In vain the foster mother bids them spread velvets and satins over her that she might sleep. Notwithstanding she arises suddenly, dresses herself and goes down to the strand to Sir Tidemand, who meets her scornfully. Then she goes into the lake, whither Tidemand follows her, seized with heartfelt remorse.
"For evil the rune on the rose leaf traced And evil the work it had wrought, That two so n.o.ble, of royal grace, To ruin and death were brought."
The woful song trailed itself through Soelver"s mind like an indistinct dream. Then he believed that he distinguished Gro"s step, until it was lost in her sleeping room. With his mental vision he saw the maiden, as she looked out upon the lake toward Aebeloe. She looked away from him, of whose fate she took no thought, but gazed fixedly over the sea, which bore upon its bosom a ship with silken sails, on whose deck Sir Tidemand stood. "Then Soelver was conscious of an infinite weakness in his love toward this pure maiden, whom his coa.r.s.eness had taken into his arms, his desire had scorched with its hot breath but who had nevertheless left him benumbed in his baseness, cowardliness and weakness. Now he understood that love, in order to triumph, must first humble its own power, still its own movement and soften its brutal will. Now he comprehended that he must carve mystic runes of pa.s.sion upon his own heart as upon a glowing rose and fling it into the mighty sea of feeling, praying it to bring the maiden Gro into his hands."
Day and night Soelver"s thoughts tarried only with Gro. In his phantasies "he forced himself through the bolted door, climbed sharp angled pa.s.sage ways and winding staircases and lifted oaken beams from barred doors. Without once making a mistake, driven by a magic sense of direction, he finally reached Gro"s couch, at which he saw himself staring with great white eyes, whose pupils in the darkness of sleep had as it were glided over to the side. And upon the cover of her couch lay her two gleaming arms and the fingers of the right hand trembled as if they grasped another invisible hand. In this room Soelver remained until her sleep drew him to itself, until the heaving of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s drew him down, until her fingers entwined themselves with his, until their breath mingled and his lids closed before her pure gaze."
Another time he dreamed that he was upon a vessel, evidently in the role of Sir Tidemand. And Gro actually came over the water to him like the maiden Blidelille, "with roses like two blood spots upon her breast. She had crossed her hands beneath them and fastened her pure gaze upon Soelver, so that he was seized with terror and, without escaping her look, fled to the lee of the vessel to the edge of the ship. Yet Gro steadily drew nearer. Now she reached the ship"s border and Soelver retreated. Step by step she followed him, the painful gaze of her deathly white face absorbed by his own. And he withdrew over to the other border, drew back until he felt the railing hard behind him. Gro stepped forward alone and it was not possible to stop her; he felt as if she wished to press within him like the sped arrow to its goal. Finally, in an instant, as her garment fluttered against him, he threw himself with a loud cry to one side and saw, with a great horror, that Gro went forward, through the railing as through air and disappeared on the other side in the sea, while Soelver lay moaning upon the deck and saw before him only the red roses, which fallen from her breast crept like living blood over the ship"s planks."
Was it dream or reality, which he saw when he opened his eyes? "The sun"s rays burst forth through a crack in a long, radiant arrow, which bored itself into the floor and transfixed as it were something red that began to glow." And as Soelver crept nearer his astonishment grew deeper. "For hard by the vision of red were footprints breathed so to speak upon the floor, fine, slender prints, directed toward him, no more distinct than if a warm breeze had blown away the dampness from the surface of a stone, leaving the outline of a foot fixed there." As he now stooped down and with his hand felt for the blood red spot, his fingers actually touched "a heavy full-blown rose, whose sweet strong odor he drank as if in an intoxication of reality." No one had forced his way in through the hatchway, of this he soon convinced himself. Gro must have dropped it here while he was spinning dreams about her.
In the nights which followed "he slept in a kind of hunger to feel her physically and tangibly in his arms." Then when it was again full moon, he found on awaking, in a spot upon which fell the rays of moonlight, a little gold cross, "whose six polished stones seemed to radiate moonlight from themselves. It was as if the moonlight lay within his hand. He watched the small cross sparkle--it was the same that he had seen in dreams upon her rose wreath. Gro had been also within his prison."
