The colorful veil (novel)

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The colorful veil ( English The Painted Veil ) is a novel by William Somerset Maugham , which was published in 1925 by Heinemann in London and in the same year by George H. Doran in New York City. The translation into German came out in 1928. Maugham puts himself mostly in the psyche of the young Londoner Kitty from Harrington Gardens .

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In his novel, under the motto "the colorful veil that people call life", Maugham tells of the fate of a young woman from the British middle class in London with the socialization patterns typical of the time and a life that was predetermined by them. Kitty Garstin's mother dominates her husband and two daughters in her ascension mentality. She constantly urges her husband Bernard to build his legal career through political networking as a judge at the Supreme Court, but he is defeated in parliamentary elections and as a judicial councilor only achieves the judicial position in a provincial town. On the other hand, she hopes for the advancement of her daughters through marriage, v. a. she puts on the beauty of the lively kitty. She has many admirers at the balls, but none is an ideal suitor in the mother's sense. The now 25-year-old comes under even more pressure when her less attractive younger sister Doris becomes engaged to the son of a wealthy surgeon with the title of baron. Then she decides to accept the application from doctor Walter Fane, who works as a bacteriologist in Tsching-Yen in China and fell in love with her during his home vacation. So far she has barely noticed the shy man, he does not correspond to her image of men and she does not love him. They get married shortly before their departure, and she thus gets ahead of her sister and can avoid her big wedding party.

The main plot of the protagonist's two-year stay in the British crown colony of Hong Kong begins here . At the Tsching-Yen base she begins a love affair with the good-looking and entertaining 41-year-old colonial deputy secretary Charlie Townsend, who is trusted to rise to the top of the administration because of his agility. When her husband notices the affair after a year, he gives Kitty the choice of going with him to the cholera-ridden city of Mei-tan-fu, where he will treat the sick after the missionary's death. If she wasn't ready, he'd get a divorce and she'd have to take the blame for the breakup. She could only avoid this if Townsend separated from his wife with her consent and agreed to marry Kittys. In the following argument, they reveal the poor foundations of their marriage. She admits that she never loved him and only married out of family strategy. He saw through it all from the start, but hoped she might develop an affection for him in their marriage. Kitty sees the current situation as a chance of her liberation. She is firmly convinced that her relationship with Charlie is based on mutual love and relies on the third alternative. But he wants to prevent a scandal at all costs and not part with the reliable and career-enhancing Dorothy and his three sons. Kitty feels betrayed by him and is forced to decide to embark on the life-threatening adventure with her husband. Charlie is very relieved about this, because neither the public nor his wife learn about the affair.

They reach Mei-tan-fu, where they live in the summer house of the deceased missionary, in litters over land and by steamer on the western stream . Walter is very silent and treats his wife aloof. Your communication is limited to what is necessary. He works in the infirmary until late at night and, together with Colonel Yü and his soldiers, ensures hygiene in the city. Customs officer Waddington takes care of Kitty, shows her the impoverished city and introduces her to the French superior of the monastery and her three remaining nuns. Impressed by their faith-based devotion to the hospital, she decides to help them care for Chinese children. Here she finds a meaning in life for the first time and, in the common threat of the epidemic, which in her consciousness suppresses the affair, takes the courage to talk to Walter about her situation (cp. 46): She regrets having hurt him , but apologizes with her superficial, easy-going nature, for which she is basically not responsible. In his love he had a wrong idea of ​​her. He admits this and says that he despises not her, but himself because he loved her. The second intensive conversation (cp. 56) she has with her husband after discovering her pregnancy. She honestly tells him that she doesn't know if he is the father, and he confesses to her that in the beginning he wished the death of his unfaithful wife, but now judges her differently because of her work at the orphanage. You have atoned for her offense. But he leaves the question of their future open: “We have messed up our lives nicely, haven't we?” This question is decided by fate when Walter, whose self-sacrificing work and humble demeanor the nuns hold so highly, becomes infected with cholera and dies . His last words allude to the irony of fate: At first he thought of Kitty's death and now it overtakes him.

As a 27-year-old single woman, Kitty now has to return home. She stops in Tsching-Yen to regulate her pension and to dissolve her household. Unsuspecting about the affair, Dorothy Townsend, in her pity, urges the reluctant young widow to live in her house for the transition period. Despite her resolutions, Kitty is again fascinated by the former lover and potential father of her child and Charlie takes advantage of his wife's absence to confess his love to her and seduce her again. Horrified by her moral weakness, she immediately decides to return to Europe quickly.

When Kitty arrives back in London after a two-year absence, her mother has just died after an operation. For the father, as she immediately notices, this means a release from his tutelage. He has received the position of court president in the Bahamas and is looking forward to a new life with no family responsibilities. He wants to rent an apartment for Kitty, with whom he has not yet had a particularly loving relationship, and take care of her maintenance. But she doesn't want to stay in the old environment and asks him to give her a chance and to be allowed to accompany him. She infects him with her confidence in a fresh start, and he agrees. She assures him that she has matured through her painful experiences in China and that, unlike what happened to her, she wants to raise her child to be a free, independent and responsible person.

Film adaptations

German editions

  • 1928: The colorful veil. Novel. EP Tal , Vienna and Leipzig 1928. 252 pages.

German edition used

  • The colorful veil. Translated from the English by Anna Kellner. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1978 (1st edition). 254 pages (Licensor: Scherz Verlag, Bern 1953).

annotation

  1. ↑ For the location of Harrington Gardens see also the first sentence and the map in The Bentley London .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 198, 2. Zvo and p. 205 below
  2. ↑ engl. The Seventh Sin
  3. ↑ Hong Kong was her fate in the IMDb