The only sin
The only sin is a story by the Austrian writer Franz Karl Ginzkey , published in 1920.
The story, written in Salzburg , tells a tragic love story against the backdrop of the First World War . The framework story set in the South Tyrolean Dolomites encloses the actual narrative about renunciation and unbridled passion. The mountains and a pronounced mysticism of nature play a major role in the book.
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The author describes a strange experience that he had during the First World War when he was quartered in the Karerseehotel at the foot of the Rosengarten in the Dolomites. This large noble hotel was now only inhabited by a handful of Austrian officers, where otherwise numerous travelers had enjoyed the mountains. There the author became better acquainted with a major who turned out to be the well-known writer Degenhart.
One day the aviator Brendelin came to the hotel, who had the gift of being able to recite songs to the lute and who was happy to do so whenever the opportunity arose. He also sent Degenhart greetings from an officer unknown to the author. Degenhart immediately fell into a thoughtfulness that struck the author particularly strongly during Brendelin's lecture, while the other soldiers were happy and sang along. Degenhart left the event to pace up and down outside the hotel in the dark. The author soon had enough too and met Degenhart in the open air, who now began to explain his strange behavior to him and tell him his story.
In an earlier conversation, the author had once highly praised an essay by Degenhart on loneliness, which he thought was the best that Degenhart had ever written. Degenhart came back to it and said that after the article appeared he received a letter from a lady he did not know who was also very impressed by it. She thought he was a soul mate to whom she would like to confess her life story if he would allow it. And so she wrote him a letter. Degenhart, who at first thought she was an overstretched woman, was very touched by this letter.
Agnete, as the woman was called, had married, but was soon very seriously ill, from which her husband also suffered. When she decided to give him back his freedom in some things, she learned that he had long since had a mistress. With that he had now died to her heart, although she remained married to him. Before the inner loneliness, she found comfort and peace in nature. Once her passion flared up when she met the singer Brendelin. But here too the disappointment followed. In order to conquer her illness, she was ready to undergo operations and take spa stays.
Instead of giving Agnete her peace, which she had finally found, the desire arose in Degenhart to get to know this fascinating woman personally. After they had initially corresponded with each other, he met Agnete in Innsbruck , where she and her husband had stayed. She was unable to withstand the onslaught of his words, and from her peace of mind she was plunged into passion again. But since she could not stand upset because of her illness, she was dead two weeks later. Her brother, an alpinist, scattered her ashes in an inaccessible part of the rose garden.
Degenhart had his story, here in the immediate vicinity, in the place of which Agneten's remains rested, very shaken. He felt guilty about her death, although no one else would have blamed him for it. The next morning Degenhart had disappeared. He had made his way up to the rose garden and had never returned. In death the two people were finally united in the bosom of that nature that they had both loved so much.
expenditure
- The only sin . L. Staackmann, Leipzig 1920
- The only sin . With 7 pictures of the rose garden legend from Richard Teschner's artistic estate . Hollinek, Vienna 1948
- Selected works in four volumes . Vol. 2 novellas. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1960
literature
- Robert Hohlbaum : Franz Karl Ginzkey. His life and work . L. Staackmann, Leipzig 1921, pp. 56-58
- Adolf Bartels : The German poetry from Hebbel to the present . Vol. 3. The youngest. H. Haessel, 1922, p. 31
- Rudolf Wolkan : History of German literature in Bohemia and in the Sudetenland . Stauda, 1925, p. 137