Chapter 1

Chapter 13,911 wordsPublic domain

**This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg Etext, Details Below**

Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!

Andrea Delfin, by Paul Heyse (1830-1914) Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000. (C) 2000 Gunther Olesch. You may enjoy this text for your personal pleasure. Any commercial exploitation requires the translator's consent.

Please take a look at the important information in this header. We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers.

Please do not remove this.

This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they need about what they can legally do with the texts.

**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and further information is included below. We need your donations.

As of 12/12/00 contributions are only being solicited from people in: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation PMB 113 1739 University Ave. Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Title: Andrea Delfin

Author: Paul Heyse

Translator: Gunther Olesch

Release Date: April, 2002 [Etext #3156C] [Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule] [The actual date this file first posted = 01/14/01]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Project Gutenberg's Etext of "Andrea Delfin", by Paul Heyse ***This file should be named 3156.txt or 3156.zip****

We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after the official publication date.

Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our sites at: https://gutenberg.org http://promo.net/pg

Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext02 or ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02

Or /etext01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters.

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+ If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we manage to get some real funding.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.

These donations should be made to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation PMB 113 1739 University Ave. Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541, has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.

All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Mail to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation PMB 113 1739 University Avenue Oxford, MS 38655-4109 [USA]

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information at:

https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html

***

You can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <[email protected]>

[email protected] forwards to [email protected] and archive.org if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .

We would prefer to send you this information by email.

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

***

Example command-line FTP session:

ftp ftp.ibiblio.org login: anonymous password: your@login cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc. dir [to see files] get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]

**The Legal Small Print**

**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** (Three Pages)

***START** SMALL PRINT! for COPYRIGHT PROTECTED ETEXTS ***

TITLE AND COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

This etext is distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project") under the "Project Gutenberg" trademark and with the permission of the etext's copyright owner.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market any commercial products without permission.

LICENSE You can (and are encouraged!) to copy and distribute this Project Gutenberg-tm etext. Since, unlike many other of the Project's etexts, it is copyright protected, and since the materials and methods you use will effect the Project's reputation, your right to copy and distribute it is limited by the copyright laws and by the conditions of this "Small Print!" statement.

[A] ALL COPIES: You may distribute copies of this etext electronically or on any machine readable medium now known or hereafter discovered so long as you:

(1) Honor the refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement; and

(2) Pay a royalty to the Foundation of 20% of the gross profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.

[B] EXACT AND MODIFIED COPIES: The copies you distribute must either be exact copies of this etext, including this Small Print statement, or can be in binary, compressed, mark- up, or proprietary form (including any form resulting from word processing or hypertext software), so long as *EITHER*:

(1) The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR

(2) The etext is readily convertible by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR

(3) You provide or agree to provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in plain ASCII.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES This etext may contain a "Defect" in the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other infringement, a defective or damaged disk, computer virus, or codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, the Project (and any other party you may receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you received it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically.

THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart and the Foundation, and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. Money should be paid to the: "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: [email protected]

*SMALL PRINT! Ver.12.12.00 FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTED ETEXTS*END*

**This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg Etext, Details Above**

Andrea Delfin (1859)

by Paul Heyse (1830-1914)

Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000 from the HTML files available at http://gutenberg.aol.de/heyse/delfin/delfin.htm

Translator's Comments

Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse was born on March 15, 1830, in Berlin. His father was a professor of philology and his mother was a relative of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the composer. Thus, Paul Heyse grew up in an atmosphere of appreciation for the fine arts. He studied classical philology, art history, and Romance philology, obtaining his doctorate in 1852, and became a widely respected authority on literature.

In 1910, Paul Heyse was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and was ennobled as Paul von Heyse. He died on April 4, 1914, in Munich.

