The girlfriends (novella)
Die Freundinnen is a novella by the Austrian writer Friedrich Halm from 1860. In it, a woman learns that her husband has a child with her best friend. The girlfriend knows how to explain the reasons for the misstep so plausibly that there is no falling out between the girlfriends or the spouses.
content
Halms novella is set in Ireland in 1644 among historically verifiable persons. Countess Elisabeth, mother of five children and happily married for 14 years to James Butler , Count of Ormonde, the Viceroy of Ireland, is waiting at Kilkenny Castle for the arrival of her friend Lady Isabella Rich, who should shorten the time for her Husband goes about his business in London . In retrospect, it is told how James and Elizabeth, who actually came from warring families, overcame their enmity and got to know and love each other, against the declared resistance of the English King Jacob , who did not want to agree to their connection and therefore removed Elizabeth by force from her lover would have. At that time, however, Elisabeth found support in her friend Isabella, who made it possible for her to meet in secret with her lover until, after years of efforts, James finally succeeded in obtaining the king's approval for the planned marriage.
A messenger brings a letter from my dearly beloved Elizabeth in her husband's handwriting, the content of which is obviously addressed to Lady Isabella, and in which Count James tells Lady Isabella that their child, a boy named William, is attending a college in Cambridge and there making good progress. The sender regards this as a blessing from heaven and as forgiveness for the wrong step committed.
Elisabeth falls from the clouds, especially since her husband has never given her the slightest cause to doubt his marital fidelity, and the 14 years of marriage so far have passed in unclouded happiness. What weighs particularly heavily on her is that the misstep must have happened in the early stages of her young marriage. Your investigation with the messenger reveals that he also had to deliver a letter to Lady Isabella from Count James - to be kept secret from Elisabeth - apparently the envelopes were mixed up.
Elisabeth presents the friend with the letter, which she has mistakenly come to know, and harshly requests her to leave immediately. The desperate Isabella can still get Elisabeth to hear her explanation. Isabella's internal narrative that follows takes up almost the entire larger part of the novella:
- Isabella grew up in London in a puritanical environment. She secretly attends a theater performance in men's clothes and is protected there by a stranger against the intrusive advances of a drunken neighbor. The stranger brings you home, the enthusiastic memory of him, especially the melodious sound of his voice , will not let you go from now on. After her mother's death, her guardian takes her to the same castle, Eldon Manor, where Elisabeth has to live separately from her fiancé, Count James von Ormonde. The two quickly become friends. When Elisabeth meets her fiancé in secret, Isabella is horrified to recognize her knightly protector from the theater.
- In the following winter, Elisabeth falls seriously ill and is cared for by Isabella. On a rough, stormy night, Count James unexpectedly arrives at Eldon Manor. Elisabeth, too weak to get up, urges Isabella to welcome the guest. In the dimly lit visitors' room with a dull, sultry thunderstorm atmosphere, James takes Isabella as he enters for his fiancee Elisabeth and falls upon her, heated from the long ride and too quick drinking of wine. Isabella, unable to withstand the man she loves, surrenders to him, half passed out. In the morning James realizes his mistake, Isabella flees.
- In several letters to Isabella, James accuses himself of being the only culprit and offers Isabella his hand, renouncing Elisabeth, to make up for the misstep. Isabella, however, rejects the idea of becoming the wife of a man who has dishonored her and who also loves another. In addition, she does not want to stand in the way of her best friend's happiness, especially since King Jacob is giving up his resistance to the planned connection between James and Elisabeth at this time. So she is already halfway at peace with herself and the world when the situation becomes more complicated in the form of the pregnancy that she is now becoming aware of. Given the choice of either taking James' hand and destroying her friend's happiness, or having to raise her child as a single woman dishonored by the world, a happy coincidence comes to her aid in the form of an invitation to the Netherlands. There she gives birth to little William in retirement and after a few years hands him over to his father's care for further education.
The deeply moved Elisabeth drafts a letter to her husband in which she reveals to him that she knows of the misstep by confusing the letters, praises his behavior as a nobleman in this matter and suggests that William grow up with their sons . The letter is rejected, however, and Count James is supposed to continue to believe that only he and Isabella know the secret, and that the friends remain friends.
In a subsequent article, the further fates of the protagonists are succinctly reported: Count James has to flee to the mainland in political turmoil, Countess Elisabeth remains at Kilkenny Castle with Isabella, who was unmarried until her death, William dies as a young man.
History of origin
Halms editor Emil Kuh cites a passage from the work A history of the life of James Duke of Ormonde from his birth in 1610 to his death in 1688 (London 1736) by Thomas Carte as a source of material for this “unheard of incident” in the truest sense of the word . It is not surprising that Halm refrained from publishing the sensitive material during his lifetime. The novella only appeared posthumously in 1872 in the 11th volume of Faust Pachler's and Emil Kuh's 12-volume complete edition of Halm's works.
rating
What is admirable is the tight handling of the plot, which puts every detail in the service of explaining the incident, which should not actually be "glossed over", as well as the reflection of the mistake motive (the mistake of the letters reveals the mistake of the women). The relationship to Heinrich von Kleist's novella The Marquise of O .... (1808) can be seen in many content (impregnation of an impotent woman; chivalrous behavior of the perpetrator; refusal of the woman to marry this man) and formal details (first description of the unheard of incident, then retrospectively the resolution). Halms novella has been described as a “prime example of German novellism”.
literature
- Friedrich Halms works , 12 volumes, ed. by Faust Pachler and Emil Kuh . Vienna 1856–72
- Friedrich Halms selected works in four volumes , ed. and with introductions by Anton Schlossar . Leipzig undated (1904)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elizabeth Preston, Baroness Dingwall. Retrieved June 6, 2011 .
- ↑ James Butler, 3rd Earl, 1st Duke of Ormonde. Retrieved June 6, 2011 .
- ↑ Cf. Faust Pachler and Emil Kuh : Introduction to Volume 11 of Fr. Halms Werke
- ↑ Kindlers Literaturlexikon, article Die Freundinnen Volume 5 (1986), p. 3690.