He was led out soon after this to be shown to the monk, who had come to obtain news of his imprisonment. "In the doorway the young n.o.bleman met Gro and drew back, so strong a power seemed to irradiate from her living form. She stood in the half twilight, with her white hands and her white neck and forehead, which shone as with their own light from out her coal black velvet robe. There was a blinding, marvelous reality about her, which drew him like a great fragrant flower." As the monk expressed his compa.s.sion for him, that imprisonment had befallen him, his pride of n.o.bility awoke. "What do you say of imprisonment and ill foreboding? Know you not then that I am of my free will Sten Ba.s.se"s guest?" This reply astonished even Sten Ba.s.se. "He admired the young, undaunted spirit, who found in himself no occasion for pity. Soelver stood before Gro, his arms firm at his sides, and breathed deep and strong. His eyes drank in the clear light from her hands and face." When however Sten Ba.s.se sought to approach him in a friendly manner, Soelver motioned him back: "As prisoner was I led forth, as prisoner I return of my free will. If you wish to make any apology to me, you know where my dungeon is to be found." Then he went quickly, without turning toward Gro, out of the hall and down into his prison. His senses nevertheless had seized that warm, radiant picture of the beautiful Gro and transplanted it to the midst of his cell. He saw it streaming before his eyes in the shimmering light of the cross of moonlight and longed for the clear light of the night, that he might go on and make the dream face live. When the darkness advanced "he stripped himself naked and allowed the air of the summer night to cool his limbs and purify them, before he betook himself to his cot. The small cross he laid upon his naked breast and watched the moonlight glimmer green and blue from every stone" and kissed it thinking of Gro. Then he fell asleep in blissful happiness.
Suddenly however he awoke without any apparent reason, from no dream or thought. "He was awake, collected and yet at the same time strangely under the control of something that lay outside himself, a strange unknown power, which might be either mystical or natural. It appeared to him as if the moonlight had been loosed from the moon and now floated about in the room like a living being. So real seemed this fancy to him that he turned his head to one side and was not astonished actually to see a form standing in the center of the darkness. A feeling of reverence and awe swept over Soelver as little by little he distinguished in the floating folds of the moon white garment, the firm outlines of a woman"s arms, which were crossed beneath a half bared breast, the line of the teeth in the open mouth, a flash of white light from Gro"s eyes gazing with a certain fixed power.
"Holy Mother of G.o.d--it was Gro herself!
"Soelver started upright, frightened at his own movement, for he scarcely dared breathe, much less go towards her. He felt his nakedness as a crime, even his being awake as a transgression. The form glided forward out of the moonlight, the crossed hands separated themselves from the breast and Gro pursued her way with outstretched hands, feeling her way and yet mechanically sure like a sleep walker.
"Yes, she was walking in her sleep. Soelver recognized it by the staring look in her eyes, which gazed through the night as through miles of s.p.a.ce. Soelver slid noiselessly to the floor in front of her, afraid that he would be seen, in deadly terror lest she should awaken. For he knew how dreadful it might be to awaken a sleep walker and in his excited phantasy he heard already the cry of horror and madness which would issue from Gro"s mouth if she awoke and saw herself in this dark, subterranean depth alone with a naked man as with a demon. It was as if everything in Soelver cried out in protective anxiety that Gro should not awaken. He crouched beseechingly upon the ground, his whole soul was a sobbing prayer for grace, for instant means of deliverance, now that Gro had come to him as if by fate.
"There came a whispered sound from her open mouth, as her lips for a moment sought each other. It was as if she breathed out the one word "Soelver." This, however, to hear his name spoken, made Soelver strong at once. It compelled him to arise from the floor, it banished fear from his soul, it made him rejoice in every fiber of his being. The next moment her outstretched arm reached his hand--he felt the firm, cool skin under his trembling finger tips and his face felt the warm breathing of her voice, "Soelver, Soelver!" And driven by some mystic power of will, he forced himself under the same hypnotic influence which surrounded her. He compelled himself to leave the clear broad way of reason and to enter the ecstatic, perilous, paths of the sleep walker.
He was no longer awake. He sought, he touched, he stood before that after which he had groped. He was himself driven by a magic power, by a marvelous single purpose, which must be attained. This whole transformation took place in him merely because he felt that this was the only means of saving her from awaking to consciousness and madness.
""Soelver--Soelver!"--"Yes."--"Soelver--are you--are you--there?"--"Yes--I--am--here."--"Yes--that is you--that is you--I feel you."--"And you see me?"--"Yes, I see you."--"And you will stay with me?"--"Yes--I will--I will stay with you."
