Sleep Walking and Moon Walking Part 6

I have before this sketched Maria's character development up to the time when Eisener came into her life. Yet one point may be added. She had retained one single influence from her childhood in spite of all change in her seventh year, which "with the beginning of maturity appeared only occasionally and as it were in secret. The moon had been her dearly beloved and her desire; as a small child she had been able to look at the moon for hours without intermission. If she was sick her mother or nurse must carry her to the window through which she might look upon the friend of her small soul." About half a year before her acquaintance with Eisener "the moon had made its influence felt upon her sleep, as it had before affected her waking. At the time of the full moon she often left her couch, dressed herself and went up into the corner room in the pavilion. Here she stood for some time and turned her closed eyes toward the moon. Then she dropped the curtain, undressed and lay down in the bed, which stood in the spot where she had been used to sleep as a child. As soon as the moon had left the windows of this room or shone through the windows of her present sleeping room, she arose again, dressed herself and returned. She herself knew nothing of these wanderings, and whatever was done to awaken her during them was in vain.

The physician thought that these attacks of moon walking would disappear finally when maturity was established, or at least at her first confinement."

In this picture from a layman are some new and striking features. First is the love--one can call it nothing else--which the child bestows upon the planet. Why is the moon her beloved and her desire from childhood up, why can she stand by the hour looking at it, why does she long when sick to be laid so that she can look at it all the time? He who observes children knows that such extreme love, which endures for years without wearying of it, and finally that ability to stare steadily at the moon, must have a s.e.xual content, although naturally no one will admit this.

Only when the object, in our case the heavenly body, is s.e.xually stimulating is the love for it enduring for all time, undergoing no change, no abatement of feeling for it. As Maria's erotism later found satisfaction in her father, her love toward the moon steadily receded.

But at the entrance upon p.u.b.erty her s.e.xual impulse increased and she began to wander in the moonlight. The love finally which Eisener inspires in her, together with the strong s.e.xual excitement, which the fete the day before had called forth in her, occasions again an attack, in which she surrenders herself willingly to the beloved.

The folk, like the family physician, have not a doubt of the s.e.xual basis of the moon mania with her as with individuals in general. When p.u.b.erty is established or she has a child of her own the attacks will cease, is the opinion of the latter. The servant maid Grete also, a living book of fairy tales among her people, explains the moon wandering as nothing else than the result of an unsatisfied sense desire. There was a young knight who had wooed a rich woman of gentle birth. Shortly before midnight they were both led into the bridal chamber. "Yet hardly were they alone together when a strange voice outside before the castle called, 'Conrad, come down here! Conrad, come down here!' And again it called, 'Conrad, come down here!' The voice sounded so plaintive and at the same time so threatening. The bridegroom said, 'That is my best friend; he is in need and calls me.' The maiden said however, 'The voice belongs to my cousin, who was found dead two years ago.' Then she shuddered so that the gooseflesh stood up over her whole body," and she implored her bridegroom not to follow the evil spirit or at least to remain with her until the ghostly hour was past and the full moon was up. But he would not be restrained: "Be it an evil spirit or a good, no one shall call me in vain!" "And he went out. The lady went to the window but could see nothing for the darkness outside and for the tears in her eyes. Then the haunted hour was over and the full moon arose and she waited and waited, but the knight never returned. Thereupon she swore to take no rest on a night when the moon was full until she had gone to bed with her bridegroom. And as her first bridegroom never and nevermore came back, so she waited for another, but there was no one who knew her story who would woo her, because each one thought it would fare with him as it had fared with that other. Thus she died; her oath is however still unfulfilled. Whenever it is full moon, she is looking out to see if any bridegroom comes and she laments sorely, and holds her hands weeping toward the moon."

In this folk tale the exclusively s.e.xual foundation of the wandering is quite plainly expressed. The ghost makes use of a voice, complaining and threatening at the same time, which the bridegroom believes to be the call for help of his best friend, and the bride on the other hand imagines it the voice of her cousin, who had been found dead two years before, perhaps after she had taken her own life because unhappy in love. Both may be driven by s.e.xual jealousy--I offer this as a hypothesis--which would not permit the other s.e.xual gratification which is denied to himself or herself, the friend perhaps meaning jealousy from a h.o.m.os.e.xual tendency. The ghost having accomplished its purpose at the hour of midnight and in the light of the full moon, the lady swore "to take no rest on a night when the moon was full until she had gone to bed with her bridegroom." That is the kernel of the entire myth, the nave and yet apparently conclusive folk interpretation of the riddle of moon walking, at least in its most frequent form.

