The sacrificial flame
The sacrificial flame is a story by Gertrud von le Fort , which was published by Insel-Verlag in Leipzig in 1938.
Friederike, the north German poet and first-person narrator, reports on the repetition of a strange encounter that confronts her with the question of the "new life": Does love overcome death?
content
Friederike is one of the women who remained single after the war . During each of the two encounters, Friederike wears mourning clothes and every time she meets a man. The first time she is an 18-year-old girl and mourns the loss of her father. In Rome she fled from an older, graying gentleman in a baroque church on the way. He follows her insistently. But when she turns around to look at him, nothing annoying can be found in the expression. On the contrary - Friederike sinks into the man's gaze and in a matter of seconds passes through all stages of love. "Angelina, thank you!" the man whispers in an exultant tone and leaves. Friederike gives in to the love of the man, looking for him, but can never find him again.
More than twenty years pass. Friederike has meanwhile become a poet known beyond Germany, considers her own work to be small and already has quirks. One of them: instead of glasses, the woman uses a large, inherited reading magnifier. After her mother dies, the 40-year-old has the second meeting on the trip to Rome in Arosa . This time the man is an unhappy Russian. He hands her "The Sacrificial Flame" - the unpublished manuscript of Maria Paulowna. The strange thing - again Friederike reminds the man of a deceased woman; this time to the Russian author who was shot by the Bolsheviks . This text, which Friederike is supposed to look through, is about great love; about immortality. Friederike dreads the repetition of that encounter with love. In addition, her mind is constantly occupied with the death of her mother. Nevertheless - Friederike goes on a mountain hike on a wonderful sunny day and looks through the manuscript while resting. It's a woman's love letters. This woman, in the face of her death in the dungeon, helps Friederike to realize that death is a form of love and is therefore even connected with hope. Friederike wonders, could that be the meaning of the end of her own life? During this reflection the manuscript catches fire under the magnifying glass. Before Friederike can intervene, there is a pile of ashes. When the poet reluctantly brings the Russian news of the loss, she is kissed on the forehead and realizes: twice she has brought the dead to life.
Quote
- "Poetry is a form of life."
literature
- pads
- Gertrud von le Fort: The sacrificial flame. Narrative. 54 pages. Insel-Verlag Wiesbaden 1949. Insel-Bücherei No. 533
- Source and first edition
- Gertrud von le Fort: The sacrificial flame. Narrative. 54 pages. Insel-Verlag Leipzig 1938. Insel-Bücherei No. 533, cardboard, green pattern (printed in Fraktur by Spamer's successor in Leipzig)
- Secondary literature
- Nicholas J. Meyerhofer: Gertrud von le Fort . Morgenbuch Verlag Berlin 1993. Heads of the 20th Century, Volume 119. ISBN 3-371-00376-0
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A - Z . S. 382, left column, 9. Zvo Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 3-520-83704-8