felicita's mother) was provided by the actress Emilie von Linsky, who died in a stage accident in Arnstadt in 1829.

Carl Moßberg adapted the work for the stage in 1868.

In his anthology After famous patterns published Fritz Mauthner 1897 a parodic tale The Secret of leather trousers . Another parody was published by Hermann Richter in 1926 under the title The Secret of the Cold Mamsell .

The immensely popular book has been adapted as a film several times, for the first time in 1917 with Edith Meller as Felicitas.

In 1925 a movie version (silent film) directed by Paul Merzbach for Deutsche Vereins-Film AG was released , The Secret of the Old Mamsell, starring Marcella Albani (Felicitas), Frida Richard (Dortje = Mamsell) and Guido Parisch (Vladimir = Johannes) in the leading roles. Fanny Carlsen got the script .

In 1972, Charmier-Film produced a television adaptation for ZDF , The Secret of Old Mamsell . Directed by Herbert Ballmann , the screenplay was written by Karl Wittlinger . The main roles were played by Giulia Follina , Brigitte Horney and Volkert Kraeft .

Expenses (selection)

• Old Mamsell's secret . Ernst Keil, Leipzig 1868.
• Old Mamsell's secret . Zenodot, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8430-7500-8 .
• Old Mamsell's secret . e-Artnow, 2017, ISBN 978-80-268-6206-2 .
• Old Mamsell's secret . Audible , 2013 (audio book, unabridged reading by Gabriele Blum).

• The Old Mam'selle's Secret . JB Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia 1880 (English language edition).

Web links

Wikisource: The secret of the old Mamsell  - sources and full texts

• E. Marlitt in America . In: The Gazebo . Issue 21, 1868, pp. 336 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Commons : The secret of the old Mamsell  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Old Mamsell's secret. Accessed August 2, 2020 (PDF version with illustrations). 
• The secret of the old Mamsell as online full text at Zeno.org
• The secret of old Mamsell as a free audio book at LibriVox

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johannes Bühring: History of the city of Arnstadt . Emil Protscher, Arnstadt 1904, p. 198 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
2. ^ City theater in Bamberg: The secret of the old Mamsell. Retrieved April 5, 2020 . 
3. ↑ The secret of the leather pants. Retrieved April 5, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Laurenz Schulz: The values ​​of kitsch: analyzes of historical modifications and literary applications . JB Metzler, 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-04898-1 , pp. 212 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
5. ↑ Hermann Richter: The secret of the cold Mamsell. Purring and swaying . Paul Steegemann, 1926.
6. ↑ The secret of the old Mamsell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
7. ↑ The secret of the old Mamsell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
8. ↑ The secret of the old Mamsell in the Internet Movie Database (English)