Part 9

Our hero is not freed so quickly as we from the delusion, for, “Even if the belief brought happiness,” says our author, “it assumed everywhere, in the bargain, a considerable amount of incomprehensibility.” (_G._ p. 102.) Besides, this delusion probably has subjective roots of which we know nothing, which do not exist for us. He doubtless needs trenchant treatment to bring him back to reality. For the present he can do nothing but adapt the delusion to the wonderful discovery which he has just made. Gradiva, who had perished at the destruction of Pompeii, can be nothing but a ghost of the noon hour, who returns to life for the noon hour of spirits; but why, after the answer given in German, does the exclamation escape him: “I knew that your voice sounded like that”? Not only we, but the girl, too, must ask, and Hanold must admit that he has never heard her voice before, but expected to hear it in the dream, when he called to her, as she lay down to sleep on the steps of the temple. He begs her to repeat that action, but she then rises, directs a strange glance at him, and, after a few steps, disappears between the pillars of the court. A beautiful butterfly had, shortly before that, fluttered about her a few times; in his interpretation it had been a messenger from Hades, who was to admonish the departed one to return, as the noon hour of spirits had passed. The call, “Are you coming here again to-morrow in the noon hour?” Hanold can send after the disappearing girl. To us, however, who venture a more sober interpretation, it will seem that the young lady found something improper in the request which Hanold had made of her, and therefore, insulted, left him, as she could yet know nothing of his dream. May not her delicacy of feeling have realized the erotic nature of the request, which was prompted, for Hanold, only by the connection with his dream?

After the disappearance of Gradiva, our hero examines all the guests at the “Hotel Diomed” table and soon also those of “Hotel Suisse,” and can then assure himself that in neither of the only two lodgings known to him in Pompeii is a person to be found who possesses the most remote resemblance to Gradiva. Of course he had rejected, as unreasonable, the supposition that he might really meet Gradiva in one of the two hostelries. The wine pressed on the hot soil of Vesuvius then helps to increase the day’s dizziness.

The only certainty about the next day is that Norbert must again be in Meleager’s house at noon; and, awaiting the hour, he enters Pompeii over the old city-wall, a way which is against the rules. An asphodel cluster of white bell-flowers seems, as flower of the lower world, significant enough for him to pluck and carry away. All his knowledge of antiquity appears to him, however, while he is waiting, as the most purposeless and indifferent matter in the world, for another interest has acquired control of him, the problem, “what is the nature of the physical manifestation of a being like Gradiva, dead and alive at the same time, although the latter was true only in the noon hour of spirits?” (_G._ p. 64.) He is also worried lest to-day he may not meet the lady sought, because perhaps she may not be allowed to return for a long time, and when he again sees her between the pillars, he considers her appearance an illusion, which draws from him the grieved exclamation, “Oh, that you were still alive!” This time, however, he has evidently been too critical, for the apparition possesses a voice which asks him whether he wishes to bring her the white flower, and draws the man, who has again lost his composure, into a long conversation. Our author informs us, readers, to whom Gradiva has already become interesting as a living personality, that the ill-humoured and repellent glance of the day before has given way to an expression of searching inquisitiveness or curiosity. She really sounds him, demands, in explanation of his remark of the preceding day, when he had stood near her as she lay down to sleep, in this way learns of the dream in which she perished with her native city, then of the bas-relief, and of the position of the foot, which attracted the young archæologist. Now she shows herself ready to demonstrate her manner of walking, whereby the substitution of light, sand-coloured, fine leather shoes for the sandals, which she explains as adaptation to the present, is established as the only deviation from the original relief of Gradiva. Apparently she is entering into his delusion, whose whole range she elicits from him, without once opposing him. Only once she seems to have been wrested from her rôle by a peculiar feeling when, his mind on the bas-relief, he asserts that he has recognized her at first glance. As, at this stage of the conversation, she, as yet, knows nothing of the relief, she must be on the point of misunderstanding Hanold’s words, but she has immediately recovered herself again, and only to us will many of her speeches appear to have a double meaning, besides their significance in connection with the delusion, a real, present meaning, as, for example, when she regrets that he did not succeed in confirming the Gradiva-gait on the street. “What a shame; perhaps you would not have needed to take the long journey here.” (_G._ p. 69.) She learns also that he has named the bas-relief of her “Gradiva,” and tells him that her real name is Zoë!