I have above taken it for granted that Maria's erotism was satisfied through her care for her father. That must of course be understood with some qualification. For she could play the role of mother only as housekeeper, not as wife. The former is satisfying therefore only so long, until stronger s.e.xual impulses awaken through external stimuli or, according to rule, through the natural development of a maiden. When once that has come to pa.s.s, one so disposed to it as Maria was, begins to wander in the moonlight. Why then, it may further be asked, does Maria seek for her childhood bed, if the goal and the aim of the wandering is the s.e.xual satisfaction of the maiden? In the case a.n.a.lyzed at the beginning the compelling motive was a s.e.xual self stimulation upon the mother, in later years in the loved object whoever it was, male or female. In most cases, since normal s.e.xual feeling predominates, the aim of the sleep walking is that of the folk tale, to go to bed with the lover. That would explain without difficulty the scene of the union in Maria's case, as soon as she had come to know Eisener.

But what lay specially at the foundation of her earlier wandering, when no man had yet made an impression upon her? Or was there perhaps one, in relation to whom s.e.xuality is most strongly forbidden, her own father?

What if her erotic desire toward him was repressed and the indifference which she had attained was transferred over to all men? Much that is apparently harmless is permitted to a child, which would be regarded with horror in the adult. Many parents like to take their children into bed early in the morning and play with them without any consciously s.e.xual thoughts and without suspecting how very often they in this way stimulate s.e.xual desire in their children. Frequently also the mother or father visit the child before going to sleep, lean over the bed, allow themselves often to press the child pa.s.sionately to themselves and count this as.e.xual love toward the child. The case a.n.a.lyzed at the beginning teaches us how much of the grossly s.e.xual erotic is concealed behind this, even if well hidden. Maria likewise sought presumably in her sleep walking for the bed of her childhood because her earliest erotism was bound with it.

This had already happened under the instigation of p.u.b.erty, before her heart had spoken. How is it now since she loves Eisener? We must keep in mind her unconscious wish, to climb into the bed of the man she loves, and on the other hand that Maria as housemother knew well that he was not sleeping alone, but with his friend, so only a compromise form of action would be possible. So she goes up again to her childhood room, which lies in the same direction as Eisener's sleeping room. There she first draws the curtain aside that she may gaze at the moon, which increases the s.e.xual excitement with her, as I have earlier discussed.

Then she undresses before the mirror as she probably had done as a child, and moves forward toward the beloved one, who after a brief struggle with himself embraces her pa.s.sionately. She nevertheless submits to his caresses without response but also without resistance.

For thus alone can the fiction be maintained that she has loved without consciousness of it and therefore also without culpability. It is not difficult, according to the a.n.a.lysis of the first case, to understand how she finally at the withdrawal of the moonlight gets up again, dresses herself before the mirror and leaves the room as noiselessly as she had entered it.

The later portions of the narrative must confirm my a.s.sumptions if they are correct, that Eisener merely embraces the mother in Maria and that she on the other hand knows well enough in the unconscious both as child and as maiden that she wishes for that which is s.e.xually forbidden and knows whom she desires. Let us see what the poet tells us. As Eisener awakes after the bridal night, he is not at all invigorated and uplifted as otherwise a man in like case, but psychically and physically cast down, as if he had to atone for some great wrong. "He strove to consider the strange adventure of this night as the delusion of a fevered dream.

