DELUSION & DREAM
AN INTERPRETATION IN THE LIGHT
OF PSYCHOANALYSIS OF _GRADIVA_,
A NOVEL, BY WILHELM JENSEN,
WHICH IS HERE TRANSLATED
BY DR. SIGMUND FREUD
Author of “The Interpretation of Dreams,” ETC.
TRANSLATED BY HELEN M. DOWNEY, M.A.
INTRODUCTION BY DR. G. STANLEY HALL
President of Clark University
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
1922
PREFACE
To Dr. G. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, who first called
to my attention the charm of _Gradiva_, by Wilhelm Jensen, and suggested
the possibility of the translation and publication combined with the
translation of Freud’s commentary, I am deeply grateful for his kindly
interest and effort in connection with the publication of the book, and
his assistance with the technical terms of psychopathology.
In this connection I am also indebted to Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, who
gave many helpful suggestions as a result of his thorough reading of the
manuscript of the commentary.
I wish also to express my profound appreciation to my friend, Miss M.
Evelyn Fitzsimmons, for her generous help with the original manuscript
and other valuable comments offered while she was reading the entire
proof.
HELEN M. DOWNEY.
Worcester, Mass.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
INTRODUCTION 9
By _Dr. G. Stanley Hall_
PART I
GRADIVA 13
_A Novel, by Wilhelm Jensen_
PART II
DELUSION AND DREAM 111
_In “Gradiva,” by Dr. Sigmund Freud_
INTRODUCTION
Jensen’s brilliant and unique story of _Gradiva_ has not only literary
merit of very high order, but may be said to open up a new field for
romance. It is the story of a young archæologist who suffered a very
characteristic mental disturbance and was gradually but effectively
cured by a kind of native psychotherapeutic instinct, which probably
inheres in all of us, but which in this case was found in the girl he
formerly loved but had forgotten, and who restored at the same time his
health and his old affection for her.
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the work is that the author
knew nothing of psychotherapy as such, but wrought his way through the
labyrinth of mechanisms that he in a sense rediscovered and set to work,
so that it needed only the application of technical terms to make this
romance at the same time a pretty good key to the whole domain of
psychoanalysis. In a sense it is a dream-story, but no single dream ever
began to be so true to the typical nature of dreams; it is a clinical
picture, but I can think of no clinical picture that had its natural
human interest so enhanced by a moving romance. _Gradiva_ might be an
introduction to psychoanalysis, and is better than anything else we can
think of to popularize it.
It might be added that while this romance has been more thoroughly
analysed than any other, and that by Freud himself, it is really only
one of many which in the literature of the subject have been used to
show forth the mysterious ways of the unconscious. It indicates that
psychoanalysis has a future in literary criticism, if not that all art
and artists have, from the beginning, more or less anticipated as they
now illustrate it.
The translator is thoroughly competent and has done her work with
painstaking conscientiousness, and she has had the great advantage of
having it revised, especially with reference to the translation of
technical terms from the German, by no less an eminent expert in
psychotherapy than Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe.
G. STANLEY HALL.
_PART I_
GRADIVA
A POMPEIIAN FANCY
BY
WILHELM JENSEN
GRADIVA
On a visit to one of the great antique collections of Rome, Norbert
Hanold had discovered a bas-relief which was exceptionally attractive to
him, so he was much pleased, after his return to Germany, to be able to
get a splendid plaster-cast of it. This had now been hanging for some
years on one of the walls of his work-room, all the other walls of which
were lined with bookcases. Here it had the advantage of a position with
the right light exposure, on a wall visited, though but briefly, by the
evening sun. About one-third life-size, the bas-relief represented a
complete female figure in the act of walking; she was still young, but
no longer in childhood and, on the other hand, apparently not a woman,
but a Roman virgin about in her twentieth year. In no way did she remind
one of the numerous extant bas-reliefs of a Venus, a Diana, or other
Olympian goddess, and equally little of a Psyche or nymph. In her was
embodied something humanly commonplace—not in a bad sense—to a degree
a sense of present time, as if the artist, instead of making a pencil
sketch of her on a sheet of paper, as is done in our day, had fixed her
in a clay model quickly, from life, as she passed on the street, a tall,
slight figure, whose soft, wavy hair a folded kerchief almost completely
bound; her rather slender face was not at all dazzling; and the desire
to produce such effect was obviously equally foreign to her; in the
delicately formed features was expressed a nonchalant equanimity in
regard to what was occurring about her; her eye, which gazed calmly
ahead, bespoke absolutely unimpaired powers of vision and thoughts
quietly withdrawn. So the young woman was fascinating, not at all
because of plastic beauty of form, but because she possessed something
rare in antique sculpture, a realistic, simple, maidenly grace which
gave the impression of imparting life to the relief. This was effected
chiefly by the movement represented in the picture. With her head bent
forward a little, she held slightly raised in her left hand, so that her
sandalled feet became visible, her garment which fell in exceedingly
voluminous folds from her throat to her ankles. The left foot had
advanced, and the right, about to follow, touched the ground only
lightly with the tips of the toes, while the sole and heel were raised
almost vertically. This movement produced a double impression of
exceptional agility and of confident composure, and the flight-like
poise, combined with a firm step, lent her the peculiar grace.
