Sper că ştii engleză pentru că sincer nu as traduce atâta nici pe bani. It tells the story of the young Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo and his adventures from his birth in 1798 to his death. Fabrice’s early years are spent in his family’s castle on Lake Como, while most of the novel is set in a fictionalized Parma (both in modern-day Italy).
The book begins with the French army sweeping into Milan and stirring up the sleepy region of Lombardy, allied with Austria. Fabrice grows up in the context of the intrigues and alliances for and against the French -- his father the Marchese comically fancies himself a spy for the Viennese. The novel's early section describes Fabrice's rather quixotic effort to join Napoleon when the latter returns to France in March 1815 (the Hundred Days). Fabrice at seventeen is idealistic, rather naive, and speacasa poor French. However he won't be stopped, and he leaves his home on Lake Como and travels north under false papers. He wanders through France, losing money and horses at a fast rate. He is imprisoned as a spy, he escapes, dons the uniform of a dead French hussar, and in his excitement to play the role of a French soldier, wanders onto the field of battle at the Battle of Waterloo.
Stendhal, a veteran of many battles during the Napoleonic period (he was one of the survivors of the retreat from Russia in 1812), describes this famous battle as a chaotic affair with soldiers who gallop one way, then another, while bullets plow the fields around them. Fabrice briefly joins the guard of Field Marshal Ney, is lucky to survive the fighting with a serious wound to his leg (given to him by one of the retreating French cavalrymen). He makes his way back to his family's castle, injured, broke, and still wondering "was I really in the battle?" Towards the end of the novel his efforts, such as they are, lead people to say that he was one of Napoleon's generals.
Fabrice having returned to Lake Como, the novel now divides its attention between him and his aunt (his father's sister), Gina, the sometime Duchess of Sanseverina. Gina meets and falls in love with the Prime Minister of Parma, Count Mosca. Count Mosca proposes that Gina marry a wealthy old man, who will be out of the country for many years as an ambassador, so she and Count Mosca can be lovers while living under the social rules of the time. Gina's response is: "But you realize that what you are suggesting is utterly immoral?" She agrees, and so a few months later, Gina is the new social eminence in Parma's rather small aristocratic elite.
Ever since Fabrice returned from Waterloo, Gina has had very warm feelings for her nephew, and she and Count Mosca try to plan out a successful life for the young man. Count Mosca's plan has Fabrice go to seminary school in Naples, with the idea that when he graduates he will come to Parma and be installed as a senior figure in the religious hierarchy, soon to be the Archbishop, as the current office holder is old. The fact that Fabrice has no interest in religion (or celibacy) matters not to this plan. Fabrice agrees to the plan and leaves for Naples.
The book then describes in great detail how Gina and Count Mosca live and operate in the court of the Prince of Parma (named Ranuce-Erneste IV). Stendhal, who spent decades as a professional diplomat in northern Italy, gives a lively and interesting account of the court, though all of what he describes is entirely fictional, as Parma was ruled by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma during the time of the novel. So much attention is given to Gina and Count Mosca that some have suggested that these two are the true heroes of the novel.
After several years in Naples, during which he has many affairs with local women, Fabrice returns to Parma and shortly gets involved with a young actress whose manager/lover takes offense and tries to kill Fabrice. In the resulting fight Fabrice kills the man and then flees Parma, fearing, rightly, that he will not be treated justly by the courts. However, his efforts to avoid capture are unsuccessful, and he is brought back to Parma and imprisoned in the Farnese Tower, the tallest tower in the city. His aunt, Gina, in great distress at what she feels will lead to Fabrice's certain death, goes to beg the Prince for his life. The Prince wants Gina to offer herself to him in exchange for Fabrice's freedom and is nonplussed when she refuses to agree to his implied offer.
For the next nine months Gina schemes to have Fabrice freed and manages to get secret messages relayed to him in the tower. The Prince keeps hinting that Fabrice is going to be executed (or poisoned) as a way to put pressure on Gina. Meanwhile, Fabrice is oblivious to his danger and is living happily because he has fallen in love with the commandant's daughter, Clélia Conti, who he can see from his prison window as she tends her caged birds. They fall in love, and after some time he persuades her to communicate with him by means of letters of the alphabet printed on sheets ripped from a book something like a pre-modern keyboard).
