remember. Chronologically it would, of course, not be impossible, for it
probably did not exist until this year. Did you find it in the sun
perhaps? The beautiful green patina surely seems familiar to me, as if I
had already seen it.”
Involuntarily he repeated, “In the sun?—why in the sun?”
“‘Sole’ it is called here. It brings to light many things of that sort.
Was the brooch said to have belonged to a young girl who is said to have
perished, I believe, in the vicinity of the Forum, with a companion?”
“Yes, who held his arm about her——”
“Ah, so——”
The two little words apparently lay upon Gradiva’s tongue as a favourite
interjection, and she stopped after it for a moment before she added,
“Did you think that on that account I might have worn it? and would that
have made you a little—how did you say it before?—unhappy?”
It was apparent that he felt extraordinarily relieved and it was audible
in his answer, “I am very happy about it—for the idea that the brooch
belonged to you made me—dizzy.”
“You seem to have a tendency for that. Did you perhaps forget to eat
breakfast this morning? That easily aggravates such attacks; I do not
suffer from them, but I make provision, as it suits me best to be here
at noon. If I can help you out of your unfortunate condition a little by
sharing my lunch with you——”
She drew out of her pocket a piece of white bread wrapped in tissue
paper, broke it, put half into his hand, and began to devour the other
with apparent appetite. Thereby her exceptionally dainty and perfect
teeth not only gleamed between her lips with pearly glitter, but in
biting the crust caused also a crunching sound so that they gave the
impression of being not unreal phantoms, but of actual, substantial
reality. Besides, with her conjecture about the postponed breakfast, she
had, to be sure, hit upon the right thing; mechanically he, too, ate,
and felt from it a decidedly favourable effect on the clearing of his
thoughts. So, for a little while, the couple did not speak further, but
devoted themselves silently to the same practical occupation until
Gradiva said, “It seems to me as if we had already eaten our bread thus
together once two thousand years ago. Can’t you remember it?”
He could not, but it seemed strange to him now that she spoke of so
infinitely remote a past, for the strengthening of his mind by the
nourishment had brought with it a change in his brain. The idea that she
had been going around here in Pompeii such a long time ago would no
longer harmonize with sound reason; everything about her seemed of the
present, as if it could be scarcely more than twenty years old. The form
and colour of her face, the especially charming, brown, wavy hair, and
the flawless teeth; also, the idea that the bright dress, marred by no
shadow of a spot, had lain countless years in the pumice ashes contained
something in the highest degree inconsistent. Norbert was seized by a
feeling of doubt whether he were really sitting here awake or were not
more probably dreaming in his study, where, in contemplation of the
likeness of Gradiva, he had been overcome by sleep, and had dreamed that
he had gone to Pompeii, had met her as a person still living, and was
dreaming further that he was still sitting so at her side in the Casa di
Meleagro. For that she was really still alive or had been living again
could only have happened in a dream—the laws of nature raised an
objection to it——
To be sure, it was strange that she had just said that she had once
shared her bread with him in that way two thousand years ago. Of that he
knew nothing, and even in the dream could find nothing about it.
Her left hand lay with the slender fingers calmly on her knees. They
bore the key to the solution of an inscrutable riddle——
Even in the dining-room of the Casa di Meleagro the boldness of the
common house-fly was not deterred; on the yellow pillar opposite him he
saw one running up and down in a worthless way in greedy quest; now it
whizzed right past his nose.
He, however, had to make some answer to her question, if he did not
remember the bread that he had formerly consumed with her, and he said
suddenly, “Were the flies then as devilish as now, so that they
tormented you to death?”
She glanced at him with utterly incomprehending astonishment and
repeated, “The flies? Have you flies on your mind now?”
Then suddenly the black monster sat upon her hand, which did not reveal
by the slightest quiver that she noticed it. Thereupon, however, there
united in the young archæologist two powerful impulses to execute the
same deed. His hand went up suddenly and clapped with no gentle stroke
on the fly and the hand of his neighbour.
