Two prisoners
Two Prisoners is a novella by the German Nobel Prize winner for literature Paul Heyse , which was preprinted in Westermann's monthly magazine in Braunschweig in January 1877 and published by Reclam in Leipzig in 1878 .
Clara, a not pretty, aging girl who has been betrayed for life, and the young, serious, respectfully awkward Josef spend only a few weeks together in freedom. Zincke writes in his analysis: "Heyse compares the fate of the two lonely ones with the fate of two prisoners who broke out, but whose chains clink every step of the way."
content
Clara Landolin and Josef happened to get to know each other in late summer when they were sitting next to each other in the city theater during a cabal and love performance. After the performance he is allowed to accompany you to your hotel - the “Gasthof zu den Drei Helmen”. According to Schiller , they both feel like prisoners: Clara had lived in this small town up at the castle until she was 13. Clara's father had been laid off years ago as a castle administrator with a modest pension. Two hours by train from the city, Clara had lived with her father and four years younger sister in simple circumstances in a small town. A wealthy captain, twenty-six years older than Clara, had once received a basket from Clara in that town. Her father had never forgiven her for knocking out the good match. Clara, who works as a teacher in her own small private school, supports her father financially. Since the count - the father's former employer - recently died, the father's low pension is suddenly at stake. The latter sent his daughter Clara with a petition to the young count's address.
The clergyman Josef, at twenty-seven years younger than the elderly Clara, had been lucky as a foundling . After his ordination he found a place in a noble house as a count educator. When Josef approached the young countess immorally, he was banished to the village by his archbishop with disgrace and disgrace for years of probation as a pastor. Now Josef had finally got a week's vacation from his superior because his uncle, a fairly wealthy bachelor, had died in town. Josef, eight days ago still in possession of ten guilders, has exchanged his cassock for the suit of his bourgeois uncle, covered his tonsure with the deceased's wig and, recently with about three thousand five hundred guilders in cash, would like to give something to the impoverished Clara . Snubbed, Clara refuses, is abruptly kissed on the mouth by Josef in the dark, climbs up to her room on the third floor of the inn, half dazed, and is deeply impressed by Josef, who is a big head taller. Flattered, with blissfully apprehensive, stealthy delight, she looks at her still very full, shapely arms. Josef lets himself be called Clara's room by the tipsy hotel servant and pushes forward. The "faded, gloomy head-hanging" gives in to the hot spur. Afterwards he calls her his wife.
The next day, Clara does her father's job and could actually drive back. But she wants - like Josef - to keep her unexpectedly won freedom and follows the young man, who has sworn her love until death - now as his partner - by train via Leipzig to Hamburg . The destination is New York . In the hotel room, Josef is busily learning English vocabulary. Before the steamer “Friedrich Schiller” sets out to sea, the unlikely couple looks for an entertainment venue in the foothills of the Harburg mountains . Josef cheats on Clara with a very young, pretty, well-built Ceylon girl .
Clara forgives Joseph for his infidelity and wants to go home. Josef changes Clara. Clara flees to suicide on the “Friedrich Schiller”; falls from the railing deep into the sea.
reception
Anno 1927: According to Zincke, the Sappho motif (withered woman loves younger man) and the Gabriele Reuter motif (unfortunate social situation of the older daughter ) are dealt with. Zincke writes on the subject of “The Aging Girl's Love for the Younger Man”: “It is tragic that Clara, at the moment when the liberation she has longed for, this freedom becomes a curse and necessarily brings about her downfall.” Paul Heyse treated the subject ("acidified maid" goes through "with an unpopular priest") is neither comical nor tragicomic , but rather "the self-sacrifice of a pure ... woman" becomes "the decisive" punch line. What is Clara's generosity? Zincke said: “Even after Joseph's infidelity, her first and last thought is the desire to set him free. He should ... find true and pure happiness over in the other world. Later, when she realizes that this freedom can only be achieved if she sacrifices her life, she is ready for it. And at the end she thanks him ... for the love she got to know through him ... "
Regarding the largely parallel paths of fate: money comes too late for both. Both have the tough, thankless apprenticeship.
Heyse work with symbols. As an example, Zincke mentions the repeatedly mentioned wrinkle on Clara's lower lip as a sign of aging.
Zincke emphasizes “that Heyse neither analyzes Clara's soul struggles nor describes them specifically. Everything is covered, everything is action ... Clara's sacrifice is therefore only half suspected and comes ... surprising ... Everything that is too drastic and too violent, too raw ... is avoided. "
Everything relevant is adequately checked for plausibility. "Heyse knew just like all the great epics that in art it is not simply the truth that matters, but only the probability."
literature
expenditure
- First edition:
- Two prisoners . 92 pages, Reclam, Leipzig 1878 (also RUB 1878 anno 1910)
Secondary literature
- Paul Zincke: Paul Heyses novel technique. Depicted on the basis of an investigation into the novel "Two Prisoners" . 278 pages. Friedrich Gutsch publishing house , Karlsruhe 1927
- Werner Martin (Ed.): Paul Heyse. A bibliography of his works. With an introduction by Norbert Miller . 187 pages. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1978 (typewriter font), ISBN 3-487-06573-8
Web links
- The text
- online in the Internet Archive (pp. 337–384 in: Westermanns Monatshefte, Vol. 41, (3rd episode, Vol. 9), October 1876 to March 1877)
- online in the Internet archive (pp. 232–308 in: Paul Heyse, Gesammelte Werke Vol. 15, Novellen Vol. 6, 3rd edition, Wilhelm Hertz , Berlin 1896)
- Entries in WorldCat
Remarks
- ↑ Why doesn't the father send the younger, prettier daughter to the young count? Two answers: First, the younger one is no longer that young. Secondly, although Zincke observed Clara old youthful behavior and an all-round poor appearance, but also great willpower, almost clairvoyant clarity of thoughts and purity of disposition. (Zincke, p. 92 and p. 96)
- ↑ With Clara's twenty-fifth anniversary as a teacher approaching, she can hardly be younger than forty-five.
- ↑ Zincke lists various surprise effects - including this one: “But suddenly we discover that the reticent, silent stranger conceals a bold and passionate maniac. The fact that you couldn't see it right away ... that is precisely the great art ... "(Zincke, p. 123)
- ↑ Paul Heyse writes that Clara has a heavy heart and Josef a light one.
- ↑ "Clara, that's the typical old maid from the noble high official circles, the superior daughter ... with all advantages and ailments." (Zincke, p. 163, 11th Zvu)
- ↑ "Josef, that is the chaplain who has gone through with the worldly allures, behind which the captive spiritual habitus of the clergyman always shines through." (Zincke, p. 163, 8th Zvu)