Where had she walked thus and whither was she going? Doctor Norbert
Hanold, docent of archæology, really found in the relief nothing
noteworthy for his science. It was not a plastic production of great art
of the antique times, but was essentially a Roman _genre_ production,
and he could not explain what quality in it had aroused his attention;
he knew only that he had been attracted by something and this effect of
the first view had remained unchanged since then. In order to bestow a
name upon the piece of sculpture, he had called it to himself Gradiva,
“the girl splendid in walking.” That was an epithet applied by the
ancient poets solely to Mars Gradivus, the war-god going out to battle,
yet to Norbert it seemed the most appropriate designation for the
bearing and movement of the young girl, or, according to the expression
of our day, of the young lady, for obviously she did not belong to a
lower class but was the daughter of a nobleman, or at any rate was of
honourable family. Perhaps—her appearance brought the idea to his mind
involuntarily—she might be of the family of a patrician ædile whose
office was connected with the worship of Ceres, and she was on her way
to the temple of the goddess on some errand.
Yet it was contrary to the young archæologist’s feeling to put her in
the frame of great, noisy, cosmopolitan Rome. To his mind, her calm,
quiet manner did not belong in this complex machine where no one heeded
another, but she belonged rather in a smaller place where every one knew
her, and, stopping to glance after her, said to a companion, “That is
Gradiva”—her real name Norbert could not supply—“the daughter of ——,
she walks more beautifully than any other girl in our city.”
As if he had heard it thus with his own ears, the idea had become firmly
rooted in his mind, where another supposition had developed almost into
a conviction. On his Italian journey, he had spent several weeks in
Pompeii studying the ruins; and in Germany, the idea had suddenly come
to him one day that the girl depicted by the relief was walking there,
somewhere, on the peculiar stepping-stones which have been excavated;
these had made a dry crossing possible in rainy weather, but had
afforded passage for chariot-wheels. Thus he saw her putting one foot
across the interstice while the other was about to follow, and as he
contemplated the girl, her immediate and more remote environment rose
before his imagination like an actuality. It created for him, with the
aid of his knowledge of antiquity, the vista of a long street, among the
houses of which were many temples and porticoes. Different kinds of
business and trades, stalls, work-shops, taverns came into view; bakers
had their breads on display; earthenware jugs, set into marble counters,
offered everything requisite for household and kitchen; at the street
corner sat a woman offering vegetables and fruit for sale from baskets;
from a half-dozen large walnuts she had removed half of the shell to
show the meat, fresh and sound, as a temptation for purchasers. Wherever
the eye turned, it fell upon lively colours, gaily painted wall
surfaces, pillars with red and yellow capitals; everything reflected the
glitter and glare of the dazzling noonday sun. Farther off on a high
base rose a gleaming, white statue, above which, in the distance, half
veiled by the tremulous vibrations of the hot air, loomed Mount
Vesuvius, not yet in its present cone shape and brown aridity, but
covered to its furrowed, rocky peak with glistening verdure. In the
street only a few people moved about, seeking shade wherever possible,
for the scorching heat of the summer noon hour paralysed the usually
bustling activities. There Gradiva walked over the stepping-stones and
scared away from them a shimmering, golden-green lizard.
Thus the picture stood vividly before Norbert Hanold’s eyes, but from
daily contemplation of her head, another new conjecture had gradually
arisen. The cut of her features seemed to him, more and more, not Roman
or Latin, but Greek, so that her Hellenic ancestry gradually became for
him a certainty. The ancient settlement of all southern Italy by Greeks
offered sufficient ground for that, and more ideas pleasantly associated
with the settlers developed. Then the young “domina” had perhaps spoken
Greek in her parental home, and had grown up fostered by Greek culture.
Upon closer consideration he found this also confirmed by the expression
of the face, for quite decidedly wisdom and a delicate spirituality lay
hidden beneath her modesty.
These conjectures or discoveries could, however, establish no real
archæological interest in the little relief, and Norbert was well aware
that something else, which no doubt might be under the head of science,
made him return to frequent contemplation of the likeness. For him it
was a question of critical judgment as to whether the artist had
reproduced Gradiva’s manner of walking from life. About that he could
not become absolutely certain, and his rich collection of copies of
antique plastic works did not help him in this matter. The nearly
vertical position of the right foot seemed exaggerated; in all
experiments which he himself made, the movement left his rising foot
always in a much less upright position; mathematically formulated, his
stood, during the brief moment of lingering, at an angle of only
forty-five degrees from the ground, and this seemed to him natural for
the mechanics of walking, because it served the purpose best. Once he
used the presence of a young anatomist friend as an opportunity for
raising the question, but the latter was not able to deliver a definite
decision, as he had made no observations in this connection. He
confirmed the experience of his friend, as agreeing with his own, but
could not say whether a woman’s manner of walking was different from
that of a man, and the question remained unanswered.