Yet that adventure painted itself before him, in spite of all his effort to forget it, in ever more vivid colors," because indeed a wish of his heart had been fulfilled through it. His inner unrest drove him forth and, as walking about he met his beloved, he marveled "that Maria seemed taller to him today than yesterday, or rather that he believed that he first noticed today that she was tall." What could this mean except that Maria now seemed big to him as once the mother had seemed to the small boy? Only he had first to embrace his beloved, before he could perceive such a thing and give heed to it. Maria herself, who apparently had enjoyed her pleasure only in her sleep and unconsciously, and therefore knew nothing of it all, had lost her frank manner with him, which she still possessed the day before. She grew red at his look and drew the hand which she gave him "quickly back again in confused fear," without consciously knowing why. "The flower of womanhood which had slumbered in her too serene, too cold image, appeared in this one night to have come with magic swiftness to bud and immediately to have unfolded in all its fragrance." Maria herself pictures her condition: "That morning I can never forget. Everything was so still, so solemn; the guests were all yet asleep. I had never been so strong of heart. I felt that morning as if all my life before had been only a dream and life was now just beginning. It seemed to me that I had suddenly become grown up and was now for the first time a child no more." Maria thus felt herself through the bridal night to have grown up from the child to the mother, only, now, it was for the lover who had taken the father's place.

Both Eisener and Maria conducted themselves further entirely in accordance with their earlier unconscious wishes. The former for example "found a growing pleasure in representing his own action, when it was really the effect of many circ.u.mstances acting one upon the other, as the result of a cold, calm calculation on his part." And was it not at bottom actually something like a calculation, since he in his earliest childhood phantasies imagined something similar for himself from the mother? It is only natural that he now greatly exaggerated in consciousness the sin which he had desired. Never for a moment did it occur to him "to throw any part of the burden of guilt upon that being who so closely partic.i.p.ated in it. His rightful feeling remained in regard to it that he had this night given to a woman a right to himself, which he, if she should demand it, could not dispute. It was a source of calmness to him to look upon himself as punished, as it were, in this manner." Only all too evident! This punishment was in reality a disguised reward, fulfilment of the infantile wish to win the mother.[24] For this reason he had not been able earlier to withstand Julie although Maria attracted him far more. For the former was the indulgent mother of his power of imagination, the latter on the contrary the proud, unapproachable mother of his real childhood. Moreover, though he did not conceal from himself that his heart belonged to the chaste Maria, yet he resolved, if Julie should convince him that she had been the ghostly visitor, to offer her his hand immediately. "The doubt, whether she deserved it, which was near enough at hand, he put from him as an excuse which he wished to make so that he could believe that he might release himself from that which he had to recognize as his duty."

Maria however "he had in these days accustomed himself to think of as a being so high above him that his love must profane her." Again the well known splitting of the mother into the holy and the yielding one.

[24] Cf. with this also the interesting pa.s.sage ... "the pa.s.sionate self accusations, in torturing himself with which he found comfort a short time before."

How did it appear at this time to her, herself? The first weeks after that moonlight night the woman in her bloomed forth more and more, in spite of the fact that her lover tarried at a distance. Yet when in her body a new life began to develop and Eisener still did not appear, she was seized suddenly with a hysterical convulsion--she was wearing significantly the same rose-colored dress in which he had seen her that morning--which lasted twelve hours so that every one looked upon her as dead. The despairing father threw himself across her feet and lay there--a situation which will occupy us later--and Eisener, who was just now returning, was driven by the bitterest self reproaches across the ocean. After waking from her catalepsy Maria did not regain her former blooming health but grew more and more ill, which the family physician finally discovered as the result of her pregnancy.

"The good girl herself believed at first that what she felt and what they told her was a vivid troubled dream." This idea will not appear strange to us who know so much about moon walking and that one does everything merely "in sleep" in order to remain blameless. "That she should become a mother seemed to her so strange and wonderful that she appeared to herself as some one else (this might well read, as her own mother dead at so early an age) or as suddenly transplanted into another world with strange people, animals and trees. The sound of her own voice, the tone of the bells seemed to her as other and strange sounds."

We may bring forward in explanation in this place the case a.n.a.lyzed at the beginning, where a moon walker had abandoned herself to all sorts of dreams. In the moon must be living men of another sort with other feelings, customs and manners, and the s.e.xual, strongly forbidden upon earth, must be freely permitted upon this planet. She seemed to herself on account of her s.e.xual phantasies already as a child quite different from other people, as if she belonged not upon this earth but upon the moon. Could not a similar thought process have taken place with Maria?

