The dungeons of the Vatican

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The dungeons of the Vatican is a novel by André Gide , which appeared in 1914 under the title Les Caves du Vatican in the Éditions Gallimard / Paris.

Gide calls his book a sotie and tells of the crook Protos who cheats on two French families and is ultimately outwitted by a questionable family member.

At least three different translations were published in German-speaking countries, the first of which in 1922 (see below ).

time and place

The action takes place from 1890 to 1893 in Paris, Pau , Milan, Rome and Naples. The actors move between these places by train.

title

Gide cites an account of a rumor that is said to have emerged in France in 1893. After that Leo XIII. was held captive by the lodge in the dungeons of the Vatican.

structure

Familys

It tells the story of the two families, Péterat and de Baraglioul. Julius de Baraglioul had married into the Péterat family.

  • Philibert Péterat , botanist
the Armand-Dubois couple:
  • Veronique, daughter
  • Anthime Armand-Dubois, son-in-law, free thinker
the de Baraglioul couple:
  • Comtesse Marguerite de Baraglioul, daughter
  • Julius Comte de Baraglioul, son-in-law (son of Juste-Agénor, see below), novelist
    • Geneviève and Julie, daughters of the Baragliouls
the Fleurissoire couple:
  • Arnica, daughter
  • Amédée Fleurissoire, son-in-law
  • Juste-Agénor Comte de Baraglioul
  • Valentine Comtesse Guy de Saint-Prix, daughter
  • Lafcadio Wluiki, illegitimate son
Books

Four of the five books in the novel have male names from the above. Familys. While in each of the first three books of this antics one of the fools from the family is introduced, in the fourth book Protos, one of the centipedes - that's a gang of fraudsters - drives his evil game with the family members. In the fifth book, Protos finds his master in Lafcadio.

action

  • First book. Anthime Armand-Dubois

In 1890, the 46-year-old wealthy Freemason Anthime Armand-Dubois moved to Rome to treat his stiffened knee joint. The psycho- physiologist , an atheist , researches the conditioned reflexes in living rats in disgusting experiments .

Once, after the stubborn physically handicapped scientist sinned a little - in a rage he damaged a plaster cast of the Holy Virgin - he had a crucial experience . The prayer for forgiveness is answered. Anthime is suddenly able to bend the stiff leg again. The news of the miracle reaches the Vatican . The godless anthime converts to the Christian faith. The lodge, to which Anthime owes his prosperity first, drops him. Impoverished, he is deported from the church to Milan.

  • Second book. Julius de Baraglioul

The writer Julius de Baraglioul - from Parma - lives in Paris. His most recent novel L'Air des cimes was critically panned . “The book failed,” admits the author. Julius is aiming for membership in the academy . His father, the aged Juste-Agénor Comte de Baraglioul, asks him to research the lifestyle of the 19-year-old Romanian Lafcadio Wluiki, who lives in Paris. Said and done. Julius enters Lafcadio's room, but doesn't get far. Lafcadio, who is intellectually vastly superior to all characters in the novel, clairvoyantly turns the tables and finds out: Juste-Agénor was envoy in Bucharest in 1873 . Lafcadio was born there in 1874. The " bastard " Lafcadio boldly penetrates to Juste-Agénor, his birth father, and obtains a pension as an inheritance. After such prospects, Lafcadio ditched his lover Carola Venitequa and turned to the beautiful, very young Geneviève. Their father Julius finds Lafcadio sympathetic. The writer wants to hire the aspiring young man as a secretary. Carola, the former lover of Lafcadio's former schoolmate Protos, who was a few years older than him, travels to Rome to see the latter.

  • Third book. Amédée Fleurissoire

The millipede Protos is not only in Rome, but operates nationwide across Italy and France. So the fraudster Julius' sister, the Comtesse Valentine Guy de Saint-Prix in Pau licks a large sum of money to “liberate the Pope”. The Comtesse is uneasy about the whole thing afterwards. Valentine turns to Madame Arnica Fleurissoire, because she thinks that the Liberation of the Pope is in the right hands with the Blafaphas company. Arnica's husband Amédée, the most simple-minded person in the book, is involved in that company and takes care of the project personally. Amédée travels alone from Pau to Rome. At the same time Julius sets out on a trip to the city on the Tiber. He wants to attend a sociologist congress there.

