The Goddesses or The Three Novels of the Duchess of Assy

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The Goddesses or The Three Novels of the Duchess of Assy is a three-volume novel by Heinrich Mann , written in Riva in 1899 and 1900 , written from November 1900 to August 1902 and published in December 1902, predated to 1903.

On December 2, 1900, the author informed his publisher Albert Langen about The Goddesses : “They are the adventures of a great lady from Dalmatia . In the first part it glows with longing for freedom, in the second with a feeling for art, in the third with ardor. She is remarkably human and taken seriously; most of the other figures are funny animals ”.

characters

Zara
  • Violante, Duchess of Assy
  • Dr. Pavic, the tribune, Dalmatian revolutionary, Christian
  • Baron Christian Rustschuk, the Duchess's asset manager, financier
  • Prince Philipp (also: Phili), heir to the throne in the Dalmatian royal house
Rome
  • Marchese di San Bacco, Christian, democrat and nobleman, Italian MP, colonel, commendatore, Garibaldian , freedom fighter, formerly a corsair , dictator
  • Monsignor Tamburini, Vicar of the Cardinal in Palestrina
  • Cardinal Count Anton Burnsheimb
  • Countess Cucuru
    • Vinon Cucuru, daughter of the countess
    • Lilian Cucuru, daughter of the countess
  • Advocate Orfeo Piselli, Patriot
  • Contessa Beatrice, called Blà (also: Bice), poet, friend of the Duchess
  • Paolo Della Pergola, journalist
Venice
  • Properzia Ponti, sculptor
  • Lady Olympia Ragg, a "prowling unchaste" in Europe
  • Jakobus von Halm, Viennese painter in Italy
    • Bettina von Halm, his wife who lives in Vienna
    • Linda von Halm, both daughters
  • Contessa Clelia Dolan, Halms realtor
    • Maurice de Mortœil from Paris, her husband
    • Conte Dolan, her father, formerly Properzia's broker
  • Nino Degrandis
    • Gina Degrandis, his mother
Naples
  • Jean Guignol, poet, husband of Vinon Cucuru
  • Don Saverio Cucuru, brother of Vinon
  • Sir Houston, son of Lady Olympias

action

The novel is set in the last quarter of the 19th century. It leads to Zara (the old capital of the Kingdom of Dalmatia in the dual monarchy Austria-Hungary ), Rome, Venice and Naples as well as to the surrounding areas of these three Italian cities.

First volume: The Duchess - a Diana in Rome

Binding of the first edition 1903
Tiziano Vecellio (* around 1477; † 1576): Diana and Callisto
The escape to Italy

The owners of the lands in Dalmatia are Italians. The local Slavic population, the Morlaks , are have-nots. In a “laundry slip” Heinrich Mann wrote around 1902: “In the first of her novels you see the Duchess young, thirsting for freedom and deeds, and always on the move, like a huntress Diana roaming through her country of Dalmatia ... She instigates political uprisings ... Instead of becoming queen, the duchess has to flee across the sea ”. In an open boat across the stormy Adriatic always westward, the "very slim" woman with the "narrow shoulders" is accompanied by cowardly Pavic, a Dalmatian state criminal and "romantic revolutionary". Pavic was her tool in Zara during their Dalmatian revolution in the hopeless struggle for freedom, justice, enlightenment and prosperity. Pavic, “the pious son of poor people”, was also the one who raped the 22 year old widow in her palace on the sofa under the golden ducal crown. Immediately afterwards, Pavic showed the duchess remorse, but the victim with the "rounded arms" just shrugged his shoulder. Pavic cannot forgive himself for his weakness immediately after the sexual act, because the man has to humiliate the woman, he says. While fleeing, Pavic loses his only son at sea. When the sea is rough, the child is washed overboard of the heavy sailing barge. Pavic can't get over the loss and blames the Duchess. The refugees land at Ancona .

The Dalmatian monks' revolt

As a political refugee, the “impious” duchess, the “colorful bird”, finds asylum with the monks in the monastery in the gray mountain town of Palestrina. The Duchess knows her popular speech in Zara, the tenant riots and in general - she spoiled her whole revolution in Dalmatia with her romantic approach, with her clumsiness. So she gives the second attempt at the “Dalmatian state upheaval” into more professional - that is, Catholic - hands. Vicar Monsignore Tamburini instigates a revolt from Rome, which is forced by Dalmatian monks. This also fails. The vicar was only after the Duchess's money. Since he does not receive it, he ventilates his anger. The Duchess, not embarrassed, replies that “the life of a few thousand people” is “completely indifferent” to him and her. Tambourini's superior, the cardinal, hypocritically tolerates the revolutionary activities of the power-hungry, money-hungry subordinate. Countess Cucuru, "the cardinal's mistress for forty years," also tries to do her business with the asylum seeker. In a letter she revealed the revolt of the exiled Duchess to the Dalmatian ambassador in Rome.

