The second wife (Marlitt)

The second woman is a novel (family novel, marriage novel, romance novel ) that E. Marlitt published in 1874 in the family magazine Die Gartenlaube (Issues 1–21). The book edition followed in the same year in the publishing house of the publisher of the "Gartenlaube", Ernst Keil . The illustrations for the book edition are by Alexander Zick .

Marlitt wrote the novel against the background of Bismarck's Kulturkampf , which resulted in the state's detachment from the Catholic Church. The Protestant Marlitt, who had denounced religious hypocrisy and religious intolerance in earlier works, took an unequivocal position in The Second Woman Against the Catholic Church , which subsequently earned her some criticism.

The novel tells the story of the young Juliane von Trachenberg, who gets into a marriage toe with the widower Raoul von Mainau, who is not quite strong in character. She manages to improve him, to win his love and to uncover an old family debt of the Mainau.

action

In chapter 24 Liane is compared to Lady Stanhope .

Chapters 1-4. The location of the plot is the fictional Schönwerth Palace in an unmarked German royal seat, the time the author's present, i.e. the 1870s. As a young man, Raoul Baron von Mainau had loved a woman who, under pressure from her family, decided to marry her cousin, a duke. Deprived of his happiness, Raoul too had entered into a marriage of convenience. Many years later and after the birth of two sons, the Duchess is a widow. Raoul is now also the father of a son and also a widower. In the meantime he has adopted some dubious habits: an erratic travel life, great bets, duels, love affairs and a disdain for women. While the Duchess is now hoping for a reunification with her youthful lover, the latter, on the contrary, wants revenge for her breach of loyalty and is looking for a second wife who is appropriate to her status in the Gotha court calendar .

His choice falls on a cousin he does not know personally, the 20-year-old Juliane ("Liane") Countess von Trachenberg. Liane lives with her emotionally cold mother, a born Princess Lutowiska, and her beloved older siblings Ulrike and Magnus at Rudisdorf Castle. The family is impoverished and ekes out a modest existence by making artificial flowers. However, Liane was able to enjoy an exquisite education through the highly learned Magnus.

Raoul travels to Rudisdorf for the wedding with his best man, Mr. von Rüdiger. Immediately after the ceremony, he openly explains to Liane that he only married her because he travels a lot and needs a mother for his son during his absence. Although Liane knew that Raoul didn't choose her out of love, she is upset.

Chapters 5–10. After arriving at Schloss Schönwerth, Liane begins to guess the causes of Raoul's character problems. It is not he who sets the tone in his house, but his uncle, the court marshal, who - as the father of Raoul's first wife Valerie - is also Leo's grandfather. The court marshal is under the influence of the court preacher, an opaque Jesuit who was also Valerie's close confidante, and immediately decides that the wedding, which in Rudisburg was a Protestant ceremony , must be repeated as a Catholic ceremony. Raoul's son Leo - the apple does not fall far from the tree - turns out to be an uneducated bully and habitually abuses his actually beloved house mate, the boy Gabriel. However, he immediately embraces Liane without reservation.

Gabriel is the son of a mysterious Indian woman who is seriously ill and lives in a separate building, where she is looked after by Gabriel and the decision-maker, Ms. Löhn. Liane learns that the Indian woman once danced as a Bajadere in Benares , where another of Raoul's uncle, Gisbert, discovered her, fell in love with her and kidnapped her to Germany. Gisbert finally died and is said to have fallen out with her lover because she was unfaithful to him and Gabriel was not his son. The court marshal as well as Raoul show a great dislike for the Indian woman and for Gabriel, who is determined by Gisbert's will to be a monk and a missionary, although, as Liane discovers, he has an amazing talent as an artist.

Chapters 11-14. Since Liane does not withdraw from her Protestant confession, she and the court marshal have been on tense feet with each other from the start. An open conflict arises when Liane wants to send her mother a self-made painting, which the mother is supposed to sell in order to finance a spa stay with the proceeds. The Court Marshal is convinced that such merit painting is utterly improper for his nephew's wife. To intimidate Liane, he confronts her with a compromising letter that his mother had once addressed to him. The mother had had high gambling debts and asked the court marshal for support. After this argument, Liane is more than ever determined to travel to Rudisdorf together with Leo as soon as Raoul goes on his travels again and to get a divorce in the end. The tension that also exists between Raoul and Liane reaches a climax when Raoul has an argument with his huntsman, Liane intervenes and is seriously injured in the hand by Raoul.

Chapters 15-16. Liane learns a lot about the Mainaus from Ms. Löhn that she did not know before. Raoul is not a bad person, on the contrary, he is a benefactor for the poor. In the past, however, the impossibility of asserting himself as master in Schloß Schönwerth against the resistance of the court marshal has driven him to turn a blind eye to evil and to go on trips again and again. His delirium of unworthy pleasures is the result of unpunished deep humiliation.

