Federigo (Mérimée)
Federigo is a novella by the French writer Prosper Mérimée from 1829. The author notes that the peculiar story of the L'Hombre player Federigo was "put together by labels towards the end of the Middle Ages in the landscape around Naples - also from ancient and Christian tradition ".
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After the young Federigo, a distinguished gentleman, had spent almost all of his father's inheritance playing cards, he retired to his last possession - a small castle - behind the Cavan Hills. Once in the evening the Lord Jesus Christ knocks . Federigo entertains the Lord and the twelve apostles. For this he has three wishes with the Son of God . Federigo - not embarrassed - wants a game of cards with which he always wins. Saint Peter warns that the player should also think about his salvation when making wishes . Federigo, however, still wishes that if someone climbs his orange tree, the climber should only be able to come down again if Federigo allows it. And the third wish is similar to the second; only instead of the tree there is the stove bench.
The pious hikers move on, and Federigo tries out his card game with success in the city. Federigo enriches himself with a “dozen sons from a good family” and afterwards regrets cheating on honest young people. From then on he only excludes crooks and cardsharps. The thought of the twelve youths - who are meanwhile burning in hell - does not let go of him. Federigo is marching towards Hell. That creepy place is located in this story on the crater floor of Monte Gibello . When Federigo plays for the souls of the twelve cards with Pluto in hell and wins every time, the ruler of the underworld does not feel at ease. For his part, Pluto uses a trick: Pardauz - Federigo finds himself happy with his sack full of souls, but outside of Monte Gibello. He crossed over to the mainland and lived in his castle until he was 70 years old. Death comes twice in vain. Once Federigo sends the grim reaper up the orange tree and only lets him down after he has promised him another hundred years of life and the second time death is only allowed to get up from the stove bench after Federigo is allowed to stay on earth for another forty years.
On his last walk, Federigo is energetically rejected by Pluto. The sky remains . Federigo first has to remind Saint Peter of the hospitality near Cava that was well over a hundred years ago, until the keeper of the Heavenly Gate relativizes his dismissive attitude and asks the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord himself appears at the gate. The happy ending with the twelve souls of young card players in the hiking sack: Federigo is let in with the twelve souls. Jesus Christ draws level. At that time he had been entertained with his twelve disciples.
Used edition
- Federigo . P. 29–43 in Prosper Mérimée: Auserlesene Novellen (also contains: Tamango . The Etruscan vase . Colomba . Carmen . The Venus of Ille . The alley of Madama Lucrezia . The Blue Room ). Translator: Helmut Bartuschek (1951). With an introduction by Herbert Kühn. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung zu Leipzig 1965 (5th edition, license Rudolf Marx). 398 pages