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In 1830 "Asiatic cholera" reached Eastern Europe and two years later it reached Provence.
During this time the novel "The Hussar on the Roof" by Jean Giono (1895 to 1970), published in 1951, takes place.
At its center is the young hussar colonel Angelo Pardi, a member of the “Carbonari”, a secret society fighting for the unity of Italy.
After killing an Austrian officer in a duel, Angelo fled into exile in Provence.
For the hussar, his return to Italy is a terrifying ride through the pandemic: In every village Angelo comes across distorted, tainted corpses attacked by ravens, snails and rats - victims of cholera.
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In the alleys of the small town of Manosque, he escapes from an angry mob, who wants to lynch him as a well poisoner, on the roofs, is treated to tea in a house by a young woman.
He helps a fat nun wash the corpses, commandeers a horse after his own has run away, meets the young woman called Pauline again, escapes with her from the forced quarantine, rescues her after her cholera attack and finally brings her safely to Gap where she finds her husband, the much older Marquis de Théus.
Angelo says goodbye to her and continues on his way.
"'Italy is over there," he said to himself.
He was at the peak of happiness. ”This is how the novel ends.
Frighteningly accurate: Jean Giono (1895 to 1970)
Credit: LOUIS TREMELLAT / AFP
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There is no other “plague novel” in which the word “happiness” plays such an important role.
On the one hand, nobody has described the horrors of cholera as brutally and in a way that disturbs the reader as Jean Giono - on the other hand, the grandeur with which Angelo asserts himself against the pandemic is astonishing.
He was never in a battle, now he is happy that he can behave towards cholera “like in enemy territory”, he experiences the epidemic like a “campaign”.
For the hussar, the disease is transmitted through the fear with which people infect one another.
Angelo, however, is alien to fear and when he shrinks from touching a dying person, he is ashamed "as if he fainted in front of a troop".
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It is less compassion that motivates him than the urge for self-respect: “Unnecessary, useless for all the world”, he says to himself as he washes the corpses with the fat nun, “but very useful for our pride”.
The novel could also have been called "Love in the Times of Cholera".
It is a chaste romance novel in which nothing “happens”, not even a kiss.
The most intimate moment comes at the end, when Angelo undresses Pauline, who is shaken by cholera, and massages her naked body with brandy over and over again.
Epic about beauty, courage and death: Olivier Martinez in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's Giono film
Source: picture alliance / United Archives
He falls asleep from exhaustion.
When he wakes up, his head rests in her lap: "I covered you up, said a voice," Pauline had spoken to Angelo for the first time.
In their shy intimacy, the dialogues between Angelo and Pauline are among the most beautiful passages.
They come into their own better than in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film with Olivier Martinez and Juliette Binoche in the radio play produced by France Culture in 1953 and introduced by Giono.
Gérard Philipe and Jeanne Moreau make it clear what is important in times of distance: conversation.
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG.
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Source: Welt am Sonntag