"Soelver answered her in the same whisperings in which she breathed out her words. His hands pa.s.sed over hers with infinite carefulness. But finally his arms closed about her neck and he felt a marvelous tingling in his finger tips as he touched her soft silken hair. His mouth approached hers and mingled his warm breath with the breath which escaped cold from her lips. He drew in the air with her own rhythm, it was as if his naked heart bowed toward hers so that they all at once touched one another. Then the blood flamed out of her cheeks and streamed over into his, although they lay not upon each other. The blood burned in all her skin and Soelver trembled for a moment lest this transport was the beginning of the awakening.
"His heart stood still with fear. However the blood continued to surge through Gro"s body. She pressed Soelver close to herself and through her soft clothing he felt her breast swell and throb, as if she would bore herself into his flesh. "Soelver--I love you."--"Gro--I love you." Then a strange giddiness seized him as if he were rushing into her arms on a tower miles high. He breathed upon her ethereal kisses, which closed her lips, moistened her forehead and descended thence like a refreshing spring rain so that her lids drooped. When her eyes were closed Soelver felt for the first time quite secure. He fastened them with a real kiss and now, since her sleep wandering had reached its goal in his arms and Soelver was sure that her love dream was too deep to be disturbed, he whispered louder than before, "Gro--I love you!"--"Soelver--I love you!"--"How long have you loved me?"--"Longer than I have known you, Soelver."--"Why have you not said so, Gro?"--"That, Soelver, I will never tell!"
"So Soelver carried his wonderful burden to his couch and inhaled her youthful fragrance and lifted his mouth to hers and all his blood at once leaped forth. Every fiber of his being was stirred to kisses, every blood drop became a yearning mouth to meet the thousand mouths of her blood. And lost to sense--vehemently, seized by the divine power of nature, unafraid that she might awaken, without control over himself and yet proud as a master of worlds, he was impelled as the sunbeam to its goal, when it forces open the flower and buries itself in its fragrant depths. Soelver united himself with Gro. She on her part slumbered on, quiet as the sea which has closed over its sacrifice.
"But Soelver felt his senses reawakening. What now? Should he let Gro sleep until day woke her and she saw herself in his arms? He bent over his beloved in deepest distress. She must not awaken in terror, not again weep as on that first morning when she was with him. The most delicate chords in her soul had trembled and sung to him in the night, to him whom she unconsciously loved with all the indefinable conviction of her heart. This love must not be rudely plucked and allowed to fade like a plant whose tender shoot is torn asunder. She must go back to her maiden"s couch until the flower of the day had burst forth from its leafy covering. Then he discovered that the panel at the foot of his cot was opened, while some planking had been pushed back. Gro must have come this way and by this way he carried her back. Led by an unerring instinct, as if he knew from his nightly phantasied visits all the turnings of the way, he went without deliberation into the secret room behind the panel, found the pa.s.sage to the main stairway, pa.s.sed straight up, turned through corridors, pa.s.sed under the heavy tapestry curtains, opened the last door and noticed first that he bore a burden when he laid it down. The moon threw its faint silver light round about in the little room. With a sweet wonder Soelver gazed upon the prayer stool and the brown rosary--without its cross."
I may pa.s.s briefly over the remainder. In the first place Soelver was given his liberty and he went back to his castle. The death of Sten Ba.s.se occurred soon after. Soelver whispered to his daughter at his death bed, "Gro, whatever may happen, know now that we belong to one another." She "turned her head slowly toward him and looked at him with her large eyes swollen with tears. Her look was that of a stranger and quite uncomprehending, so that Soelver understood that she did not simply deny everything but she had no recollection at all." So Soelver turned and went. For the first time when bathing in the lake "he found again his youth and his freedom, his radiant hope and the jubilant certainty of his love. Gro loved him! Only the thought of love had not yet arisen from the depths of her soul like pearls to the light.
Nevertheless the wonderful flower of her affection was growing in the golden light of dreams. He longed after Gro as after his bride, although he was only the bridegroom of her dreams, who dared to kiss her only when her eyes were closed. By day he was her foe, as the bear in the fairy tale, who by night alone is changed into a beautiful young man."
They met therefore first again at Sten"s bier, at the side of which they both kneeled. "Gro"s eyes were directed upon him as upon a stranger, staring with wonder, burning with a mystic light. Why was this stranger here near her, the man whom her dead father had tortured and derided?