The finance minister

Pavic is learning on the parade the lawyer Orfeo Piselli know and introduces him to the Duchess. The Blà, Roman, poet, trusted friend and treasurer of the Duchess, falls madly in love with the lawyer. Piselli is a gambler who steals the necessary funds from the ducal treasury. This becomes possible after the Blà has become sexually submissive to him. In the end he only seeks out the “overworked, emaciated” poet with a riding whip. Even at this stage, the beaten girl cannot let go of the monster and gives him the last of the money. The Blà is life-threateningly injured by Piselli. The Duchess visits her friend when she is on the death bed, holds her betrayal against her and finally forgives her infidelity.

The democrat

Marchese di San Bacco, one of Pavic's freedom fighters, proposes marriage to the Duchess and is rejected. San Bacco leaves Rome and immediately goes to the next revolutionary area - Bulgaria . He'll come back later.

The scribbler

The journalist Paolo Della Pergola is “completely in love” with the Duchess and goes all out too. He wants to lend the duchess his pen for Dalmatia, the goat kingdom. But he would like to have the beautiful young woman as payment for it. The cautious Duchess demands a visible success in Della Pergola's writing before she becomes his lover. Pavic, the jealous one, throws the man next to the printing press through the bill. Pavic shares his secret with the "disgusting glorious" Della Pergola - the one with the duchess on the sofa under the golden ducal crown. The deeply disappointed Skribent publishes a defamatory article. Tribune Pavic has the writer murdered “just for the stage”. The tribune itself does not pick up a dagger. He can't see blood.

The painter

Jakobus Halm paints the Duchess. With the portrait he wants to represent a pride “who only knows himself”. Painting has become a compulsion for this artist.

The final

After the failed second Dalmatian revolt, the Duchess is visited by the Dalmatian ambassador in Rome. Fortunately, the visit tells her, the confiscation of her property has been lifted. Then he warns her about her friends. Although the ambassador is one of the winners and speaks to a loser all the time, he feels inferior afterwards and asks himself: "What power does this woman have?"

The friend Blà has died and the Duchess feels at home in Rome. The Duchess has her fortune back. So she wants to dedicate herself entirely to art from now on and goes to Venice. After all, she is the late granddaughter of a condottiere of the Republic .

Second volume: The Duchess - a Minerva in Venice

Binding of the first print in 1903
Minerva
End of the line madhouse

The second volume, Minerva, explores the question: Will the Duchess be willing to have sex with the painter Halm? The Duchess does not make it easy for herself or the reader. In a self-tormenting process that lasted almost nine years, she finally wrestled her way through to the act - or a whole series of such - at the end of the second volume. That can't happen so quickly because the Duchess desperately wants to be free. Halm, however, demands submission from the woman of his choice. The Duchess is initially not up for that. But Halm is just as persistent as the Duchess. On the spur of the moment, the Duchess' 35-year-old travels from Rome to Venice and stays with her for years. Always “the animal in you”, Halm demands of the Duchess, sometimes quite impolite, that she “has to hear him”. Of course, he met with resistance from the noble lady. The Duchess, who is slowly getting older, but by no means colder, is still "rich in shape, well-groomed, very feminine and extremely desirable". Only when Halm’s wife Bettina, at whom the potent husband is disgusted, arrives from Vienna at the instigation of the intriguer Contessa Clelia Dolan, the Duchess von Halm’s wife is persuaded to take on the role of Venus : The 44-year-old master could only do the great work of art Venus if he slept the now 39-year-old model thoroughly. No sooner said than done - under “the heavy images of panting happiness” Halm storms “on the limbs” of the Duchess. It comes, as it must. Venus is not painted. Halm just wants to rape his nude model. They both part like strangers. Bettina, who loves her husband very much, has taken her mouth too full and ends up in a madhouse.

Nino

The processes in the second volume are far more complicated and, above all, more intertwined than just summarized in a few sentences. The Duchess, constantly on the hunt for the beautiful, seeks this not only in art, but also in living things. So she pursues the beautiful boy Nino Degrandis, who wanders through Venice holding his despondent mother Gina Degrandis. Gina is lost in contemplation of her “lovely works of art”. The duchess throws deep looks, which are finally shyly returned by the 13-year-old. As luck would have it - the Duchess recognizes Gina as one of her first escape helpers from back then on the way to Palestrina (see above). Gina is the unfortunate victim of a rough husband.

