Gradiva; a Pompeiian fancy

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GRADIVA

A POMPEIIAN FANCY

BY

WILHELM JENSEN

TBAVSLATED BY

HELEN M. DOWNEY

■■/ctL.

NEW YORK-
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

1918

THE NEW y:: .;
PDBLIC LIBRARY

835491

ASTOR LENOX AND
TILJ^EN FOUNDATION?
R 1918 L

Copyright, 1918, by
MOFFAT, YARD ft COMPANY

Ptt6KtAed February, 1918

GRADIVA

On a visit to one of the great antique collec-
tions 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
^ght exposure, on a wall visited, though but
^briefly, by the evening sun. About one third
^^ life-size, the bas-relief represented a complete fe-
^male 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 Ro-
iman virgin about in her twentieth year. In no
^ay did she remind one of the numerous extant
^as-reliefs of a Venus, a Diana, or other Olym-
:^pian goddess, and equally little of a Psyche or
^ymph. In her was embodied somethmg hu-
Jmanly commonplace — ^not in a bad sense — ^to a
J degree a sense of present time, as if the artist, in-
f 3

Ml

4 GRADIVA

stead 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 boimd;
her rather slender face was not at all dazzling;
and the desire to produce such effect was ob-
viously 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thoughts quietly withdrawn.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 plas-
tic 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 pic-
ture. With her head bent forward a little, she
held slightly raised in her left hand, so that her
sandaled 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 groimd
only lightly with the tips of the toes, while the
sole and heel were raised almost vertically. This
movement produced a double impression of ex-
ceptional agility and of confident composure.

GRADIVA 6

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
archaeology, 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 eflfect 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 honorable
family. Perhaps — ^her appearance brought the
idea to his mind involuntarily — ^she might be of
the family of a patrician sedile whose office was
connected with the worship of Ceres, and she was
on her way to the temple of the goddess on some
errand.

6 GRADIVA

Yet it was contrary to the young archaeologist'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 ma-
chine where no one heeded another, but she be-
longed 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 9 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 j oumey, 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 exca-
vated; these had made a dry crossing possible
in rainy weather, but had aflForded 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

\

GRADIVA 7

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 comer 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 soimd, as a temptation for pur-
chasers. Wherever the eye turned, it fell upon
lively colors, 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
Moimt 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 paralyzed 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

/

/

8 GRADIVA

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 settle-
ment of all southern Italy by Greeks oflFered
sufficient ground for that, and more ideas pleas-
antly associated with the settlers developed.
Then the young "domina" had perhaps spoken
Greek in her parental home, and had grown up
fostered by Greek cultiu-e. Upon closer consid-
eration he found this also confirmed by the ex-
pression of the face, for quite decidedly wisdom
and a delicate spirituality lay hidden beneath her
modesty.

These conjectures or discoveries could, how-
ever, establish no real archaeological 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 walk-
ing 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 experi-
ments which he himself made, the movement left
his rising foot always in a much less upright posi-

GRADIVA 9

tion; mathematically fonnulated, his stood, dur-
ing 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 walk-
ing, 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 connec-
tion. He confirmed the experience of his friend,
as agreeing with his own, but could not say
whether a woman's manner of walking was dif-
ferent from that of a man, and the question re-
mained imanswered.

In spite of this, the discussion had not been
without profit, for it suggested something that
had not formerly occurred to him; namely, ob-
servation from life for the purpose of enlighten-
ment 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 concep-
tion in marble or bronze and he had never given
his feminine contemporaries the least considera-
tion; but his desire for knowledge transported
him into a scientific passion in which he surren-
dered himself to the peculiar investigation which
he recognized as necessary. This was hindered
by many difiiculties in the human throng of the
Jarge city, and results of the research were to be

10 GRADIVA

hoped for only in the less frequented streets.
Yet, even there, long skirts generally made the
mode of walking midiscemible, 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 con-
tinued 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
demeanor a mark of boldness or ill-breeding;
sometimes, as he was a young man of very cap-
tivating appearance, the opposite, a bit of en-
coiu*agement, was expressed by a paur of eyes.
Yet one was as incomprehensible to him as the
other. Gradually his perseverance resulted in
the collection of a considerable number of ob-
servations, 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

GRADIVA 11

been mistaken in his archaeological judgment of
the relief. On the other hand, however, his ob-
servations caused him annoyance, for he found
the vertical position of the lingering foot beau-
tiful, 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 investigatiops had
yielded him this knowledge, he had, onä flight, 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 sulphiu* 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

12 GRADIVA

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; involun-
tarily he designated this as "lente festinans/'
So with buoyant composure and the calm un-
mindf ulness 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 mo-
ments, 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 per-
ish 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, be-

GRADIVA 18

tween the pillars» she sat down on a step and
slowly laid her head upon it. Now the peb-
bles were falling in such masses that they con-
densed into a completely opaque curtain; hasten-
ing quickly after her, however, he f oimd his way
to the place where she had disappeared from his
view, and there she lay, protected by the project-
ing 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 beau-
tiful statue. No fear nor distortion was appar-
ent, 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 gray gauze veil, then
extinguished the last glimpse of her face, and
soon, like a Northern winter snowfall, buried the
whole figiu*e under a smooth cover. Outside, the
pillars of the Temple of Apollo rose, now, how-
ever, only half of them, for the gray 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

14 GRADIVA

across his bed; it was an April morning and out-
side 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
assimied new significance for him. It was, in a
way, a tombstone by which the artist had pre-
served for posterity the likeness of the girl who
had so early departed this life. Yet if one looked
at her with enlightened understanding, the ex-
pression 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 vigor of youth.
Without having yet put on a collar, in morning
array, with slippers on his feet, Norbert leaned on

GRADIVA 16

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 archaeologist
dallied but briefly there, for something else had
crowded into them. Not until then had he be-
come 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 excite-
ment 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

16 GRADIVA

street, with her back toward him, a female, from
figure and dress midoubtedly 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 cer-
tainty.

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 run-
ning 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 re-
ferred 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 prob-
ably drank a little too much last night and are you
looking for your bed here in the street? You

GRADIVA 17

would do better to go home and look at yourself
in the mirror."

A burst of laughter from those nearby 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, for-
saking his project, he quickly returned home, ap-
parently however, with his mind still somewhat
confused by the dream and dazed by illusion, for
he had perceived that, at the laughter and ex-
clamation, 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 Nor-
bert Hanold was in the pleasant position of being
imhampered 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 diflPered most favorably 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 archaeolo-
gist resembled the latter in many respects. He
had not come into the world and grown up in

18 GRADIVA

natural freedom, but already at birth had been
hedged in by the grating with which family tra-
dition, by education and predestination, had sur-
rounded him. From his early childhood no doubt
had existed in his parents' house that he, as the
only son of a university professor and antiqua-
rian, was called upon to preserve, if possible to
exalt, by that very activity the glory of his fa-
ther'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 examina-
tion 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. Noth-
ing more instructive for him than the collec-
tions of Florence, Rome, Naples could be oflPered
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

GRADIVA 19

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 pos-
sible avoiding the latter as an empty squandering
of time and only very reluctantly submitting oc-
casionally 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,
imder 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 unfavorable 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 archaeology,
in itself, might be a rather curious science and al-
though its alloy had eflPected a remarkable amal-
gamation with Norbert Hanold's nature, it could
not exercise much attraction for others and af-
forded 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, with-
out his knowing of the possession, a kind of cor-
rective of a thoroughly unscientific sort, an unusu-

20 GRADIVA

ally lively imagination which was present not only
in dreams, but often in his waking how*s, and es-
sentially made his mind not preponderantly
adapted to strict research method devoid of inter-
est. 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 win-
dow and was thereupon moved by a feeling that
he, too, lacked a nameless something. Meditation
on it, therefore, could be of no use. The indefi-
nite 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 pleas-
ure.

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

GRADIVA 21

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 archaeological questions in con-
nection 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 independ-
ent, 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
Jays or weeks after a wedding, for such allow
nothing to pass without an extraordinary delight,
which is expressed in numerous superlatives; and
£ui\ally they bring back home, as profit, only what

22 GRADIVA

they would have discovered, felt or enjoyed ex-
actly 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 peo-
ple, his racial identity with them awoke in him
no feeling of pride, but the rather opposite one,
that he had done reasonably well to bother as lit-
tle as possible with the hovfio sapiens of Linnaean
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-

GRADIVA 23

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 imkind view, but that in all ex-
pressions there was something lackmg which or-
dinary life was in duty bound to oflFer. 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 charm-
ing, as if each one, in a manner, were an individual
with diflferent 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 feel-

84 GRADIVA

ing that a Nature unknown to him was surround-
ing the railway tracks, as if he must have passed
through these places before in continual twilight,
or during a gray rainfall, and was now seeing
them for the first time in their golden abundance
of color. A few times he surprised himself in a
desire, formerly imknown 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 some-
thing 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 exces-
sive haste, for a private house satisfactory to
him.

Such a one he had not yet found in the course
of the next day, but retiuned to his "albergo**
again in the evening and went to sleep rather ex-
hausted 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

GRADIVA 25

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 Gterman spring birds of
passage with whom he had yesterday journeyed
hither from Florence. Their frame of mind
seemed to give decidedly favorable 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 dis-
tinctly and audibly in North Grcrman 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 mudi more beautiful than
the Capitoline Vefnus."

"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."

26 GRADIVA

"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"

"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 Capi-
toline 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 car-
ried ofif, for a rattling sound was soon heard from
that direction. This mythological occurrence did
not amaze the young archaeologist, 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 pictiu'e changed com-
pletely. Absolute silence took the place of the

GRADIVA 27

confused sound, and instead of smoke and fire-
glow, bright, hot sunlight rested on the ruins of
the buried city. This likewise changed grad-
ually, became a bed on whose white linen golden
beams circled up to his eyes, and Norbert Han-
old 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 pos-
session 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 Capito-
line Venus, frightened him away. Thus, after
brief consideration, he refrained from his inten-
tion 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, httle warped fellows beating about with

28 GRADIVA

arms and legs, and members of the female sex,
in contrast to whom his coupled coimtry-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-cos-
tumes, which had doubtless all quickly replaced
the virgin radiance of satin, silk or lace bridal fin-
ery ; 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

GRADIVA 29

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 aflSbrmative,
with a glance varnished with lacquer, "What you
serve to me can be nothing but delicious."

"No; that siu-ely is a thimble I 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 sim
there would be too hot for your delicate com-
plexion and I could never forgive myself that."

"What if you should suddenly have a negress
for a wife?"

"No, my imagination fortunately does not

so 6RADIVA

reach that far, but a freckle on your little nose
would make me imhappy. I think, if it is agree-
able 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 agree-
able 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 hundred fold dualities fill the museums of
Florence, Rome, Naples, instead of devoting
themselves to their plural occupations in their na-
tive Grcrmany ? 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 orig-
inated his sudden impulse to do what they did not

GRADIVA 81

do. There was at any rate offered to him a
chance to be freed from the main flock of this mi-
gration 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 hoiu* later he was already
sitting in a "carrozzella" which bore him through
the interminable Portici and Resina. The jour-
ney 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 great-
est 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 in-
fluences 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

32 GRADIVA

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 delF Annunziata, reached the Dios-
curi, 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 yoimg
archaeologist. With apparently, at least, the
greatest composm-e, however, the modem 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 neigh-
bor; and the antique splendors temptingly dis-
played 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 expecta-
tions and intentions, had been transported in a
few days from northern Germany to Pompeii,
found the Diomed not too much filled with hu-
man guests, but on the other hand populously
inhabited by the musca domestica commums, the
common house-fly. He had never been subject
to violent emotions; yet a hatred of these
two-winged creatures burned within him; he con-
sidered them the basest evil invention of Nature,
on their account much preferred the winter to the

GRADIVA 83

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 Grcrmany,
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 splen-
didly 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 in-
jury, 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 para-
lyzed, 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

84 GRADIVA

for blood did not impel them, but solely the dia-
bolical desire to tortm-e; 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
Aeschylus; 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, ac-
cording to the nimiber of flies which he had kiUed,
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 great-
est 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 com-
mon 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

GRADIVA 86

added, at least dimly, another, that his dissatis-
faction was certainly caused not by his surround-
ings alone, but to a degree found its origin in
him. To be sure, flies had always been very re-
pulsive to him, but they had never before trans-
ported him into such raging fury as this. On
account of the journey his nerves were undeni-
ably 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-humor 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 him-
self in a thick cloud of self -righteousness, it could
not remain concealed from him that he was travel-
ing around Italy just as aimless, senseless, blind
and deaf as they, only with considerably less ca-
pacity for enjoyment. For his traveling com-
panion, 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 lan-
guage he had communed with her.