In spite of this, the discussion had not been without profit, for it
suggested something that had not formerly occurred to him; namely,
observation from life for the purpose of enlightenment on the matter.
That forced him, to be sure, to a mode of action utterly foreign to him;
women had formerly been for him only a conception in marble or bronze,
and he had never given his feminine contemporaries the least
consideration; but his desire for knowledge transported him into a
scientific passion in which he surrendered himself to the peculiar
investigation which he recognized as necessary. This was hindered by
many difficulties in the human throng of the large city, and results of
the research were to be hoped for only in the less frequented streets.
Yet, even there, long skirts generally made the mode of walking
undiscernible, for almost no one but housemaids wore short skirts and
they, with the exception of a few, because of their heavy shoes could
not well be considered in solving the question. In spite of this he
steadfastly continued his survey in dry, as well as in wet weather; he
perceived that the latter promised the quickest results, for it caused
the ladies to raise their skirts. To many ladies, his searching glances
directed at their feet must have inevitably been quite noticeable;
sometimes a displeased expression of the lady observed showed that she
considered his demeanour a mark of boldness or ill-breeding; sometimes,
as he was a young man of very captivating appearance, the opposite, a
bit of encouragement, was expressed by a pair of eyes. Yet one was as
incomprehensible to him as the other. Gradually his perseverance
resulted in the collection of a considerable number of observations,
which brought to his attention many differences. Some walked slowly,
some fast, some ponderously, some buoyantly. Many let their soles merely
glide over the ground; not many raised them more obliquely to a smarter
position. Among all, however, not a single one presented to view
Gradiva’s manner of walking. That filled him with satisfaction that he
had not been mistaken in his archæological judgment of the relief. On
the other hand, however, his observations caused him annoyance, for he
found the vertical position of the lingering foot beautiful, and
regretted that it had been created by the imagination or arbitrary act
of the sculptor and did not correspond to reality.
Soon after his pedestrian investigations had yielded him this knowledge,
he had, one night, a dream which caused him great anguish of mind. In it
he was in old Pompeii, and on the twenty-fourth of August of the year
79, which witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius. The heavens held the
doomed city wrapped in a black mantle of smoke; only here and there the
flaring masses of flame from the crater made distinguishable, through a
rift, something steeped in blood-red light; all the inhabitants, either
individually or in confused crowd, stunned out of their senses by the
unusual horror, sought safety in flight; the pebbles and the rain of
ashes fell down on Norbert also, but, after the strange manner of
dreams, they did not hurt him, and in the same way, he smelled the
deadly sulphur fumes of the air without having his breathing impeded by
them. As he stood thus at the edge of the Forum near the Jupiter temple,
he suddenly saw Gradiva a short distance in front of him. Until then no
thought of her presence there had moved him, but now suddenly it seemed
natural to him, as she was, of course, a Pompeiian girl, that she was
living in her native city and, without his having any suspicion of it,
was his contemporary. He recognized her at first glance; the stone model
of her was splendidly striking in every detail, even to her gait;
involuntarily he designated this as “lente festinans.” So with buoyant
composure and the calm unmindfulness of her surroundings peculiar to
her, she walked across the flagstones of the Forum to the Temple of
Apollo. She seemed not to notice the impending fate of the city, but to
be given up to her thoughts; on that account he also forgot the
frightful occurrence, for at least a few moments, and because of a
feeling that the living reality would quickly disappear from him again,
he tried to impress it accurately on his mind. Then, however, he became
suddenly aware that if she did not quickly save herself, she must perish
in the general destruction, and violent fear forced from him a cry of
warning. She heard it, too, for her head turned toward him so that her
face now appeared for a moment in full view, yet with an utterly
uncomprehending expression; and, without paying any more attention to
him, she continued in the same direction as before. At the same time,
her face became paler as if it were changing to white marble; she
stepped up to the portico of the Temple, and then, between the pillars,
she sat down on a step and slowly laid her head upon it. Now the pebbles
were falling in such masses that they condensed into a completely opaque
curtain; hastening quickly after her, however, he found his way to the
place where she had disappeared from his view, and there she lay,
protected by the projecting roof, stretched out on the broad step, as if
for sleep, but no longer breathing, apparently stifled by the sulphur
fumes. From Vesuvius the red glow flared over her countenance, which,
with closed eyes, was exactly like that of a beautiful statue. No fear
nor distortion was apparent, but a strange equanimity, calmly submitting
to the inevitable, was manifest in her features. Yet they quickly became
more indistinct as the wind drove to the place the rain of ashes, which
spread over them, first like a grey gauze veil, then extinguished the
last glimpse of her face, and soon, like a Northern winter snowfall,
buried the whole figure under a smooth cover. Outside, the pillars of
the Temple of Apollo rose, now, however, only half of them, for the grey
fall of ashes heaped itself likewise against them.