  • Fourth book. The millipede

When Amédée arrived in Rome, he soon realized from his own experience that it seemed impossible to free a prisoner from the “secret dungeons” of Castel Sant'Angelo . A crony of Protos leads Amédée to Madame Carola. The newcomer sleeps - against his will, it looks like - with the lady. Amédée no longer understands herself and the world. At home in his marriage bed with Arnica, he had successfully endured a self-prescribed abstinence for years and now here in Rome he has to fear infection after the first night . Carola, being pushed back and forth by frivolous men, falls in love with Amédée. Protos sneaks Amédée's trust and builds up an enemy image. That consists of Freemasons, Jesuits and the police. Protos harnesses the innocent-good-natured French to his “pope liberation”. Amédée is all too happy to relieve Protos of secrecy and sees the enemy peeping out from every corner. The impostor Protos changes its name. He calls himself Abbé Cave among other things. Cave doesn't just mean “Beware!”, But also “cellar, dungeon”.

Julius obtains an audience with the Holy Father to rehabilitate his brother-in-law, Anthime. Protos managed to get the two fools Julius and Amédée to withdraw a large sum of money from the Credito Commerziale in Rome. Amédée also agrees to bring the amount to Naples.

  • Fifth book. Lafcadio

When Lafcadio became wealthy after the death of his father with the support of his half-brother Julius, he no longer wanted to stay in Paris. He wants to look at the world. Lafcadio has a sea voyage to Java - from Brindisi - in mind. On the train journey to the Apulian port city, Amédée happened to climb into the compartment behind Rome in which Lafcadio was sitting alone. The travelers don't know each other. Lafcadio, who is looking for an adventure, has an idea. “A crime without a motive” would be entertaining. Shortly before Capua , while driving over a bridge, he throws Amédée off the train. Amédée wants to cling to Lafcadio, but only catches the perpetrator's hat shortly before he dies. When Lafcadio - again alone in the compartment - searches the victim's pockets, he finds Julius' ticket and takes it. He doesn't touch the money. Lafcadio realizes that Julius must be in Rome. The adventurer Lafcadio drives back to his half-brother to confront him with the "case". When he arrived in Rome, he was sure to find Julius in the Grand Hotel. The novelist is just thinking of his next work. In it, a young man commits a crime with no motive. Julius has heard that his brother-in-law is said to have been killed. After the rumor has been proven, he persuades Lafcadio to transfer the body to Rome. Lafcadio leaves and leaves the ticket in Julius' hotel room beforehand.

Carola, who loved Amédée, is convinced that Protos was the culprit. She reports him to the police.

On the way to Naples, Lafcadio meets Protos, who pretends to be Professor Defouqueblize, holder of the chair in comparative criminology at the Bordeaux Faculty of Law . Of course Protos, who was after Amédée for the money, is in possession of the Lafcadio hat. He wants to blackmail his old school friend with a piece of hat lining that he has cut out. Lafcadio does not respond, but wants to face the police.

In the meantime, the Péterat family from France is traveling to Rome for the Amédées burial. Not only the Comtesse de Baraglioul with her older daughter Geneviève is on the night train. The Anthimes are also getting on in Milan. After the funeral, Julius confesses to his brother-in-law that there was nothing he could do for him during his audience with the Pope. Anthime, who feels betrayed by the church, suddenly begins to limp again.

Protos takes revenge for the "betrayal" committed by Carola. He's killing her. The rushing police arrest the perpetrator and find the parts of the hat lining on him. Thus, for the authorities, Protos is guilty of two homicide crimes and is going behind bars.

Regardless of this, Lafcadio wants to face the next day. He confesses to Julius what he did. During the night he is visited by Geneviève, who loves him, in his hotel room. At first, Lafcadio nobly rejects the young girl. But then he thinks about it and sleeps with her. He actually wanted to face Geneviève out of respect. Well, on the morning after the night of love, things are a little different. Since last night he has been paying “a little less” to Geneviève. So why still stand up? The police have their perpetrator.

shape

Gide emerges as an authoritative narrator , who repeatedly reflects and comments on the events in the first person singular. It begins soon after the beginning of the first book, when he writes: "I can't avoid this point, although I only wanted to report about the essentials ...". Or if he wants to restrain himself: “Stop, you rash pen!” Sometimes the reader pauses and has to ask himself: Is this passage to be taken as a fool's game or as a simple weakness in the form of the whole novel? For example, when Gide looks at the cards: "The reader should justly find out that it was this very Protos who ... under the ... name of the Canon of Virmontal made his appearance here." The Gide biographer Martin helps himself with this Connection with the following observation: "The story as such ... unrolls in an ironic and dubious way: The author enjoys the fact that we recognize the threads almost more clearly than the heroes themselves."

The author often falls into the present tense, but quickly returns to the simple past each time.