Chapters 17-20. Liane, who has only raised Raoul by her role model, now actively strengthens his back to take on more responsibility for Leo's upbringing and to evaluate his rich travel experience as a writer. Raoul also visits his neglected Wolkershausen estate to restore order there. On his return he insists on reading Gisbert's will, which the court marshal is keeping in a box. A comparison of manuscripts shows that the document is probably genuine. Liane observed Raoul's inner change with joy and at the same time developed jealousy at the thought that he could turn to the Duchess again after separation and divorce.

Since her doubts about the authenticity of Gisbert's will persist, she gains access to the paper again. Under the microscope, she discovers that the document was drawn up in pencil. When she puts the paper back in the cassette, she is surprised by the court preacher. He desires her, and in order to poison Liane's marriage, he reveals to her that Raoul only married her to get revenge on the Duchess. He admits to having forged the will and burns it in front of Liane's eyes. In order to compromise Liane's “rummaging” in the personal papers of the court marshal, he also burns her mother's letter. When the court marshal and Raoul come into the room, it should appear to them as if Liane had only gained entry to destroy the evidence against her mother.

Chapters 21-23. Liane believes she has been destroyed and wants to leave Schönwerth that same night. Raoul intercepts them, however, and after a discussion the couple, who until now have only been such a de iure , actually come together as a couple. Raoul decides to adopt Gabriel and not send him to the monastery.

Frau Löhn tells Liane more about the Mainaus: It was Gisbert, not the Indian, who had been unfaithful, with the Duchess. In his last lifetime Gisbert had been completely under the influence of the court marshal and the court preacher. On his deathbed, however, he had made up with his lover and had written a will. The court marshal, who wanted to prevent the couple from rapprochement and wanted them in vain, had tried to strangle the Indian woman, but could not prevent her from constantly carrying the will in a silver box on her body ever since.

Chapters 24-28. At a concert ball, Liane and Raoul demonstrate demonstratively as a couple in front of the Duchess. After her return to Schönwerth Castle, Liane learns of the Indian woman's death. She hides the box with the will, but is surprised in the palace garden by the court preacher who imposes himself immorally on her. When Liane defends herself, he throws her into the castle pond with murderous intent, where she almost drowns, but at the last moment is rescued by the hunter's boy.

Liane tells Raoul everything about the court marshal that she had hitherto concealed in order to spare her husband. The box with the real will is broken down; the document confirms the Indian woman and their son as Gisbert's heirs. The court marshal is leaving. The court preacher disappears without a trace. As a result of falling into the castle pond, Liane fell seriously ill, but her sister Ulrike took care of her so well that she was soon restored. Gutwerth Castle is sold. With financial help from Raoul, Ulrike builds a factory for artificial flowers.

reception

The novel was filmed twice, the first time in 1918 in a German silent film version by director Richard Oswald , in which Eva Speyer (Liane), Alexander Antalffy (Raoul), Leo Connard (Court Marshal) and Ilse von Tasso-Lind (Duchess) were seen. 1983 director Herbert Ballmann adapted the novel for German television (ZDF). The main roles were played by Ruth Olafs , Christoph Moosbrugger , Paul Dahlke and Doris Kunstmann .

In 2010 Ivonne Defant drew attention to parallels between the novel and Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer's Jane Eyre stage adaptation The Orphan by Lowood .

Expenses (selection)

• The second wife . Ernst Keil, Leipzig 1874 (first book edition).
• The second wife . Kaiser, Vienna 1965.
• The second wife . Fischer, 1975.
• The second wife . Kelter, 1993.
• The second wife . Edition Hamouda, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940075-27-7 .

In other languages

• The Second Wife . JB Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia 1874 (English edition, translated by AL Wister).
• Vtorai ︠ a ︡ zhena: roman . Izd. AF Marksa, Moskva 1874 (Russian edition).
• Druhá manželka: román z doby novější . Karel Vačlena (Czech edition, translated by JL Turnovský).
• La seconde femme . Firmin-Didot, Paris 1887 (French edition, translated by Emmeline Raymond).
• Liana, eller, the Andean hustru . Scandinavens boghandel, 1891 (Norwegian edition).
• La segunda esposa . Montaner y Simón, Barcelona 1895 (Spanish edition).

Comments on the work in the "Gartenlaube"

• Parisian literary counterfeiting (1875, issue 25)
• From Paris (1876, No. 11)
• A judgment by Rudolph Gottschall about E. Marlitt (1876, issue 27)
• A gateway to the Thuringian Forest (1876, Issue 32)

Web links

Commons : The second wife  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: The Second Woman  - Sources and full texts

• The second woman in the Gutenberg-DE project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cornelia Hobohm: Eugenie Marlitt - "The Second Woman". Retrieved July 15, 2020 . 
2. ^ Ivonne Defant: The Mystery of the Past Haunts Again: Jane Eyre and Eugenie Marlitt's The Second Woman / Le mystère du passé hante encore: l'influence de Jane Eyre sur The second woman d'Eugenie Marlitt. In: LISA. Retrieved July 15, 2020 .