Trying to find out whether English translations of Paul Heyse's work were already available, I turned to the online catalog of the Library of Congress. Aside from many German editions, I found the following books, which seem to contain English translations:

1867-68 Good stories ... [various authors: N.Hawthorne, F.J.O'Brien, H.Zschokke, P.J.L.Heyse, W.M.Thackeray.] 1867 L'Arrabiata and other tales. Tr. by Mary Wilson. 1870 The solitaires. A Tale. 1878 In paradise; a novel. 1879 Tales from the German of Paul Heyse. 1881 Doomed. 1881 Fortnight at the dead lake, and Beatrice. 1882 Barbarossa, and other tales. 1882 L'Arrabiata, and other tales. 1882 The witch of the Corso. Tr. by George W. Ingraham. 1883 Children of the world. 1886 Selected stories. 1888 Words never to be forgotten and The donkey. Tr. by Abbie E. Fordyce. 1890 Masterpieces of German fiction. [various authors: R.Lindau, F.Lewald-Stahr, E.Eckstein, A.v.Wilbrandt, P.J.L.Heyse, H.Hopfen.] 1894 The children of the world. New ed., rev. 1894 At the ghost hour. The forest laugh. 1894 At the ghost hour. Mid-day magic. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 At the ghost hour. The fair Abigail. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 At the ghost hour. The house of the unbelieving Thomas. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 Children of the world. 1894 A divided heart, and other stories. [A divided heart.-- Minka.--Rothenburg on the Tauber.] Translated into English with an introduction by Constance Stewart Copeland. 1900 Mary of Magdala: a drama in five acts. Tr. by Alexis Irénée du Pont Coleman. 1902 Heyse's L'Arrabbiata in English, ed. Warren Washburn Florer. 1902 Mary of Magdala; an historical and romantic drama in five acts, adapted in English by Lionel Vale. 1903 Mary of Magdala; an historical and romantic drama in five acts, the translation freely adapted and written in English verse by William Winter. 1916 L'Arrabbiata, literally tr. by Vivian Elsie Lyon.

The most striking aspect of this list is that it ends in 1916. It seems as if for the larger part of the 20th century no English translations of Paul Heyse's stories have been published. Perhaps, my translation of "Andrea Delfin", contained in this file, might inspire someone to dig up some of those older translations and to prepare them as etexts for the Project Gutenberg.

According to www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1910/press.html, Andrea Delfin, written in 1859, is part of a series of novellas, which Paul Heyse had published between 1855 and 1862 in four volumes.

The story of "Andrea Delfin" is set in 18th century Venice and contains a few, mostly Italian, expressions which might require an explanation. I have looked up the most important ones and compiled a very short list here:

bora: A strong, cold wind, blowing from the mountains to the Adriatic Sea. Bridge of Sighs: The bridge on the east side of the Doges' Palace, leading across a narrow canal to the prisons. doge: Duke, the head of state in Venice from 697 to 1797. felucca: A small ship with two masts, equipped with sails as well as oars, a smaller type of galley. faro: A game of cards, also spelled "pharaoh" in English. lido: A sandbank, which separates the lagoon of Venice from the sea. There are several settlements on these sandbanks (but the one called Lido did not exist yet at the time of this story). Piazzetta: A small square near the Piazza San Marco. The administration of the Venetian republic resided in the buildings surrounding these squares. The entrance to the Piazzetta was the ceremonial landing spot for high officials and is marked by two massive granite columns. procurator: One of the nine highest ranking officials in Venice, among which the doge was elected. Procurators' Offices: These buildings are on the northern and southern sides of the Piazza San Marco. Angelo Querini: This is not a fictional character, but an actual historic person. Rialto: A corruption of "Rivo Alto", this is the oldest and most central part of Venice. sbirro: A member of the secret police. signoria: The highest public authority in Venice. tarock: A game of cards, usually played by three people with a deck of 78 cards. Terraferma: The land under the control of Venice, outside of the city itself. It stretched from the borders of Milan in the west to the Istrian Peninsula in the east and from the Alps in the north to the Po River in the south. zecchino: A gold coin (ducat), produced in Venice since 1284, until the beginning of the 19th century.

