Devilies
Teufelien are two short stories by Ricarda Huch that were published by Hermann Haessel in Leipzig in 1897 .
Late medieval Switzerland is haunted . Back then, people still thought it possible that the devil could meet them in the market. The author took the material from the so-called Wick's collection in the Zurich city library in 1895 .
content
- I.
This chronicle begins in April 1583. According to the will of the narrator, a former schoolmaster, who is called by the people in his town of Potzmarterle, the text should not be made public until after his death. Because the bachelor, who keeps the minutes in court negotiations, fears the anger of the mayor.
On one of those days in April, Trud, the daughter of the town's Seckelmeister , a French hater, was summoned. The virgin is accused of having a nightly rendezvous with the devil, directly on the meadow in front of her father's house. This case overwhelmed the negotiating mayor. He consults the two pastors of the town's Blasius Church and the Anastasius Church. Ricarda Huch calls the two clergymen Blasius and Anastasius without further ado. Once more grace is granted before justice. After Trud admitted that she had a rendezvous with the devil in her meadow that night, she was admonished and released.
Potzmarterle is not a particularly avid churchgoer. During the Sunday service, the defaulting person encounters Trud on the edge of the meadow, who is embracing Junker Claudius von Matten next to the Seckelmeister's house. Potzmarterle admonishes the Junker to stay in France because he faces the death penalty in the city. The Junker knows that. He had illegally recruited a regiment for the French around the city. Potzmarterle promises not to betray the lovers. Trud confesses to the schoolmaster that the “devil” was her treasure, the Junker. She persuades Potzmarterle to repeat the "hellish process" in order to be able to continue celebrating her "love festivals" on the community meadow with the Junker. Potzmarterle joins the fun. He's playing the devil. Three devil costumes are sewn. During the next "Devil's Night", Pastor Blasius, who is to face the devil on behalf of the city council, is rudely pushed into the grass during the nightly dance across the meadow.
The mayor must do something about the pathetic death of cattle. The three devils must be cast out. For good money the mayor appoints a foreign devil conjurer. Junker Claudius intercepts him, learns his tricks, locks him up in his house in France and pretends to be the devil conjurer.
The false conjurer "fails". At the next nightly dance in the meadow, Trud is fetched by the devil. The Seckelmeister receives a letter from France. In it, the Junker Claudius lies to his distraught father that he found Trud who had been kidnapped by the devil in the forest and took her home with him. The Seckelmeister picks up his daughter and thanks the honest finder. Since the devil spared the city, the cattle have been healthy again. At the instigation of the grateful Seckelmeister, the Junker's banishment is lifted. Claudius von Matten can legally enter and marry Trud.
The Seckelmeister already feels uncomfortable when he thinks about the birth of Trud's first child. Will she give birth to a little devil? After all, she had been with the bad guy on the April meadow in front of the house. The son-in-law must not hear this story! So it is a good thing that the young couple would like to live in the Junkers house in France.
There is no happy ending. After several happy years of marriage, the Junker falls on the battlefield and Trud dies "suddenly" a little later.
- II
The first-person narrator, that is the city painter Liborius, has competition. A stranger named Peter settles in town. The devil wants to turn this nasty blob into a famous master painter. But hell awaits Peter after his death . Maipeter is called this bungler because of a beetle picture. As soon as Maipeter stains a new canvas, the devil turns it into something special the following night. Liborius watched it himself. With his fiery brush the devil gives the painting “a very special and wicked reputation”. The sparks crackle from the black brush. To make matters worse, the pastor's daughter, the maiden Ludovika, Liboriusen's bride, can be portrayed by Maipeter. The groom is against it. Defiant and obstinate, Ludovika gets her way through. Of course, the devil completes the portrait. Anyone who looks at the work of the devil is blinded and broken in character. Ludovika's father, the pastor, lets himself be painted with other men. After a few days, the company appears on the “doom painting” “twisted and demonized with infernal malice”. The best thing in the picture is the blank space the devil left for Liborius.
All of the portrayed - even the pastor - no longer want to know anything about their godly lifestyle and degenerate into “god-forgotten rabble”. The Maipeter stretches the bride from the first-person narrator. During the wedding the devil goes down and burns the wedding party in the wooden dance house.
reception
- The first of the two stories originally had a devilry. Posthumous writings of the state clerk are called Potzmarterle . The devil's appearance is packed into a funny plot.
- Sprengel counts the devilries among the prose in which Ricarda Huch Kellers resurrects Seldwyla .
Book editions
First edition
- Ricarda Yikes. Teufelien (also contains: The moon dance by Schlaraffis. Haduvig in the cloister) . H. Haessel, Leipzig 1897, canvas, title embossed with gold, 112 pages
Other issues
- Ricarda Huch: The Gold Island and other stories. Selected and provided with an afterword by Wolfgang Brekle (contains: The Gold Island . The Huguenot . Devils. Patatini . Fra Celeste . The end of the world . The Jewish grave . The last summer ). Union Verlag, Berlin 1972 (Licensor: Atlantis Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau and Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main), 376 pages (edition used)
literature
- Marie Baum : Shining lead. The life of Ricarda Huch. 520 pages. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins , Tübingen and Stuttgart 1950 (6th – 11th thousand)
- Helene Baumgarten: Ricarda Huch. About her life and work . 236 pages. Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1964
- Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1870–1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1