It was now too late in the day to go into Pom-
peii through the "ingresso." Norbert remem-

86 GRADIVA

bered a circuit he had once made on the old city-
wall, and attempted to momit the latter by means
of aU sorts of bushes and wild growth. Thus he
wandered along for some distance a little above
the city of graves, which lay on his right, motion-
less and quiet. It looked like a dead rubbish field
already almost covered with shadow, for the eve-
ning sun stood in the west not far from the edge
of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Round about on the
other hand it still bathed all the hilltops and fields
with an enchanting brilliancy of life, gilded the
smoke-cone rising above the Vesuvius crater and
clad the peaks and pinnacles of Monte Sant' An-
gelo in purple. High and solitary rose Monte
Epomeo from the sparkling, blue sea glittering
with golden light, from which Cape Misenimi
reared itself with dark outline, like a mysterious,
titanic structure. Wherever the gaze rested, a
wonderful picture was spread combining charm
and sublimity, remote past and joyous present.
Norbert Hanold had expected to fiaid here what
he longed for vaguely. Yet he was not in the
mood for it, although no bridal couples and flies
molested him on the deserted wall; even nature
was unable to oflfer him what he lacked in his siff-
roimdings and within himself. With a calmness
bordering closely on indiflPerence, he let his eyes
pass over the all-pervading beauty, and did not
regret in the least that it was growing pale and

GRADIVA 87

fading away in the sunset, but returned to the

Diomed, as he had come, dissatisfied.

• ••••••

But as he had now, although with ill-success,
been conveyed to this place through his indiscre-
tion, he reached the decision overnight, to get
from the folly he had committed at least one
day of scientific profit and went to Pompeii on
the regular road as soon as the "ingresso" was
opened in the morning. In little groups com-
manded by official guides, armed with red Baede-
kers or their foreign cousins, longing for secret
excavations of their own, there wandered before
and behind him the population of the two hotels.
The still fresh, morning air was filled almost ex-
clusively by English or Anglo-American chatter;
the German couples were making each other mu-
tually happy with German sweets and inspiration
up there on Capri behind Monte Sant' Angelo
at the breakfast table of the Pagano. Norbert
remembered how to free himself soon, by well
chosen words, combined with a good "mancia,"
from the burden of a "guida" and was able to
pursue his purposes alone and unhindered. It
afforded him some satisfaction to know that
he possessed a faultless memory; wherever his
glance rested, everything lay and stood exactly as
he remembered it, as if only yesterday he had
imprinted it in his mind by means of expert ob-

88 GRADIVA

servation. This continually repeated experience
brought, however, the added feeling that his pres-
ence there seemed really very unnecessary, and a
decided indiflference took possession of his eyes
and his intellect more and more, as during the
evening on the wall. Although, when he looked
up, the pine-shaped smoke-cone of Vesuvius gen-
erally stood before him against the blue sky, yet,
remarkably, it did not once appear in his memory
that he had dreamed some time ago that he had
been present at the destruction of Pompeii by the
volcanic eruption of 79. Wandering around for
hours made him tired and half -sleepy, of course,
yet he felt not the least suggestion of anything
dreamlike, but there lay about him only a con-
fusion of fragments of ancient gate arches, pillars
and walls significant to the highest degree for
archaeology, but, viewed without the esoteric aid
of this science, really not much else than a big
pile of rubbish, neatly arranged, to be sure, but
extremely devoid of interest; and although sci-
ence and dreams were wont formerly to stand on
footings exactly opposed, they had apparently
here to-day come to an agreement to withdraw
their aid from Norbert Hanold and deliver him
over absolutely to the aimlessness of his walking
and standing around.

So he had wandered in all directions from the
Forum to the Amphitheater, from the Porta di

GRADIVA 39

Stabia to the Porta del Vesuvio through the
Street of Tombs as well as through countless
others, and the sun had likewise, in the mean-
while, made its accustomed morning journey to
the position where it usually changes to the more
comfortable descent toward the sea. Thereby,
to the great satisfaction of their misunderstood,
hoarsely eloquent guides, it gave the English
and American men and women, forced to go there
by a traveler's sense of duty, a signal to become
mindful of the superior comfort of sitting at the
lunch-tables of the twin hotels; besides they had
seen with their own eyes everything that could be
required for conversation on the other side of the
ocean and channel; so the separate groups, sati-
ated by the past, started on the return, ebbed in
common movement down through the Via Ma-
rina, in order not to lose meals at the, to be sure
somewhat euphemistically Lucullan, tables of the
present, in the house of Diomed or of Mr. Swiss.
In consideration of all the outer and inner cir-
ciunstances, this was doubtless also the wisest
thing that they could do, for the noon sun of May
was decidedly well disposed toward the lizards,
butterflies and other winged inhabitants or visi-
tors of the extensive mass of ruins, but for the
northern complexion of a Madame or Miss its
perpendicular obtrusiveness was unquestionably
beginning to become less kindly, and, supposedly

40 GRADIVA

in some causal connection with that, the *^chami-
ings" had ah*eady in the last hour considerably
diminished, the "shockings'* had increased in the
same proportion, and the masculine "ah's" pro-
ceeding from rows of teeth even more widely dis-
tended than before had begun a noticeable tran-
sition to yawning.

It was remarkable, however, that simultan-
eously with their vanishing, what had formerly
been the city of Pompeii assumed an entirely
changed appearance, but not a living one; it
now appeared rather to be becoming completely
petrified in dead immobility. Yet out of it
stirred a feeling that death was beginning to talk,
although not in a manner intelligible to human
ears. To be sure, here and there was a sound as if
a whisper were proceeding from the stone which,
however, only the softly murmuring south wind,
Atabulus, awoke, he who, two thousand years
ago, had buzzed in this fashion about the temples,
halls and houses, and was now carrying on his
playful game with the green, shimmering stalks
on the low ruins. From the coast of Africa he
often rushed across casting forth wild, fuU blasts:
he was not doing that to-day, but was gently fan-
ning again the old acquaintances which had come
to light again. He could not, however, refrain
from his natural tendency to devastate, and blew

GRADIVA 41

with hot hreath, even though lightly, on every-
thing that he encountered on the way.

In this, the sun, his eternally youthful mother,
helped him. She strengthened his fiery breath,
and accomplished, besides, what he could not,
steeped everything with trembling, glittering,
dazzling splendor. As with a golden eraser, she
effaced from the edges of the houses on the
semitae and crepidine viarvm, as the sidewalks
were once called, every slight shadow, cast into all
the vestibules, inner courts, peristyles and bal-
conies her luminous radiance, or desultory rays
where a shelter blocked her direct approach.
Hardly anywhere was there a nook which success-
fully protected itself against the ocean of light
and veiled itself in a dusky, silver web; every
street lay between the old walls like long, rip-
pling, white strips of linen spread out to bleach;
and without exception all were equally motion-
less and mute, for not only had the last of the
rasping and nasal tones of the English and Amer-
ican messengers disappeared, but the former'
slight evidences of lizard- and butterfly-life
seemed also to have left the silent city of ruins.
They had not really done so, but the gaze per-
ceived no more movement from them.

As had been the custom of their ancestors out
on the mountain slopes and cliff walls, for thou-

42 GRADIVA

sands of years, when the great Pan laid himself
to sleep, here, too, in order not to disturb him,
they had stretched themselves out motionless or,
folding their wings, had squatted here and there;
and it seemed as if, in this place, they felt even
more strongly the command of the hot, holy,
noonday quiet in whose ghostly hour life must be
silent and suppressed, because during it the dead
awake and begin to talk in toneless spirit-lan-
guage.

This changed aspect which the things round
about had assumed really thrust itself less upon
the vision than it aroused the emotions, or, more
correctly, an unnamed sixth sense; this latter,
however, was stimulated so strongly and persist-
ently that a person endowed with it could not
throw oflF the effect produced upon him. To be
sure, of those estimable boarders already busy
with their soup spoons at the two "albergW near
the "ingresso," hardly a man or woman would
have been counted among those thus invested, but
Nature had once bestowed this great attention
upon Norbert Hanold and he had to submit to its
effects, not at all because he had an imderstanding
with it, however, for he wished nothing at all and
desired nothing more than that he might be sitting
quietly in his study with an instructive book in his
hand, instead of having undertaken this aimless
spring journey. Yet as he had turned back from

GRADIVA 43

the Street of Tombs through the Hercules gate
into the center of the city and at Casa di Sallustio
had turned to the left, quite without purpose or
thought, into the narrow "vicolo," suddenly that
sixth sense was awakened in him; but this last
expression was not really fitting, rather he was
transported by it into a strangely dreamy condi-
tion, about half way between a waking state and
loss of senses. As if guarding a secret, every-
where round about him, suffused in light, lay
deathly silence, so breathless that even his own
lungs hardly dared to take in air. He stood at
the intersection of two streets where the Vicolo
Mercurio crossed the broader Strada di Mercurio,
which stretched out to right and left; in answer
to the god of commerce, business and trades had
formerly had their abodes here; the street cor-
ners spoke silently of it; many shops with broken
counters, inlaid with marble, opened out upon
them; here the arrangement indicated a bakery,
there, a number of large, convex, earthenware
jugs, an oil or flour business. Opposite more
slender, two-handled jars set into the counters
showed that the space behind them had been a
bar-room; surely in the evening, slaves and maids
of the neighborhood might have thronged here to
get wine for their masters in their own jugs; one
could see that the now illegible inscription inlaid
with mosaic on the sidewalk in front of the shop

I ^

44 GRADIVA

was worn by many feet; probably it had held out
to passers-by a recommendation of the excellent
wine. On the outer-wall, at about half the height
of a man, was visible a "grafläto" probably
scratched into the plastering, with his finger-nail
or an iron nail, by a schoolboy, perhaps de-
risively explaining the praise, in this way, that
the owner's wine owed its peerlessness to a
generous addition of water. For from the
scratch there seemed raised before Norbert Han-
old's eyes the word "caupo," or was it an il-
lusion. Certainly he could not settle it. He
possessed a certain skill in deciphering "graffiti"
which were difficult, and had already accom-
plished widely recognized work in that field,
yet at this time it completely failed him. Not
only that, he had a feeling that he did not un-
derstand any Latin, and it was absurd of him
to wish to read what a Pompeiian school youth
had scratched into the wall two thousand years
before.

