The silence (Gertrud von le Fort)
The silence is a story that Gertrud von le Fort completed shortly before her 90th birthday and that appeared in 1967 in the Arche in Zurich.
content
The Senate of Rome wants to save the city. The struggle of the hostile barons must be stopped by razing their city castles to the ground. Thereupon the old noble enemies ally themselves and threaten Rome. The Senate comes up with the next idea. Let the Pope fix it. The Holy Father is called back to Rome from exile in Viterbo .
When the Pope moves into Rome, spoiled by the rubble of the noble castles, he appears to the tormented citizens as the resolute authority who could bring the longed-for peace.
The Holy Father secretly receives Madonna Lucia Savelli at night. The woman had been married to one of the above angry barons against her will.
The Senate expects the Pope to condemn the noble families. The Holy Father does not sign the relevant document prepared by the Senate, but remains silent.
Lucia Savelli is killed by a member of the noble family she had to marry into. The insistently silent Pope dies. Even after his death, his apparent inactivity was denounced by the gossips in Rome. One does not want to admit that the silence of authority has put the unruly barons in their place.
shape
The first-person narrator is a young bodyguard of the Pope who has to accompany Lucia Savelli after the audience to her murderer. The narrator was a foundling who had been laid on the threshold of the Pope's palace in Viterbo.
Of course, the narrator's field of view, devoted to the Pope, is limited. From this follows the mystery of the small text. Not a word is lost about where Lucia is from, why she is coming, what the Holy Father is discussing with her and where she is going. All of this may seem like a trick by Gertrud von le Fort, who is supposed to skilfully cover up the ignorance of history. The choice of shape just outlined is much more than a trick. It is described how a visibly powerless Pope exercises power over the hot-headed nobility by virtue of his personality.
reception
Meyerhofer sees the story as an answer to the deputy from 1963. Gertrud von le Fort does not agree with the statement in Hochhuth's play. According to the author, Pius XII. not guilty of his reluctance during the war .
interpretation
Gertrud von le Fort calls "The Silence" a legend and dedicates the text to Pope Pius XII. So a parable can be accepted. Evidently the idea is to save Roman Jews from deportation.
There are also questions. For example - why did the legendary, unnamed Pope choose Lucia Savelli of all people? It would be conceivable - Lucia was a relative of the Holy Father, because two Popes Savelli are known from that distant time.
First publication and edition used
- Gertrud von le Fort: The silence. A legend. Drawings by Robert Wyss. Die Arche ( Peter Schifferli ), Zurich 1967.
literature
- Nicholas J. Meyerhofer: Gertrud von LeFort (= heads of the 20th century. Vol. 119). Morgenbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-371-00376-0 .
annotation
- ^ Cencio Savelli became Honorius III. and Giacomo Savelli Honorius IV.