And yet her eyes were wet with tears of pity and she felt that this man only desired to take her hand. Soelver observed her with his inmost soul. He pressed the small cross of moonshine between his hands, he bent over it and kissed it and a gleam from its blazing stones smote Gro"s eyes. She stretched out her arms and took the cross from him and gazed into the stones as into well-known eyes. She knew not how this had come into Soelver"s hands but she also bent over it and kissed it and her soul went out toward Soelver as toward a soul far, far away, whom she once had known, whom however she could scarcely remember."
After this Soelver came and went at Egenaes, Sten Ba.s.se"s castle, as if he were lord and heir of the estate. "It was rumored also among the tenants and the servants that he was betrothed to the maiden Gro. Yet no word of it was exchanged between them. Soelver stood by Gro in small things and great, and she allowed herself to be guided by his strength and cleverness. Since that night when he had kneeled with her at her father"s lifeless body, she was bound to him by a nameless bond of grat.i.tude, of mutual feeling, and by an inner apprehension that their fate was interwoven. Still no consciousness of love colored Gro"s att.i.tude. She longed for Soelver"s strong handclasp because it made her will strong to withstand her sorrow. She could think of herself lying upon his broad, deep breast, only however because there slumber would come in sure forgetfulness. There was moreover a tenderness in her look, when in a fleeting moment she let her glance rest upon his, such as the realization of another"s goodness awakens in us, especially when the goodness is undeserved and disinterested. Yet there was never any of love"s surrender. Only she was glad to know herself observed by these quiet, steadfast, clear eyes, from which the red specter of pa.s.sion, which had so frightened her that day upon Aebeloe, had long been banished. She believed that she had in Soelver a friend given her for life and death, a friend who could not desire her in love nor be desired, a brother whom one might trust with infinitely more serenity than any lover.
"Soelver was ever watchful of Gro. His eyes were on the lookout whether he might not once surprise in hers the brightness of the dream, and make the hidden rose of love break through the green covering and bloom in reality. He longed thus within himself once to see the day and night aspects of her soul melt into a wonderful golden twilight. But Gro made no response to the gaze from his eyes. She turned her head aside so that her silken lashes concealed her glance. "Gro, why do you never look at me?"--"I do look at you."--"Do you see me with your cheek, Gro?"--"I see you, though, Soelver. I see you with the outermost corner of my eye." Soelver bent his face beneath hers. "Are you looking at me?" But Gro pressed her lids together as before a bright light and shook her head, "No, Soelver, not so! You look too sharply, you look too deeply.
You look so deeply that it hurts me very much. No, stand so Soelver, turn your eyes away!"--"Are you afraid of me?"--"No, no--why should I be afraid? But I do not feel comfortable to have you all the time wanting to read my heart, to have your eyes searching for some writing that does not stand written there. My friend and beloved brother, I fear what your look would draw from me--what would you drag out from my soul?"--"The spring day, Gro, when we first met."--"Ah! Soelver, I scarcely remember it. It seems to me that I have always known you, that all your days you have been good and kind to me. Lately I have felt it in my heart and upon my cheek, as when my mother caressed me and that is long, long ago."--"Gro, only say it, you are afraid of the word, but not truly--just say it--you love me.--You are silent because it is true."
"No, Soelver, I have never felt that."--"So you have dreamed it, Gro."--"Dreamed!" Gro became fiery red. "Dreamed--dreamed--oh Soelver, what have I dreamed? What do you know of my dreams? To have dreamed is to have dreamed, and my dreams belong to me, to me alone!" For a moment she turned to him a shy, quivering look, then tears trickled down from under her drooping lids. But Soelver observed that he had hit upon the truth. Immediately however he regretted that he had cast this look into the sanctuary of her soul. It was like the curious peeping of which the knight had been guilty, spying through the keyhole upon his wife, Undine.
"A long time they sat silent. At last Gro was herself again, quiet and controlled. Then she spoke in a soft but firm voice, "Soelver, if you remain with me to awaken me to love, then I beg of you, go and never return. I can never look upon you with the eyes of love. Pa.s.sion seems to me like a glowing sword, which burns out one"s eyes as it goes by.
There was a day when you made the flaming sword of your desire pa.s.s by my face--since that time it is burned out. I have been blinded, Soelver, I am blind to the desire of your eyes, and all your fervent prayers. I have hated you, despised you, defied you, yet you have repaid evil with good and now I return good for good. Look not upon me with love"s eyes, seek not to awaken the dead in me to life. You are to me more precious than if the proud brother of my childhood had returned in you, your spirit is his, I did not believe that in the will of a man so much kindness could dwell. Leave it so, stay with me as my brother, or leave me like my brother, but never speak to me of love, neither in words nor in looks for I know no reply.""
