dealt with. Höfgen buys a huge villa in Grunewald and calls his sister and parents to Berlin. He now marries Nicoletta to put an end to the rumours of his relationship with a black woman. Ulrichs once again works in underground communist circles. He now knows that Höfgen only lives for his fame. Ulrichs is again arrested. Höfgen begs for help from the Ministerpräsident, but he explains to Höfgen that he can no longer help and that he should say no more about it. He plays his new role of Hamlet poorly, and suffers greatly from feelings of ineptitude. The premiere is very successful and the critics are impressed. The audience no longer assesses his artistic capabilities, but rather his relationship with power. At the end of the novel, he breaks down to his mother. She knows her son's susceptibility to nervous breakdowns, but notices in his composure that his spiritual condition is deep-rooted. Lawsuit After Gründgens' death, his adopted son Peter Gorski sued the Nymphenburger Verlagsbuchhandlung, then the publisher of Mephisto in West Germany, and obtained the prohibition of publication, confirmed by the appeal judges of the Federal Court of Justice in 1968. On 24 February 1971 the constitutional complaint was rejected by an equally divided Federal Constitutional Court, which ruled that the freedom of art (Article 5 Section 3 of the Basic Law) must be balanced against late Gründgens' personal dignity (Article 1 Section 1). The case, in which two judges wrote dissenting opinions, is considered a milestone in Germany's juridical history. The novel was however still available (and importable) from the East German Aufbau-Verlag. In 1981 Rowohlt republished it in West Germany. Since the 1968 verdict concerned only Nymphenburger and Gorski never took legal action against Rowohlt, its Mephisto is still available. Characters Adaptations In 1981, Mephisto was adapted into a film directed by István Szabó, produced by Manfred Durniok, with a screenplay written by Péter Dobai and Szabó. The film received generally positive reviews and was the first Hungarian film to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. French playwright Ariane Mnouchkine adapted the story for the stage and was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Theatre from 1985-1986. In an early leading role, Alan Rickman played Hendrik Höfgen. In 2013, Helen Edmundson wrote a stage adaptation of Mephisto, which was produced at the Altonaer Theater in Hamburg. References External links 1936