Andrea Delfin

A Venetian novella

by Paul Heyse

Original title: Andrea Delfin, eine venezianische Novelle

[Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000]

In that Venetian alley which bears the friendly name of "Bella Cortesia", there was, in the middle of the past century, the simple, one-story house of a common family; over its low portal, framed by two wooden spiral columns and a baroque ledge, resided an image of the Madonna in a niche, and an eternal flame flickered humbly behind its red glass. Entering the lower corridor, one would have found oneself at the foot of a broad, steep staircase, which, without any bents, went straight up to the rooms upstairs. Here also, a lamp burnt day and night, which hang by shiny, delicate chains from the ceiling, since daylight could only enter inside, whenever the front door happened to be opened. But in spite of this everlasting gloom, the staircase was the place where Signora Giovanna Danieli, the owner of the house, liked to sit the most. Since the death of her husband, she inhabited the inherited house together with Marietta, her only daughter, and let a few unneeded rooms to quiet lodgers. She maintained that the tears she had cried for her dear husband had weakened her eyes too much to be still able to withstand direct sunlight. But the neighbours said about her that the only reason for her continued presence at the top of the stairs, from morning until nightfall, was to enable her to start a conversation with everyone leaving or entering the house and not to let him pass, before he had payed his dues to her curiosity and her talkative nature. At the time when we are now about to make her acquaintance, this could hardly have been the reason for her preferring the hard seat of the stairs over a comfortable armchair. It was in August of the year 1762. For half a year, the rooms she used to let were empty, and she had only little contact with her neighbours. Furthermore, night had already fallen, and a visit at this time of day would have been quite unusual. Nevertheless, the little woman sat persistently at her post and thoughtfully looked down the empty corridor. She had sent her child to bed and had placed a few pumpkins by her side, to take out the seeds before she would go to sleep. But all kinds of thoughts and ideas had made her forget her task. Her hands rested in her lap, her head was leaning against the banister; it had not been the first time that she had fallen asleep in this position.

Today, it had almost happened to her again, when three slow, but forceful, thumps to the front door suddenly made her start. "Misericordia!" said the woman, as she was getting up, but remained standing there motionlessly, "what's this? Have I dreamt? Could it really be him?"

She listened. The thumps of the knocker were repeated. "No," she said, "it isn't Orso. His knocks sounded differently. It aren't the sbirri either. Let's see what heaven sends." - With these words, she sluggishly walked down the stairs and asked without opening the door who would wish to enter.

A voice answered that there was a stranger outside, looking for lodgings here. The house had been highly recommended to him; he hoped to stay for a long time and the landlady would probably be satisfied with him. All of this had been said politely and in good Venetian, so that Signora Giovanna, in spite of the late hour, did not think twice before opening the door. The appearance of her guest justified her confidence. He wore, as far as she could make out in the gloom, the decent, black garments of the lower middle class, carried a leather portmanteau under his arm, and held the hat modestly in his hand. Only his face made the woman wonder. It was not young, not old, the beard was still dark brown, the forehead without wrinkles, the eyes lively, but the expression of his mouth and the way he talked was tired and worn out, and the short hair was, in a strange contrast with his still youthful features, completely gray.

"Kind woman," he said, "I've disturbed you in your sleep, and perhaps even in vain. For, let me say it right away, if you have no room with a window above the canal, I won't be your lodger. I've come from Brescia, my physician has recommended the damp air of Venice to me for my weak chest; I've been told to live above the water."

"Well, thank God!" said the widow, "so here, for a change, comes someone who'll respect our canal. Last summer, I've had a Spaniard, who moved out, because, as he said, the water had a smell as if rats and melons had been cooked in it! And it has been recommended to you? We do say here in Venice:

"The channel's water will harshly cure what's ill.

"But this has a hidden meaning, sir, an evil meaning, considering how often, at the command of the rulers, a gondola has set out to the lagoon with three persons on board and returned with only two. Let's not talk about this any more, sir - God save us all! But is your passport in order? Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to let you stay."

"I have already shown it three times, kind woman, in Mestre, out on the lagoon at the guard's gondola, and at the Traghetto. My name is Andrea Delfin, my profession is that of a notary's legal clerk, as which I've worked in Brescia. I'm a calm person and never liked having any business with the police."