“The name suits you beautifully, but it sounds to me like bitter mockery, for ‘Zoë’ means ‘life.’”

“One must adapt himself to the inevitable,” she responds. “And I have long accustomed myself to being dead.”

With the promise to be at the same place again on the morrow, she takes leave of him, after she has obtained the asphodel cluster. “To those who are more fortunate one gives roses in spring, but for me the flower of oblivion is the right one from your hand.” (_G._ p. 70.) Melancholy is suited to one so long dead, who has now returned to life for a few short hours.

We begin now to understand and to hope. If the young lady, in whose form Gradiva is again revived, accepts Hanold’s delusion so completely, she does it probably to free him from it. No other course is open; by opposition, one would destroy that possibility. Even the serious treatment of a real condition of this kind could proceed no differently than to place itself first on the ground story of the delusion-structure, and investigate it then as thoroughly as possible. If Zoë is the right person, we shall soon learn how one cures delusions like those of our hero. We should also like to know how such a delusion originates. It would be very striking, and yet not without example and parallel, if the treatment and investigation of the delusion should coincide and, while it is being analysed, result in the explanation of its origin. We have a suspicion, of course, that our case might then turn out to be an “ordinary” love story, but one may not scorn love as a healing power for delusions; and was not our hero’s captivation by the Gradiva-relief also a complete infatuation, directed, to be sure, at the past and lifeless?

After Gradiva’s disappearance, there is heard once more a distant sound like the merry note of a bird flying over the city of ruins. The man who has remained behind picks up something white, which Gradiva has left, not a papyrus leaf, but a sketch-book with pencil drawings of Pompeii. We should say that the fact that she has forgotten the little book, in this place, is a pledge of her return, for we assert that one forgets nothing without a secret reason or a hidden motive.

The remainder of the day brings to our hero all sorts of remarkable discoveries and facts, which he neglects to fit together. In the wall of the portico where Gradiva disappeared, he notices to-day a narrow cleft, which is, however, wide enough to afford passage to an unusually slender figure. He recognizes the fact that Zoë-Gradiva does not need to sink into the ground here, an idea which is so senseless that he is now ashamed of the discarded belief, but that she uses this route to go back to her tomb. A faint shadow seems to him to dissolve at the end of the Street of Tombs, before the so-called Villa of Diomede. Dizzy, as on the previous day, and occupied with the same problem, he wanders now about Pompeii, wondering of what physical nature Zoë-Gradiva may be and whether one might feel anything if one touched her hand. A peculiar impulse urges him to undertake this experiment, and yet an equally great timidity in connection with the idea restrains him. On a hot, sunny slope he meets an older man who, from his equipment, must be a zoologist or a botanist, and seems to be busy catching things. The latter turns to him and says: “Are you interested in _Faraglionensis_? I should hardly have supposed it, but it seems thoroughly probable that they are found, not only in the _Faraglioni_ of Capri, but also dwell permanently on the mainland. The method suggested by my colleague, Eimer, is really good; I have already used it often with the best of success. Please remain quite still.” (_G._ p. 74.) The speaker stops talking then, and holds a little snare, made of a long grass-blade, before a narrow crevice, from which the blue, chatoyant, little head of a lizard peeps. Hanold leaves the lizard-hunter with the critical thought that it is hardly credible what foolishly remarkable purposes can cause people to make the long trip to Pompeii, in which criticism he does not, of course, include himself and his intention of seeking foot-prints of Gradiva in the ashes of Pompeii. The gentleman’s face, moreover, seems familiar to him, as if he has noticed it casually in one of the two hotels; the man’s manner of addressing him has also sounded as if directed at an acquaintance. As he continues his wandering, a side street leads him to a house not previously discovered by him; this proves to be the “Albergo del Sole.” The hotel-keeper, who is not busy, avails himself of the opportunity to recommend highly his house and the excavated treasures in it. He asserts that he was present when there were found near the Forum the young lovers who, on realizing their inevitable destruction, had clasped each other in firm embrace and thus awaited death. Hanold has already heard of that before, and shrugged his shoulders over it, as a fabulous invention of some especially imaginative narrator, but to-day the words of the hotel-keeper awaken in him credulity, which soon stretches itself more when the former brings forth a metal brooch encrusted with green patina, which, in his presence, was gathered, with the remains of the girl, from the ashes. He secures this brooch without further critical consideration, and when, as he is leaving the hotel, he sees in an open window, nodding down, a cluster of white asphodel blossoms, the sight of the grave-flower thrills him as an attestation of the genuineness of his new possession.