Not only had all his science left him, but
it left him without the least desire to regain it; he
remembered it as from a great distance, and he
felt that it had been an old, dried-up, boresome
aunt, dullest and most superfluous creature in the
world. What she uttered with puckered lips and
sapient mien, and presented as wisdom, was all

GRADIVA 46

vain, empty pompousness, and merely gnawed
at the dry rind of the fruit of knowledge without
revealing anything of its content, the germ of
life, or bringing anything to the point of inner,
intelligent enjoyment. What it taught was a
lifeless, archaeological view and what came from
its mouth was a dead, philological language.
These helped in no way to a comprehension with
soul, mind and heart, as the saying is, but he, who
possessed a desire for that, had to stand alone
here, the only living person in the hot noonday
silence among the remains of the past, in order
not to see with physical eyes nor hear with cor-
poreal ears. Then something came forth every-
where without movement and a soundless speech
began; then the sun dissolved the tomb-like rigid-
ity of the old stones, a glowing thrill passed
through them, the dead awoke, and Pompeii be-
gan to live again.

The thoughts in Norbert Hanold's mind were
not really blasphemous, but he had an indefinite
feeling deserving of that adjective, and with this,
standing motionless, he looked before him down
the Strada di Mercurio toward the city-wall.
The angular lava-blocks of its pavement still lay
as faultlessly fitted together as before the devas-
tation, and each one was of a light-gray color, yet
such dazzling luster brooded over them that they

I»

46 GRADIVA

stretched like a quilted silver-white ribbon pass-
ing in faintly glowing void between the silent
walls and by the side of column fragments.

Then suddenly —

With open eyes he gazed along the street, yet
it seemed to him as if he were doing it in a dream.
A little to the right something suddenly stepped
forth from the Casa di Castore e Folluce, and
across the lava stepping-stones, which led from
the house to the other side of the Strada di Mer-
curio, Gradiva stepped buoyantly.

Quite indubitably it was she; even if the sun-
beams did surround her figure as with a thin veil
of gold, he perceived her in profile as plainly
and as distinctly as on the bas-relief. Her head,
whose crown was entwined with a scarf which fell
to her neck, inclined forward a little ; her left hand
held up lightly the extremely voluminous dress
and, as it reached only to her ankles, one could
perceive clearly that in advancing, the right foot,
lingering, if only for a moment, rose on the tips of
the toes almost perpendicularly. Here, how-
ever, it was not a stone representation, everything
in uniform* colorlessness ; the dress, apparently
made of extremely soft, clinging material, was not
of cold marble-white, but of a warm tone verging
faintly on yellow, and her hair, wavy under the
scarf on her brow, and peeping forth at the tem-
ples, stood out, with golden-brown radiance, in

GRADIVA 47

bold contrast to her alabaster countenance.

As soon as he caught sight of her, Norbert's
memory was clearly awakened to the fact that he
had seen her here once already in a dream» walk-
ing thus, the night that she had lain down as if to
sleep over there in the Forum on the steps of the
Temple of Apollo. With this memory he be-
came conscious, for the first time, of something
else; he had, without himself knowing the motive
in his heart, come to Italy on that account and
had, without stop, continued from Rome and
Naples to Pompeii to see if he could here find
trace of her — and that in a literal sense, — for,
with her unusual gait, she must have left behind
in the ashes a foot-print different from all the
others.

Again it was a noonday dream-pictiu'e that
passed there before him and yet also a reality.
For that was apparent from an effect which it
produced. On the last stepping-stone on the
farther side, there lay stretched out motionless, in
the burning simlight, a big lizard, whose body, as
if woven of gold and malachite, glistened brightly
to Norbert's eyes. Before the approaching foot,
however, it darted down suddenly and wriggled
away over the :white, gleaming lava pave-
ment.

Gradiva crossed the stepping-stones with her
qalm buoyancy, and now, turning her back.

48 GRADIVA

walked along on the opposite sidewalk; her desti-
nation seemed to be the house of Adonis. Before
it she stopped a moment, too, but passed then,
as if after further deliberation, down farther
through the Strada di Mercurio. On the left,
of the more elegant buildings, there now stood
only the Casa di Apollo, named after the numer-
ous representations of Apollo excavated there,
and, to the man who was gazing after her, it
seemed again that she had also surely chosen the
portico of the Temple of Apollo for her death
sleep. Probably she was closely associated with
the cult of the sim-god and was going there.
Soon, however, she stopped again; stepping-
stones crossed the street here, too, and she walked
back again to the right side. Thus she turned
the other side of her face toward him and looked a
little different, for her left hand, which held up
her gown, was not visible and instead of her
curved arm, the right one hung down straight.
At a greater distance now, however, the golden
waves of sunlight floated around her with a
thicker web of veiling, and did not allow him to
distinguish where she had stopped, for she disap-
peared suddenly before the house of Meleager.
Norbert Hanold still stood without having moved
a limb. With his eyes, and this time with his cor-
poreal ones, he had surveyed, step by step, her
vanishing form. Now, at length, he drew a deeg

GRADIVA 49

breath, for his breast too had remained almost
motionless.

Simultaneously the sixth sense, suppressing
the others completely, held him absolutely in its
sway. Had what had just stood before him been
a product of his imagination or a reality?

He did not know that, nor whether he was
awake or dreaming, and tried in vain to collect
his thoughts. Then, however, a strange shudder
passed down his spine. He saw and heard noth-
ing, yet he felt from the secret inner vibrations
that Pompeii had begun to live about him in the
noonday hour of spirits and so Gradiva lived
again, too, and had gone into the house which she
had occupied before the fateful August day of the
year 79.

From his former visit, he was acquainted with
the Casa di Meleagro, had not yet gone there this
time, however, but had merely stopped briefly in
the Museo Nazionale of Naples before the wall
paintings of Meleager and his Arcadian huntress
companion, Atalanta, which had been found in the
Strada di Mercurio in that house, and after which
the latter had been named. Yet as he now again
acquired the ability to move and walked toward
it, he began to doubt whether it really bore its
name after the slayer of the Caledonian boar.
He suddenly recalled a Greek poet, Meleager,
who, to be sure, had probably lived about a cen-

60 GRADIVA

tmy before the destruction of Pompeii, A de-
scendant of his, however, might have come here
and built the house for himself. That agreed
with something else that had awakened in his
memory, for he remembered his supposition, or
rather a definite conviction, that Gradiva had been
of Greek descent. To be sure there mingled with
his idea the figure of Atalanta as Ovid had pic-
tured it in his "Metamorphoses":

" — ^her floating vest
"A polished buckle clasped — ^her careless locks
"In simple knot were gathered — "

Trans, by Henry King.

He could not recall the verses word for word,
but their content was present in his mind; and
from his store of knowledge was added the fact
that Cleopatra was the name of the young wife
of Oeneus' son, Meleager. More probably this
had nothing to do with him, but with the Greek
poet, Meleager. Thus, under the glowing sun
of the Campagna, there was a mythological-liter-
ary-historical-archaeological juggling in his head.

When he had passed the house of Castor and
Pollux and that of the Centaur, he stood before
the Casa di Meleagro from whose threshold there
looked up at him, still discernible, the inlaid greet-
ing "Ave." On the wall of the vestibule. Mer-
cury was handing Fortuna a pouch filled with

GRADIVA 51

money; that probably indicated, allegorically, the
riches and other fortunate circumstances of the
former dweller. Behind this opened up the in-
ner court, the center of which was occupied by a
marble table supported by three grifiihs.

Empty and silent, the room lay there, appear-
ing absolutely unfamiliar to the man, as he en-
tered, awaking no memory that he had already
been here, yet he then recalled it, for the interior
of the house offered a deviation from that of the
other excavated buildings of the city. The per-
istyle adjoined the inner court on the other side
of the balcony toward the rear — ^not in the usual
way, but at the left side and on that accoimt was
of greater extent and more splendid appearance
than any other in Pompeii. It was framed by a
colonnade supported by two dozen pillars painted
red on the lower, and white on the upper half.
These lent solemnity to the great, silent space;
here in the center was a spring with a beautifully
wrought enclosure, which served as a fish-pool.
Apparently the house must have been the dwell-
ing of an estimable man of culture and artistic
sense.

Norbert's gaze passed around, and he listened.
Yet nowhere about did anything stir, nor was
the slightest soimd audible. Amidst this cold
stone there was no longer a breath; if Gra-
diva had gone into Meleager's house, she had

62 GRADIVA

already dissolved again into nothing. At the
rear of the peristyle was another room, an oecus,
the former dining-room, likewise surromided on
three sides by pillars painted yellow, which shim-
mered from a distance in the light, as if they were
encrusted with gold. Between them, however,
shone a red far more dazzling than that from the
walls, with which no brush of antiquity, but young
Nature of the present had painted the ground.
The former artistic pavement lay completely
ruined, fallen to decay and weather worn; it was
May which exercised here again its most ancient
dominion and covered the whole oecus, as it did
at the time in many houses of the buried city, with
red, flowering, wild poppies, whose seeds the
winds had carried thither, and these had sprouted
in the ashes. It was a wave of densely crowded
blossoms, or so it appeared although, in reality,
they stood there motionless for Atabulus found
no way down to them, but only hummed away
softly /ibove. Yet the sun cast such flaming,
radiant vibrations down upon them that it gave
an impression of red ripples in a pond undulating
hither and thither. Norbert Hanold's eyes had
passed imheeding over a similar sight in other
houses, but here he was strangely thrilled by it.
The dream flower grown at the edge of Lethe
filled the space, and Hypnos lay stretched in
their midst dispensing . sleep, which dulls the

GRADFTA CS

senses» midi Üie saps miikh night has gmtii^^ed in
liie red dudioes. It seemed to tiie man who had
entered the dining-room through the portico of
the {KTistTle as if he f dt his temples touched by
the inTisiUe shunber m^and of the old vanquisher
of gods azMl men, but not with heavy stupor; on^y
a dieamity sweet loveliness floated about his con^
scioQsness. At the same time, however9 he still
ronained in control of his feet and stepped alon;;^
by the wall of the former dining-room from which
gazed old pictures: Paris, awarding the apple; a
satyr, carrying in his hand an asp and tormenting
a young Bacchante with it.

But there again suddenly, unforeseen — onlj*
about five paces away from him — in the narrow
shadow cast down by a single piece of tlie upper
part of the dining-room portico, wliich still re*
mained in a state of preservation, sitting on the
low steps between two of the yellow pillars was
a brightly clad woman who now raised her head»
In that way she disclosed to the unnoticed arrival»
whose footstep she had apparently just heaixl, a
full view of her face, which produced in him a
double feeling, for it appeared to him at the same
time unknown and yet also familiari already
seen or imagined; but by his arrested breathing
and his heart palpitations» he recognizedi unmis-
takably, to whom it belonged. He had found
what he was looking for, what had driven him

64 GRADIVA

unconsciously to Pompeii; Gradiva continued her
visible existence in the noonday spirit hour and
sat here before him, as, in the dream, he had seen
her on the steps of the Temple of Apollo.
Spread out on her knees lay something white
which he was unable to distinguish clearly; it
seemed to be a papyrus sheet, and a red poppy-
blossom stood out from it in marked contrast.

In her face surprise was expressed; under the
lustrous, brown hair and the beautiful, alabaster
brow, two rarely bright, starlike eyes looked at
him with questioning amazement. It required
only a few moments for him to recognize the con-
formity of her features with those of the profile.
They must be thus, viewed from the front, and
therefore, at first glance, they had not been really
unfamiliar to him. Near to, her white dress, by
its slight tendency to yellow, heightened still
more the warm color; apparently it consisted of
a fine, extremely soft, woolen material, which
produced abundant folds, and the scarf around
her head was of the same. Below, on the nape
of the neck, appeared again the shimmering,
brown hair artlessly gathered in a single knot; at
her throat, under a dainty chin, a little, gold clasp,
held her gown together.

Norbert Hanold dimly perceived that invol-
imtarily he had raised his hand to his soft Panama
hat and removed it; and now he said in Greek,

GRADIVA 66

" Are you Atalanta, the daughter of Jason» or
are you a descendant of the family of the poet,
Meleager?"