When Norbert Hanold awoke, he still heard the confused cries of the
Pompeiians who were seeking safety, and the dully resounding boom of the
surf of the turbulent sea. Then he came to his senses; the sun cast a
golden gleam of light across his bed; it was an April morning and
outside sounded the various noises of the city, cries of venders, and
the rumbling of vehicles. Yet the dream picture still stood most
distinctly in every detail before his open eyes, and some time was
necessary before he could get rid of a feeling that he had really been
present at the destruction on the bay of Naples, that night nearly two
thousand years ago. While he was dressing, he first became gradually
free from it, yet he did not succeed, even by the use of critical
thought, in breaking away from the idea that Gradiva had lived in
Pompeii and had been buried there in 79. Rather, the former conjecture
had now become to him an established certainty, and now the second also
was added. With woful feeling he now viewed in his living-room the old
relief which had assumed new significance for him. It was, in a way, a
tombstone by which the artist had preserved for posterity the likeness
of the girl who had so early departed this life. Yet if one looked at
her with enlightened understanding, the expression of her whole being
left no doubt that, on that fateful night, she had actually lain down to
die with just such calm as the dream had showed. An old proverb says
that the darlings of the gods are taken from the earth in the full
vigour of youth.
Without having yet put on a collar, in morning array, with slippers on
his feet, Norbert leaned on the open window and gazed out. The spring,
which had finally arrived in the north also, was without, but announced
itself in the great quarry of the city only by the blue sky and the soft
air, yet a foreboding of it reached the senses, and awoke in remote,
sunny places a desire for leaf-green, fragrance and bird song; a breath
of it came as far as this place; the market women on the street had
their baskets adorned with a few, bright wild flowers, and at an open
window, a canary in a cage warbled his song. Norbert felt sorry for the
poor fellow for, beneath the clear tone, in spite of the joyful note, he
heard the longing for freedom and the open.
Yet the thoughts of the young archæologist dallied but briefly there,
for something else had crowded into them. Not until then had he become
aware that in the dream he had not noticed exactly whether the living
Gradiva had really walked as the piece of sculpture represented her, and
as the women of to-day, at any rate, did not walk. That was remarkable
because it was the basis of his scientific interest in the relief; on
the other hand, it could be explained by his excitement over the danger
to her life. He tried, in vain, however, to recall her gait.
Then suddenly something like a thrill passed through him; in the first
moment he could not say whence. But then he realized; down in the
street, with her back toward him, a female, from figure and dress
undoubtedly a young lady, was walking along with easy, elastic step. Her
dress, which reached only to her ankles, she held lifted a little in her
left hand, and he saw that in walking the sole of her slender foot, as
it followed, rose for a moment vertically on the tips of the toes. It
appeared so, but the distance and the fact that he was looking down did
not admit of certainty.
Quickly Norbert Hanold was in the street without yet knowing exactly how
he had come there. He had, like a boy sliding down a railing, flown like
lightning down the steps, and was running down among the carriages,
carts and people. The latter directed looks of wonder at him, and from
several lips came laughing, half mocking exclamations. He was unaware
that these referred to him; his glance was seeking the young lady and he
thought that he distinguished her dress a few dozen steps ahead of him,
but only the upper part; of the lower half, and of her feet, he could
perceive nothing, for they were concealed by the crowd thronging on the
sidewalk.
Now an old, comfortable, vegetable woman stretched her hand toward his
sleeve, stopped him and said, half grinning, “Say, my dear, you probably
drank a little too much last night, and are you looking for your bed
here in the street? You would do better to go home and look at yourself
in the mirror.”
A burst of laughter from those near by proved it true that he had shown
himself in garb not suited to public appearance, and brought him now to
realization that he had heedlessly run from his room. That surprised him
because he insisted upon conventionality of attire and, forsaking his
project, he quickly returned home, apparently, however, with his mind
still somewhat confused by the dream and dazed by illusion, for he had
perceived that, at the laughter and exclamation, the young lady had
turned her head a moment, and he thought he had seen not the face of a
stranger, but that of Gradiva looking down upon him.