I said of her father, that he had been her first beloved. And it comes almost as an unconscious recognition of this when he, filled with anger, calls out to her mockingly, "Why do you not say that the whole affair has come to pa.s.s out of love to me, to prepare for me an unexpected joy?" Breitung also enjoyed since her earliest childhood her unlimited confidence only on this account because he loved her as his own child.

Therefore she looks up with all her anxiety so trustfully and self confidently to this friend of her father. But when Breitung also no longer believed in her and her father turned from her with scorn it was "as if all her blood streamed into her eyes that, pressing out as tears, it might relieve her. Yet here it remained and pressed upon her brain as if threatening its fibers. With a strangely fearful haste she pressed her eyes with her fingers; they remained dry; a cry of pain would unburden her soul--no sound accompanied the trembling, convulsive breathing. The old servant, who entered after a while, found her lying with her breast upon the sofa pillow, her head thrown violently back,"

in hysterical opisthotonos. "The old man had loved Maria from her earliest childhood" and stood accordingly in the place of a father. "He clasped his hands together in distress. She recognized him and suffered him patiently to bring her head to a less forced position. She looked at him sharply as if she would convince herself that he was the one she took him to be. His Kalmuck features seemed to her as beautiful as the soul which they hid and seemed to want to disown.

"The friendliness, the affectionate regard, which spoke so unmistakably out of the familiar old graybearded, sunburnt face, did her no end of good." Since she could not yet entirely believe she asked, "Is it indeed you, Justin? And you will still recognize me? And you do not flee from me?" At first the deplorable commission which the old man had to carry out threw her back again. When she had to understand that her father would not again set foot in the pastor's house until she had departed, her countenance became deathly pale and convulsive movements trembled in quick succession over her delicate body so that the old man wept aloud, for he believed that she had gone mad. His signs of distress, the faithfulness and love which spoke through them, touched her so effectually that at last the hysterical convulsion relaxed and she sank down. "The old man caught her up. He placed her on the sofa. She lay across his lap; her head lay upon his left hand, with the other he held her body fast that it should not slip to the floor. It seemed as if she would weep her whole weary self away. The old servant held her with trembling hand and heavy heart." Now the scene of childhood is complete, except that the old man plays the role of her father. So had Maria presumably done as a child when she felt too unhappy and so also the pastor's throwing himself down, as we saw above, over his daughter whom he believed dead, is not strange.

When Maria had left the parsonage her first thought and silent concern was how her father must now live without her care, even that perhaps he would not be there any more, when everything had later turned out well.

Then she thought again of the time when she would be a mother and "her life seemed to her as a tale that is told." On her journey to her new home there came over her ever more strongly "the feeling of her complete abandonment. All the dear childhood memories, into whose protection she would flee, turned in anger from her. With tears she cried to G.o.d for a heart that she might love, some one for whom she might really care. For it seemed as if a curse lay upon her, which estranged all hearts from her. She thought with fear at her heart that the being to whom she would give life might likewise turn from her, as everything had done that she loved." Then a good fate brings to her the unfortunate Johannes whom his crazy father wished to throw into the water in order to preserve him for eternal happiness. At once Maria a.s.sumes the role of mother toward the boy and now "that once more she had to care for some one, she was again the calm and serene being."

What had so thrown her out of her course? It was not so much the banishment from the father's house, not the contempt of all the world, nor even of her very oldest and truest friend. She would have been able to look beyond both of these, because her consciousness felt itself entirely blameless. But she took so to herself the truth that she was no more the loving, caretaking house mother nor might play that part, that for a brief while she planned to take her life. She prayed to G.o.d with tears for one heart only that she might love, that she might actually care for. Since the care of her father is taken from her she feels herself at first truly and utterly forlorn, all the dear memories of childhood turn in anger from her and a curse seems to rest upon her soul.

Why do all the memories of her childhood turn from her, if she actually knows herself guiltless? Is this merely because the father is indissolubly bound with them? If she still consciously feels entirely blameless toward him, and if he openly did her wrong from a false a.s.sumption, then should not the childhood memories return to her? I think the solution must be sought elsewhere, in this, that Maria knew nothing in clear consciousness of the happenings of that moonlight night and could honestly swear to that, but everything was known in the unconscious. Here is the sense of guilt engendered, of which consciousness may know nothing, here she knows well enough that the youthful Eisener has embraced her and she has together with him deceived the father whom she first loved. The goal of all moon walking is none other than to be able to enjoy and still be blameless, it is blamelessness because without accompanying consciousness.