The young n.o.bleman knew finally, for all his eager power, no other way of escape than to go with the king to the war. He saw quite clearly that "Gro struggled against the force deep in her heart. And yet the day"s flaming sun could cause the weak chrysalis of the dream to shrivel so that no b.u.t.terfly would break through the covering and rejoice in the strong light of midday. But with Soelver away, the longing for him would support the invisible growth of the dream and prepare the way for it into consciousness. Ah! it was worth his departure." Then he took leave of his beloved. "Goodbye; forget me not on our island. Bid me return when you will. The wind will find me, wherever I am. Tell the wild birds, when you want me and would call me home."
Gro, remaining behind alone, first became aware what she had lost in him and in his "strong will, which was her source of light." She began to long more and more for him who was far away. "Ah, if he would only come again!" And when a bird flew by, she "flushed red at her own thought; was that a message sent forth by her desire? This took place contrary to her wish and will--she wished not to long for him, not to call him back, not to love him! Angrily she roused herself and sought to recall the burning gaze with which Soelver had wounded her modesty. So with a vexed and hard stroke of the oars she pushed the boat away from Aebeloe."
When the war was ended, Soelver went to serve the king of France. For, as he wrote in a letter sent by carrier pigeon, "he who is not summoned, comes not." Meanwhile love towards the young n.o.bleman had begun to grow in her bosom. "Night after night she dreamed of Soelver and at last one night she suddenly awoke and found herself cold and naked, wandering around in her room and heard the last note of her heart"s unconscious avowal, "Soelver, I love you." There was a change within her. Hour after hour would she sit inactive and half asleep, listening to the irregular beating of her heart--something was drawing upon her very depths, sucking her strength from her, from her proud will, something that paralyzed her thought and bound her always to the same name, the same memory." As she listened to her own depths, "she caught a momentary something like a weak, quickly beating echo of her own slow heart, a busily living little heart, that ticked louder and louder until at last it deafened hers. A trembling joy seized her at that moment through all her senses as she knew that she bore a life within her life, that she enclosed in her body the germ of a new life that was not growing from her alone and of her life alone."
Suddenly a crushing terror overcame her. Who was her child"s father? "So abruptly came this question over her nave soul that she fancied for a moment that this might be the punishment of fate for her longing for Soelver. This longing was desire, and desire was sin no less than the love itself. Her wish for him had grown to a fire in her blood and now she was stained by her own pa.s.sion, pregnant from her own sin. G.o.d"s punishment had visited her and soon would be visible to all the world.
Gro saw however immediately the foolishness of her thought. For one moment she lingered at the thought of the one woman of all the earth, who had immaculately conceived. Then she uttered an inward prayer that the Mother of G.o.d would lighten her understanding and give her clearness of vision that she should not go astray in her brooding over this mystery."
When she questioned her nurse and the latter finally put it to her, "Have you spent no night under the same roof with Soelver?" then there occurred to her the many nights "when she had dreamed of the lonely imprisoned man, who was being punished because of her. When she lay in her bed in the dark, a strange curiosity had overcome her to imagine his lot there below and, when sleep seized her and dreams chased away the bitter, hard thoughts, her heart had become softer and the sun had shone over the visions of her dreams as the spring day over the woods blossoming with the green May bells. Many a night and many a morning was she awakened by a strange burning desire in her thoughts, and her mouth was as though touched with fresh dream kisses, and she had entered into judgment with her own weak heart and had so inflamed herself to scorn and hatred that she had done nothing to soften the fate of the prisoner.
But how could Soelver have been the guest of her dreams? And how had he been able to command the virgin love fed by her slumber? Then came the nurse to her aid and made it clear to her. She knew that the maiden Gro had walked in her sleep; the servants had told of a white ghost on the stairs and once she herself had seen it and recognized Gro, who had disappeared upon a secret stairway, which led down into the dungeon. She had kept still about it, for she thought it was a voluntary sleep walking to the young n.o.bleman."
