Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Translations
- Introduction: Schiller and the German Novella
- The Translations
- 1 A Magnanimous Act from Most Recent History (1782)
- 2 A Remarkable Example of Female Revenge (Taken from a Manuscript by the late Denis Diderot) (1785)
- 3 The Criminal of Lost Honor. A True Story (1786)
- 4 The Duke of Alba's Breakfast at Rudolstadt Castle in the Year 1547 (1788)
- 5 Game of Fate. A Fragment of a True Story (1789)
- 6 The Spiritualist. From the Memoirs of Count von O** (1789)
- 7 The Philosophical Dialog from The Spiritualist (1789)
- 8 Haoh-Kiöh-Tschuen (The Tale of a Perfect Match) (1800–1801)
- The Critical Essays
- Chronological List of Schiller's Literary Prose Works in English Translation
- Works Cited
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
6 - The Spiritualist. From the Memoirs of Count von O** (1789)
from The Translations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on the Translations
- Introduction: Schiller and the German Novella
- The Translations
- 1 A Magnanimous Act from Most Recent History (1782)
- 2 A Remarkable Example of Female Revenge (Taken from a Manuscript by the late Denis Diderot) (1785)
- 3 The Criminal of Lost Honor. A True Story (1786)
- 4 The Duke of Alba's Breakfast at Rudolstadt Castle in the Year 1547 (1788)
- 5 Game of Fate. A Fragment of a True Story (1789)
- 6 The Spiritualist. From the Memoirs of Count von O** (1789)
- 7 The Philosophical Dialog from The Spiritualist (1789)
- 8 Haoh-Kiöh-Tschuen (The Tale of a Perfect Match) (1800–1801)
- The Critical Essays
- Chronological List of Schiller's Literary Prose Works in English Translation
- Works Cited
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Book One
I AM GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT a series of occurrences which many will find incredible, and which I largely witnessed with my own eyes. Those few who are familiar with a certain affair in the political world, if they should still be alive to read these papers, will find that they cast a welcome light on that matter; and even those others who lack this key to the story will perhaps find in it a significant contribution to the history of treachery and of the aberrations of the human spirit. They will be astonished at the daring purposes wickedness is capable of conceiving and pursuing; and they will be amazed at the extraordinary means which it contrives in order to achieve those aims. Truth pure and simple will guide my pen, for if these papers ever reach the public, I shall by then be no more and shall have nothing either to gain or to lose on account of what I have to report.
I was on my way back to Courland in 17**, at about the carnival season, when I called on the Prince of ** in Venice. We had served together in the ** army, and were renewing an acquaintance which had been interrupted by the signing of peace. Since I in any case wanted to see the sights of the city, and as the Prince was only waiting for certain letters of credit before he could return to **, he easily persuaded me to postpone my departure so that I could keep him company until then.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Schiller's Literary Prose WorksNew Translations and Critical Essays, pp. 67 - 149Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008