Without giving an answer, the lady addressed
looked at him silently with a calmly wise expres-
sion in her eyes and two thoughts passed through
his mind; either her resurrected self could not
speak or she was not of Greek descent and was
ignorant of the language. He therefore sub-
stituted Latin for it and asked: "Was your fa-
ther a distinguished Fompeiian citizen of Latin
origin?"

To this she was equally silent, only about her
delicately curved lips there was a slight quiver
as if she were repressing a burst of laughter.
Now a feeling of fright came upon him; appar-
ently she was sitting there before him like a si-
lent image, a phantom to whom speech was
denied. Consternation at this discovery was
stamped fully and distinctly upon his features.

Then, however, her lips could no longer resist
the impulse; a real smile played about them and
at the same time a voice sounded from between
them, "If you wish to speak with me, you must
do so in Grcrman."

That was really remarkable from the mouth
of a Fompeiian woman who had died two cen-
turies before, or would have been so for a person
hearing it in a different state of mind. Yet every

66 GRADIVA

oddity escaped Norbert because of two waves of
emotion which had rushed over him» one because
Gradiva possessed the power of speech, and the
other was one which had been forced from his
inmost being by her voice. It sounded as clear
as was her glance; not sharp, but reminiscent of
the tones of a bell, her voice passed through the
sunny silence over the blooming poppy-field, and
the young archaeologist suddenly realized that he
had already heard it thus in his imagination, and
involimtarily he gave audible expression to his
feeling, "I knew that your voice sounded like
that/*

One could read in her countenance that she was
seeking comprehension of something, but was not
finding it. To his last remark she now re-
sponded, "How could you? You have never
talked with me.'*

To him it was not at all remarkable that she
spoke German, and, according to present usage,
addressed him formally; as she did it, he un-
derstood completely tiiat it could not have
happened otherwise and he answered quickly,
"No — ^not talked — ^but I called to you when you
lay down to sleep and stood near you then — ^your
face was as calmly beautiful as if it were of mar-
ble. May I beg you — rest it again on the step
in that way."

While he was speaking, something peculiar

GRAmVA 87

had oocmred. A goldai butteifijr» f am%
tinged witli red on tlie inner edge of its upper
win^ flotlaed from tlie poppies toward the pil^
lars, flitted a few times about Gradiva^s head and
tfa^i rested cm the brown» wavy hair above her
brow. At the same time» however, she rose» skn«
der and tall» for she stood up with deliberate
haste» curtly and silently directed at Norbert an»
other glance» in ^diich something suggested that
she considered him demented; then» thrusting her
foot forward» she walked out in her character-
istic way along the pillars of the old portico*
Only fleetingly visible for a while» she finally
seemed to have sunk into the earth*

He stood up» breathless» as if stunned ; yet with
heavy understanding» he had grasped what had
occ^ured before his eyes. The noonday ghost
hour was over and in the form of a butterfly, a
winged messenger had come up from the asphodel
meadows of Hades to admonish the departed one
to return. For him something else was associated
with this, although in confused indistinctness.
He knew that the beautiful butterfly of Mediter-
ranean countries bore the name Cleopatra, and
this had also been the name of Caledonian Me«
leager's young wife who, in grief over his death»
had given herself as sacrifice to those of the lower
world.

From his mouth issued a call to the girl who

68 GRADIVA

was departing, "Are you coming here again to-
morrow in the noon hour ?" Yet she did not turn
around, gave no answer, and disappeared after
a few moments in the corner of the dining-room
behind the pillar. Now a compelling impulse
suddenly incited him to hasten after her, but her
bright dress was no longer visible anywhere;
glowing with the hot sun's rays, the Casa di Me-
leagro lay about him motionless and silent; only
Cleopatra hovered on her red, shimmering, golden
wings, making slow circles again above the multi-
tude of poppies.

When and how he had returned to the "in-
gresso," Norbert Hanold could not recall; in his
memory he retained only the idea that his ap-
petite had peremptorily demanded to be ap-
peased, though very tardily, at the Diomed, and
then he had wandered forth aimlessly on the first
good street, had arrived at the beach north of
Castellamare where he had seated himself on a
lava-block, and the sea-wind had blown around his
head until the sun had set about half way between
Monte Sant' Angelo above Sorrento and Monte
Epomeo on Ischia. Yet, in spite of this stay of
at least several hours by the water, he had ob-
tained from the fresh air there no mental relief,
but was returning to the hotel in the same condi-
tion in which he had left it. He found the other

GRADIVA 69

guests busily occupied with dinner, had a little
bottle of Vesuvio wine brought to him in a comer
of the room, viewed the faces of those eating,
and listened to their conversations. From the
faces of aU, as well as from their talk, it appeared
to him absolutely certain that in the noon hour
none of them had either met or spoken to a dead
Fompeiian woman who had returned again
briefly to life. Of course all this had been a fore-
gone conclusion, as they had all been at lunch
at that time; why and wherefore, he himself
could not stated yet after a while he went over to
the competitor of the Diomed, Hotel Suisse, sat
down there also in a corner, and, as he had to
order something, likewise before a little bottle
of Vesuvio and here he gave himself over to the
same kind of investigations with eye and ear.
They led to the same results but also to the fur-
ther conclusion that he now knew by sight all the
temporary, living visitors of Fompeii. To be
sxu-e, this eflFected an increase of his knowledge
which he could hardly consider an enrichment,
but from it he experienced a certain satisfying
feeling that, in the two hostelries, no guest, either
male or female, was present with whom, by
means of sight and hearing, he had not entered
into a personal, even if one-sided, relation. Of
course, in no way had the absurd supposition en-
tered his mind that he might possibly meet

60 GRADIVA

Gradiva in one of the two hotels, but he could
have taken his oath that no one was staying in
them who possessed, in the remotest way, any
trace of resemblance to her. During his observa-
tions, he had occasionally poured wine from his
little bottle to his glass, and had drunk from
time to time; and when, in this manner, the
former had gradually become empty, he rose and
went back to the Diomed. The heavens were
now strewn with countless, flashing, twinkling
stars, but not in the traditionally stationary way,
for Norbert gathered the impression that Per-
seus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda with some
neighbors, bowing lightly hither and thither, were
performing a singing dance, and below, on earth,
too, it seemed to him that the dark shadows of the
tree-tops and buildings did not stay in the same
place. Of course on the ground of this region —
unsteady from ancient times — ^this could not be
exactly surprising, for the subterranean glow
lurked everywhere, after an eruption, and let a
little of itself rise in the vines and grapes from
which was pressed Vesuvio, which was not one
of Norbert Hanold's usual evening drinks. He
still remembered, however, even if a little of the
circular movement of things might be ascribed to
the wine, too, that since noon all objects had dis-
played an inclination to whirl softly about his
heady and therefore he foimd, in the slight in-

GRADIVA 61

crease» nothing new, but only a continuation of
the formerly existing conditions. He went up
to his room and stood for a little while at the
open window, looking over toward the Vesuvius
moimd, above which now no cone of smoke spread
its top, but rather something like the fluctuations
of a dark, purple cloak flowed back and forth
around it. Then the young archaeologist un-
dressed, without having lighted the light, and
sought his couch. Yet, as he stretched himself
out upon it, it was not his bed at the Diomed, but
a red poppy-field whose blossoms closed over him
like a soft cushion heated by the sun. His
enemy, the common house-fly, constrained by
darkness to lethargic stupidity, sat fiftyfold
above his head, on the wall, and only one, moved,
even in its sleepiness, by desire to torture, buzzed
about his nose. He recognized it, however, not
as the absolute evil, the century-old scourge of
humanity, for before his eyes it poised like a red-
gold Cleopatra.

When, in the morning, the sun, with lively as-
sistance from the flies, awoke him, he could not
recall what, besides strange, Ovid-like metamor-
phoses, had occurred during the night about his
bed. Yet doubtless some mystic being, contin-
uously weaving dream- webs, had been sitting be-
side him, for he felt his head completely over-
hung and filled with them, so that all ability to

62 6RADIVA

think lay inextricably imprisoned in it and only
one thing remained in his consciousness; he must
again be in Meleager's house at exactly noon.
In this connection, however, a fear overcame him,
for if the gatekeepers at the "ingresso" looked at
him, they would not let him in. Anyway it was
not advisable that he should expose himself to
close observation by human eyes. To escape
that, there was, for one well informed about Pom-
peii, a means which was, to be sure, against the
rules, but he was not in a condition to grant to
legal regulation a determination of his conduct.
So he climbed again, as on the evening of his ar-
rival, along the old city-wall, and upon it walked,
in a wide semicircle, around the city of ruins to
the solitary, ungarded Porta di Nola. Here it
was not difficult to get down into the inside and
he went, without burdening his conscience very
much over the fact that by his autocratic deed he
had deprived the administration of a two-lira en-
trance fee, which he could, of course, let it have
later in some other way.

Thus, imseen, he had reached an uninteresting
part of the city, never before investigated by any
one and still mostly unexcavated; he sat down in
a secluded, shady nook and waited, now and then
drawing his watch to observe the progress of
time. Once his glance fell upon something in
the distance gleaming, silvery-white, rising from

6RADIVA 68

the ashes» but with his unreliable vision» he was
unable to distinguish what it was. Yet invol-
untarily he was impelled to go up to it and there
it stood» a tall» flowering asphodel-plant with
white» bell-like blossoms whose seeds the wind had
carried thither from outside. It was the flower
of the lower world» significant and, as he felt,
destined to grow here for his purpose. He broke
the slender stem and returned with it to his seat.
Hotter and hotter the May sun burned down as
on the day before» and finally approached its
noonday position; so now he started out through
the long Strada di Nola. This lay deathly still
and deserted» as did almost all the others; over
there to the west all the morning visitors were
already crowding again to the Porta Marina and
the soup-plates. Only the air» suffused with
heat» stirred» and in the dazzling glare the sol-
itary figure of Norbert Hanold with the asphodel
branch appeared like that of Hermes» Psyche's
escort» in modem attire» starting out upon the
journey to conduct a departed soul to Hades.

Not consciously» yet following an instinctive
impulse» he found his way through the Strada
della Fortuna farther along to the Strada di
Mercurio and turning to the right arrived at the
Casa di Meleagro. Just as lifelessly as yester-
3ay, the vestibule, inner court and peristyle re-
ceived him» and between the pillars of the latter

64 6RADIVA

the poppies of the dining-room flamed across to
him. As he entered, however, it was not clear to
him whether he had been here yesterday or two
thousand years ago to seek from the owner of the
house some information of great importance to
archaeology; what it was, however, he could not
state, and besides, it seemed to him, even though
in contradiction to the above, that all the science
of antiquity was the most purposeless and indif-
ferent thing in the world. He could not under-
stand how a human being could occupy himself
with it, for there was only a single thing to which
all thinking and investigation must be directed:
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 — or had been the day be-
fore, perhaps the one time in a century or a thou-
sand years, for it suddenly seemed certain that
his return to-day was in vain. He did not meet
the girl he was looking for, because she was not
allowed to come again until a time when he too
would have been dead for many years, and was
buried and forgotten. Of course, as he walked
now along by the wall below Paris awarding the
apple, he perceived Gradiva before him, just as
on yesterday, in the same gown, sitting between
the same, two, yellow pillars on the same step.
Yet he did not allow himself to be deceived b^

GRADIVA 66

tricks of imagination, but knew that fancy alone
was deceptively depicting before his eyes what he
had really seen there the day before. He could
not refrain, however, from stopping to indulge
in the view of the shadowy apparition created by
himself and, without his Imowing it, there passed
from his lips in a grieved tone the words, **.Oh
that you were still alive 1'*

His voice rang out, but after that breathless
silence again reigned among the ruins of the old
dining-room. Yet soon another sounded through
the vacant stillness, saying, "Won't you sit down
too? You look exhausted."

