The Martian (Maurier)
The Martian ( Engl. For the Marsianerin ) is the third and last novel written by George du Maurier .
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The focus of the story is Barty Josselin, who has exceptional eyesight and hearing and is extremely healthy.
The story begins in the summer of 1847 when Barty met Bob Maurice at the F. Brossard school in Paris , who became his best friend and told the story from his point of view.
One morning after waking up, Barty finds a message addressed to him in his own handwriting, which he apparently wrote down while he was sleeping, without being able to remember it. It is the instruction of his constant companion from the afterlife to always put writing materials next to the bed when he goes to sleep in the future. The note is signed by Martia .
Barty soon writes every night in a kind of ecstasy without remembering it in the morning. The nocturnal recordings are dictated to him while he is sleeping by his invisible companion, who tells him, among other things, about her own career: she went through numerous incarnations from the deepest to the highest form of life on the planet Mars , the outermost of the four inhabited planets in our solar system . All but the last incarnations are forgotten and there is only a vague guess about them. In her last incarnation she had reached a form of life that corresponds to the Martian equivalent of an earthly woman. The people on Mars are very different from the people on earth. Your five senses are extraordinarily keen, and you also have a sixth sense. Their morals are also far ahead of ours. The most moral people on earth almost seem like the most selfish and brutal monsters when compared to the Martians . Everything is so harmonious and balanced on Mars that life there is a joy. The death is seen as the culmination of the life, but not longed for because it for the development of the soul is the more advantageous the longer they lived on Mars. When physical life ends, the soul joins a ray of sunshine and moves towards the sun . On the way there, however, it is often captured by other rays and attracted to one of the planets in between ( Mercury , Venus or Earth ), where it reincarnates and loses all memory of its pre-existence on Mars. On the way to her later freedom, she has to go through another mortal incarnation and gain further experience.
Martia, it seems, came to Earth through a ray of falling stars about a hundred years ago because she had not completed her evolution on Mars. Many Martian souls come to earth this way, and according to the accounts of Martiah, the best and most sincere souls of mankind have lived on Mars in the past. Martia did not incarnate directly in any life form on earth, but she accompanied all possible beings from worms to humans and in this way identified herself with them without forgetting her own pre-existence on Mars, which would have been the case with a real incarnation. She was bound to the bodies of the beings she was accompanying and could only get where the corresponding being took her; because she had no influence on them.
When Barty was born, she was fully attached to him, seeing with his eyes, hearing with his ears and enjoying his singular perfect senses. And to her surprise, she soon found that he sensed her presence. For many years she participated in his life; first through himself and later through people who shared his life. Then she saw him through the eyes of the others, always loving him, but also suffering from his mistakes and follies. Until she managed to influence him in his sleep and put him on the right path.
Over the course of many years he wrote a series of books based on his nocturnal notes, which were translated into almost every language and became bestsellers around the world. They usher in a new era in human history. With Barty, death has lost its horror. Even for the young, he's no longer the hideous phantom he once was. Rather, it is viewed today as an aspect of maturity and goodness. There is no longer any sadness among the bereaved , but the certainty of a reunion in the not too distant future.
As if by a kind of mass hypnosis, Barty also heralds the end of all useless atrocities that were previously used for pleasure. Even the end of the bullfighting practiced in Spain is in sight. All atrocities will soon come to an end, not because they are cruel but because they are ridiculous, superfluous, vicious and disgusting. Also pride and pageantry are a thing of the past. People have already become more beautiful and stronger, whereas ugliness and weakness are the exception.
One morning, when Barty wakes up, he finds a note dictated by Martia on the edge of his bed that heralds a new era. In it Martia announces the departure from her previous form of existence and expresses her fervent wish to be born as a child of Barty and his wife Leah. Then she would have forgotten her previous existence and asks him to tell her everything as soon as she is old enough and he thinks the time has come. She also informs him that Barty and Leah are original Martians themselves and that there are also many other people who used to live on Mars. The former Martians now constitute the elite of mankind.
In the same note, she tells him how valuable her cooperation was for the further development of humanity and our planet, which once floated hopelessly through space without the slightest idea of what life really is. But the development of mankind is far from over and will continue to rise in thousands and thousands of years until it even surpassed the Martians, who will then no longer exist for a long time. The Martians are threatened with extinction and will already populate Venus, if not the Sun, at this point in time. The earth man of the distant future will carry the magnetic consciousness of the entire solar system within himself and understand the secrets of time and space as long as and as far as the sun shines.
For Barty, not being accompanied by Martia is synonymous with the loss of his sixth sense and outweighs the possible loss of his eyesight. But he is compensated by the joy Barty feels from the presence of little Martia, who is now his daughter. In her childhood, little Marty, as she is called by her family, experiences more joy than almost any other person during a long life on earth. Then the disaster happens. When she fell from a tree, 13-year-old Marty injured herself so badly that she could permanently paralyze her lower limbs . She is plagued by pain more and more often and can barely perceive her legs and feet. During their four years of suffering, their family is aware that Marty will not live long. But the family does not despair in view of the seemingly hopeless situation, but deals with the impending death of their beloved daughter and sister in a completely impartial manner.
Martia dies of influenza at the age of only 17 . While her parents are sitting by their bed, Martia wakes up from a light sleep for a brief moment. She lifts her head and speaks in a clear voice: "Barty, Leah - follow me. Come on! ”Immediately afterwards she falls back dead on her bed while Barty leans over her and buries his face in her hand. Although it looks like he's asleep, he passed away in the same instant. Leah follows the two of them within the next 24 hours.