With this blow there came to him, for the first time, sense,
consternation and also a joyous fear. He had delivered the stroke not
through empty air, but on an undoubtedly real, living and warm, human
hand which, for a moment apparently absolutely startled, remained
motionless under his. Yet then she drew it away with a jerk, and the
mouth above it said, “You are surely apparently crazy, Norbert Hanold.”
The name, which he had disclosed to no one in Pompeii, passed so easily,
assuredly and clearly from her lips that its owner jumped up from the
steps, even more terrified. At the same time there sounded in the
colonnade footsteps of people who had come near unobserved; before his
confused eyes appeared the faces of the congenial pair of lovers from
the Casa del Fauno, and the young lady cried, with a tone of greatest
surprise, “Zoë! You here, too? and also on your honeymoon? You have not
written me a word about it, you know.”
* * * * *
Norbert was again outside before Meleager’s house in the Strada di
Mercurio. How he had come there was not clear to him, it must have
happened instinctively, and, caused by a lightning-like illumination in
him, was the only thing that he could do not to present a thoroughly
ridiculous figure to the young couple, even more to the girl greeted so
pleasantly by them, who had just addressed him by his Christian and
family names, and most of all to himself. For even if he grasped
nothing, one fact was indisputable. Gradiva, with a warm, human hand,
not unsubstantial, but possessing corporeal reality, had expressed an
indubitable truth; his mind had, in the last two days, been in a
condition of absolute madness; and not at all in a silly dream, but
rather with the use of eyes and ears such as is given by nature to man
for reasonable service. Like everything else, how such a thing had
happened escaped his understanding, and only darkly did he feel that
there must have also been in the game a sixth sense which, obtaining the
upper hand in some way, had transformed something perhaps precious to
the opposite. In order to get at least a little more light on the matter
by an attempt at meditation, a remote place in solitary silence was
absolutely required; at first, however, he was impelled to withdraw as
quickly as possible from the sphere of eyes, ears and other senses,
which use their natural functions as suits their own purpose.
As for the owner of that warm hand, she had, at any rate, from her first
expression, been surprised by the unforeseen and unexpected visit at
noon in the Casa di Meleagro in a not entirely pleasant manner. Yet, of
this, in the next instant, there was no trace to be seen in her bright
countenance; she stood up quickly, stepped toward the young lady and
said, extending her hand, “It certainly is pleasant, Gisa; chance
sometimes has a clever idea too. So this is your husband of two weeks? I
am glad to see him, and, from the appearance of both of you, I
apparently need not change my congratulations for condolence. Couples to
whom that would be applied are at this time usually sitting at lunch in
Pompeii; you are probably staying near the ‘ingresso’; I shall look you
up there this afternoon. No, I have not written you anything; you won’t
be offended at me for that, for you see my hand, unlike yours, is not
adorned by a ring. The atmosphere here has an extremely powerful effect
on the imagination, which I can see in you; it is better, of course,
than if it made one too matter-of-fact. The young man who just went out
is labouring also under a remarkable delusion; it seems to me that he
believes a fly is buzzing in his head; well, everyone has, of course,
some kind of bee in his bonnet. As is my duty, I have some knowledge of
entomology and can, therefore, be of a little service in such cases. My
father and I live in the ‘Sole’; he, too, had a sudden and pleasing idea
of bringing me here with him if I would be responsible for my own
entertainment, and make no demands upon him. I said to myself that I
should certainly dig up something interesting alone here. Of course I
had not reckoned at all on the find which I made—I mean the good
fortune of meeting you, Gisa; but I am talking away the time, as is
usually the case with an old friend—— My father comes in out of the
sun at two o’clock to eat at the ‘Sole’; so I have to keep company there
with his appetite and, therefore, I am sorry to say, must for the moment
forego your society. You will, of course, be able to view the Casa di
Meleagro without me; that I think likely, though I can’t understand it,
of course. Favorisca, signor! Arrivederci, Gisetta! That much Italian I
have already learned, and one really does not need more. Whatever else
is necessary one can invent—please, no, senza complimenti!”
