The breath (man)
The breath is the last of Heinrich Mann's novels. It was written in exile in California from 1946 to October 25, 1947 and published in 1949.
The story tells of the last two days in the life of "Kobalt", an impoverished, shabbily dressed lady who used to agitate for the communists in France. The " synarchists " want to kill the hated lung disease woman in Nice . But the cobalt survived several attacks and died of her illness. Before that, this noblewoman, a native Countess Traun from Klostergmund / Austria, was still lucky at the gaming table. In the Casino of Monte Carlo it breaks the bank.
characters
- Lydia Kowalsky, b. Countess von Traun, alias the Kobalt, alias Madame la Comtesse de Trône
- Princesse de Vigne, alias Marie-Lou, sister of the Kobalt "at the court of Belgium" in Brussels
- Baron Kowalsky, husband of Kobalt who died in May 1914, "everyday speculator", "very rich, but dependent on political coincidences"
Friends of the Cobalt:
- Léon Jammes, political agent, "Official in the Deuxième Bureau of the French Information Service"
- Fernand, Kobalt's childhood friend
- Mr. Leslie Simmons Krapotnikoff, aka Jonathan Swift , aka Rabelais
- Yvonne Vogt, bakery owner, "gallant woman", "companion" of the cobalt "from the old days"
- Frédéric Conard, director of the commercial bank in Nice, Kobalt's last friend
- Estelle Conard, wife of Frédéric
- Vertugas, "Communist worker of the syndicate , the CGT ", former comrade in arms of the Cobalt
Enemies of the Cobalt:
- Louis Laplace de Revers, President
- Le Comte X, alias Lehideux [hideux = hideous], "agent" of the president
genre
The novel is bilingual. In addition to the German, French elements dominate - sometimes quite extensive. Occasionally the reader comes across short Anglicisms . The novel can be read as a clear criticism of the times with a utopian touch, as a crime thriller or as a love story.
- Utopian novel : Heinrich Mann relocates the event to France. The vertrustete financial capital operates on the Synarchism (s. U.).
- Detective novel : The synarchists want to murder the cobalt. In addition, the cobalt's substantial cash profit is stolen from the casino.
- Romance novel : Heinrich Mann executed Kobalt's last love story in an acceptable narrative - the one with bank director Frédéric Conard. This goes down as an episode in the overwhelming flood of the material.
Synarchism
"Le synarchisme", founded in 1922, "is the common rule of all nations by their allied trusts, which for themselves know no national borders". The “cagoule” [hood with slit eyes], an instrument of synarchism, builds “underground torture chambers” for “defeated Republicans”. The synarchist Comte X developed "his theory of existence".
The cobalt
In new shoes on the Côte d'Azur
The beginning of the action of the novel and the beginning of the Second World War coincide on September 1, 1939. Several assassinations are attempted in Nice on the lung-sick woman with the “pale little face”, whom she is called Cobalt - all without success. In addition, the woman is followed by a shady male figure through the whole of Nice. The guy can't be shaken off. But the Kobalt has friends, companions and protectors: In the bakery of the late Monsieur Vogt, his widow Yvonne rules over a group of subordinates. Estelle Conard, wife of the bank director Frédéric Conard, is also a friend from the old days. Kobalt visits Bank Frédérics almost every day. She expects money from her "dubious childhood friend Fernand", who left her time immemorial. The woman with the “slim legs”, the “graceful hand” and in the worn dress is smiled at by some bank employees. No money will be transferred. The Kobalt, “who owns nothing”, sticks to her bank visits, and the employees ask themselves: Where did the woman, dressed in the “1910 fashion”, get “her fine shoes, the only new thing about her?” Well, that Cobalt is actually called "La baronne Kovalsky, Marie Thérèse Dolorès Lydie Comtesse de Traun, de la maison Traun-Montéformoso". The cobalt is “maintained by its” innate “arrogance”. "We had blood from all over Europe", she says of her home and: "My relatives are all in Austria". When asked for her name, the woman with the "sonorous voice" calls herself a born Countess Traun. When her property was auctioned off after her parents' death, the Kobalt was considered a rich woman. But not all relatives are in Austria. The new shoes come from Brussels from Kobalt's sister, the Princesse de Vigne. So the Kobalt has “powerful relatives” who use agent Léon Jammes to protect the persecuted.