Gina finally helps Fabrice escape from the Tower by having Clélia smuggle three long ropes to him. The only thing that concerns Fabrice is whether he will be able to meet Clélia after he escapes. But Clélia, who has sacrificed the health of her father because of her beloved, promises the Virgin that if her father recovers she shall never see Fabrice again and will do anything her father says.
Gina leaves Parma and puts in motion a plan to have the Prince of Parma assassinated. Count Mosca stays in Parma, and when the Prince does die (perhaps poisoned by Gina's poet/bandit/assassin) he puts down an attempted revolt by some local revolutionaries and gets the son of the Prince installed on the throne. Fabrice voluntarily returns to the Farnese Tower to see Clélia and is almost poisoned there. To save him, Gina promises to give herself to the new Prince. She keeps her promise but immediately leaves Parma afterwards. Gina never returns to Parma, but she marries Count Mosca. Clélia, to help her father who was disgraced by Fabrice's escape, marries the wealthy man her father has chosen for her, and so she and Fabrice live unhappily because of the promise she made to never see him again.
Once he is acquitted of murdering the actress's manager/lover, Fabrice assumes his duties as a powerful man of the Catholic Church and a preacher whose sermons become the talk of the town. The only reason he gives these sermons, Fabrice says, is in the hope that Clélia will come to one and he can see her and speak to her. After 14 months of suffering for both, she agrees to meet with him every night, but only on the condition that it is in darkness, lest she break her vow to the Madonna to never see him again and they both be punished for her sin. A year later she bears Fabrice's child. When the boy is two years old, Fabrice insists that he should take care of him in the future, because he is feeling lonely and suffers that his own child won't love him. The plan he and Clélia devise is to fake the child's illness and death and then establish him secretly in a large house nearby, where Fabrice and Clélia can come to see him each day. As it turns out, after several months the child actually does die, and Clélia dies a few months after that. After her death, Fabrice retires to the Charterhouse of Parma, which gives the book its title, where he spends less than a year before he also dies. Gina, the Countess Mosca, who had always loved Fabrice, dies a short time after that.
Despre manastirea din parma. s T E N D H A L Mănăstirea din Parma fiOMAN cere de BOLDUR «t« de 46-2821 STENDHAL LA CHARTREUSE DH PARMB Bibliotheguc di Li Plcijde 19 3 3 PREFAŢA
In paginile ce urmează, cititorii vor face cunoştinţă cu una dintre cele mai cunoscute opere ale literaturii franceze, una dintre
ce! e mai înalte creaţii ale prozei universale a secolului al XlX-lea, unul dintre marile romane ale lumii : Alănăstirea din
Panna, ultima lucrare de mari dimensiuni a celui care, atîta timp cit a trăit, s-a numif Henri Beyle, iar de cînd a devenit nemuritor, se numeşte Stendhal. Viaţa şi opera lui Stgndhal au avut parte, mai ales de vreo cincizeci de ani încoace, de cercetători pasionaţi, scormonitori
curioşi şi sistematizatori neobosiţi de manuscrise compacte şi notaţii disparate, adevăraţi copoi de urme şi indicii literare —
de ttWel, adevăraţi savanţi, modeşti şi puri iubitori ai fenomenului literar — care au ciocănit, sondat şi săpat toate tainiţele
muncii scriitoriceşti a lui Beyfe. Nu e mai puţin adevărat că scriitorul însuşi, foarte înclinat spre autoobservaţie şi, în acelaşi
timp, spre consemnarea grafică şi plastică a tuturor întîmplărîlor şi gînduri-lor vieţii sale zilnice (înclinare care mergea
uneori, pînă Ia desenarea de mici planuri şi schiţe pentru ilustrarea textului scris), a ajutat şi uşurat în mod substanţial
munca istoricilor literari
şi a arhiviştilor documentaţiei saleperionale, Fapt este că există1 cu privire la opera lui Stcndhal omulţime de informaţii,
uneori de o minuţioasă precizie, de care nu dispunem cu privire la alte opere şi alţi scriitori. Aceasta nu determina, desigur,
pătrunderea în esenţa operei, dar reprezintă o pregătire şi o introducere a căror importanţă nu trebuie neglijată.
