The double error
The double error (French: La Double Méprise ) is a novella by the French writer Prosper Mérimée from 1833.
The unhappily married young woman Julie von Chaverny and the unmarried, barely 30-year-old embassy secretary E. Darcy admit to each other that they have always loved each other, but the other has not noticed it or did not really want to admit it. Mérimée sums up: "The two hearts that did not recognize each other were perhaps made for each other."
action
The wealthy officer of the cavalry Chaverny had married Julie about six years before the act began. After quitting the service, he wants to become chamberlain . After half a year of marriage, Julie realized that Chaverny was the wrong person. Now she despises and hates him. The couple lives near Rue Saint-Honoré . Chaverny neglects his wife; drives around in matters of a chamberlain career in world history. Julie has to make do with the second carriage that needs to be repaired. The lonely woman sometimes visits Frau Lambert in the decrepit vehicle. There in the country in the castle in P ... not far from the Seine metropolis, Julie meets her childhood sweetheart. Darcy, the first secretary of the French embassy in Constantinople , is only in Paris for a short time.
Years ago, Julie's mother had been against connecting with poor man Darcy. Now the diplomat has become wealthy through an inheritance. Julie feels at Frau Lambert's evening party that she will not be able to withstand the piercing gaze of tall, pale Darcy for long.
On the way home to Paris, Julie's carriage rolls into the ditch during a thunderstorm at night. Darcy comes over and takes the dead woman with him in his carriage. Man and woman longingly hang on to their old love. Julie sobs that she is so unhappy. Eventually she gives in to the urgent diplomat's urging. Nine hours after seeing Frau Lambert again, sexual intercourse takes place in Darcy's carriage . Julie secretly wants to be taken to Constantinople afterwards.
Nothing will come of it. Julie dies of shame, faints, has a hemorrhage , has a fever and dies.
There is a rumor in Parisian society that Frau von Chaverny caught a cold on Frau Lambert's return journey and that it turned into pneumonia .
Darcy marries a lovely wealthy woman.
shape
The omniscient narrator knows exactly about the soul life of the protagonists. For example, in Darcy's carriage he describes Julie's feelings and expressions in detail. Darcy appears in his replies as a lonely man in need of love. Thereupon the narrator offends the reader with a change of perspective: “Darcy was mistaken about the nature of his excitement; frankly: he wasn't in love. "
German editions
Used edition
- The double error. Translator: Alfred Thierbach, pp. 275–343 in Prosper Mérimée: Don Juan in Purgatory and other short stories. (also contains: The Bartholomew Night . Mateo Falcone . Vision of Charles XI. The storm on the hill. The pearl of Toledo. The trick track game . Don Juan in purgatory . Lokis ). With an introduction by Herbert Kühn. Dieterich'sche Verlagbuchhandlung in Leipzig 1957 (3rd edition 1965, license Rudolf Marx). 476 pages
Web links
- The text in the French original online in the Internet Archive