Norbert Hanold's heart stood still a moment.
His head, however, collected this much reason; a
vision could not speak; or was an aural hallucina-
tion practicing deception upon him? With fixed
gaze, he supported himself against the pillar.

Then again asked the voice, and it was the one
which none other than Gradiva possessed, "Are
you bringing me the white flowers?'*

Dizziniess rushed upon him; he felt that his
feet no longer supported him, but forced him to
be seated; and he slid down opposite her on the
step, against the pillar. Her bright eyes were
directed toward his face, yet with a diflFerent look
from the one with which she had gazed at him
yesterday when she suddenly rose and went away.
In that, something ill-humored and repellent had

66 6RADIVA

spoken; but it had disappeared, as if she had» in
the meanwhile, arrived at a different view-pointf
and an expression of searching inquisitiveness or
curiosity had taken its place. Likewise, she
spoke with an easy familiarity. As he remained
silent, however, to the last question also, she
again resumed, '"You told me yesterday that
you had once called to me when I lay down to
sleep and that you had afterwards stood near me;
my face was as white as marble. When and
where was that? I cannot remember it and I beg
you to explain more exactly."

Norbert had now acquired enough power of
speech to answer, '^In the night when you sat on
the steps of the Temple of Apollo in the Forum
and the fall of ashes from Vesuvius covered you."

"So — ^then. Yes, to be sure, — ^that had not oc-
curred to me^ but I might have thought that it
would be a case like that. When you said it
yesterday, I was not expecting it and I was ut-
terly unprepared. Yet that happened, if I re-
call correctly, two thousand years ago. Were
you living then? It seems to me you look
younger."

She spoke very seriously, but at the end a
faint, extremely sweet smile played about her
mouth. He hesitated in embarrassment and an-
swered, stuttering slightly, "No, I really don't
believe I was alive in the year 79 — ^it was per-

GRADIVA 67

haps — ^yes, it surely is a psychic condition which
is called a dream that transported me into the
time of the destruction of Pompeii — ^but I recog-
nized you again at first glance."

In the expression of the girl sittmg opposite
him, a few feet away, surprise was apparent and
she repeated in a tone of amazement, "You rec-
ognized me again? In the dream? By what?"

"At the very first; by your manner of walk-
ing."

"Had you noticed that? And have I a special
manner of walking?"

Her astonishment had grown perceptibly.
He replied, "Yes — don't you realize that? A
more graceful one — ^at least among those now liv-
ing — does not exist. Yet I recognized you im-«
mediately by everything else too, your figure,
face, bearing and drapery, for everything agreed
most minutely with the bas-relief of you in
Rome."

"Ah, really — " she repeated in her former
tone, — "with the bas-relief of me in Home. Yes,
I hadn't thought of that either, and at this mo-
ment I don't know exactly — ^what is it — ^and you
saw it there then?"

Now he told her that the sight of it had at-
tracted him so that he had been highly pleased to
get a plaster-cast of it in Germany and that for
years it had hung in his room. He observed it

68 GRADIVA

daily and the idea had come to him that it must
represent a young Pompeiian girl who was walk-
ing on the stepping-stones of a street in her na-
tive city; and the dream had confirmed it. Now
he knew also that he had been impelled by it to
travel here again to see whether he could find
some trace of her; and as he had stood yesterday
noon at the comer of Strada di Mercurio, slie»
herself, exactly like her image had suddenly
walked before him across the stepping-stones» as
if she were about to go over into the house of
Apollo. Then farther along she had recrossed
the street and disappeared before the house of
Meleager.

To this she nodded and said, ''Yes, I intended
to look up the house of Apollo, but I came here."

He continued, "On that account the Greek
poet, Meleager, came to my mind and I thought
that you were one of his descendants and were
returning — ^in the hour which you are allowed —
to yoiu- ancestral home. When I spoke to you
in Greek, however, you did not understand."

"Was that Greek? No, I don't understand it
or IVe probably forgotten it. Yet as you came
again just now, I heard you say something that
I could understand. You expressed the wish
that some one might stUl be alive here. Only I
did not understand whom you meant by that."

That caused him to reply that, at sight of her.

GRADIVA 69

he had believed that it was not really she, but
that his imagination was deceptively putting her
image before him in the place where he had met
her yesterday. At that she smiled and agreed,
"It seems that you have reason to be on your
guard against an excess of imagination, although,
when I have been with you, I never supposed
so.'* She stopped, however, and added, "What
is there peculiar about my way of walking, which
you spoke of before?"

It was noteworthy that her aroused interest
brought her back to that, and he said, "If I may
ask—''

With that he stopped, for he suddenly remem-
bered with fear that yesterday she had suddenly
risen and gone away when he had asked her to lie
down to sleep again on that step, as on that of
the Temple of Apollo, and, associated darkly with
this, there came to him the glance which she had
directed upon him in departing. Yet now the
calm, friendly expression of her eyes remained
and as he spoke no further, she said, "It was nice
that your wish that some one might still be alive
concerned me. If you wish to ask anything of
me on that accoimt, I will gladly respond.'*

That overcame his fear, and he replied, "It
would make me happy to get a close view of you
walking as you do in the bas-relief."

Willingly, without answering, she stood up and

70 GRADIVA

walked along between the wall and the pillars.
It was the very buoyantly reposeful gait, with
the sole raised almost perpendicularly, that was
so firmly imprinted on his mind, but for the first
time he saw that she wore, below the raised gown,
not sandals, but light, sand-colored shoes of fine
leather. When she came back and sat down
again silently, he involuntarily started to talk of
the difference in her foot-covering from that of
the bas-relief. To that she rejoined, *'Time, of
course, always changes everything, and for the
present sandals are not suitable, so I put on
shoes, which are a better protection against rain
and dust; but why did you ask me to walk before
you? What is there peculiar about it?'*

Her repeated wish to learn this proved her not
entirely free from feminine curiosity. He now
explained that it was a matter of the peculiarly
upright position of the rising foot, as she walked,
and he added how for weeks he had tried to ob-
serve the gait of modern women on the streets in
his native city. Yet it seemed that this beautiful
way of walking had been completely lost to them,
with the exception, perhaps, of a single one who
had given him the impression that she walked
in that way. To be sure, he had not been able to
establish this fact because of the crowd about her,
and he had probably experienced an illusion, for

GRÄDIVA 71

it Had seemed to him that her features had re-
sembled somewhat those of Gradiva.

'"What a shame," she answered. "For con-
firmation of the fact would surely have been of
great scientific importance, and if you had suc-
ceeded, perhaps you would not have needed to
take the long journey here; but whom were you
just speaking of? Who is Gradiva?''

"I have named the bas-relief that, because I
didn't know your real name and don't know it
yet, either.'^

This last he added with some hesitancy and
she faltered a moment before replying to the
indirect question, "My name is Zoe."

With pained tone the words escaped him:
^^The name suits you beautifully, but it sounds
to me like bitter mockery, for *Zoe' means *life.' "

"One must adapt himself to the inevitable,"
she responded. "And I have long accustomed
myself to being dead; but now my time is over
for to-day; you have brought the grave-fiower
with you to conduct me back. So give it to me."

As she rose and stretched forth her slender
hand, he gave her the asphodel cluster, but was
careful not to touch her fingers. Accepting the
flowering branch, she said, "I thank you. To
those who are more fortunate one gives roses in
spring, but for me the flower of oblivion is the

78 GRADIVA

right one from your hand. To-morrow I shall
be allowed to come here again at this hour. If
your way leads you again into the house of Me-
leager, we can sit together at the edge of the
poppies, as we did to-day. On the threshold
stands *Ave' and I say it to you, *Ave'I"

She went out and disappeared, as yesterday,
at the turn in the portico, as if she had there simk
into the ground. Everything lay empty and
silent again, but, from some distance, there once
rang, short and clear, a sound like the merry note
of a bird flying over the devastated city. This
was stifled immediately, however. Norbert, who
had remained behind, looked down at the step
where she had just been sitting; there something
white shimmered; it seemed to be the papyrus leaf
which Gradiva had held on her knees yesterday
and had forgotten to take with her to-day. Yet
as he shyly reached for it, he f oimd it to be a little
sketch-book with pencil drawings of the different
ruins in several houses of Pompeii. The page
next to the last showed a drawing of the grifiin-
table in the central court of the Casa di Meleagro,
and on the last was the beginning of a reproduc-
tion of the view across the poppies of the dining-
room through the row of pillars qf the peristyle.
That the departed girl made drawings in a sketch-
book of the pj-esent mode was as amazing as had
been the fact that she expressed her thoughts in

GRADIVA 73

Grerman. Yet those were only insignificant
prodigies beside the great one of her revivifica-
tion, and apparently she used the midday hour
of freedom to preserve for herself, in their present
state, with unusual artistic talent, the surroimd-
ings in which she had once lived. The drawings
testified to delicately cultivated powers of percep-
tion, as each of her words did to a clever intel-
lect; and she had probably often sat by the old
griffin-table, so that it was a particularly precious
remjnder.

Mechanically Norbert also went, with the little
book, along the portico and at the place where
this turned, he noticed in the wall a narrow cleft
wide enough to afford, to an unusually slender
figure, passage into the adjoining building, and
even farther to the Vicolo del Fauno at the other
side of the house. Suddenly, however, the idea
fiashed through his mind that Zoe-Gradiva did
not sink into the ground here — ^that was essen-
tially unreasonable, and he could not understand
how he had ever believed it — ^but went, on this
street, back to her tomb. That must be in the
Street of Tombs and rushing forth, he hastened
out into the Strada di Merciu*io and as far as the
gate of Hercules; but when, breathless and reek-
ing with perspiration, he entered this, it was al-
ready too late. The broad Strada di Sepolcri
jßtretched out empty and dazzlingly w;hite, only

74 GRADIVA

at its extremity, behind the glimmering curtain of
radiance, a faint shadow seemed to dissolve mi-
certainly before the Villa of Diomede.

