Olalla (Robert Louis Stevenson)

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Olalla ( Engl. Olalla ) is a narrative of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson , who at Christmas 1885 in the British literary magazine The Court and Society Review , and then in 1887 in the collection of the great men and other stories (Engl. The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables ) was published by Chatto & Windus .

content

During the Spanish War of Independence , the anonymous first-person narrator, a Scottish officer, was wounded while fighting Napoleonic troops. The attending Spanish doctor has done his best and recommends the convalescent to stay in the mountains; more precisely, in the residencia of an impoverished noble family.

The Señor Comandante, as the Scotsman is dubbed by the Spaniards, follows the medical advice and is picked up by Felipe, the son of the anonymous Señora, the landlady. At the Residencia, the comandante befriends the apparently feeble-minded boy. Felipe occasionally has tantrums, can be both vengeful and forgiving; in short, the boy is unpredictable.

Years before the start of the plot, the Señora, the last offspring of a princely house, lost the father of her two children under circumstances that remain unknown to the narrator. Most of the time the lady of the house sits in the sun and dreams the day away; “Lushly wrapped in oneself and sunk in indolence and lust.” The narrator does not get that clever out of this woman, but in the end we meet each other benevolently. The Señora even furtively caresses the guest's hand.

One day a person in the house screams as terribly as an animal. The comandante, whether he wants to or not, has to get to the bottom of the phenomenon, but he cannot. He was locked up. The next day he asked and got his room key from Felipe.

The next day the guest meets Olalla - she is the lovely daughter of the house. The beautiful girl obviously resembles the person in a historical portrait of a woman that hangs next to the bed in the Comandante's room, and Olalla does not resemble the old portrait either. The Scot falls in love with the young Spaniard. Because this is the woman he has always wanted. The comandante has a strong feeling - Olalla will reciprocate his affection.

Mistake. On the unmistakable instruction of the loved one, he should leave the Residencia on the same day. When the Scotsman reaches out and calls her name, Olalla rushes up to him and hugs him. Thereupon she pushes him back and soon afterwards renews her rejection in writing. Desperate, the spurned lover makes a deep cut on the window pane of his room. He asks the Señora for an emergency bandage. Olalla's mother bites the injured man in the hand to the bone. When these animal screams come from the hostess's mouth again immediately after the bite attack, the comandante knows. Olalla is handling the urgent medical assistance. The señora continues to scream for a long time.

The Scot declares his love for Olalla. When he is rejected again, Olalla explains her reasons for him. The ancestor in the portrait next to the guest's bed had done evil a long time ago. The subsequent degeneration of their noble family cannot be overlooked in Felipe and their mother. Therefore, Olalla wanted to forego offspring.

The Comandante leaves the Residencia, as he was told, but stays close to the property. This is how the lovers meet for the last time. The officer wants to take Olalla with him to Scotland - despite all that. The virgin renounces.

shape

While in the first third Felipe's mental illness is carefully and vividly worked out, in the second third the corresponding characterization of the Señora falls away and in the last third the reader from the 21st century finds Olalla's intrusive pathos disturbing.

reception

  • Wirzberger admires Stevenson's convincing description of the Spanish mountain landscape around the Residencia and attests to the author “masterfully designed horror”.
  • Dölvers emphasizes Stevenson's ability to create vivid sequences, although a number of standard situations were repeated. For example, the hero is also locked in Des Sire de Malétroit's door . At Stevenson, design has a preparatory character for the final formation of the overall message of the text. For example, the Scotsman soon appears paralyzed by the image of the ancestor next to his bed, and the Señora's "animal sensuality" also puts the hero into a kind of trance that makes one fear future disaster.

German-language literature

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Horst Dölvers: The narrator Robert Louis Stevenson. Interpretations. Francke Verlag, Bern 1969, without ISBN. 200 pages
  • Michael Reinbold: Robert Louis Stevenson. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-50488-X .

Web links

in English

Wikisource: Olalla  - Sources and full texts (English)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Stevenson conceals the ancestral incest .
  2. ↑ Edition used.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ engl. The Court and Society Review
  2. ↑ engl. The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables
  3. ↑ engl. Olalla (see also Reinbold, p. 153, 17th Zvu)
  4. ^ Spanish residencia
  5. ^ Spanish comandante
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 68, 5th Zvu
  7. ↑ Wirzberger in the afterword of the edition used, p. 389, 11. Zvo
  8. ↑ Dölvers, p. 142
  9. ↑ Dölvers, p. 132 middle
  10. ↑ engl. Elizabeth Klett