Thus was Gro enlightened as to the source of her pregnancy. "She quivered with shame that the desire in her dreams had the power to drive her down to the lonely prisoner and she shook in her inmost soul at the memory of that happy dream, which she had had the night before her father"s death. Now her love suddenly burst into the light like a wonderful flower, which suddenly springs up with a thousand fragrant buds. Now it was impossible to stem it or to conceal it. She had wanted to suppress every germ, with her father"s coldness and the day"s dispa.s.sionately proud haughtiness she had been willing to stifle every impulse toward love, every longing for self avowal. Now she found her pride was dead and buried and her being within and without was permeated by love.
"For she had loved Soelver from the first springtime kiss, which he had imprinted upon her cheek as she wandered among the fresh May bells, loved him in the blow which she had inflicted upon his head when he had touched her chaste nakedness, loved him in those nights when he had slept uncomplaining in the cellar dungeon, loved him in those bitter moments of his humbling when he, in spite of scorn and insult, maintained his pride, loved him that evening when he kneeled at her father"s bier and kissed the hand of his enemy now dead, loved him day by day all the time they were together, loved him in that hour when she saw his banner disappear among the hundred others, and today upon Aebeloe when she heard that new life singing within hers. And now she rejoiced; for she bore him always within her, she could never again lose her Soelver."
As we glance over the material of this tale, we find as the nucleus of the night wandering and moon walking the strong repression of every conscious love impulse and the breaking through of the unconscious in sleep and dream wherever the censor"s rule is relaxed. For the maiden Gro had loved Soelver from the first moment, yet this love was confessed only in moments of occasional self forgetfulness, as by the first meeting with the young n.o.bleman, when her hand met his, yes, even pressed it for the moment. Only Gro should not have been frightened out of her half unconscious action by a kiss or a pa.s.sionate desire, for at once there arose to life within her the coldness and haughtiness of her father and the highhanded reaction which her mother had manifested to her conqueror. The determining factor, to speak in psychoa.n.a.lytic language, is the struggle between the strong s.e.xual rejection and the equally compelling s.e.xual desire. At first the former held the upper hand with our heroine in her waking and conscious action, the latter in the unconscious. Through the force of her will Gro seemed cold, even as she had learned of her father. She defended herself from her lover"s craving by force and blow; even when conquered finally through the n.o.ble spirit of her enemy, she would see in him only the friend for life and death. She directly refused to think of love and displaced it to external things, she even bade the young man go rather than desire her as his wife. Soelver"s devotion reminded her most significantly of her mother"s tenderness, his pride, of the brother of her childhood. "It is as if in you the proud brother of my childhood had returned. Your spirit is his. Leave it so, stay with me as my brother or leave me like my brother, but never speak to me of love, neither in words nor in looks, for I know no reply!"
Yet she avoided Soelver"s searching eye and as he reminded her of her dreams, she was smitten in the depths of her soul. For her dreams, she well knew, chased away the bitter and hard thoughts, the repressed unconscious broke through and the true feeling of her loving heart. This already appeared clear to her when her beloved languished in captivity at her father"s hands. The strange desire to work out the fate of the young n.o.bleman, who suffered on her account, had overcome her lying there in her bed in the dark. And in the morning she awoke with a strange burning desire in her thoughts and her mouth was flecked with his fresh dream kisses. Still she consciously kept back every outer manifestation of love and met the young man while her father was alive with coldness and suspicion and later even merely as a brother. The great distance separating her beloved from her and above all the child which she bore from him under her heart for the first time conquer her haughty pride and her conscious aversion. And as she dreams one night again of the loved one far away she finds herself suddenly awake, going about cold and naked in her room and perceives as the lingering sound of her heart"s unconscious avowal, "Soelver, I love you!"
So severe is this struggle between conscious s.e.xual denial and unconscious desire, that it even forces itself through in her sleep and her night wandering. Her dreams had indeed, as she later acknowledged with shame, the force and the power to compel her below into the young n.o.bleman"s dungeon. She had clasped Soelver"s hand in her sleep, she had told him everything in the moonlight, with eyes closed, everything which she secretly felt, and had pressed him to herself. Yet when he asked her why she could never confess to him that she had always loved him so deeply, she repulsed him: "That I will never tell!" Even when he had united himself to his beloved, she had slumbered on as if nothing had happened and the next day knew nothing of it all.