The tender love story between Nino and the Duchess culminates in the unequal couple staying together on a fairy-tale property near Venice. Although the Duchess has ensured the absence of Nino's mother, nothing happens between the "couple". The Duchess is Nino's first love, who is now 14 years old. The Duchess only calls Nino her boyfriend. When the painter Halm appears and finally wants to stand out as a co-sleeper, Nino has done his duty and is sent away by the Duchess who is ready to mate. As soon as he's a man, Nino may be allowed to come back, but not to Venice.

Another gentleman who is known from the first volume is what the Duchess calls her friend - the old knight Marchese di San Bacco, who has long since returned from Bulgaria and is just now a politician in Rome. San Bacco, who loves the Duchess even more tenderly than before, is now over sixty years old. The Marchese, who is recovering from his “parliamentary fencing skills” in the province, for his part makes Nino a friend by accommodating the weakest Nino's ardent wish - to become a man in order to love the Duchess. You fight with sticks. One behaves honorably. San Bacco duels with his enemy, Mr. Maurice von Mortœil from Paris - of course because of a nullity.

Mortœil

Properzia Ponti (see below) is as devoted to Mortœil to the end as Blà es Piselli was (first volume). However, Mortœil does not whip Properzia. The “subtle weakling” drives them to ruin with finer means. Properzia, the great strong sculptor, was also exploited by the Conte Dolan - artistically. Mortœil becomes Dolan's son-in-law by marrying Clelia. Clelia, domineering, who threw herself up to Halms "mistress", wants to separate the duchess and the painter. Nino, who loves the Duchess, also hates the rival Halm. On top of that, Nino hates Mortœil because this Parisian dueled his beloved San Bacco and severely cut the face of his father's friend. The man of honor San Bacco, however, is happy to forgive even such dubious throws after his 33rd duel.

Stories about stories - "The one who stabbed herself"

The story of the Duchess of Assy frames some moving internal narratives . There is Properzia, “one of Europe's famous women”: a sculptor, formerly a farmer's child from the Roman Campagna, “never been beautiful” and a victim of rape like the Duchess. Though physically strong, she is subject to two even stronger men. Properzia is therefore in the line of losers than there are: Blà, Gina and Bettina. Blà and Properzia can be seen as sisters, as it were: They are both gifted artists, but both rejected - "ridiculous and great, without shame and without dignity" - hold on to the beloved man, incomprehensibly even after he has put them in the "Stamped" dirt. Finally, Properzia stabs herself.

The final

The old Marchese di San Bacco dies. The 40-year-old duchess, in herself “the strength of a hundred lives”, in contrast to her hapless friends the eternal winner, goes to Naples.

Third volume: The Duchess - a Venus in Naples

Binding of the first print in 1903
Alessandro Allori (* 1535 † 1607): Venus and Cupid
Make people happy

The dying of the Duchess is told in the third volume. On her deathbed one of her enemies confessed that he had "never and nowhere seen a pagan like this woman was". At first, however, the pagan still loves eagerly, without “measure and end”, gives a “wild goatherd” near Naples an estate, which the latter, suddenly becoming a “patriarchal despot”, seizes. The Duchess already valued those rustic types in Dalmatia, Rome and Venice. A "young flute player" loves the Duchess on the beach. Not only her “wide hips”, her “arms, white and noble”, her “full and white shoulders” bother him. Other women around the duchess love the poor flute player until he dies.

In Naples, a center of the sea-going Mediterranean world, the rich and powerful land as pleasure travelers even from distant shores. Phili, who has become King of Dalmatia, also travels from Dalmatia with his powerful Minister Rustschuk. Both gentlemen want to be loved by the Duchess. Phili proposes to her in perfect Viennese language; even wants to drive his queen to hell. The Duchess has nothing to do with Phili, whom Rustschuk, this opportunist and traitor, made king. If only the Duchess would have been a pretender to the throne after the death of King Nicholas.

The children of Countess Cucuru from Rome - Lilian, Vinon and Don Saverio - also gather around the Duchess in Naples. In Rome they helped their mother denounce the Duchess to the Dalmatian ambassador, and now in Naples they are vying with the Duchess to "make people happy". Lilian organizes "lesbian games".