Defectors must be destroyed
After the death of her husband, Kobalt fell out with her sister who works for the war in Brussels. At that time, Kobalt did not accept the offer to live as a poor relative in Brussels, but went its own way. As a factory worker in France, she agitated for communism together with the French Vertugas. Thus the cobalt, the "controlled agitator", drew the hatred of the synarchists. President Laplace de Revers, head of the synarchists in Nice, has both the factory where Kobalt worked and the bank that Frédéric heads. The president acts in the background throughout the novel. Its captors, especially the Le Comte X, are supposed to "destroy" the cobalt because it asserts a "key position": "Now or never it can be eliminated". In the novel, however, it is not clear what a key position this should be. There is talk of "persecution of communists". For the Comte X, “human life is not worth a dead rat”. That's why the Le Comte X approaches Estelle, Kobalt's friend. The old companion Estelle collaborates with Comte X to protect her husband, but does not kill. Léon Jammes protects the Cobalt from Comte X, who wants to "kidnap" them.
Baccarat in Monte Carlo
Vertugas, the young worker "with the already weathered face", appears. Rumor has it that Vertugas must "love the cobalt very much". The mistress is supposed to accompany him on the plane to Moscow. There the communists want to wait for the war to break out. The terminally ill Cobalt stays on the Riviera .
Bank director Frédéric Conard pays the cobalt a large sum of money that comes from Brussels. Straight away, the Kobalt takes an "excursion" to Monte Carlo in the express train. She wonders: If the money isn't from her sister, but from Frédéric! She gains entry to the casino through her Air. Clothes are irrelevant. The sound of her “irresistible” voice - echoes of “past greatness” - fascinates the staff; "Clears the way". The experienced baccarat player is recognized by a croupier and breaks the bank, seemingly disinterested at the gaming table. In a night bar the cobalt has a hemorrhage . Léon Jammes, whom the Kobalt calls a “good person” and who also protects the sick in Monte Carlo, is shot; luckily next to it. On the return trip of the now heavily rich but dying Cobalt from Monte Carlo to Nice, Mr. Leslie Simmons Krapotnikoff from the USA is sitting in the luxurious automobile. Krapotnikoff poses as Jonathan Swift, a reporter traveling for an insurance company. Then the cobalt calls him Monsieur Rabelais. Krapotnikoff is probably identical to the shady figure who followed the Kobalt through the streets of Nice throughout the novel, the guy who never let himself be shaken off. The reader is suggested that Krapotnikoff, speaking "into the face of a dying man," could be the " cosmopolitan have-not " Fernand. There is talk of “house searches, summonses” and “endless interrogations” that Kobalt had to endure.
Public dying
The friends parade on the deathbed of the cobalt. The dying makes the baker, meanwhile newly married Madame Lecoing, "very happy" when she honors her in front of the others at their "public death" by breathing: "I haven't suffocated so that I could hear you, Yvonne" . When the clergyman does "the final unction ", he notices that the cobalt "is not pious". As it dawns, the Kobalt still has a face: she apologizes to her absent sister Marie-Lou from Brussels. The very last thought of the cobalt is an inward sigh: " I was proud".
Outside in the garden in front of the house, Laplace de Revers surprisingly leaves his cover and wants to arrest Kobalt, “the dangerous state criminal” (who has already died, but he doesn't know that), “out of bed”. The president is shot dead by Léon Jammes.
Léon Jammes, suddenly the wanted assassin, boards the plane to Moscow with Vertugas. Fernand stays in France.
Breath
The "emaciated", lung-sick cobalt "catches" its breath and has to be "won again" if it gets in a tight spot on the constant guard against its murderous enemies. On the one hand, the patient has to "put her disturbed breath in order" when things get tough before she can continue to talk with her "deep bell voice". On the other hand, she can laugh "like a goblin". The “suffocating” cobalt “chokes” before the “suppressed seizure” breaks out. She is constantly “busy with her breathing”. Frédéric watches how the Kobalt “breathes heavily” when the president is talking about, or he is happy when she “enjoys a few carefree breaths”. Anger makes the cobalt breathe awkwardly, and it "speaks choked". Eventually this life in death becomes "a struggle for breath".
Love stories
Three episodes are selected from the life of the cobalt.
- Fernand
When the Kobalt discusses the subject of Fernand's childhood friend in a dispute with bank director Frédéric, Kobalt has to admit that she is indulging in an illusion if she hopes that childhood love could return to her after decades. But when it is considered that the cobalt could betray Fernand, who was “not a decent person”, to the synarchists, she refuses. You don't reveal your “oldest friend”, for whom you waited forever and because of whom you remained “chaste”.
- Yvonne
The baker's widow Yvonne Vogt is a companion from better days. After her husband's death, the Kobalt gambled away her considerable inheritance in the Monte Carlo casino and was regularly accompanied by Yvonne at these séances. Yvonne mourns the evenings when both - "two beauties" and "tall women" - performed and "were light minded together". If necessary, Yvonne would hide the cobalt from her enemies. It looks like the two women had a homoerotic relationship. Yvonne loved the cobalt very much. In the end, for business reasons, Yvonne marries the honest Monsieur Lecoing, a baker in his prime, although she loves a younger man.
