The Prey (Zola)

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First page of Zola's handwriting

Die Beute , in older German-language editions also Die Treibjagd ( French: La Curée ), is the second novel from Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle . It was written from May to July 1870 and first appeared in the autumn of 1871 from September 29 in the features section of the weekly La Cloche . But his appearance had there from November 5, for political reasons, under the pretext that it violated morality ( moralité ) can be adjusted. In a foreword, dated November 15, 1871, the author defends his work against accusations of indecency. In the turmoil after the war and the Commune, the sales figures for the first edition published by Albert Lacroix remained disappointing, and the publisher went bankrupt . The second, revised edition, published by Georges Charpentier in 1872 , is also considered a failure. The novel creates the panorama of the Enrichissez-vous! (Eng. "Enrich yourselves!") trading high bourgeoisie of the Second Empire , which regards the state and the city of Paris as their booty. Determined by the values ​​of gold and sensuality, this society leads a “life in excess” ( vie à outrance ).

content

Title page of an edition from 1906

Renée, the 21 years younger wife of the climber and speculator Aristide Rougon, who goes by the name of Saccard, escapes from the emptiness of her glamorous existence into an intense erotic relationship with Maxime Rougon, the son of her husband from his first marriage: while Saccard is an official of the The Paris city administration uses the insider knowledge acquired about Haussmann's urban redevelopment to earn money through real estate speculation, Renée has devoted himself to a glamorous life: she took the maxim, which was initially disposed of in Saccard / Rougon's native southern French provincial town of Plassans, when he was 14 Years ago in Paris, as a welcome distraction: "He will distract us a little." He grows into a hermaphroditic beauty in the boudoirs of women . Even when the incestuous relationship is revealed, there is no scandal : Renée dies embittered of meningitis after Maxime got married . All she leaves behind is an exorbitant tailor's bill that her father pays.

action

Chapter 1

The action begins with a traffic jam on a mild October afternoon, probably in 1862: the elegant ladies are on their way home from the Bois de Boulogne. Renée, the almost 30-year-old wife of the speculator Aristide Saccard, uses the standstill of the carriages to discuss with her stepson, the 20-year-old Maxime, the erotic activities of her peers and their desire for "something else" that she does not want able to name. Shortly after returning to the Hôtel Saccard, which is introduced as a structural expression of the “magnificence increased to the point of disgust” of the Saccardian living conditions, an evening reception with the most important business partners of the father Aristide begins there. Observed by Renée, Maxime, who has to spend the evening with his bride, the 17-year-old ugly and terminally ill millionaire heiress Louise de Mareuil, whom his father intended for him, retreats to mockery in the lush hothouse of the hotel.

Chapter 2

Flashback: To get rich, Aristide Rougon arrives in Paris “in the first days of 1852” with his first wife, Angèle. On the advice of his brother, Eugène Rougon, who held "a position of secret power", he changed the name, compromised by a republican attitude that was still displayed in the previous novel The Happiness of the Rougon Family , to Saccard and took on a small administrative post. He wants to use the knowledge he gained there about the planned urban redevelopment through the purchase and speculation in real estate, which the state has to expropriate and therefore compensate for. In search of the necessary start-up capital, he turns to his sister Sidonie, who runs a discreet dump. Shortly afterwards, Angèle falls ill, dies and is on her deathbed witness how Sidonie couples the future widower with the 19-year-old Renée Beraut du Châtel: The eldest daughter from the best and rich family is impregnated by a married 40-year-old. Saccard is compensated for this salvation of honor with 200,000 francs, at the same time the young bride brings a real estate fortune of 500,000 francs into the marriage, part of which is earmarked for her child, which, as Sidonie foresees, will be stillborn.

Chapter 3

In 1854, Saccard had his 13-year-old son Maxime, who had been housed at a college in Plassans, come to Paris, who gave him the "role of a rich and serious widower who had a second marriage [.. .] should support “. Renée takes care of his “like a doll” and introduces him to the world of women, especially into the anteroom of the couturier Worms: Renée's increasingly elaborate dresses, her various love affairs and Maxime's first erotic adventures occur simultaneously over the course of the following eight years on the “whirlwind dance of the millions”, Saccard's increasingly daring speculations including the establishment of Crédit Viticole, a state-sponsored bank specializing in bad loans and investment bubbles. They converge in the splendor of the Hôtel am Park Monceau and in the highest social recognition - a lewd remark by the Emperor about Renée, who in passing describes them as “picking a flower that would look like hell in our buttonholes”.