The poet Jean Guignol is one of the lucky seekers. He rates the Duchess as the “easy spirit”, as “a game that is new every day; very kind, frivolous, cruel, careless "and" cocky ". Guignol is torn. Should his spirit submit to the flesh called Venus? He is afraid of the "stony and cruel" Venus. The Duchess, on the other hand, finds the poet boring. On the other hand, her eye rests pleasingly on Don Saverio, a “wild-smelling animal” that attacks her. Suddenly something completely new happens. When Don Saverio again stretches naked in front of the Duchess, she trembles at him. It is over with their carelessness. But she doesn't want to be one of the weak. In the meantime, having reached the “critical age”, the Duchess has heart problems after “strong hugs”. The Duchess also loves “little laundresses”. Lady Olympia arrives and her adult son Sir Houston.

Nino's return

Nino, now beautiful, strong and grown up, appears. The Duchess and Nino make love in the surf during a summer thunderstorm. After the act with the youth, the no longer young duchess rises from the floods as the " foam-born ". Rustschuk, who absolutely wants to own the Duchess one day, just as the many men in Naples have owned her, wants to use Nino for his purpose. Nino, a new Garibaldi, is not for sale. In conversations with the Duchess, Nino learns what his lover was striving for: freedom, art and love. Nino doesn't stay long in Naples. He fights against socialism in a crowd of young men abroad. The abandoned duchess consoles herself, regardless of her "tender flesh", with other young girls and men. Sir Houston, too, with his mother's permission, goes to bed with the “Adoration of the Human Body”. Such “outburst of later lust” leaves its mark over time. After nausea, dizziness and palpitations, the Duchess, a little tired from the many men, takes morphine .

The final

Jean Guignol kills himself. Unimpressed and unconcerned, the Duchess continues to celebrate along the Gulf of Naples together with her followers - "old goats, cocottes" and "young half-corpses". But she secretly wants a child of her own. Traveling through Europe full of restlessness, she learns from the doctor's mouth that the wish for the child will remain unfulfilled. The first hemorrhage is followed by asthmatic attacks. The terminally ill visits the painter Halm in northern Italy in the countryside. He no longer paints, plays a farmer and has a young son with a young farmer's wife. Halm would like to paint the dying Duchess again. Nothing will come of it. The Duchess returns to warmer Naples.

Nino dies in Genoa “in a disreputable house”. The duchess's heart is temporarily suspended. "The proudest of the lucky ones" gets heart cramps. Vicar General Tamburini and Baron Rustschuk rush to her deathbed. The baron also acts as a financier for the church. Tamburini is after the Duchess's fortune, but does not get it, although he holds out the prospect of salvation. Rustschuk cannot get over the fact that he was apparently the only man in the vicinity of the Duchess who did not own this. Strangely enough, he would like to make up for that on his deathbed at all costs, before it is too late. The Duchess bequeathed parts of her property to the loyal staff and died "devastated by all the forces of hot life".

Diana, Minerva, Venus

The goddesses Diana, Minerva and Venus from Roman mythology give the three volumes of the novel their names. In the Heinrich Mann quote from December 2, 1900 mentioned at the beginning, the author already gives a concise answer as to why the name was given. The quote is supported in the text of the novel.

  • Diana, also formed by the Romans after the Greek Artemis , was childless, wanted to be free and not subject to any man - three qualities that fully apply to the Duchess of Assy, as she is presented in the first volume. Unfortunately, the duchess is raped, so she is no longer a virgin like the exemplary goddess.
  • In the second and third volumes, however, the Duchess changes from the “political adventurer” Diana to the “art enthusiast” Minerva to Venus. Although in the second volume - its title says it: Minerva, the patron goddess of poets - the Duchess's patronage predominates, she is always Venus and always wants to be free. All three volumes can almost be read as an overloaded symbol of the goddess of love Venus. Heinrich Mann indulges hundreds of pages in the description of the works of art as he found them in Rome, Venice, Naples and in the vicinity of the three cities. However, the author does not limit himself to a mere description of the rich art treasures of Italy, but tirelessly undertakes one daring attempt after the other to mix art and sex. Some protagonists, to use a word from Heinrich Mann, especially the "ardent ones" (like Lady Olympia in the second volume), if they are allowed to think in the novel, constantly mix their sex fantasies with the omnipresent works of fine art and painting .
Relief, Naples: Museo Archeologico Nazionale
  • The sculptress Properzia compares the Duchess to a Venetian statue of Minerva. The Duchess says of herself that beautiful works give her intoxication and power. But if art bores her, she goes her own way. The Duchess believes her whole life is a work of art. She wants to play it through to the end.
  • Rustschuk describes the Duchess in Naples as "the goddess of love".
  • Jean Guignol owes his fame as a poet to the Duchess, that “great thirst for freedom, impossible beauty addict” and, in Naples, “voluptuous”.
  • In the Duchess there is “what creates a high attitude towards life: addiction to freedom, art fever” and “love rage”.
  • The duchess sees three pictures as she dies
    • "A slim woman with a silver bow on her hip",
    • "One with a helmet and a spear" and
    • one "with swelling breasts, and opened huge limbs".

