The Comte d'Orgel's ball

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The Ball des Comte d'Orgel is a novel by the French writer Raymond Radiguet . It was published by Grasset in 1924 after the death of the author, who died at the age of 20 .

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The novel, a love triangle between a woman and two men, is set in Paris around 1920 in the milieu of Parisian society, which is made up of members of the hereditary and monetary nobility, Russian emigrants, diplomats and successful upstarts.

The glamorous center of society is the Comte Anne d'Orgel, who comes from the old nobility and is famous for his balls. He is married to the much younger Mahaut Grimoard de la Verberie, a Creole from Martinique . Mahaut loves her husband beyond measure, "who showed her a lot of gratitude and sincere friendship, which he mistook for love" (p. 13.) During a visit to the Médrano Circus , the two met the young François de Séryeuse, he liked Anne d'Orgel, they stay together after going to the circus, go to the suburbs to dance. François observes the harmony in which the couple dances, envies them “obliviously”, “with him jealousy preceded love” (p. 37). He is invited to breakfast the next morning, and over time he becomes a frequent guest at the Comte's house, and over time François and Mahaut fall in love without being really aware of it. François' mother, with whom he has a hypothermic relationship, invites the organ to join him. She quickly made contact with the young woman who saw her as a friend. To his delight, Anne d'Orgel discovers that his wife's family and François' family are related to Joséphine Beauharnais , and that François is his equal. What Mahaut at first calms down and enthuses the Comte is the cause of a rumor that one of the servants, who have formed their own opinion about the close relationship between the three, said: “In the long run, Monsieur must find it more comfortable “Launched, spread quickly in Paris.

Back from the summer holidays, the Orgels and François see each other almost every day, and Mahaut becomes aware of her love for François. Confused and overwhelmed by her feelings, she is indebted to her husband, and in despair she writes in a letter to François' mother that she loves François. She asks her to make sure that he no longer enters the d'Orgels' house. Her paleness and languor troubles her husband, but he has no idea why. To distract them, he sets about organizing a costume ball. During high-spirited costume rehearsals, which suddenly degenerate with Anne and his guests, Mahaut passes out, the end of a screwed-up evening. Mahaut asks her husband for a chat in her bedroom, to whom it "seems quite unbelievable that a woman should have something to say to her husband" (p. 169). She calmly and calmly explains to him that she loves François. Her confession, expressed in clear and dry words, meets with disbelief and complete incomprehension. When she then starts to accuse herself, he considers "the confession itself and everything else to be untrue." Only when she tells him that M me de Seyrieuse has also been informed about everything does he take her confession seriously, just the prospect of one Scandal briefly throws him off balance. He only thinks of how the damage could be limited while maintaining the form "and saved [...] his fears of the heart for later" (p. 174). An abyss opens up between the couple, on the one hand a no longer frenzied but a petrified Mahaut, on the other the Comte on his "planet, who did not notice anything of the transformation that had taken place".

Movie

The novel was filmed in 1970 by Marc Allégret under the same title. Marc Allegret and Philippe Grumbach wrote the screenplay, Françoise Sagan was involved in the dialogues , and Jean-Claude Brialy , Micheline Presle , Sylvie Fennec and Bruno Garcin played the leading roles. The film was shown out of competition at the Cannes Festival in 1970.

First edition 1924

Editions and translations

Bernard Grasset published the novel in his Paris publishing house in 1924, with a foreword by Jean Cocteau . The total print run, which also includes the bibliophile editions, was 1535 copies. 10 numbered copies were printed on China paper, 25 also numbered on Japanese paper. The edition printed on wove paper had an edition of 250 numbered copies. Another bibliophile edition of the novel was bound in the bookbindery Semet & Plumelle, which specialized in bibliophile editions. An edition with a portrait of Radiguet by Picasso , obtained from the Floch printing works in Mayenne for Grasset , had an edition of 30 copies, the text was printed on Japanese paper, the cover was made of red morocco , and each book was in its own jewelery box.

Malcolm Cowley translated the book into English in 1929 under the title The Count's Ball , a new translation by Violet Schiff entitled Count d'Orgel Opens the Ball was published in 1952 and was reissued in the Pushkin Collection in 2001 under the title Count d'Orgel . The most recent translation into English from 1989 is from Annapaola Cancogni .

Peter Suhrkamp brought out the book in 1953 in a translation by Gertrud von Holzhausen in his library in Suhrkamp .

expenditure

  • Le bal du Comte d'Orgel . Paris, Grasset 1924. [first edition]
  • Le bal du Comte d'Orgel . Préface de Bernard Pingaud. Paris, Ed. Flammarion 2010. ISBN 2-07-037476-9
  • The Comte d'Orgel's ball . Novel. Transferred from Gertrud von Holzhausen. Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp 1957. (Library Suhrkamp. 13.)

literature

  • Marion Galichon-Basart: Commentaires sur le Bal du Comte d'Orgel . In Raymond Radiguet: Le Bal du comte d'Orgel . Paris, Le Livre de poche, 1990. pp. 167-186.
  • Michael G. Kelly: Model Behavior: Cocteau, Radiguet et la Princesse de Clèves. In: Neophilologus.

Web links

Wikisource: Le Bal du comte d'Orgel  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ All verbatim quotations from: Raymond Radiguet: Der Ball des Comte d'Orgel. Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp 1962.
  2. ^ Festival de Cannes, 1970
  3. ↑ Cataloge municipale de Lyon. Catalog Lyon
  4. ^ Auction catalog at Christie's, Sale 5481
  5. ↑ Christie's, Sale 5597, Radiguet, Raymond. Le Bal du comte d'Orgel. Paris: Floch pour Bernard Grasset, 1924.
  6. ^ Count d'Orgel's Ball by Raymond Radiguet. Complete review.