This last entreaty of the speaker concerned a polite movement by which
the young husband had seemed to wish to escort her. She had expressed
herself most vividly, naturally and in a manner quite fitting to the
circumstances of the unexpected meeting of a close friend, yet with
extraordinary celerity, which testified to the urgency of the
declaration that she could not at present remain longer. So not more
than a few minutes had passed since the hasty exit of Norbert Hanold,
when she also stepped from the house of Meleager into the Strada di
Mercurio. This lay, because of the hour, enlivened only here and there
by a cringing lizard, and for a few moments the girl, hesitating,
apparently gave herself over to a brief meditation. Then she quickly
struck out in the shortest way to the gate of Hercules, at the
intersection of the Vicolo di Mercurio and the Strada di Sallustio,
crossed the stepping-stones with the gracefully buoyant Gradiva-walk,
and thus arrived very quickly at the two ruins of the side wall near the
Porta Ercolanese. Behind this there stretched at some length the Street
of Tombs, yet not dazzlingly white, nor overhung with glittering
sunbeams, as twenty-four hours ago, when the young archæologist had thus
gazed down over it with searching eyes. To-day the sun seemed to be
overcome by a feeling that she had done a little too much good in the
morning; she held a grey veil drawn before her, the condensation of
which was visibly being increased, and, as a result, the cypresses,
which grew here and there in the Strada di Sepolcri, rose unusually
sharp and black against the heavens. It was a picture different from
that of yesterday; the brilliance which mysteriously glittered over
everything was lacking; the street also assumed a certain gloomy
distinctness, and had at present a dead aspect which honoured its name.
This impression was not diminished by an isolated movement at its end,
but was rather heightened by it; there, in the vicinity of the Villa of
Diomede, a phantom seemed to be looking for its grave, and disappeared
under one of the monuments.
It was not the shortest way from the house of Meleager to the “Albergo
del Sole,” rather the exactly opposite direction, but Zoë-Gradiva must
have also decided that time was not yet importuning so violently to
lunch, for after a quite brief stop at the Hercules Gate, she walked
farther along the lava-blocks of the Street of Tombs, every time raising
the sole of her lingering foot almost perpendicularly.
* * * * *
The Villa of Diomede—named thus, for people of the present, after a
monument which a certain freed-man, Marcus Arrius Diomedes, formerly
promoted to the directorship of this city-section, had erected near by
for his lady, Arria, as well as for himself and his relatives—was a
very extensive building and concealed within itself a part of the
history of the destruction of Pompeii not invented by imagination. A
confusion of extensive ruins formed the upper part; below lay an
unusually large sunken garden surrounded by a well-preserved portico of
pillars with scanty remnants of a fountain and a small temple in the
middle; and farther along two stairways led down to a circular
cellar-vault, lighted only dimly by gloomy twilight. The ashes of
Vesuvius had penetrated into this also, and the skeletons of eighteen
women and children had been found here; seeking protection they had
fled, with some hastily gathered provisions, into the half-subterranean
space, and the deceptive refuge had become the tomb of all. In another
place the supposed, nameless master of the house lay, also stretched out
choked on the ground; he had wished to escape through the locked
garden-door, for he held the key to it in his fingers. Beside him
cowered another skeleton, probably that of a servant, who was carrying a
considerable number of gold and silver coins. The bodies of the
unfortunates had been preserved by the hardened ashes; in the museum at
Naples there is under glass, the exact impression of the neck, shoulders
and beautiful bosom of a young girl clad in a fine, gauzy garment.