Quotes

  • There is no truth in politics, there are only successes.
  • You can't kill me any other way than by destroying yourself.
  • Ours is the longing for beauty, not its fulfillment.
  • In this fleeting life, is it really worth lying?
  • The errant knights are all immortal.
  • Talent is good for those who cannot assert themselves as humans.
  • We are only beautiful for a moment.
  • You don't understand a lover.

Testimonials

  • In the Viennese daily newspaper " Die Zeit " Heinrich Mann wrote about "The Goddesses" on January 13, 1903:
    • "I didn't want to invent a blue romance, but a reality seen more intensely than you see it."
    • “I have filled the life of a woman who lives with passion with three strong motives: freedom, art, love. The Duchess of Assy is one after the other Diana, Minerva, Venus. "
  • In 1939 Heinrich Mann looks back half a century in his youth, how he was influenced by Nietzsche , before he considered “The Goddesses”: “This philosopher ... put the proud spirit at the head of his required society - why not ourselves? After us the king, the nobles and warriors, then nothing for a long time. Which twenty year old can you say that twice? Self-confidence comes before all performance; It is usually overstretched as long as it is unproven; in the course of the work it modifies itself to become more thorough ”.

reception

  • Richard Wengraf wrote in 1903: “Heinrich Mann's trilogy of novels is a poem of unheard of violence that looms lonely from our epic literature; it is an art with no ancestors ”.
  • Erich Mühsam wrote in 1907: “Pure Italian air blows over these three novels. How the Duchess of Assy enjoys the work of art of her life ... in an always beautiful pose, that is incredibly great. The woman who makes a people revolt in her name in the first novel 'Diana', in the second 'Minerva' builds a world in art, and in the third 'Venus' ends as the high priestess of love, stands next to her life ”.
  • Schröter regards in the novel "the fascination with the exotic as a remedy for hatred of the world of the citizens".
  • Ebersbach characterizes the Duchess of Assy: “She is ... free of philosophical and religious prejudices, without national ties, unscrupulous like the ' superman ' of ' Zarathustra ' and responsible to no one but herself. In all decisions she gives priority to aesthetics over all Moral".
  • Ebersbach addresses "the slightly irritating abundance of material": "It is the priority of the figure drawing over the fable."
  • Hocke calls the Duchess “self-confident and educated, ... from start to finish a person who asserts himself for better or for worse…” even “when” her “adventures are unsuccessful”.
  • Koopmann writes about "The Goddesses":
    • "Heinrich Mann tried here ... to literarily translate a ... attitude to life that was pre-formed by Nietzsche".
    • Nietzsche's ' will to power ' is "implemented in realistic-satirical social scenes".
  • Sprengel points out two global textual aspects of the novel:
    • The “rigorous” demeanor of the Duchess should not be confused with “contempt for human beings or heartlessness”. In contrast to her friends Blà and Properzia, the Duchess keeps herself free from serious “dependencies”.
    • The main concern of the author is the “ narrative implementation of Nietzsche's art metaphysics ”.

literature

source
  • Heinrich Mann: The goddesses or the three novels of the Duchess of Assy. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1976.
expenditure
  • Heinrich Mann: The goddesses. The three novels of the Duchess of Assy. S. Fischer, ISBN 3-10-047819-3
Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cited in Anger pp. 87, 88.
  2. ↑ quoted in Anger p. 94.
  3. ↑ Source, p. 739
  4. ↑ Source, p. 143
  5. ↑ Source, p. 198
  6. ↑ Source, p. 209
  7. ↑ Source, p. 253
  8. ↑ Source, p. 355
  9. ↑ Source, p. 569
  10. ↑ Source, p. 648
  11. ↑ Source, p. 683
  12. ↑ quoted in Anger p. 75
  13. ↑ cited in Ebersbach, p. 89
  14. ↑ a b cited in Anger p. 96
  15. ↑ Schröter p. 50
  16. ↑ Ebersbach p. 86
  17. ↑ Ebersbach p. 100
  18. ↑ Squat p. 34, 35
  19. ↑ Koopmann p. 22
  20. ↑ Koopmann p. 24
  21. ↑ Sprengel p. 330