* * * * *
Because of considerable property, Doctor Norbert Hanold was in the
pleasant position of being unhampered master of his own acts and wishes
and, upon the appearance of any inclination, of not depending for expert
counsel about it on any higher court than his own decision. In this way
he differed most favourably from the canary, who could only warble out,
without success, his inborn impulse to get out of the cage into the
sunny open. Otherwise, however, the young archæologist resembled the
latter in many respects. He had not come into the world and grown up in
natural freedom, but already at birth had been hedged in by the grating
with which family tradition, by education and predestination, had
surrounded him. From his early childhood no doubt had existed in his
parents’ house that he, as the only son of a university professor and
antiquarian, was called upon to preserve, if possible to exalt, by that
very activity the glory of his father’s name; so this business
continuity had always seemed to him the natural task of his future. He
had clung loyally to it even after the early deaths of his parents had
left him absolutely alone; in connection with his brilliantly passed
examination in philology, he had taken the prescribed student trip to
Italy and had seen in the original a number of old works of art whose
imitations, only, had formerly been accessible to him. Nothing more
instructive for him than the collections of Florence, Rome, Naples could
be offered anywhere; he could furnish evidence that the period of his
stay there had been used excellently for the enrichment of his
knowledge, and he had returned home fully satisfied to devote himself
with the new acquisitions to his science. That besides these objects
from the distant past, the present still existed round about him, he
felt only in the most shadowy way; for his feelings marble and bronze
were not dead, but rather the only really vital thing which expressed
the purpose and value of human life; and so he sat in the midst of his
walls, books and pictures, with no need of any other intercourse, but
whenever possible avoiding the latter as an empty squandering of time
and only very reluctantly submitting occasionally to an inevitable
party, attendance at which was required by the connections handed down
from his parents. Yet it was known that at such gatherings he was
present without eyes or ears for his surroundings, and as soon as it was
any way permissible, he always took his leave, under some pretext, at
the end of the lunch or dinner, and on the street he greeted none of
those whom he had sat with at the table. That served, especially with
young ladies, to put him in a rather unfavourable light; for upon
meeting even a girl with whom he had, by way of exception, spoken a few
words, he looked at her without a greeting as at a quite unknown person
whom he had never seen. Although perhaps archæology, in itself, might be
a rather curious science and although its alloy had effected a
remarkable amalgamation with Norbert Hanold’s nature, it could not
exercise much attraction for others and afforded even him little
enjoyment in life according to the usual views of youth. Yet with a
perhaps kindly intent Nature had added to his blood, without his knowing
of the possession, a kind of corrective of a thoroughly unscientific
sort, an unusually lively imagination which was present not only in
dreams, but often in his waking hours, and essentially made his mind not
preponderantly adapted to strict research method devoid of interest.
From this endowment, however, originated another similarity between him
and the canary. The latter was born in captivity, had never known
anything else than the cage which confined him in narrow quarters, but
he had an inner feeling that something was lacking to him, and sounded
from his throat his desire for the unknown. Thus Norbert Hanold
understood it, pitied him for it, returned to his room, leaned again
from the window and was thereupon moved by a feeling that he, too,
lacked a nameless something. Meditation on it, therefore, could be of no
use. The indefinite stir of emotion came from the mild, spring air, the
sunbeams and the broad expanse with its fragrant breath, and formed a
comparison for him; he was likewise sitting in a cage behind a grating.
Yet this idea was immediately followed by the palliating one that his
position was more advantageous than that of the canary, for he had in
his possession wings which were hindered by nothing from flying out into
the open at his pleasure.
But that was an idea which developed more upon reflection. Norbert gave
himself up for a time to this occupation, yet it was not long before the
project of a spring journey assumed definite shape. This he carried out
that very day, packed a light valise, and before he went south by the
night express, cast at nightfall another regretful departing glance on
Gradiva, who, steeped in the last rays of the sun, seemed to step out
with more buoyancy than ever over the invisible stepping-stones beneath
her feet. Even if the impulse for travel had originated in a nameless
feeling, further reflection had, however, granted, as a matter of
course, that it must serve a scientific purpose. It had occurred to him
that he had neglected to inform himself with accuracy about some
important archæological questions in connection with some statues in
Rome and, without stopping on the way, he made the journey of a day and
a half thither.
* * * * *
Not very many personally experience the beauty of going from Germany to
Italy in the spring when one is young, wealthy and independent, for even
those endowed with the three latter requirements are not always
accessible to such a feeling for beauty, especially if they (and alas
they form the majority) are in couples on the days or weeks after a
wedding, for such allow nothing to pass without an extraordinary
delight, which is expressed in numerous superlatives; and finally they
bring back home, as profit, only what they would have discovered, felt
or enjoyed exactly as much by staying there. In the spring such dualists
usually swarm over the Alpine passes in exactly opposite direction to
the birds of passage. During the whole journey they billed and cooed
around Norbert as if they were in a rolling dove-cot, and for the first
time in his life he was compelled to observe his fellow beings more
closely with eye and ear. Although, from their speech, they were all
German country people, his racial identity with them awoke in him no
feeling of pride, but rather the opposite one, that he had done
reasonably well to bother as little as possible with the _homo sapiens_
of Linnæan classification, especially in connection with the feminine
half of this species; for the first time he saw also, in his immediate
vicinity, people brought together by the mating impulse without his
being able to understand what had been the mutual cause. It remained
incomprehensible to him why the women had chosen these men, and still
more perplexing why the choice of the men had fallen upon these women.