The poet's words must confirm this, if this a.s.sumption is correct. We will test them. The first night of her banishment Maria, while going to sleep, thought first of her father "who must go to bed without the little services which he was accustomed to receive from her." Then she thought of Breitung and the apothecary's daughter, who had turned from her full of scorn. "The young Eisener occurred to her in the midst of this, she knew not how, and a sort of curiosity whether Eisener also would have turned from her in so unfriendly a fas.h.i.+on as Breitung. She pictured to herself how he might have looked upon her now with contempt, now with friendliness, as on that morning which she so gladly remembered." Also an evident identification of the young Eisener with the father and the father's friend, and flight from the loved ones who had cast her off to him who had inclined to her as a friend.

Yet more convincing is a pa.s.sage which follows. Maria had born a son and "the more she looked with joy upon the small infant contemplating his sound and beautiful body, the more grew the need within her, only instinctively felt at first, to have some one who could rejoice in the child with her, not out of mere sympathy with her, but because he had the same right to it and so that she could rejoice again in his joy, as he might in hers. Without knowing how and why, she thought again of the friendly and true hearted Eisener. Her dreams brought his picture before her eyes in most vivid colors. It seemed as if it were Eisener who should enjoy the child with her. She hastened to him with tears of joy to lay the beautiful boy in his arms, and when she now stood by him, she had scarcely the heart to show him the boy. Then she cast down her eyes and said confusedly, 'See this beautiful child, Eisener, Sir!'" Maria knew quite well in the unconscious that she had conceived her child from Eisener and the sudden restraint when she laid the boy in his arms is only a compromise with consciousness, which must not know the facts, otherwise she could not be spared her feeling of guilt. Yes, when Julie then came with her love child, which she had conceived that same moonlight night from the hunter, although she really loved Eisener, then "Maria experienced, she knew not why, a gentle aversion toward her. She said quietly, 'That in which one has done no wrong and cannot change, one must bear patiently.'"

Soon however there awoke a desire in her "for something new, still unknown to her, which she nevertheless felt must come now. It was the strange, fearfully sweet condition of the ripeness of love, which had not yet found the object on which she could open her heart. That night a need awakened, formerly repressed into the background by greater pain, but which threatened now to outgrow other desires and feelings in the undisputed possession of him." Often she sat knitting and dreaming at the boy's cradle. "There was a fair at Marklinde. She went early in her rose-colored dress into the garden and plucked wild hedge roses. She was startled for she heard a noise behind her and she knew that it was Eisener who was coming after her. She turned into another path; she was afraid to meet him, and yet she wished that he would follow her. As she bent low behind some flowers, she threw a hasty look behind her. She grew rosy because he might have noticed the look, and still it would have made her glad if he had noticed it. 'Yet if he knew everything,'

she whispered to herself; 'but I could not tell him, nor could I let him perceive it. I would have to say No, although he understood it as Yes!'

Suddenly he stood near her; he had seized her hand and was looking into her eyes. She bowed her head, he bent toward her. It seemed so strange to her--their lips touched--Maria frightened and blus.h.i.+ng, sprang involuntarily from her chair, as if what she was dreaming were real.

"A strangely mingled feeling drove her from her chair to the window and from the window back to the chair. She felt herself stirred in her very depths by something which wounded her sensibility as much as it excited her longing. She fled to her child. She strove to think of something else; in vain. That thought continually returned and gradually lost its frightful character. Soon she felt it only as a sweet dread and so the idea received a double stimulation while it woke the curious question, why and for what reason she must really be afraid. And as she looked now upon the child, it seemed to her so marvellous that she, mother and yet maiden, knew nothing of the happiness of which this little life must be the fruit. Julie's words were continually ringing in her ears, 'The happiness which is granted him, has to be reckoned too dear.' It gave her unending satisfaction, to think of herself actually in such a situation to the young Eisener that all her unhappiness was the result of a joy which she had granted him, without knowing what joy this must have been." I consider it superfluous to add a word to complete the interpretation of these phantasies, which speak for themselves. They confirm everything that I have said above, better than any labored explanation. Later Maria came to know that what had sustained her in the hours of her sorrow was nothing else than that mysterious but certain premonition of a happy life with Eisener and her George.