Aşadar, se cunoaşte precis momentul şi locul în care Beyle a început să scrie Mănăstirea din Partita; în ziua de 4 noiembrie
1838, la Paris, nesigură fiind, dar de decis între două ipoteze, numai adresa : sau strada Caumartin nr. 8, sau strada Godot-de-
Mauroy nr. 30, la hotelul cu acelaşi nume. Se ştie de asemenea că, scriind sau dictînd, el a sfîrşit cartea ir■. hi:i de 25
decembrie a aceluiaşi an, ceea ce în-olumlnosul roman a fost scri3 în cinci-Ile —un adevărat record. Manuscrisul. i fi
Indati libraruluiAmbroise Dupont, care 1-a iute de franci — sumă greu de echivalat In moţi ri de azi, dar, în orice caz, destul dl i bruarle şi 26 martie ale anului următor, MII! i l. icut corectura şpalturilor şi a paginilor. în sfîrşit, romanul a apărut, în două volume, la începutul lui aprilie IS39 : c o dată cu adevărat memorabilă în istoria universală a romanului. Henri Beyle împlinise, de curînd, cincizeci şi şase de ani.
Se cunosc încă şi mai multe, cu privire la geneza şi elaborarea celebrului roman. Se cunoaşte chiar momentul primei idei,
clipa inspiraţiei, ca să zicem aşa : scriitorul mărturiseşte într-o notaţie oarecare, conform unui obicei de care am pomenit mai
sus, că în ziua de 3 septembrie 1838, a avut „ideea tnăuăstirei", „lâeea" aceasta, fulgeiătoarea viziune anticipativă a unei
opere, a fost desigur pregătită printr-o succesiune de procese interioare imposibil de urmărit pînă la prima fază sau prima
verigă, şi nici măcar pînă la acel punct de la care s-ar putea vorbi de o orientare, de o concentrare a travaliului interior spre
plămădirea unei opere anumite. O treaptă de mare importanţă a întregului
proces spiritual al lui Stendhal, şi, deci, şi alMănăstirii, a fost, fără îndoială, dragostea pasionată pe care — de la primul con-
tact, la vîrsta de şaptesprezece ani, şi pînă la moarte — el a purtat-o, cu statornică ardoare, Italiei — naturii, istoriei şi oa-
menilor acestei ţări.
După cum se ştie, atît prin gusturi, cît şi prin împrejurările vieţii sale, Beyle a fost un călător neobosit, totdeauna gata s-o
pornească la drum, totdeauna gata să folosească, şi chiar să provoace orice pricină de peregrinare, ceea ce a atras, nu rareori,
absenţe de ani de zile din patria sa. A ajuns pînă la Moscova, cu armata napoleoniană, a cunoscut bine Germania, Austria,
Polonia, a traversat de cîteva ori Canalul Mînecii, pentru popasuri apreciabile în Anglia, a coborît în Spania, iar în Franţa a
făcut numeroase călătorii, numai cu scopul şi plăcerea, unite, de a observa locuri, oameni şi moravuri. în vremea sa, care a
cuprins cei vreo douăzeci de ani ai războaielor revoluţionare şi napoleoniene, de agitaţie şi dinamism nemaiîntîlnite în trecut,
el a fost totuşi unul dintre oamenii cu cea mai completă şi mai bogată cunoaştere a Europei, unul dintre acei care priveau
toate problemele politice, sociale, culturale, morale, într-o perspectivă autentic continentală. Patriotismul lui Stendhal, care a
fost întotdeauna ardent, nu a avut niciodată baza îngustă a faimosului cazanierism francez, prezent, încă de pe atunci, în
psihologia burgheziei franceze, nu s-a resimţit niciodată de ceea ce, în limba franceză se numeşte „l'csprit de docher". Beyle
ştia, printr-o trăire directă, că lumea este largă, că civilizaţia şi progresul sînt fructul unei conlucrări a naţiunilor şi popoarelor,
că valorile superioare nu pot fi nici apanajul, nicî patrimoniul unui singur popor. Ca om care nu trecea nicăieri cu ochii
închişi, care detesta, mai presus de orice, prejudecata, vanitatea, îngîmfarea, care ştia să descopere şi să guste frumosul cu
cele mai variate înfăţişări ale sale, şi ca discipol al lui Cabanis, cercetător pasionat de caractere naţionale, Beyle ştia că toate
ţările au frumuseţea lor, că fiecare popor arc vir-
Rasp. pentru frumusica: "daca as putea sa iti dau fund ti asi da!" dar nu stiu de ce nu pot
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