La Vénus d'Ille

The Venus of Ille is a novel by the French writer Prosper Mérimée, which was created in 1835 under the title " La Vénus d' Ille " in the magazine " Revue des Deux Mondes " was released on May 15, 1837.

Action

The narrator, an archaeologist from Paris, climbs into the eastern Pyrenees on Canigou. Before returning home, he is invited by the landowner Monsieur de Peyrehorade in the nearby French community Ille to a wedding celebration. Peyrehorades son Alphonse, the 18 -year-old Mademoiselle de Puygarrig marry from the neighborhood. The father of the groom leads the visitor from Paris by his estate. Very close to the manor house, next to a ball court, there is a statue of a bronze Venus.

Happiness brings this relic from the Roman period of Roussillon the art-loving owners do not. Even as the " idol " was excavated on the site Peyrehorades next to the root of an old olive tree, one of the factory end men a leg had been shattered by the return to fallen statue.

From his room in the mansion of the archaeologist observed at night before going to bed, like a young Catalan Venus pelted with a rock. The swearing boy was hit shortly afterwards by his rebounding basement. The next morning, the wedding guest from Paris contemplates the Venus once more up close and noticed in the " incredibly beautiful face" something like the expression fine scorn; yes even cruelty. Hellish mockery of the with " Silver inlaid, glistening eyes."

The young groom Alphonse is on the dowry of the bride. Already dressed festively for the upcoming wedding, Alphonse plays shortly before the carriage ride to the bride on the above place against muleteer from Aragon a game of ball, the cursed diamond ring, wants to give the Alphonse of the bride, suppressed. He puts it on her finger the Venus wins and there is a dispute with the captain of the proud Aragonese. Alphonse moves to marriage, but has forgotten the ring. The bride gets the ring of a Parisian milliner. As Alphonse returns home later with his new wife, he wants to remove the statue the ring. The Venus holds the bronze ring finger bent at once. Alphonse desperately asks for help to archaeologists; thinks that the statue would be no ring here because they saw themselves as espoused Alphonse. The archaeologist goose bumps and does not address the request for assistance.

In the following night the accident happened. Have to be short, the Venus has risen from base, penetrated into the bridal chamber and embraced therein Alphonse. The ring extending around the chest bruises did not survive the powerful work man. His young wife had apparently lost his mind, during the first day before lawfully wedded husband had been crushed by her side. The prosecutor of Perpignan has put lack of evidence of foot the suspected captain of the Aragonese. In the bridal chamber of the diamond ring was found. The Venus is without ring back down in the garden on its base.

The archaeologist travels back to Paris. Months later dies Alphonse's father. The misfortune -bringing Venus is remelted at the instigation of Alphonse's mother in a church bell. Since the bell rings on Ille, the vines are to the end of the narrative time already froze twice.

Form

Even little things in the Master Plan amendment vote. All sorts of horror elements are placed inconspicuously sent. The narrative archaeologist is no eyewitness to the killing of Alphonse's night. He only hears the trampling on stairs and passage of the mansion. The law enforcement officials from Perpignan caught any perpetrator. He has not even a suspect. The superstitious mother of the dead is believed to know who was the culprit. That is why they can melt down the statue. Skip to horror elements: Mérimée is doing everything to ensure that not only the archaeologist gets goose bumps. The prosecutor told the archaeologist on the report of the terrible story from the lips of a young woman who has just lost his mind. This former Mademoiselle de Puygarrig is described as " ravishingly beautiful". "You kindly face, which a slight tinge of malice not entirely missing ," recalls the narrator at the Venus down on the grass. But the reader who has been attuned to horror, the freshly baked tender young wife to be a perpetrator can not think soon. Because Alphonse is introduced as a mid-twenties with " kraftgeschwellten body shapes " and " expressionless facial features ". Sympathetic can not discover the reader to Alphonse. On the contrary, it must agree with the narrator when it regrets that Mademoiselle de Puygarrig, the "pure young girl," would " divulged a raw drunkard " after the ceremony.

Furthermore falls on playful approach to Latin. For example, make Monsieur de Peyrehorade and his guest before sketched above horror action gets underway, some more or less witty translation attempts to AMANTEM CAVE, an inscription on the pedestal of the statue. The archaeologist suspected: " Mistrust lovers! "

Reception

• Details of sources, et cetera can be found at Gorner. The preservationists Mérimée had been able to find on the history of the statue also in the medieval chroniclers Malmesbury.

Medial adaptations

Opera

Film

Radioplay

TV

German editions

• Otto Gorner (ed.): The Venus of Ille, pp. 273-309 ( Translator: Arthur Schurig ( 1870-1929 ) ) in Prosper Mérimée's Carmen and other stories. H. Fikent Verlag, Leipzig in 1932, Hafez - reading library. 317 pages

Output used

• The Venus of Ille. Pp. 310-348 in Prosper Mérimée: Choice novellas (still contains: Tamango Federigo The Etruscan Vase Colomba Carmen The streets of Madama Lucrezia The Blue Room. .. .. . ). Translator: Helmut Bartuschek ( 1951). With an introduction by Herbert Kühn. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung Leipzig, 1965 ( 5th edition, license Rudolf Marx). 398 pages