Inconsistent

When Lafcadio got off the car after the crime in Naples, he had his suitcase - which was stolen from him on the way - returned. The question is: by whom? Lafcadio doesn't know Protos is in the game at the time. Why should Protos or the other millipedes have left the suitcase at the station?

Testimonials

  • Diary entry from June 24, 1913: " Les Caves ended yesterday ... More than one passage in the first and second books seems weak or forced to me ... But I believe that the most difficult parts are also the most successful."

Gide in the foreword to the novel of August 29, 1913:

  • "To date I have only written ironic books, the last of which is undoubtedly here."
  • "I just strive to be a good artist."

reception

  • "... It remains one of the most profound fables of the great French."
  • “The novel is a more biting than humorous satire on the alleged imprisonment of Pope Leo XIII. ... in 1893. "
  • According to Brigitte Sendet, the “gifted, beautiful, amoral bastard Lafcadio” is the figure with the “breakthrough function”. Lafcadio broke “conventional novel clichés”.
  • According to Marianne Kesting , Lafcadio appears "to the pious family foul ... as a personification of absolute freedom ..."

literature

expenditure

French
  • Les Caves du Vatican. Sotie par l'auteur des Paludes , 2 vols., Paris 1914
  • Les Caves du Vatican , in: Œuvres completes , ed. v. Louis Martin-Chauffier, Vol. 7, Paris 1934
  • Les Caves du Vatican , in: Romans, récits et soties. Œuvres lyriques . Ed. U. a. v. Maurice Nadeau, Paris 1958
German
  • The dungeons of the Vatican. Translation: Dieter Bassermann. Insel-Verlag Leipzig 1922. 283 pages
  • The dungeons of the Vatican. An ironic novel. Translation: Ferdinand Hardekopf . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1930 and 1951. 389 pages
  • André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. The counterfeiters . Two novels. Translation: Ferdinand Hardekopf. People and world. Berlin 1978 (DVA license). 650 pages
  • The dungeons of the Vatican . Translated from the French by Thomas Dobberkau. Collected works in twelve volumes. Edited by Raimund Theis and Peter Schnyder, Volume VIII / 2, pp. 229–454. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992. 511 pages, ISBN 3-421-06468-7

Secondary literature

  • Renée Lang: André Gide and the German spirit (French: André Gide et la Pensée Allemande ). Translation: Friedrich Hagen . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1953. 266 pages
  • Claude Martin: André Gide . Translated from the French by Ingeborg Esterer. Rowohlt 1963 (July 1987 edition). 176 pages, ISBN 3-499-50089-2
  • Hans Hinterhäuser (Ed.), Peter Schnyder (Ed.), Raimund Theis (Ed.): André Gide: Diary 1903–1922 . Translated from the French by Maria Schäfer-Rümelin. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume II / 2. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1990. 813 pages, ISBN 3-421-06462-8

Web links

In French: Gutenberg's text on the romance : Les Caves du Vatican

Individual evidence

  1. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 6
  2. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 231
  3. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 233
  4. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 314, 3rd line from O.
  5. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, footnote p. 311
  6. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 239, 1. Zvu
  7. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 353
  8. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 339, 7th line from u.
  9. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 287, 2nd line from u.
  10. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 347 below
  11. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, footnote p. 362
  12. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 403, 17th line v. O.
  13. ↑ E.g. André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 354, 8th line v. u .: "I'm not sure what to think of Carola Venitequa."
  14. ↑ E.g. André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 290, 12th line v. u .: "As I said ..."
  15. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 239, 8th line v. u.
  16. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 258, 9th line v. u.
  17. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 312, 12th line v. O.
  18. ^ Martin, p. 116, 10th line. O.
  19. ↑ E.g. André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 245, 13th line v. u. or p. 452
  20. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 408, 2nd line from O.
  21. ^ Hinterhäuser, p. 318, 17th line from u.
  22. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 231, 7th line from u.
  23. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992, p. 232, 2nd line from u.
  24. ↑ From Christ und Welt quoted in a DVA-Verlag supplement in the translated book by Renée Lang
  25. ↑ From National-Zeitung, Basel quoted in a DVA publishing supplement in the translated book by Renée Lang
  26. ^ Brigitte Sendet in the afterword of the DVA license edition of the Volk und Welt publishing house in 1978, page 636 middle
  27. ^ André Gide: The dungeons of the Vatican. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VIII / 2, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1992. Marianne Kesting in the epilogue, p. 495, 3rd line v. O.
  28. ↑ see also Lang, p. 236