Chapter 4

After she had withdrawn to her chambers as sick for the first few days after receiving the first chapter, Renée urged Maxime, who is well versed in demi-worlds and nightlife, to take her, masked, as a companion on his tour through the notorious places of Paris: at first both equally irritated by the fact that this excursion had ended with sex in a cabinet of the Café Riche, Maxime and Renée indulge in their intensifying relationship, the main scene of which will be the hothouse of the Hôtel Saccard, while Saccard tries to increase his fortunes due to the turning of speculation To heal financial difficulties.

Chapter 5

In the course of the year, Saccard's business, as well as Renée and Maxime's love affairs, become more complicated, and while father and son develop an intimate and amicable relationship in the exchange of mutual erotic escapades, Renée begins to suffer from the growing debt burden: Since she refuses to leave Sidonie to one of her admirers to sell the Secretary of State Saffré on Renée for the required sum of 50,000 francs, she makes this an enemy. During a joint visit to a performance of Jean Racine's Phèdre tragedy, which arouses thoughts of suicide in Renée, but leaves Maxime completely cold, a break becomes apparent between the two, which takes place when Maxime tries to visit Renée at the Hôtel Saccard, but she does not receives: Although she is with Saccard, her husband, she pretends to have Mr. Saffré with her.

Chapter 6

The ladies of the fashionable society lead to a masked ball at mid-Lent -Thursday - March 4, 1864 - directed by the dilettante as a symbolist poet prefect Baron Hupel de la Noue the Narcissus myth in a series of tableaux vivants , or "living pictures" with Renée in the role of the nymph Echo, while Maxime, who is the only man allowed in the performance, embodies Narcissus: When the planned wedding of Louise and Maxime is sealed after the performance, Renée seeks Maxime and tries to persuade him to run away : Saccard, who surprises the two, uses the opportunity to get Renée to release the part of their real estate property to which he had no access until then and goes away, chatting in a friendly way with his son: Renée sees himself betrayed and remains with suicidal thoughts, which she is afraid to carry out.

Chapter 7

During a construction site visit three months later, Saccard and four other gentlemen examined his own real estate as an expert, so that the client, the state compensation commission, met his exorbitant demand of three million without hesitation on the basis of an expert report he had written. Renée, on the other hand, ekes out a “miserable existence”, withdraws and is abandoned by everyone, ultimately also by the valet Céleste, who is believed to be loyal and devoted, until she dies “the following winter of advanced meningitis” and leaves nothing behind but a tailor's bill "To two hundred and fifty- seven thousand francs " paid by her father.

expenditure

  • La curée, A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie, Paris 1871
  • La curée, G. Charpentier, Paris 1872
  • The driven hunt, trans. Armin Schwarz, B. Harz, Berlin, Vienna 1923, new edition of the European Literature Publishing House, Bremen 2012
  • The booty, from the French after the translation by Arnim Schwarz. revised by Annalisa Viviani, Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf Zurich 1998

Edits

  • Renée, theatrical version in five acts, by Émile Zola, premiered April 16, 1887, Théâtre du Vaudeville, Paris. Published by G. Charpentier, Paris 1887 with a foreword by the author
  • La Cuccagna, silent film, Italy / France 1917, directed by Baldassare Negroni , EA on March 2, 1917
  • La Curée (German title: Die Beute ), feature film, Italy / France 1966, director: Roger Vadim , film start (France): June 22, 1966 , with Michel Piccoli and Jane Fonda

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Compare the information on the work in the catalog of the German National Library
  2. ^ Marie-Aude de Langenhagen, Gilbert Guislain: Zola. Panorama d'un author. Paris 2005, p. 124.
  3. ↑ Elke Kaiser: Knowledge and storytelling at Zola: Reality modeling in the Rougon-Macquart. Narr, Tübingen 1990, p. 113.
  4. ^ Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Catalog général: Notice bibliographique, Zola, Émile: La Curée
  5. ↑ [1]
  6. ^ Zola, Émile: Préface [à La Curée], A. Lacroix, Paris 1871, p. 5.
  7. ^ Brian Nelson: Explanatory Notes in Émile Zola: The Kill. English translation by Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press, New York 2004, p. 265.
  8. ^ Laporte, Antoine: Émile Zola, l'homme et l'oeuvre, [without publisher information] Paris 1894, p. 275 f.