With this brooch, however, a new delusion takes possession of him or, rather, the old one continues for a while, apparently not a good omen for the treatment which has been started. Not far from the Forum a couple of young lovers were excavated in an embrace, and in the dream he saw Gradiva lie down to sleep in that very neighbourhood, at the Apollo temple. Was it not possible that in reality she went still farther from the Forum to meet there some one with whom she then died?

A tormenting feeling, which we can perhaps compare to jealousy, originates from this supposition. He appeases it by referring to the uncertainty of the combination, and so far regains his senses as to be able to have his evening meal in “Hotel Diomed.” His attention is attracted by two newly arrived guests, a man and a woman, whom, because of a certain resemblance, he considers brother and sister—in spite of the difference in the colour of their hair. They are the first people whom he has encountered on this trip who seem possibly congenial. A red Sorrento rose, which the young girl wears, awakes in him some memory—he cannot recall what. Finally he goes to bed and dreams; it is remarkable nonsense, but apparently concocted of the day’s experiences. “Somewhere in the sun Gradiva sat making a trap out of a blade of grass, in order to catch a lizard, and she said, ‘Please stay quite still—my colleague is right; the method is really good, and she has used it with greatest success!’” He resists the dream, even in his sleep, with the criticism that it is, of course, utter madness, and he succeeds in getting rid of it with the aid of an invisible bird, who utters a short, merry call and carries the lizard away in his beak.

In spite of all this ghostly visitation, he awakes rather cleared and settled mentally. A rose-bush, which bears flowers of the kind that he noticed yesterday on the young lady, recalls to him that in the night some one said that in the spring one gave roses. He plucks some of the roses involuntarily, and there must be some association with these which has a liberating effect upon his mind. Rid of his aversion to human beings, he takes the customary road to Pompeii, laden with the roses, the brooch and the sketch-book, and occupied by the different problems relating to Gradiva. The old delusion has become full of flaws; he already doubts if she is permitted to stay in Pompeii in the noon hour only, and not at other times. Emphasis, on that account, is transferred to the object recently acquired, and the jealousy connected with it torments him in all sorts of disguises. He might almost wish that the apparition should remain visible to only his eyes and escape the notice of others; in that way, he might consider her his exclusive property. During his ramble awaiting the noon hour he has a surprising encounter. In the Casa del Fauno he happens upon two people who doubtless believe themselves undiscoverable in a nook, for they are embracing each other and their lips meet. With amazement he recognizes in them the congenial couple of yesterday evening; but for brother and sister their present position, the embrace and the kiss are of too long duration. So it is a couple of lovers, probably a young bridal couple, another Augustus and Gretchen. Strange to relate, the sight of this now arouses in him nothing but pleasure, and fearful, as if he had disturbed a secret act of devotion, he withdraws unobserved. A deference which has long been lacking in him has been restored.

Arriving at Meleager’s house, he is afraid that he may find Gradiva in the company of another man, and becomes so excited about it that he can find no other greeting for her than the question: “Are you alone?” With difficulty she makes him realize that he has picked the roses for her; he confesses to her the latest delusion, that she is the girl who was found in the Forum in her lover’s embrace and to whom the green brooch had belonged. Not without mockery, she inquires if he found the piece in the sun. The latter—here called “Sole”—brings to light many things of that sort. As cure for the dizziness which he admits, she proposes to him to share a lunch with her and offers him half of a piece of white bread wrapped in tissue paper; the other half of this she consumes with apparent appetite. Thereat her faultless teeth gleam between her lips and, in biting the crust, cause a slight crunching sound. To her remark, “It seems to me as if we had already eaten our bread thus together once two thousand years ago. Can’t you remember it?” (_G._ p. 88.) he cannot answer, but the strengthening of his mind by the nourishment, and all the evidences of present time in her do not fail to have effect on him. Reason stirs in him and makes him doubt the whole delusion that Gradiva is only a noonday ghost; on the other hand, there is the objection that she, herself, has just said that she had already shared her repast with him two thousand years ago. As a means of settling this conflict there occurs to him an experiment which he executes with slyness and restored courage. Her left hand, with its slender fingers, is resting on her knees, and one of the house-flies, about whose boldness and worthlessness he formerly became so indignant, alights on this hand. Suddenly Hanold’s hand rises and claps, with no gentle stroke, on the fly and on Gradiva’s hand. This bold experiment affords him twofold success: first the joyous conviction that he actually touched a really living, warm hand, then, however, a reprimand, before which he starts up in terror from his seat on the step. For from Gradiva’s lips come the words, after she has recovered from her amazement, “You are surely apparently crazy, Norbert Hanold.”