Norbert Hanold passed the second half of the
day with a feeling that Pompeii was everywhere,
or at least wherever he stopped, veiled in a cloud
of mist. It was not gray, gloomy and melan-
choly as formerly, but rather cheerful and vari-
colored to an extraordinary degree, blue, red and
brown, chiefly a light-yellowish white and ala-
baster white, interwoven with golden threads of
simbeams. This injiu*ed neither his power of
vision, nor that of hearing, only, because of it,
thinking was impossible, and that produced a
cloud-wall whose effect rivaled the thickest mist.
To the yoimg archaeologist it seemed alm.ost as if
hoiu-ly, in an invisible and not otherwise notice-
able way, there was brought to him a little bottle
of Vesuvio wine, which produced a continuous
whirling in his head. From this he instinctively
sought to free himself by the use of correctives, on
the one hand drinking water frequently, and on
the other hand moving about as much and as far
as possible. His knowledge of medicine was not
comprehensive, but it helped him to the diagnosis
that this strange condition must arise from ex-
cessive congestion of blood in his head, perhaps
associated with accelerated action of the heart; for

GRADIVA 76

he felt the latter, — something formerly quite im-
known to him — occasionally beating fast against
his chest. Otherwise, his thoughts, which could
not penetrate into the outer world, were not in the
least inactive within, or more exactly, there was
only one thought there, which had come into sole
possession and carried on a restless, though vain
activity. It continually turned about the ques-
tion of what physical nature Zoe-Gradiva might
possess, whether during her stay in the house of
Meleager she was a corporeal being or only an
illusory representation of what she had formerly
been. For the former, physical, physiological
and anatomical facts seemed to argue that she had
at her disposal organs of speech and could hold a
pencil with her fingers. Yet Norbert was over-
whelmed with the idea that if he should touch her,
even lightly place his hand on hers, he would then
encounter only empty air. A peculiar impulse
urged him to make sure of this, but an equally
great timidity hindered him from even thinking
of doing it. For he felt that the confirmation of
either of the two possibilities must bring with it
something inspiring fear. The corporeal exist-
ence of the hand would thrill him with horror, and
its lack of substance would cause him deep pain.
Occupied vainly with this problem, which was
impossible to solve scientifically, without experi-
ment, he arrived, in the course of his extensive

76 GRADIVA

wanderings that afternoon, at the foothills of the
big mountain group of Monte Sant' Angelo, ris-
ing south from Pompeii, and here he unexpect-
edly came upon an elderly man, already gray-
bearded, who, from his equipment with all sorts of
implements, seemed to be a zoologist or botanist
and appeared to be making a search oa a hot,
sunny slope. He turned his head, as Norbert
came close to him, looked at the latter in sur-
prise for a moment and then said, "Are you
interested in Faraglionerms? I should hardly
have supposed it, but it seems thoroughly prob-
able that they are found not only in the Faraglioni
of Capri, but also dwell permanently on the main-
land. 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—"

The speaker stopped, stepped carefully for-
ward a few paces and, stretched out motionless on
the groimd, held a little snare, made of a long
grassblade, before a narrow crevice in the rock,
from which the blue, chatoyant, little head of a
lizard peeped. Thus the man remained without
the slightest movement, and Norbert Hanold
timied about noiselessly behind him and returned
by the way he had come. It seemed to him dimly
that he had already seen the face of the lizard-
hunter once, probably in one of the two hotels;

GRADIVA 77

to this fact the latter's manner pointed. It was
hardly credible what foolishly remarkable pur-
poses could cause people to make the long trip to
Pompeii; happy that he had succeeded in so
quickly ridding himself of the snare-layer, and
being again able to direct his thoughts to the prob-
lem of corporeal reality or imreality, he started
on the return. Yet a side street misled him once
to a wrong turn and took him, instead of to the
west boundary, to the east end of the extensive
old city- wall; buried in thought, he did not notice
the mistake imtil he had come right up to a build-
ing which was neither the Diomed nor the
Hotel Suisse. In spite of this it bore the sign
of a hotel; nearby he recognized the ruins of the
large Fompeiian amphitheater and the memory
came to him that, near this latter, there was an-
other hotel, the Albergo del Sole, which, on
account of its remoteness from the station, was
sought out by only a few guests and had remained
unknown to even him. The walk had made him
hot; besides, the cloudy whirling in his head had
not diminished; so he stepped in through the open
door and ordered the remedy deemed useful by
him for blood congestion, a bottle of lime-water.
The room stood empty except, of coiu'se, for the
fly-visitors gathered in full numbers, and the un-
occupied host availed himself of the opportunity
to recommend highly his house and the excavated

78 GRADIVA

treasures it contained. He pointed suggestively
to the fact that there were, near Pompeii, people
at whose places there was not a single, genuine
piece among the many objects offered for sale,
but that all were imitations, while he, satisfying
himself with a smaller number, offered his guests
only things undoubtedly genuine. For he ac-
quired no articles which he himself had not seen
brought to the light of day, and, in the course
of his eloquence, he revealed that he had also been
present when they had found near the Forum the
young lovers who had clasped each other in firm
embrace when they realized their inevitable de-
struction and had thus awaited death. Norbert
had already heard of this discovery, but had
shrugged his shoulders about it as a fabulous in-
vention of some especially imaginative narrator,
and he did so now, too, when the host brought in to
him, as authentic proof, a metal brooch encrusted
with green patina, which, in his presence, had
been gathered with the remains of the girl from
the ashes. When the arrival at the Sun Hotel
took it in his own hand, however, the power of
imagination exercised such ascendency over him
that suddenly, without further critical considera-
tion, he paid for it the price asked from English
people, and, with his acquisition, hastily left the
Albergo del Sole, in which, after another turn,
he saw, in an open window, nodding down, an

GRADIVA 79

asphodel branch covered with white blossoms,
which had been placed in a water-glass; and with-
out needing any logical connection, it rushed
through his mind, at the sight of the grave-flower,
that it was an attestation of the genuineness of
his new possession.

This he viewed with mingled feelings of ex-
citement and shyness, keeping now to the way
along the city-wall to Porta Marina. Then it
was no fairy tale that a couple of young lovers
had been excavated near the Forum in such an
embrace, and there at the Apollo temple he had
seen Gradiva lie down to sleep, but only in a
dream; that he knew now quite definitely; in
reality she might have gone on still farther from
the Forum« met some one and died with him.

From the green brooch between his fingers a
feeling passed through him that it had belonged to
Zoe-Gradiva, and had held her dress closed at the
throat. Then she was the beloved fiancee, per-
haps the young wife of him with whom she had
wished to die.

It occurred to Norbert Hanold to hurl the
brooch away. It burned his fingers as if it had
become glowing, or more exactly, it caused him
the pain such as he had felt at the idea that he
might put his hand on that of Gf adiva and en-
counter only empty air.

Reason, nevertheless, asserted the upper hand;

80 GRADIVA

he did not allow himself to be controlled by im-
agination against his wilL However probable it
might be, there was still lacking invincible proof
that the brooch had belonged to her and that it had
been she, who had been discovered in the yoimg
man's arms. This judgment made it possible
for him to breathe freely, and when, at the dawn
of twiUght, he reached the Diomed, his long wan-
dering had brought to his sound constitution need
of physical refreshment. Not without appetite
did he devour the rather Spartan evening meal
which the Diomed, in spite of its Argive origin,
had adopted, and be then noticed two guests,
newly-arrived in the course of the afternoon. By
appearance and language they marked themselves
as Grcrmans, a man and a woman; they both had
youthful, attractive features endowed with in-
tellectual expressions; their relation to each other
could not be determined, yet, because of a certain
resemblance, Norbert decided that they were
brother and sister. To be sure the young man's
fair hair differed in color from her light-brown
tresses. In her gown she wore a red Sorrento
rose, the sight of which, as he looked across from
his corner, stirred something in his memory with-
out his being able to think what it was. The
couple were the first people he had met on his
joimiey who seemed possibly congenial. They
talked with one another, over a little bottle, in not

GRADIVA 81

too plainly audible tones, nor in cautious whis-
perings, apparently sometimes about serious
things and sometimes about gay things, for at
times there passed over her face a half -laughing
expression which was very becoming to her, and
aroused the desire to participate in their conver-
sation, or perhaps might have awakened it in
Norbert, if he had met them two days before in
the room otherwise populated only by Anglo-
Americans, Yet he felt that what was passing
through his mind stood in too strong contrast to
the happy naivety of the couple about whom there
undeniably lay not the slightest cloud, for they
doubtless were not meditating profoundly over
the essential nature of a girl who had died two
thousand years ago, but, without any weariness,
were taking pleasure in an enigmatical problem
of their life of the present. His condition did not
harmonize with that; on the one hand he seemed
superfluous to them, and on the other, he recoiled
from an attempt to start an acquaintance with
them, for he had a dark feeling that their bright,
merry eyes might look through his forehead into
his thoughts and thereby assume an expression
as if they did not consider him quite in his right
mind. Therefore he went up to his room, stood,
as yesterday, at the window, looking over to the
purple night-mantle of Vesuvius and then he lay
down to rest. Exhausted, he soon fell asleep and

8S GRADIVA

dreamed, but remarkably nonsensically. Some-
where in the smi 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 the greatest success."

Norbert Hanold became conscious in his dream
that it was actually the most utter madness, and
he cast about to free himself from it. He suc-
ceeded in this by the aid of an invisible bird, who
seemingly uttered a short, merry call, and car-
ried the lizard away in its beak; afterwards every-
thing disappeared.

On awakening, he remembered that in the
night a voice had said that in the spring one gave
roses, or rather this was recalled to him through
his eyes, for his gaze, passing down from the win-
dow, came upon a bright bush of red flowers.
They were of the same kind as those which the
young lady had worn in her bosom, and when he
went down, he involuntarily plucked a couple and
smelled of them. In fact, there must be some-
thing peculiar about Sorrento roses, for their
fragrance seemed to him not only wonderful, but
quite new and unfamiliar, and at the same time
he felt that they had a somewhat liberating ef-
fect upon his mind. At least they freed him
from yesterday's timidity before the gatekeepers»

GRADIVA 83

for he went, according to directions, in through
the "ingresso" to Pompeii, paid double the
amount of admission fee, and quickly struck out
upon streets which took him from the vicinity of
other visitors. The little sketch-book, from the
house of Meleager, he carried along with the
green brooch and the red roses, but the fragrance
of the latter had made him forget to eat break-
fast and his thoughts were not in the present, but
were directed exclusively to the noon hoiu* which
was still far oflF; he had to pass the remaining in-
terval and for this purpose he entered now one
house, now another, as a result of which activity
the idea probably occurred to him that Gradiva
had also walked there often before or even now
sought these places out sometimes — ^his supposi-
tion that she was able to do it only at noon was
tottering. Perhaps she was at liberty to do it in
other hours of the day, possibly even at night in
the moonlight. The roses strengthened this sup-
position strangely for him, when he inhaled, as he
held them to his nose; and his deliberations, com-
plaisant, and open to conviction, made advances
to this new idea, for he could bear witness that
he did not cling to preconceived opinions at all,
but rather gave free rein to every reasonable ob-
jection, and such there was here without any
doubt, not only logically, but desirably valid.
Only the question arose whether, upon meeting

84 GRADIVA

her then, the eyes of others could see her as a
corporeal heing, or whether only his possessed the
ability to do that. The former was not to be de-
nied, claimed even probability for itself, trans-
formed the desirable thing into quite the opposite,
and transported him into a low-spirited, restless
mood. The thought that others might also speak
to her, and sit down near her to carry on a con-
versation with her, made him indignant; to that
he alone possessed a claim, or at any rate a privi-
lege, for he had discovered Gradiva, of whom no
one had formerly known, had observed her daily,
taken her into his life, to a degree, imparted to
her his life-strength, and it seemed to him as if
he had thereby again lent to her life that she
would not have possessed without him. There-
fore he felt that there devolved upon him a right,
to which he alone might make a claim and which
he might refuse to share with any one else.

The advancing day was hotter than the two
preceding; the sun seemed to have set her mind
to-day on a quite extraordinary feat, and made it
regrettable, not only in an archaeological, but also
in a practical connection, that the water system
of Pompeii had lain burst and dried up for two
thousand years. Street fomitains here and there
commemorated it and likewise gave evidence of
their informal use by thirsty passers-by, who had,
in order to bend forward to the jet, leaned a hand

n

GRADIVA 85

on the marble railing and gradually dug out a
sort of trough in the place, in the same way that
dropping wears away stone; Norbert observed
this at a corner of the Strada della Fortuna, and
from that the idea occurred to him that the hand
of Zoe-Gradiva, too, might formerly have rested
here in that way, and involimtarily he laid his
hand into the little hollow, yet he immediately re-
jected the idea, and felt annoyance at himself
that he could have done it; the thought did not
harmonize at all with the nature and bearing of
the young Fompeiian girl of a refined family;
there was something profane in the idea that she
could have bent over so and placed her lips on the
very pipe from which the plebeians drank with
coarse mouths. In a noble sense, he had never
seen anything more seemly than her actions and
movements; he was frightened by the idea that she
might be able to see by looking at him that he had
had the incredibly unreasonable thought, for her
eyes possessed something penetrating; a couple
of times, when he had been with her, the feeling
had seized him that she looked as if she were seek-
ing for access to his inmost thoughts and were
looking about them as if with a bright steel probe.
He was obliged, therefore, to take great care that
she might come upon nothing foolish in his mental
processes.