Every time he raised his eyes, his glance had to fall on the face of
some one of them and it found none which charmed the eye by outer
attraction or possessed indication of intellect or good nature. To be
sure, he lacked a standard for measuring, for of course one could not
compare the women of to-day with the sublime beauty of the old works of
art, yet he had a dark suspicion that he was not to blame for this
unkind view, but that in all expressions there was something lacking
which ordinary life was in duty bound to offer. So he reflected for many
hours on the strange impulses of human beings, and came to the
conclusion that of all their follies, marriage, at any rate, took the
prize as the greatest and most incomprehensible one, and the senseless
wedding trips to Italy somehow capped the climax of this buffoonery.
Again, however, he was reminded of the canary that he had left behind in
captivity, for he also sat here in a cage, cooped in by the faces of
young bridal couples which were as rapturous as vapid, past which his
glance could only occasionally stray through the window. Therefore it
can be easily explained that the things passing outside before his eyes
made other impressions on him than when he had seen them some years
before. The olive foliage had more of a silver sheen; the solitary,
towering cypresses and pines here and there were delineated with more
beautiful and more distinctive outlines; the places situated on the
mountain heights seemed to him more charming, as if each one, in a
manner, were an individual with different expression; and Trasimene Lake
seemed to him of a soft blue such as he had never noticed in any surface
of water. He had a feeling that a Nature unknown to him was surrounding
the railway tracks, as if he must have passed through these places
before in continual twilight, or during a grey rainfall, and was now
seeing them for the first time in their golden abundance of colour. A
few times he surprised himself in a desire, formerly unknown to him, to
alight and seek afoot the way to this or that place because it looked to
him as if it might be concealing something peculiar or mysterious. Yet
he did not allow himself to be misled by such unreasonable impulses, but
the “diretissimo” took him directly to Rome where, already, before the
entrance into the station, the ancient world with the ruins of the
temple of Minerva Medica received him. When he had finally freed himself
from his cage filled with “inseparables,” he immediately secured
accommodations in a hotel well known to him, in order to look about from
there, without excessive haste, for a private house satisfactory to him.
Such a one he had not yet found in the course of the next day, but
returned to his “albergo” again in the evening and went to sleep rather
exhausted by the unaccustomed Italian air, the strong sun, much
wandering about and the noise of the streets. Soon consciousness began
to fade, but just as he was about to fall asleep he was again awakened,
for his room was connected with the adjoining one by a door concealed
only by a wardrobe, and into this came two guests, who had taken
possession of it that morning. From the voices which sounded through the
thin partition, they were a man and a woman who unmistakably belonged to
that class of German spring birds of passage with whom he had yesterday
journeyed hither from Florence. Their frame of mind seemed to give
decidedly favourable testimony concerning the hotel cuisine, and it
might be due to the good quality of a Castellin-romani wine that they
exchanged ideas and feelings most distinctly and audibly in North German
tongue:
“My only Augustus.”
“My sweet Gretchen.”
“Now again we have each other.”
“Yes, at last we are alone again.”
“Must we do more sight-seeing to-morrow?”
“At breakfast we shall look in _Baedeker_ for what is still to be done.”
“My only Augustus, to me you are much more pleasing than Apollo
Belvedere.”
“And I have often thought, my sweet Gretchen, that you are much more
beautiful than the Capitoline Venus.”
“Is the volcano that we want to climb near here?”
“No, I think we’ll have to ride a few hours more in the train to get
there.”
“If it should begin to belch flame just as we got to the middle, what
would you do?”
“Then my only thought would be to save you, and I would take you in my
arms—so.”
“Don’t scratch yourself on that pin!”
“I can think of nothing more beautiful than to shed my blood for you.”
“My only Augustus.”
“My sweet Gretchen.”
With that the conversation ceased, Norbert heard another ill-defined
rustling and moving of chairs, then it became quiet and he fell back
into a doze which transported him to Pompeii just as Vesuvius again
began its eruption. A vivid throng of fleeing people caught him, and
among them he saw Apollo Belvedere lift up the Capitoline Venus, take
her away and place her safely upon some object in a dark shadow; it
seemed to be a carriage or cart on which she was to be carried off, for
a rattling sound was soon heard from that direction. This mythological
occurrence did not amaze the young archæologist, but it struck him as
remarkable that the two talked German, not Greek, to each other for, as
they half regained their senses, he heard them say:
“My sweet Gretchen.”
“My only Augustus.”
But after that the dream picture changed completely. Absolute silence
took the place of the confused sound, and instead of smoke and
fire-glow, bright, hot sunlight rested on the ruins of the buried city.
This likewise changed gradually, became a bed on whose white linen
golden beams circled up to his eyes, and Norbert Hanold awoke in the
scintillating spring morning of Rome.