This leads now to that which, according to folk belief, const.i.tutes the very core, the chief ground for sleep walking and moon walking in a maiden. It is easy to understand the wish, on the part of the female s.e.x with their strongly demanded s.e.xual repression, to come to the beloved one and taste all the delights of satisfaction but without guilt. This is possible only through wandering in unconscious sleep. For, as my first patient explained, one is not accountable for anything that happens in this state, and thus can enjoy without sin and without consciousness of what is not permitted. Convention demands that the maiden wait until the lover approaches her, but in that unconscious state she may surrender herself. The need for repression explains then the subsequent amnesia. Yet wandering by night is not concerned merely with s.e.xual enjoyment, over and above that it fulfills a second desire that arises out of childhood, as we know from psychoa.n.a.lysis. Every small maiden has, that is, the wish to have a child by her father, her first love, which is often in later years defined thus, one might have a child, but without a husband. The night wandering fulfills this desire to have a child yet without sin. Therefore has that motive of an unconscious, not to say immaculate, conception inspired not a few poets, as it has already, as is well known, been active in the creation of the drama.
Less transparent than that chief motive is the action of the light, sunlight as well as moonlight. The heroine of the story stands toward both in a special relationship. Her body is almost illuminated by its own light, her hair sparkles electrically when it is touched, "warm waves of light" emanate from her, which Soelver noticed at their first meeting, the sun seems expressly to seek her, a halo of impalpable beauty surrounds her and above all glows from the depths of her eyes.
Not only so, Gro seems to dwell chiefly in the light, whose last drops she greedily absorbs within herself. When the light fades, her body becomes cold as ice like a corpse. In similar manner the shining of the full moon affects her, the light of which the stones of her gold cross have absorbed. The first time that the slumbering youth saw Gro wandering, it seemed to him as if the moonlight had been loosed from the planet and floated only in his room like a living being. The poet, to be sure, has offered no explanation of this mystical effect of light and what the reader may think for himself would be merely drawn from other sources. For this reason I will not pursue this point further.
The narrative affords somewhat further means for an understanding in another direction. It is not explained more fully just why Gro follows the sunlight and moonlight or why both exercise upon her a peculiar attraction, yet the tendency to a motor breaking through of the unconscious may be derived from an inherited disposition. The father is a rough, violent robber knight while the mother shows distinctly s.a.d.i.s.tic traits and a truly ready hand at fighting. That confirms what I explained in the first part, a heightened muscular excitability and muscle eroticism, which strives to break through again on the s.e.xual side in sleep walking. Finally it may be affirmed without doubt that the ghostly white figure upon the stairs was no other than the maiden in her shift.
"JoRN UHL," by Gustav Frenssen.
I can deal more briefly with "Jorn Uhl," the well-known rural romance of Frenssen, in which the sketch of a moon walker const.i.tutes merely an episode. Joern Uhl, who, returned from the war, takes over the farm of his unfortunate father, discovers Lena Tarn as the head maid-servant.
She pleased him at first sight. "She was large and strong and stately in her walk. Besides her face was fresh with color, white and red, her hair golden and slightly wavy. He thought he had never seen so fresh and at the same time so goodly appearing a girl. He was pleased also at the way she nodded to him and said "good evening" and looked him over from head to foot with such open curiosity and sincere friendliness." She sings too much to please the old housekeeper! "She is so pert and too straightforward with her speech." It is noteworthy too that she talks to herself in unquiet sleep.
Lena Tarn can soon make observations also upon her side. Joern was very short with the old graybeard, who advised him to an early marriage: "The housekeeper is with me, I do not need a wife." Lena, entering just then, heard what the unmannerly countryman said and a.s.sumed a proud look, thinking to herself, "What is the sly old man saying!" Since however the old man began to talk and compelled her and Joern Uhl to listen, she was concerned almost entirely for the latter, whose "long, quiet face with its deep discerning eyes she observed with a silent wonder, without shyness, but with confident curiosity." Not alone in the kitchen, which is under her control, can Lena show what is in her. When a young bull broke loose and came after the women, she met him with sparkling eyes, "Stop you wretch!" When he would not allow himself to be turned aside, she threw a swift look flashing with anger upon the men, who were idly looking on, then swung the three-legged milking stool which she had taken along and hit the bull so forcibly on the head with it that frightened, he lunged off sideways. "Lena Tarn had however all afternoon a red glow coming and going in her cheeks because the farmer had looked upon her with the eyes of a high and mighty young man. That caused her secretly both joy and concern." Immediately after this she experienced one satisfaction. Joern Uhl was dragged into the water by a mischievous calf and was much worse cut up by it than she, the weaker one, the woman had been.