It was now an hour until noon and in order to

86 GRADIVA

pass it, he went diagonally across the street into
the Casa del Fauno, the most extensive and mag-
nificent of» all the excavated houses. Like no
other, it possessed a double inner court and
showed, in the larger one, on the middle of the
ground, the empty base on which had stood the
famous statue of the dancing f aim after which
the house had been named. Yet there stirred in
Norbert Hanold not the least regret that this
work of art, valued highly by science, was no
longer here, but, together with the mosaic picture
of the Battle of Alexander, had been transferred
to the Museo Nazionale in Naples; he possessed
no further intention nor desire than to let time
move along, and he wandered about aimlessly in
this place through the large building. Behind
the peristyle opened a wider room, surroimded by
numerous pillars, planned either as another repe-
tition of the peristyle or as an ornamental garden;
so it seemed at present for, like the dining-room
of the Casa di Meleagro, it was completely cov-
ered with poppy-blooms. Absentmindedly the
visitor passed through the silent dereliction.

Then, however, he stopped and rested on one
foot; but he found himself not alone here; at
some distance his glance fell upon two figures,
who first gave the impression of only one, be-
cause they stood as closely as possible to each
other. They did not see him, for they were con-

GRADIVA 87

cemed only with themselves, and, in that corner,
because of the pillars, might have believed them-
selves midiscoverable by any other eyes. Mu-
tually embracing each other, they held their lips
also pressed together and the unsuspected spec-
tator recognized, to his amazement, that they
were the young man and woman who had last
evening seemed to him the first congenial people
encountered on this trip. For brother and sister,
their present position, the embrace and the kiss,
it seemed to him, had lasted too long. So it was
surely another pair of lovers, probably a young
bridal couple, an Augustus and Gretchen, too.
Strange to relate, however, the two latter did
not, at the moment, enter Norbert's mind, and the
incident seemed to him not at all ridiculous nor
repulsive, rather it heightened his pleasure in
them. What they were doing seemed to him as
natural as it did comprehensible; his eyes clung
to the living picture, more widely open than they
ever had been to any of the most admired works
of art, and he would have gladly devoted himself
for a longer time to his observation. Yet it
seemed to him that he had wrongfully penetrated
into a consecrated place and was on the point of
disturbing a secret act of devotion; the idea of
being noticed there struck terror to his heart and
he quickly turned, went back some distance
noiselessly on tiptoe and, when he had passed be-

88 GRADIVA

yond hearing distance, ran out with bated breath
and beating heart to the Vicolo del Faiino.

When he arrived before the house of Meleager,
he did not know whether it was ah-eady noon, and
did not happen to question his watch about it» but
remained before the door, standing looking down
with indecision for some time at the "Ave" in the
entrance. A fear prevented him from stepping
in, and strangely, he was equally afraid of not
meeting Gradiva within, and of finding her there;
for, during the last few moments, he had felt
quite sure that, in the first case, she would be stay«
ing somewhere else with some younger man, and,
in the second case, the latter would be in company
with her on the steps between the pillars. To-
ward the man, however, he felt a hate far stronger
than against all the assembled common house-
flies; imtil to-day he had not considered it pos-
sible that he could be capable of such violent in-
ner excitement. The duel, which he had always
considered stupid nonsense, suddenly appeared to
him in a different light; here it became a natural
right which the man injured in his own rights, or
mortally insulted, made use of as the only avail-
able means to secure satisfaction or to part with
an existence which had become purposeless. So
he suddenly stepped forward to enter; he would
challenge the bold man and would — ^this rushed

GRADIVA 89

upon him almost more powerfully — express un-
reservedly to her that he had considered her some-
thing better, more noble, and incapable of such
vulgarity.

He was so filled to the brim with this rebellious
idea that he uttered it, even though there was not
apparently the least occasion for it, for, when he
had covered the distance to the dining-room with
stormy haste, he demanded violently, "Are you
alone?" although appearances allowed of no
doubt that Gradiva was sitting there on the steps,
just as much alone as on the two previous days.

She looked at him amazed and replied, "Who
should still be here after noon? Then the people
are all hungry and sit down to meals. Nature
has arranged that very happily for me."

His surging excitement could not, however, be
allayed so quickly and without his knowledge or
desire, he let slip, with the conviction of certainty,
the conjecture which had come over him outside;
for he added, to be sure somewhat foolishly, that
he could really not think otherwise.

Her bright eyes remained fixed upon his face
until he had finished. Then she made a motion
with one finger against her brow and said,
"You — " After that, however, she continued,
"It seems to me quite enough that I do not re-
main away from here, even though I must expect
that you are coming here at this time; but th^

90 GRADIVA

place pleases me and I see that you have brought
me my sketch-book that I forgot here yesterday.
I thank you for your vigilance. Won't you give
it to me?"

The last question was well founded for he
showed no disposition to do so, but remained mo-
tionless. It began to dawn upon him that he had
imagined and worked out a monstrous piece of
nonsense, and had also given expression to it;
in order to compensate, as far as possible, he now
stepped forward hastily, handed Gradiva the
book, and at the same time sat down near her on
the step, mechanically. Casting a glance at his
hand, she said, "You seem to be a lover of roses."

At these words he suddenly became conscious
of what had caused him to pluck and bring them
and he responded, "Yes, — of course, not for my-
self, have I — ^you spoke yesterday — and last
night, too, some one said it to me — ^people give
them in spring."

She pondered briefly, before she answered,
"Ah, so — ^yes, I remember. To others, I meant,
one does not give asphodel, but roses. That is
polite of you; it seems your opinion of me is im-
proved."

Her hand stretched out to receive the red
flowers and, handing them to her, he rejoined, "I
believed at flrst that you could be here only dur-
ing the noon hoiu*, but it has become probable to

GRADIVA 91

me that you also, at some other time — ^that makes
me very happy — "

"Why does it make you happy?"

Her face expressed lack of comprehension —
only about her lips there passed a slight, hardly
noticeable quiver. Confused he oflFered, "It is
beautiful to be alive; it has never seemed so much
so to me before — I wished to ask you?" He
searched in his breast pocket and added, as he
drew out the object, "Has this brooch ever be-
longed to you?"

She leaned forward a little toward it, but shook
her head, "No, I can't remember. Chronologi-
cally it would, of course, not be impossible, for it
probably did not exist imtil this year. Did you
find it in the sun perhaps? The beautiful, green
patina surely seems familiar to m.e, 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 favorite interjection and

92 GRADIVA

she stopped after it for a moment, before she
added, "Did you think that on that accomit I
might have worn it? and would that have made
you a little — ^how did you say it before? — un-
happy?"

It was apparent that he felt extraordinarily re-
lieved 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 morn-
ing? That easily aggravates such attacks; I do
not suffer from them, but I make provisions, as it
suits me best to be here at noon. If I can help
you out of your imf ortunate 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 be-
tween 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 favorable effect on the clearing of

GRADIVA 93

his thoughts. So, for a little while, the couple
did not speak further, but devoted themselves si-
lently 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 Pom-
peii such a long time ago would no longer har-
monize with sound reason; ev^rjrthing about her
seemed of the present, as if it could be scarcely
more than twenty years old. The form and color
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 con-
tained something in the highest degree incon-
sistent. 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

94 GRADIVA

or had been living again could only have hap-
pened 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 Me-
leagro, the boldness of the conmion 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 incompre- I
bending astonishment and repeated, "The flies? j
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
imited in the young archaeologist two powerful

GRADIVA 95

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 neighbor.

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 imdoubtedly 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 appar-
ently 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 peo-
ple who had come near unobserved ; before his con-
fused 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,
"2JoeI You here, too? and also on your honey-
moon? 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 light-

96 GRADIVA

ning-Iike illumination in him^ was the only thing
that he could do not to present a thorou^y ridic-
ulous 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, himian hand, not unsub-
stantial, but possessing corporeal reality, had ex-
pressed 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 hap-
pened 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 soli-
tary silence was absolutely required; at first, how-
ever, 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 sur-

GRADIVA ' 97

prised 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 in-
stant, there was no trace to be seen in her bright
countenance; she stood up quickly, stepped to-
ward 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 ap-
parently need not change my congratidations for
condolence. Couples to whom that would be ap-
plied are at this time usually sitting at lunch in
Pompeii; you are probably staying near the *in-
gresso'; 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,
imlike yours, is not adorned by a ring. The at-
mosphere 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 nwin who just went out is
laboring 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

98 GRADIVA

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 my-
self that I should certainly dig up something in-
teresting alone here. Of course I had not reck-
oned at all on the find which I made — I mean the
good fortune of meeting you, Gisa; but I am talk-
ing 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, there-
fore, 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, Gi-
setta I That much Italian I have already learned
and one really does not need more. Whatever
else is necessary one can invent — ^please, no, senza
complimentir*

This last entreaty of the speaker concerned
a polite movement by which the young husband
had seemed to wish to escort her. She had ex-
pressed 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 ur-
gency of the declaration that she could not at
present remain longer. So not more than a few

GRADIVA 99

minutes had passed since the hasty exit of Nor-
bert 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 Gra-
diva-walk, and thus arrived very quickly at the
two ruins of the side wall near the Porta Erco-
lanese. 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 archaeol-
ogist 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 gray 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 heav-
ens. It was a picture diiferent from that of yes-
terday ; the brilliance which mysteriously glittered
over everything was lacking; the street also as-
sumed a certain gloomy distinctness and had at

835491

100 GRADIVA

present a dead aspect which honored its name.
This impression was not diminished by an iso-
lated movement at its end» but was rather height-
ened by it; there, in the vicinity of the Villa of
Diomede» a phantom seemed to be looking for
its grave» and disappeared mider one of the
monuments.

It was not the shortest way from the house of
Meleager to the Albergo del Sole, rather the ex-
actly opposite direction, but Zoe-6radiva must
have also decided that time was not yet importun-
ing so violently to limch, 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 nearby for his lady, Arria, as well as
for himself and his relatives — was a very exten-
sive building and concealed within itself a part
of the history of the destruction of Pompeii not
invented by imagination. A confusion of exten-
sive niins formed the upper part; below lay an
unusually large simken garden surrounded by a
:well preserved portico of pillars with scanty rem-

GRADIVA 101

Hants 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 -subter-
ranean 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 an-
other skeleton, probably that of a servant, who
was carrying a considerable number of gold and
silver coins. The bodies of the unf ortimates 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 gar-
ment.

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 soli-
tude, 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-

10« GRADIVA

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 be-
tween 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 equilib-
rium, 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 irrefut-
able proof was adduced; not he alone, but others
also, saw her, knew that her name was Zoe 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 orig-
inate only from a supernatural power; this dual

GRADIVA 103

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 Zoe-Gradiva
again anywhere; at the same time, however, an
extraordinarily 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 miU-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 con-
trary, 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 comers 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 re-
jected. 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 consider-

104 GRADIVA

ably higher, her slender feet, which hung down
free in the sand-color 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 ap-
peared, 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 out-
side."

Now, for the first time, he saw that it was rain-
ing; 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 ridicu-
lous, and for the moment Norbert Hanold feared,
far more than danger of death, appearing ridicu-
lous. 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 tools up
the conversation. "We were interrupted before;
you were just going to tell me something about
flies — I imagined that you were making scientific

n

GRADIVA 106

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 archaeologist suddenly did not know how
to address her. In order to escape this dilenuna,
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 mad-
ness."

Gradiva's feet stopped moving and she re-
joined, still addressing him familiarly, "Your
power of understanding has not yet progressed
that far, Norbert Hanold. Of course, I can not
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, per-
plexed and half stuttering — "where is that?"

'Diagonally across from, your house, in the

106 GRADIVA

comer house; in my window, in a cage, is a ca-
nary."