- Frédéric
With the outbreak of war, the bank director Frédéric's clock ran out. The accountant Pigeon, a "colorless appearance", smells the morning air and expresses himself contemptuously about the Kobalt in front of the director. The patient also has to listen to the abuse. Frédéric looks into the “blurred violet blue” of her eyes under a “heavy wave of blond hair”. The cobalt "denies its illness" and manages to breathe - "lightly and strongly". But the next attack of suffocation follows. Frédéric jumps over and hugs “this waning life”. The Kobalt is grateful for this and smiles blissfully. “Happiness is not imminent”, but “this is happiness itself”. His lips are trembling, but "he's late in your life". The cobalt spits blood. They kiss. The power of cobalt and the happiness with Frédéric let the woman with the "immortal voice" live for a few more hours.
Quotes
- The dead have nothing, not even death .
- Everything was cheerful because I was cheerful .
- Being buried by happiness is also an end .
- Not seeking the honors of the world is arrogance .
The brotherly quarrel between Heinrich and Thomas Mann
The dying older sister speaks to the more successful younger one: “I was very young when you could tell that I would never make it up to the rank of lady of the Star Cross [the Nobel Prize?]. It pissed you off, even though you intended to overtake me back then. I made it easy for you, I wasn't ambitious. A very big mistake. You annoyed that I turned down the competition instead of being defeated despite resistance. This lasted until you finally accepted that your, not my, nature was the success. "(Page 332 of the first print)
Testimonials
- On August 26, 1947 to Karl Lemke: “ Reception at the world ” also precedes the “breath” in the state and events. The first shows the decay, the second the disaster that has broken out .
- On March 3, 1949 to Karl Lemke: It is a somewhat problematic novel that moved me a little while reading it again. One does not live long in vain - which is not to say that the best always comes last .
reception
- In a letter to his brother dated July 14, 1949, Thomas Mann emphasizes the grandiose exaggeration and ingenious show-off of political intrigue, the adventurous nature of which is quite realistic and appropriate to the time in Romans .
- Ebersbach sees a connection between Heinrich Mann's synarchism and Sartre's existentialism , as was influenced by Heidegger .
- Ebersbach finds words of praise full of warm heart for Heinrich Mann's last novel: A parable of private fate intersects with a parable of world politics. The result is the fully coherent organism of a work of art that seems to breathe itself.
- According to Koopmann (anno 1991), the novel bears clear traces of Heinrich Mann's isolation in exile and contains memories of a great lost world whose fantasy is evoked time and again.
- Koopmann (anno 2001) refers to two novels that are related to each other in terms of the disease process : Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain and The Breath by Heinrich Mann.
- Breathlessness - The novel as a game, as a theater: Bauer briefly discusses the “dramatizing” language in the novel; on the "sentence structure that keeps the reading flow stuck", on the "artificial traffic jam".
- Dying - a process: The portrayal of the protagonist's silence can be taken as a reflection of Heinrich Mann's exile situation in old age.
literature
- source
- Heinrich Mann: The breath . Novel. (= Heinrich Mann: Collected Works . Volume 15). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1968, DNB 366738666 .
- Text output
- Heinrich Mann: The breath . Novel. S. Fischer, 1993, ISBN 3-596-25937-1 .
- Secondary literature
- Sigrid Anger (Ed.): Heinrich Mann. 1871-1950. Work and life in documents and images. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1977, p. 337.
- Volker Ebersbach : Heinrich Mann. Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1978, pp. 299-303.
- Helmut Koopmann in: Gunter E. Grimm , Frank Rainer Max (eds.): German poets. Life and work of German-speaking authors . Volume 7: From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century. Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-008617-5 , pp. 36-37.
- Helmut Koopmann: Thomas Mann Handbook. Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-82803-0 , p. 994.
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors A – Z. Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 410.
- Gerhard Bauer : shortness of breath and fullness of sound. New style artistry in Heinrich Mann's late work. In: Walter Delabar, Walter Fähnders (ed.): Heinrich Mann (1871–1950) . (= Memoria. Volume 4). Weidler, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89693-437-6 , pp. 347-374.
- Ute Welscher: speaking - playing - remembering. Forms of poetic self-reflection in Heinrich Mann's exile novels, “Willkommen bei der Welt” and “Der Atem”. In: Walter Delabar, Walter Fähnders (ed.): Heinrich Mann (1871–1950) . (= Memoria. Volume 4). Weidler, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89693-437-6 , pp. 375-398.