The Villa of Diomede had, at one time, at least, been the inevitable
goal of every dutiful Pompeii visitor, but now, at noon, in its rather
roomy solitude, certainly no curiosity lingered in it, and therefore it
had seemed to Norbert Hanold the place of refuge best suited to his
newest mental needs. These longed most insistently for grave-like
loneliness, breathless silence, and quiescent peace; against the latter,
however, an impelling restlessness in his system raised counter-claims,
and he had been obliged to force an agreement between the two demands,
such that the mind tried to claim its own and yet gave the feet liberty
to follow their impulse. So he had been wandering around through the
portico since his entrance; he succeeded thus in preserving his bodily
equilibrium, and he busied himself with changing his mental state into
the same normal condition; that, however, seemed more difficult in
execution than in intention; of course it seemed to his judgment
unquestionable that he had been utterly foolish and irrational to
believe that he had sat with a young Pompeiian girl, who had become more
or less corporeally alive again, and this clear view of his madness
formed incontestably an essential advance on the return to sound reason;
but it was not yet restored entirely to normal condition, for, even if
it had occurred to him that Gradiva was only a dead bas-relief, it was
also equally beyond doubt that she was still alive. For that irrefutable
proof was adduced; not he alone, but others also, saw her, knew that her
name was Zoë and spoke with her, as with a being as much alive, in
substance, as they. On the other hand, however, she knew his name too,
and again, that could originate only from a supernatural power; this
dual nature remained enigmatic even for the rays of understanding that
were entering his mind. Yet to this incompatible duality there was
joined a similar one in him, for he cherished the earnest desire to have
been destroyed here in the Villa of Diomede two thousand years ago, in
order that he might not run the risk of meeting Zoë-Gradiva again
anywhere; at the same time, however, an extraordinary joyous feeling was
stirring within him, because he was still alive and was therefore able
to meet her again somewhere. To use a commonplace yet fitting simile,
this was turning in his head like a mill-wheel, and through the long
portico he ran around likewise without stopping, which did not aid him
in the explanation of the contradictions. On the contrary, he was moved
by an indefinite feeling that everything was growing darker and darker
about and within him.
Then he suddenly recoiled, as he turned one of the four corners of the
colonnade. A half-dozen paces away from him there sat, rather high up on
a fragmentary wall-ruin, one of the young girls who had found death here
in the ashes.
No, that was nonsense, which his reason rejected. His eyes, too, and a
nameless something else recognized that fact. It was Gradiva; she was
sitting on a stone ruin as she had formerly sat on the step, only, as
the former was considerably higher, her slender feet, which hung down
free in the sand-colour shoes, were visible up to her dainty ankles.
With an instinctive movement, Norbert was at first about to run out
between the pillars through the garden; what, for a half-hour, he had
feared most of anything in the world had suddenly appeared, viewed him
with bright eyes and with lips which, he felt, were about to burst into
mocking laughter; yet they didn’t, but the familiar voice rang out
calmly from them, “You’ll get wet outside.”
Now, for the first time, he saw that it was raining; for that reason it
had become so dark. That unquestionably was an advantage to all the
plants about and in Pompeii, but that a human being in the place would
be benefited by it was ridiculous, and for the moment Norbert Hanold
feared, far more than danger of death, appearing ridiculous. Therefore
he involuntarily gave up the attempt to get away, stood there, helpless,
and looked at the two feet, which now, as if somewhat impatient, were
swinging back and forth; and as this view did not have so clearing an
effect upon his thoughts that he could find expression for them, the
owner of the dainty feet again took up the conversation. “We were
interrupted before; you were just going to tell me something about
flies—I imagined that you were making scientific investigations
here—or about a fly in your head. Did you succeed in catching and
destroying the one on my hand?”
This last she said with a smiling expression about her lips, which,
however, was so faint and charming that it was not at all terrifying. On
the contrary, it now lent to the questioned man power of speech, but
with this limitation, that the young archæologist suddenly did not know
how to address her. In order to escape this dilemma, he found it best to
avoid that and replied, “I was—as they say—somewhat confused mentally
and ask pardon that I—the hand—in that way—how I could be so stupid,
I can’t understand—but I can’t understand either how its owner could
use my name in upbraiding me for my—my madness.”