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, pro-
fessor of zoology."

Norbert Hanold's eyes opened to a width never
before attained by them, and then he said, "Bert-
gang — ^then are you — are you — ^Miss Zoe Bert-
gang? But she looked quite different — ^*

The two dangling feet began again to swing a
little, and Miss Zoe Bertgang said in reply, "If
you find that form of address more suitable be-
tween 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 favored
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

GRADIVA 107

a little didactic, ill-humored curtness, and Nor-
bert had thereby been overwhelmed by a feeling
that he was running the risk of slipping into the
role of a big school-boy scolded and slapped in
the face. Tliat caused him to again seek mechan-
ically for an exit between the pillars, and to the
movement which showed this impulse Miss Zoe's
last utterance, indiflPerently added, had reference;
and, of course, in an undeniably striking way, be-
cause 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 Cam-
pagna, 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, in-
deed, made escape out into the open air impos-
sible, 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

108 GRADIVA

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 peo-
ple (I count girls such) must surely have some-
thing with which they can occupy their thoughts
and the like. Then you were that something, but
when archaeology 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 child-
hood 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 for-
merly pulled so often, were as boresome, dry and
tongue-tied as a stuffed cockatoo and at the same
time as grandiose as an — ^archaeopteryx; I believe
the excavated, antediluvian bird-monster is so
called; but that your head harbored an imagina-
tion 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 sud-

GRADIVA 109

denly stood before me unexpectedly, it cost me
some effort at first to miderstand 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."

With that, her expression and tone somewhat
mollified at the end. Miss Zoe Bertgang finished
her unreserved, detailed and instructive lecture
and it was indeed notable how exactly she then
resembled the figure of Gradiva on the bas-relief,
not only in her features, her form, her eyes, ex-
pressive of wisdom, and her charmingly wavy
hair, but also in her graceful manner of walking
which he had often seen; her drapery, too, dress
and scarf of a cream-colored, fine cashmere ma-
terial which fell in soft, voluminous folds, com-
pleted the extraordinary resemblance of her
whole appearance. There might have been much
foolishness in the belief that a young Pompeiian
girl, destroyed two thousand years ago by Ve-
suvius, could sometimes walk around alive again,
speak, draw and eat bread, but even if the belief
brought happiness, it assumed everywhere, in the
bargain, a considerable amount of incomprehen-
sibility; and in consideration of aU the circum-
stances, there was incontestably present, in the
judgment of Norbert Hanold, some mitigating

110 GRADIVA

ground for his madness in for two days consider-
ing Gradiva a resurrection.

Although he stood there dry under the portico
roof, there was established, not quite ineptly, a
comparison between him and a wet poodle, who
has had a bucketful of water thrown on his head;
but the cold shower-bath had really done him
good. Without knowing exactly why, he felt that
he was breathing much more easily. In that, of
course, the change of tone at the end of the ser-
mon — for the speaker sat as if in a pulpit-chair —
might have helped especially; at least thereat a
transfigured light appeared in his eyes, such as
awakened hope for salvation through faith pro-
duces in the eyes of an ardently affected church-
attendant; and as the rebuke was now over, and
there seemed no necessity for fearing a further
continuation, he succeeded in saying, "Yes, now
I recognize — ^no, you have not changed at all — ^it
is you, Zoe — my good, happy, clever comrade —
it is most strange— "

"That a person must die to become alive again;
but for archaeologists that is of course neces-
sary."

"No, I mean your name — "

"Why is it strange?"

The young archaeologist showed himself famil-
iar with not only the classical languages, but also

GRADIVA 111

with the etymology of German, and continued,
^'Because Bertgang has the same meaning as
Gradiva and signifies 'the one splendid in walk-

Miss Zoe Bertgang's two sandal-like shoes
were, for the moment, because of their movement,
reminiscent of an impatiently see-sawing wag-
tail waiting for something; yet the possessor of
the feet which walked so magnificently seemed
not at present to be paying any attention to philo-
logical explanations ; by her countenance she gave
the impression of being occupied with some hasty
plan, but was restrained from it by an exclama-
tion of Norbert Hanold's which audibly emanated
from deepest conviction, "What luck, though,
that you are not Gradiva, but are like the con-
genial young ladyl"

That caused an expression as of interested sur-
prise to pass over her face and she asked, "Who is
that ? Whom do you mean ?"

"The one who spoke to you in Meleager's
house."

"Do you know her?"

"Yes, I had already seen her. She was the first
person who seemed especially congenial to me."

"So? Where did you see her?"

"This morning, in the House of the Faun.
There the couple were doing something very
strange."

112 GRADIVA

''What were they doiagV

'"They did not see me and they kissed each
other/'

"That was really very reasonable, you know.
Why else are they in Pompeii on their wedding
trip?"

At one blow with the last word the former pic-
ture changed before Norbert Hanold's eyes, for
the old wall-ruin lay there empty, because the
girl, who had chosen it as a seat, teacher^s chair
and pulpit, had come down, or reaUy flown, and
with the same supple buoyancy as that of a wag-
tail swinging through the air, so that she already
stood again on 6radiva-f eet, before his glance had
consciously caught up with her descent; and con-
tinuing her speech directly, she said, "Well, the
rain has stopped; too severe rulers do not reign
long. That is reasonable, too, you know, and
thus everything has again become reasonable. I,
not least of all, and you can look up Gisa Hartle-
ben, or whatever new name she has, to be of scien-
tific assistance to her about the purpose of her stay
in Pompeii. I must now go to the Albergo del
Sole, for my father is probably waiting for me
already at lunch. Perhaps we shall meet again
sometime at a party in Germany or on the moon.
Addio!"

Zoe Bertgang said this in the absolutely polite»
but also equally indiflPerent tone of a most well-

GRADIVA 113

bred young lady, and, as was her custom, placing
her left foot forward, raised the sole of the right
almost perpendicularly to pass out. As she
lifted her dress slightly with her left hand, be-
cause of the thoroughly wet ground outside, the
resemblance to Gradiva was perfect and the man,
standing hardly more than two arm-lengths away,
noticed for the first time a quite insignificant devi-
ation in the living picture from the stone one.
The latter lacked something possessed by the for-
mer, which appeared at the moment quite clear, a
little dimple in her cheek, which produced a slight,
indefinable effect. It puckered and wrinkled a
little and could therefore express annoyance or a
suppressed impulse to laugh, possibly both to-
gether. Norbert Hanold looked at it and
although from the evidence just presented to him
he had completely regained his reason, his eyes
had to again submit to an optical illusion. For,
in a tone triumphing peculiarly over his discovery,
he cried out, "There is the fly again 1"

It sounded so strange that from the incompre-
hending listener, who could not see herself, es-
caped the question, "The fly — ^where?"

"There on your cheek 1'' and immediately the
man, as he answered, suddenly twined an arm
about her neck and snapped, this time with his
lips, at the insect so deeply abhorrent to him,
which vision juggled before his eyes deceptively

114 GRADIVA

in the little dimple. Apparently, however, with-
out success, for right afterwards he cried again,
"No, now it's on your lipsl" and thereupon, quick
as a flash, he directed thither his attempt to cap-
ture» now remaining so long that no doubt could
survive that he succeeded in completely accom-
plishing his purpose, and strange to relate the
living Gradiva did not hinder him at all, and when
her mouth, after about a minute, was forced to
struggle for breath, restored to powers of speech,
she did not say, "You are really crazy, Norbert
Hanold," but rather allowed a most charming
smile to play more visibly than before about her
red lips; she had been convinced more than ever
of the complete recovery of his reason.

The ViUa of Diomede had two thousand years
ago seen and heard horrible things in an evil hour,
yet at the present it heard and saw, for about an
hour, only things not at all suited to inspire hor-
ror. Then, however, a sensible idea became up-
permost in Miss Zoe Bertgang's mind and as a
result, she said, against her wishes, "Now, I must
really go, or my poor father will starve. It seems
to me you can to-day forego Gisa Hartleben's
company at noon, for you have nothing more to
learn from her and ought to be content with us
in the Sun Hotel."

From this it was to be concluded that during
that hour something must have been discussed.

GRADIVA 116

for it indicated a helpful desire to instruct, which
the young lady vented on Norbert. Yet, from
the reminding words, he did not gather this, but
something which, for the first time, he was becom-
ing terribly conscious of; this was apparent in the
repetition, "Yom* father — ^what will he — ?"

Miss Zoe, however, interrupted, without any
sign of awakened anxiety, "Probably he will do
nothing; I am not an indispensable piece in his
zoological collection; if I were, my heart would
probably not have clung to you so unwisely. Be-
sides, from my early years, I have been sure that a
woman is of use in the world only when she re-
lieves a man of the trouble of deciding household
matters; I generally do this for my father and
therefore you can also be rather at ease about
your future. Should he, however, by chance, in
this case, have an opinion different from mine,
we will make it as simple as possible. You go
over to Capri for a couple of days; there, with a
grass snare — ^you can practise making them on
my little finger — catch a lizard Faraglionenm.
Let it go here again, and catch it before his eyes.
Then give him free choice between it and me,
and you will have me so surely that I am sorry for
you. Toward his colleague, Eimer, however, I
feel to-day that I have formerly been ungrateful,
for without his genial invention of lizard-catch-
ing I should probably not have come into Me-

116 GRADIVA

leager's house, and that would have heen a shame,
not only for you, but for me too.

This last view she expressed outside of the Villa
of Diomede and, alas, there was no person present
on earth who could make any statements about
the voice and manner of talking of Gradiva. Yet
even if they had resembled those of Zoe Bertgang,
as everything else about her did, they must have
possessed a quite unusually beautiful and roguish
charm*

By this, at least, Norbert Hanold was so
strongly overwhelmed that, exalted to poetic
flights, he cried out, "Zoe, you dear life and lovely
present — ^we shall take our wedding-trip to Italy
and Pompeii."

That was a decided proof of how different cir- •
cumstances can also produce a transformation in
a human being and at the same time unite with
it a weakening of the memory. For it did not
occur to him at all that he would thereby expose
himself and his companion on the journey to the
danger of receiving, from misanthropic, ill-hu-
mored railway-companions, the names Augustus
and Gretchen, but at the moment he was thinking
so little about it that they walked along hand in
hand through the old Street of Tombs in Pompeii.
Of course this, too, did not stamp itself into their
minds at present as such, for a cloudless sky

GRADIVA 117

shone and laughed again above it; the sun
stretched out a golden carpet on the old lava-
blocks; Vesuvius spread its misty pine-cone; and
the whole excavated dty seemed overwhelmed,
not with pumice and ashes, but with pearls and
diamonds, by the beneficent rain-storm.

The brilliance in the eyes of the young daugh-
ter of the zoologist rivaled these, but to the an-
nounced desire about the destination of their
journey by her childhood friend who had, in a
way, also been excavated from the ashes, her wise
lips responded: "I think we won't worry about
that to-day; that is a thing which may better be
left by both of us to more and maturer considera-
tion and future promptings. I, at least, do not
yet feel quite alive enough now for such geograph-
ical decisions."

Hiat showed that the speaker possessed great
modesty about the quality of her insight into
things about which she had never thought until
to-day. They had arrived again at the Hercules
gate where, at the beginning of the Strada Con-
solare, old stepping-stones crossed the street.
Norbert Hanold stopped before them and said
with a peculiar tone, "Please go ahead here."
A merry, comprehending, laughing expression
lurked aroimd his companion's mouth, and, rais-
ing her dress slightly with her left hand, Gra-

118 GRADIVA

diva rediviva Zoe Bertgang, viewed by him with
dreamily observing eyes, crossed with her cahnly
buoyant walk, through the sunlight, over the step-
ping-stones, to the other side of the street