And now back to the purpose of the a.n.a.lysis of all these tales. What does it teach us for the understanding of moon walking? First of all it confirms many of our earlier conclusions. The most important thing, in the first place, is that s.e.xual impulses lie at the foundation, desire for s.e.xual gratification, and that one apparently acts in sleep in order to escape all culpability, while the unconscious still knows all about it. The sleep walking begins, in accordance with the s.e.xual basic motive, at the time of p.u.b.erty and lasts until it is inhibited by the close of that period or in women with the birth of the first child. It is further established that at the beginning the bed of childhood is sought, the place of earlier s.e.xual pleasures, later however the bed of the loved object, who appears in the place of the originally loved object, the parent. Finally, moreover, when the night wanderer fixes his closed eyes upon the moon before starting out on his wandering, erotic thoughts hide behind this, which in turn go back to earliest childhood.

The heavenly body effects a s.e.xual excitement not only through its light, but indeed also through s.e.xual phantasies which are bound with it. Lastly folk myth knows likewise that the woman in white represents nothing else than the maiden in her night s.h.i.+ft with all her s.e.xual longings.

One thing more this novel also confirms, which our earlier discoveries have already taught us, the abnormal muscle excitability and muscle erotic. For Maria was seized with a hysterical convulsion when her father's unkindness pressed itself upon her. It is interesting that this abnormal muscle excitability, which manifested itself in various muscular convulsions, was present with Otto Ludwig throughout his earthly career. Already as a boy he often suffered convulsive muscular twitchings, when he had exceptional tasks to perform or hard thinking was required of him, and "nervous twitchings of the head" are recorded of him when twenty-three years old, also presumably a tic had won for him the nickname of "the shaker." Later moreover our poet suffered chronically from convulsive manifestations of a lesser degree, repeatedly however in a stronger, special form although only in temporary attacks.[25]

[25] Cf. with this especially Ernst Jentsch, "Das Pathologische bei Otto Ludwig," "Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens," published by L. Lowenfeld, No. 90.

In other words, it may be said that Ludwig a.s.signs to Maria and the young Eisener a series of his own personal characteristics.

That is to say, not only was the tendency to convulsive attacks peculiar to him, but also to fainting, and a compulsive neurotic and hysterical tendency, the high grade myopia, a fondness for discussing painting, talking with inanimate things,[26] colored audition, as well as other synesthesias, and finally a special reverence for his mother.

[26] Cf. here the poet's words: "It is strange that nature is personified for me, that I not only live in her, but as one human being with another, exchanging, not merely receiving, thoughts and feelings, and even so, that different places become as individual to me, distinct from others and, as it were, transformed in consciousness, so that I not only feel that they effect an influence upon me but it seems to me as if I work upon them, and the forms, as they appear to me, show the traces of this influence." Further: "I ...

who stood even in a wonderful mutual understanding with mountain and flora, because the kingdom of love was not to be restrained...."

"BUSCHNOVELLE," by Otto Ludwig.

The moon plays an important part in the romance just discussed, even apart from Maria's night wandering, and a number of significant events take place under its very light. We find this relations.h.i.+p still stronger in Otto Ludwig's "Buschnovelle," briefly referred to earlier, which I add here, though it really does not directly treat of our problems. The heroine Pauline pa.s.sed with many as moon struck and her blue eyes "have a strange expression of their own. They gaze as aliens upon this world, as angels, which, transplanted to our marvelous earth, belong to the heavenly home and cannot find themselves amid this confused and agitated humanity." Likewise his bride a.s.serts of the count that he knows no other recreation "than to climb about in the night over the rocks and wors.h.i.+p the moon." This perhaps gave occasion to the rumor of a ghost or at least breathed new life into an old tale.