Gradiva’s feet stopped moving and she rejoined, still addressing him
familiarly, “Your power of understanding has not yet progressed that
far, Norbert Hanold. Of course, I cannot be surprised, for you have long
ago accustomed me to it. To make that discovery again I should not have
needed to come to Pompeii, and you could have confirmed it for me a good
hundred miles nearer.”
“A hundred miles nearer”—he repeated, perplexed and half
stuttering—“where is that?”
“Diagonally across from your house, in the corner house; in my window,
in a cage, is a canary.”
Like a memory from far away this last word moved the hearer, who
repeated, “A canary”—and he added, stuttering more—“He—he sings?”
“They usually do, especially in spring when the sun begins to seem warm
again. In that house lives my father, Richard Bertgang, professor of
zoology.”
Norbert Hanold’s eyes opened to a width never before attained by them,
and then he said, “Bertgang—then are you—are you—Miss Zoë Bertgang?
But she looked quite different——”
The two dangling feet began again to swing a little, and Miss Zoë
Bertgang said in reply, “If you find that form of address more suitable
between us, I can use it too, you know, but the other came to me more
naturally. I don’t know whether I looked different when we used to run
about before with each other as friends every day, and occasionally beat
and cuffed each other, for a change, but if, in recent years, you had
favoured me with even one glance, you might perhaps have seen that I
have looked like this for a long time.—No, now, as they say, it’s
pouring pitchforks; you won’t have a dry stitch.”
Not only had the feet of the speaker indicated a return of impatience,
or whatever it might be, but also in the tones of her voice there
appeared a little didactic, ill-humoured curtness, and Norbert had
thereby been overwhelmed by a feeling that he was running the risk of
slipping into the rôle of a big school-boy scolded and slapped in the
face. That caused him to again seek mechanically for an exit between the
pillars, and to the movement which showed this impulse Miss Zoë’s last
utterance, indifferently added, had reference; and, of course, in an
undeniably striking way, because for what was now occurring outside of
the shelter, “pouring” was really a mild term. A tropical cloudburst
such as only seldom took pity on the summer thirst of the meadows of the
Campagna, was shooting vertically and rushing as if the Tyrrhenian Sea
were pouring from heaven upon the Villa of Diomede, and yet it continued
like a firm wall composed of billions of drops gleaming like pearls and
large as nuts. That, indeed, made escape out into the open air
impossible, and forced Norbert Hanold to remain in the school-room of
the portico while the young school-mistress with the delicate, clever
face made use of the hindrance for further extension of her pedagogical
discussion by continuing, after a brief pause:—
“Then up to the time when people call us ‘Backfisch,’ for some unknown
reason, I had really acquired a remarkable attachment for you and
thought that I could never find a more pleasing friend in the world.
Mother, sister, or brother I had not, you know; to my father a slow-worm
in alcohol was far more interesting than I, and people (I count girls
such) must surely have something with which they can occupy their
thoughts and the like. Then you were that something, but when archæology
overcame you, I made the discovery that you—excuse the familiarity, but
your new formality sounds absurd to me—I was saying that I imagined
that you had become an intolerable person, who had no longer, at least
for me, an eye in his head, a tongue in his mouth, nor any of the
memories that I retained of our childhood friendship. So I probably
looked different from what I did formerly, for when, occasionally, I met
you at a party, even last winter, you did not look at me and I did not
hear your voice; in this, of course, there was nothing which marked me
out especially, for you treated all the others in the same way. To you I
was but air, and you, with your shock of light hair, which I had
formerly pulled so often, were as boresome, dry and tongue-tied as a
stuffed cockatoo and at the same time as grandiose as an—archæopteryx;
I believe the excavated, antediluvian bird-monster is so called; but
that your head harboured an imagination so magnificent as here in
Pompeii to consider me something excavated and restored to life—I had
not surmised that of you, and when you suddenly stood before me
unexpectedly, it cost me some effort at first to understand what kind of
incredible fancy your imagination had invented. Then I was amused, and,
in spite of its madness, it was not entirely displeasing to me. For, as
I said, I had not expected it of you.”