Victory of the Losers - According to Heinrich von Kleist

The Widow's Vow

"With sport competition it is possible each time to say who wins and who loses, but in a real fight, until someone dies it is very hard to say who wins." Yamaguchi Gōgen

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"When a place becomes accessible to the eye, in certain respects it is no longer accessible to the imagination." Joan Didion

At a late moment in the 18th century, Russian troops storm a citadel in northern Italy. They carry off the historical fleetingness of a victory that only the victims take note of. The disproportion between the bloody roar and the political impact triggers unease in the theme park of embarrassment. The inconsequentially foaming operation is repulsive. Heinrich von Kleist speculates on the effect by placing the military commotion in front of the rest of the novella with great attention to detail. "For what is a novella but an unheard-of event?" This is how Goethe summed up the novella in a remark recorded by Eckermann in 1827. The novella is a modern form without an ancient model. It demands the event of fateful significance as news.

A film director could hardly present the shooting more luridly as Kleist did with his establishment shot. We are talking about an episode without historical sustainability. The Restoration powers Russia, Austria, Great Britain and Naples make a pact against revolutionary France in the Second War of the Coalition (1798-1801). Napoleon Bonaparte seems to have been abandoned by the fortunes of war. But appearances are deceptive. At the time the "Marquise of O ...." was written, the future King of Italy is back on top. He's crowned with the thousand-year-old Lombard iron crown in Milan Cathedral. 

Widowed in an exemplary manner

In 1800, Napoleon regained his Italian supremacy. Why does Kleist care about a victory of the losers, followed only by the calamities of retreats?

An "important city" - abbreviated to M. - provides the setting for the events. There lives the exemplary widowed commander's daughter Marquise von O...., who has returned to her parental home after the death of her husband. (Kleist chose four points of omission). The mother of "several well-educated children" does her best to conceal herself in her drafted circumstances. Her conduct complies with all the rules of propriety. Her restraint could become proverbial.

Until the day Julietta von O.... announces in the local press that she had "come into other circumstances without her knowledge". The future father should get in touch. She is determined to marry him without further ado. With no regard for herself, but with regard for good manners, Julietta wants to do what is necessary.

The public disclosure of the mysterious pregnancy provokes "the ridicule of the world".