Within him, also, however, something had changed; why, he could not
surmise, but a strangely oppressive feeling had again taken possession
of him, a feeling that he was imprisoned in a cage which this time was
called Rome. As he opened the window, there screamed up from the street
dozens of venders’ cries far more shrill to his ear than those in his
German home; he had come only from one noisy quarry to another, and a
strangely uncanny horror of antique collections, of meeting there Apollo
Belvedere or the Capitoline Venus, frightened him away. Thus, after
brief consideration, he refrained from his intention of looking for a
dwelling, hastily packed his valise again and went farther south by
train. To escape the “inseparables,” he did this in a third-class coach,
expecting at the same time to find there an interesting and
scientifically useful company of Italian folk-types, the former models
of antique works of art. Yet he found nothing but the usual dirt,
Monopol cigars which smelled horribly, little warped fellows beating
about with arms and legs, and members of the female sex, in contrast to
whom his coupled country-women seemed to his memory almost like Olympian
goddesses.
* * * * *
Two days later Norbert Hanold occupied a rather questionable space
called a “room” in “Hotel Diomed” beside the eucalyptus-guarded
“ingresso” to the excavations of Pompeii. He had intended to stay in
Naples for some time to study again more closely the sculptures and
wall-paintings in the Museo Nazionale, but he had had an experience
there similar to that in Rome. In the room for the collection of
Pompeiian household furniture he found himself wrapped in a cloud of
feminine, ultra-fashionable travel-costumes, which had doubtless all
quickly replaced the virgin radiance of satin, silk or lace bridal
finery; each one clung to the arm of a young or old companion, likewise
faultlessly attired, according to men’s fashion standards; and Norbert’s
newly gained insight into a field of knowledge formerly unknown to him
had advanced so far as to permit him to recognize them at first glance;
every man was Augustus, every girl was Gretchen. Only this came to light
here by means of other forms of conversation tempered, moderated and
modified by the ear of publicity.
“Oh, look, that was practical of them; we’ll surely have to get a meat
warmer like that, too.”
“Yes, but for the food that my wife cooks it must be made of silver.”
“How do you know that what I cook will taste so good to you?”
The question was accompanied by a roguish, arch glance and was answered
in the affirmative, with a glance varnished with lacquer, “What you
serve to me can be nothing but delicious.”
“No; that surely is a thimble! Did the people of those days have
needles?”
“It almost seems so, but you could not have done anything with that, my
darling, it would be much too large even for your thumb.”
“Do you really think that? And do you like slender fingers better than
broad ones?”
“Yours I do not need to see; by touch I could discover them, in the
deepest darkness, among all the others in the world.”
“That is really awfully interesting. Do we still really have to go to
Pompeii also?”
“No, that will hardly pay; there are only old stones and rubbish there;
whatever was of value, _Baedeker_ says, was brought here. I fear the sun
there would be too hot for your delicate complexion, and I could never
forgive myself that.”
“What if you should suddenly have a negress for a wife?”
“No, my imagination fortunately does not reach that far, but a freckle
on your little nose would make me unhappy. I think, if it is agreeable
to you, we’ll go to Capri to-morrow, my dear. There everything is said
to be very comfortable, and in the wonderful light of the Blue Grotto I
shall first realize completely what a great prize I have drawn in the
lottery of happiness.”
“You—if any one hears that, I shall be almost ashamed. But wherever you
take me, it is agreeable to me, and makes no difference, for I have you
with me.”
Augustus and Gretchen over again, somewhat toned down and tempered for
eye and ear. It seemed to Norbert Hanold that he had had thin honey
poured upon him from all sides and that he had to dispose of it swallow
by swallow. A sick feeling came over him, and he ran out of the Museo
Nazionale to the nearest “osteria” to drink a glass of vermuth. Again
and again the thought intruded itself upon his mind: Why did these
hundredfold dualities fill the museums of Florence, Rome, Naples,
instead of devoting themselves to their plural occupations in their
native Germany? Yet from a number of chats and tender talks, it seemed
to him that the majority of these bird couples did not intend to nest in
the rubbish of Pompeii, but considered a side trip to Capri much more
profitable, and thence originated his sudden impulse to do what they did
not do. There was at any rate offered to him a chance to be freed from
the main flock of this migration and to find what he was vainly seeking
here in Italy. That was also a duality, not a wedding duality, but two
members of the same family without cooing bills, silence and science,
two calm sisters with whom only one could count upon satisfactory
shelter. His desire for them contained something formerly unknown to
him; if it had not been a contradiction in itself, he could have applied
to this impulse the epithet “passionate”—and an hour later he was
already sitting in a “carrozzella” which bore him through the
interminable Portici and Resina. The journey was like one through a
street splendidly adorned for an old Roman victor; to the right and left
almost every house spread out to dry in the sun, like yellow tapestry
hangings, a super-abundant wealth of “pasta di Napoli,” the greatest
dainty of the country, thick or thin macaroni, vermicelli, spaghetti,
canelloni and fidelini, to which smoke of fats from cook-shops,
dust-clouds, flies and fleas, the fish scales flying about in the air,
chimney smoke and other day and night influences lent the familiar
delicacy of its taste. Then the cone of Vesuvius looked down close by
across brown lava fields; at the right extended the gulf of shimmering
blue, as if composed of liquid malachite and lapis lazuli. The little
nutshell on wheels flew, as if whirled forth by a mad storm and as if
every moment must be its last, over the dreadful pavement of Torre del
Greco, rattled through Torre dell’Annunziata, reached the Dioscuri,
“Hotel Suisse” and “Hotel Diomed,” which measured their power of
attraction in a ceaseless, silent, but ferocious struggle, and stopped
before the latter whose classic name, again, as on his first visit, had
determined the choice of the young archæologist. With apparently, at
least, the greatest composure, however, the modern Swiss competitor
viewed this event before its very door. It was calm because no different
water from what it used was boiled in the pots of its classic neighbour;
and the antique splendours temptingly displayed for sale over there had
not come to light again after two thousand years under the ashes, any
more than the ones which it had.