Calling a person by name is recognized as the best method of awakening him, when he is sleeping, or of awakening a somnambulist. Unfortunately we are not permitted to observe the results, for Norbert Hanold, of Gradiva’s calling his name, which he had told to no one in Pompeii. For at this critical moment, the congenial lovers appear from the Casa del Fauno and the young lady calls, in a tone of pleasant surprise, “Zoë! You here, too? and also on your honeymoon? You have not written me a word about it, you know.” Before this new proof of the living reality of Gradiva, Hanold flees.

Zoë-Gradiva, too, is not most pleasantly surprised by the unexpected visit which disturbs her, it seems, in an important piece of work. Soon composed, she answers the question with a glib speech, in which she informs her friend, and especially us, about the situation; and thereby she knows how to get rid of the young couple. She extends her compliments, but she is not on her wedding-trip. “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, every one 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.” (_G._ p. 92.) Zoë now feels obliged to leave at once, to be company for her father at the “Sole.” So she goes, after she has introduced herself to us as the daughter of the zoologist and lizard-catcher, and has admitted in ambiguous words her therapeutic intentions and other secret ones. The direction which she takes is not that of the “Sun Hotel,” in which her father is awaiting her, but it seems to her, too, that in the region of the Villa of Diomede a shadowy form is seeking its burial-place and disappears under one of the monuments; therefore, with foot poised each time almost perpendicularly, she directs her steps to the Street of Tombs. Thither, in shame and confusion, Hanold has fled, and is wandering up and down in the portico of the court without stopping, occupied with settling the rest of his problem by mental efforts. One thing has become unimpeachably clear to him; that he was utterly foolish and irrational to believe that he communed with a young Pompeiian girl who had become more or less physically alive again; and this clear insight into his madness forms incontestably an essential bit of progress in the return to sound reason. On the other hand, however, this living girl, with whom other people also communicate, as with one of a corporeal reality like theirs, is Gradiva, and she knows his name; for the solution of this riddle his scarcely awakened reason is not strong enough. Emotionally, also, he is not calm enough to be equal to so difficult a task, for he would most gladly have been buried two thousand years ago in the Villa of Diomede, only to be sure of never meeting Zoë-Gradiva again. A violent longing to see her struggles meanwhile with the remnants of the inclination to flee, which has persisted in him.

Turning at one of the four corners of the colonnade, he suddenly recoils. On a fragmentary wall-ruin there sits one of the girls who met death here in the Villa of Diomede; but that attempt to take refuge again in the realm of madness is soon put aside; no, it is Gradiva, who has apparently come to give him the last bit of her treatment. She interprets rightly his first instinctive movement to flee, as an attempt to leave the place, and points out to him that he cannot escape, for outside a frightful cloudburst is in progress. The merciless girl begins the examination with the question as to what he intended in connection with the fly on her hand. He does not find courage to make use of a definite pronoun, but acquires the more valuable kind needed to put the deciding question.

“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.” (_G._ p. 98.)

“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 good hundred miles nearer; diagonally across from your house, in the corner house; in my window, in a cage, is a canary,” she discloses to the still bewildered man.

This last word touches the hero like a memory from afar. That is surely the same bird whose song has suggested to him the trip to Italy.

“In that house lives my father, Richard Bertgang, professor of zoology.”

As his neighbour, therefore, she is acquainted with him and his name. It seems as if the disappointment of a superficial solution is threatening us—a solution unworthy of our expectations.

As yet Norbert Hanold shows no regained independence of thought, when he repeats, “Then are you—are you Miss Zoë Bertgang? But she looked quite different——”