"Lena saw always before her the face which Joern Uhl had made when she had gone forward against the bull. She was otherwise in the best of humors, but when, as in the last few days, she was not quite well physically she was inclined to be angry. She preserved a gloomy countenance as well and as long as she could. Soon though, as she went here and there about her work and felt the new fresh health streaming through her limbs, she altered her looks.... Joern Uhl moreover could not be quiet that day. The sudden plunge in the water had brought his blood to boiling. The spring sunshine did its part. A holiday spirit came over him and he thought that he would go into the village and pay his taxes, which were due. On the way he thought of Lena Tarn. Her hair is coiled upon her head like a helmet of burnished bra.s.s, which slips into her neck. When she "does things," as she says, her eyes are stern and directed eagerly upon her work. When on the other hand she is spoken to and speaks with any one she is quick to laugh. Work seems to her the only field where quiet earnestness is in place. "That must be so," she says. Toward everything else she is angry or in a good humor, mostly the latter. Only toward me is she short and often spiteful. It has been a great joke for her that I had the ill luck to have to go into the water with that stupid beast. If she only dared she would spread it three times a day on my bread and b.u.t.ter and say "There you have it.""
Now he meets old Dreier who gives him good advice: "How old are you?
Twenty-four? Don"t you marry, Joern. On no account. That would be the stupidest thing that you could do. I bet you $50.000 you don"t dare do it. Time will tell, I say." "Take it for granted that I will wait yet ten years," he answered. And he went on thinking to himself, "It is pleasanter to go thus alone and let one"s thoughts run on. Marry? Marry now? I will be on my guard. After I am thirty!" Then his thought came back to Lena. "She looked well as she flung the stool at the bull.
Prancing like a three-year-old horse. Yesterday she did not look so well, her eyes were not so bright, she spoke harshly to Wieten (the old housekeeper) and said to her afterwards, "Do not mind it, Wieten, I slept badly," and laughed. Funny thing, slept badly? When one is on the go as she must be all day, one should sleep like a log. But that is all right in the May days. It is well that men understand this, otherwise every spring the world would go all to pieces." Then he rejoiced that he was so young and could point out on the farm what was his. "Later, when the years have gone by and I am well established I will take to myself a fine wife with money and golden hair. There are also rich girls who are as merry and fresh and as desirable and have as stately forms. It need not be just this one."
Then he came to the parish clerk who had just been notified that day of six children to be baptized and who was complaining of the increase in births. Joern agreed with him: "What will we come to, if the folk increase like that? Marrying before twenty-five must simply be forbidden." "With these words he departed, filled with a proud consciousness that he was of the same opinion with so intelligent, experienced an old man as the parish clerk." At home he met Lena Tarn with an old farmer, who came to inquire after the fate of his son who had been with Joern in the war. Then for the first time the girl heard of the frightful misery and the suffering of the soldiers which cried to heaven, so that her face was drawn with pain. "Deep in her soul however thrilled and laughed a secret joy, that you have come back whole, Joern Uhl."
Later, when she was making out the b.u.t.ter account with the farmer, "she had to bend her glowing head over the book, which he held in his hand.
There came such a glistening in his eyes that he wrinkled his forehead and did not conceal his displeasure at such an unsteady flashing." In the evening she came to get back the book. Then Joern spoke to her, "You have not been in a good humor these last days. Is anything the matter?"
She threw her head back and said shortly, "Something is the matter sometimes with one; but it soon pa.s.ses over."--"As I came through the pa.s.sage yesterday evening I heard you call out in your sleep in your room." "Oh, well!... I have not been well."--"What ... you not well? The moon has done that. It has been shining into your room."--"I say, though, there may be some other cause for that."--"I say that comes from the moon." She looked at him angrily, "As if you knew everything! I did not call out in my sleep at all but was wide awake. Three calves had broken out and were frisking around in the gra.s.s. I saw them clearly in the moonlight. I called them." He laughed mockingly, "Those certainly were moon calves." "So? I believe not. For I brought them in myself this morning and then I saw that the stable door stood open. I thought to myself, the boy has gone courting tonight. Your eyes always sweep over everything and light upon everything and you [du] worry so over everything out of order, I wonder that you [du] have not seen it."--"You say "thou" [du] to me?"--"Yes, you say it to me. I am almost as great as you and you are not a count, and I am as intelligent as you." She carried her head pretty high and as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the book from the window seat as if it lay there in the fire, he saw the splendid scorn in her eyes. "Take care of yourself when the moon is shining," he said, "otherwise again tonight you will have to guard the calves."