Thus Norbert Hanold, contrary to all expectations and intentions, had
been transported in a few days from northern Germany to Pompeii, found
the “Diomed” not too much filled with human guests, but on the other
hand populously inhabited by the _musca domestica communis_, the common
house-fly. He had never been subject to violent emotions; yet a hatred
of these two-winged creatures burned within him; he considered them the
basest evil invention of Nature, on their account much preferred the
winter to the summer as the only time suited to human life, and
recognized in them invincible proof against the existence of a rational
world-system. Now they received him here several months earlier than he
would have fallen to their infamy in Germany, rushed immediately about
him in dozens, as upon a patiently awaited victim, whizzed before his
eyes, buzzed in his ears, tangled themselves in his hair, tickled his
nose, forehead and hands. Therein many reminded him of honeymoon
couples, probably were also saying to each other in their language, “My
only Augustus” and “My sweet Gretchen”; in the mind of the tormented man
rose a longing for a “scacciamosche,” a splendidly made fly-flapper like
one unearthed from a burial vault, which he had seen in the Etruscan
museum in Bologna. Thus, in antiquity, this worthless creature had
likewise been the scourge of humanity, more vicious and more inevitable
than scorpions, venomous snakes, tigers and sharks, which were bent upon
only physical injury, rending or devouring the ones attacked; against
the former one could guard himself by thoughtful conduct. From the
common house-fly, however, there was no protection, and it paralysed,
disturbed and finally shattered the psychic life of human beings, their
capacity for thinking and working, every lofty flight of imagination and
every beautiful feeling. Hunger or thirst for blood did not impel them,
but solely the diabolical desire to torture; it was the “Ding an sich”
in which absolute evil had found its incarnation. The Etruscan
“scacciamosche,” a wooden handle with a bunch of fine leather strips
fastened to it, proved the following: they had destroyed the most
exalted poetic thoughts in the mind of Æschylus; they had caused the
chisel of Phidias to make an irremediable slip, had run over the brow of
Zeus, the breast of Aphrodite, and from head to foot of all Olympian
gods and goddesses; and Norbert felt in his soul that the service of a
human being was to be estimated, above all, according to the number of
flies which he had killed, pierced, burned up or exterminated in
hecatombs during his life, as avenger of his whole race from remotest
antiquity.
For the achievement of such fame, he lacked here the necessary weapon,
and like the greatest battle hero of antiquity, who had, however, been
alone and unable to do otherwise, he left the field, or rather his room,
in view of the hundredfold overwhelming number of the common foe.
Outside it dawned upon him that he had thereby done in a small way what
he would have to repeat on a larger scale on the morrow. Pompeii, too,
apparently offered no peacefully gratifying abode for his needs. To this
idea was added, at least dimly, another, that his dissatisfaction was
certainly caused not by his surroundings alone, but to a degree found
its origin in him. To be sure, flies had always been very repulsive to
him, but they had never before transported him into such raging fury as
this. On account of the journey his nerves were undeniably in an excited
and irritable condition, for which indoor air and overwork at home
during the winter had probably begun to pave the way. He felt that he
was out of sorts because he lacked something without being able to
explain what, and this ill-humour he took everywhere with him; of course
flies and bridal couples swarming _en masse_ were not calculated to make
life agreeable anywhere. Yet if he did not wish to wrap himself in a
thick cloud of self-righteousness, it could not remain concealed from
him that he was travelling around Italy just as aimless, senseless,
blind and deaf as they, only with considerably less capacity for
enjoyment. For his travelling companion, science, had, most decidedly,
much of an old Trappist about her, did not open her mouth when she was
not spoken to, and it seemed to him that he was almost forgetting in
what language he had communed with her.