A prince was banished under an enchantment to the rocks of the G.o.ds. He had "a face as of a person twenty years old or so, but pale and quite transparent like moonlight, and he could be rescued only through a maiden eighteen years old and as innocent as when she came from the mother's womb." The count, whom his bride deceived, became very melancholy over it and trusted no woman after this. He learned to know and love Pauline upon the rocks of the G.o.ds, where he was accustomed to wander in the moonlight. When she believed she saw in him the enchanted prince and declared her intention of voluntarily rescuing him, he stipulated that she must climb down from off the rocks, down from the cross, without touching them with her hands but holding her arms toward the full moon. "And that must take place tomorrow night when the moon is sailing overhead, otherwise I must remain enchanted. When you shall have climbed down the rocks, I shall be saved and then I will make you my princess." One may read afterward from the poet how Pauline then carried out her resolve--her determination alone, sprung evidently from a great love, had already cured the count of his sadness--how the count saved her and later wooed her.

Emphasis will be laid here merely upon two facts, first that not only all important events happen in the light of the full moon, but that also no other novel shows so many autobiographical features. The most recent publisher of this tale, Heinrich Borcherdt, gives this explanation: "One can recognize without much trouble in the portrait of the count with his well-trimmed beard the poet himself, who at that time tended to great seriousness and to melancholy. For this very reason the cheerfulness, gaiety and unrestrained naturalness of his bride Emilie worked most refres.h.i.+ngly upon him. Pauline in the tale exercised a similar influence upon the count. What we know of Emilie Ludwig from without agrees likewise with the picture of Pauline. Pauline's father suggests Emilie's father.... The greatest weight will be laid upon the fact that we possess in this work a poetic glorification of Otto Ludwig's love happiness in Triebischtal. The rural life is reproduced in every detail." Nothing unfortunately is reported in the different sketches of his life whether and how far the poet and his bride allowed themselves to be influenced by the light of the full moon. The striking fact remains at any rate that twice in the course of two years he spun out this theme and each time moreover with a strongly autobiographical note.

That cannot be sufficiently explained merely through the influence of Tieck, whom he, to be sure, read diligently in his youth.

"LEBENSMAGIE, WIRKLICHKEIT UND TRAUM," by Theodor Mundt ("Life's Magic, Reality and Dream").

In the seventh volume of the "Euphorion" Richard M. Meyer has exhumed a probable source of Ludwig's "Maria." It is a fict.i.tious tale of the "young German" Theodor Mundt, which appeared in his collection "Charaktere und Situationen" in 1837, five years before the "Maria," and shows in fact some external similarities with this. Still Otto Ludwig expressly acknowledges a tale told by a friend as the source, but gives no syllable of mention to Mundt. I must say that it seems at least very questionable that the latter's story was the model, although the Berlin literary historian comes to the conclusion, "A direct utilization would be here difficult to dispute." I will reproduce the contents of this story, as far as it touches our problems, as closely as possible in the words of Mundt, although this story, which is contained in the collection mentioned under the separate t.i.tle of "Lebensmagie, Wirklichkeit und Traum," hardly possesses an artistic value.

The theological student Emil Hahn had, as one of his friends states, "lost life itself over his books and before his merry companions, who would have initiated him into the true enjoyment of existence, crowed many a moral c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo of virtue and self restraint." On the ride home to his father and foster sister Rosalinde he was urged by two student acquaintances to a little drinking bout, at which he partook of more wine than was good for him. The two comrades sang the praises of Rosalinde, whom Hahn had left as a fourteen year old girl and who in the two years of separation had blossomed out in full beauty. As Hahn returned to the father's house in a half intoxicated state and met Rosalinde in an adjacent room, he found at once, in contrast to his shyness of former times, the courage to approach her. "Ardently and daringly he embraced her and the pa.s.sionate kiss which he impressed upon her maidenly lips was followed, as one lightning flash succeeds another, by a second more lingering one, which was reluctant to leave off." After he had for some time, again quite contrary to his custom, held his own place at the large party which his father was giving that very evening, "he felt himself gradually seized with weariness and the lively and excited mood, to which the wine he had enjoyed had awakened him, began little by little to disappear with the intoxication. He made his adieus in a dejected tone and betook himself with heavy, hanging head to his room, there to recover himself through sleep, which he could no longer withstand because of his painful state.

"It was late in the night when Emil sprang from his bed. A vivid dream seemed to have confused and frightened him. He stood half clothed in the middle of his room and stared straight ahead as if trying to recollect himself. Above in the night sky glowed the full round moon with a sharp ray seldom seen and its white silver light pierced directly over the head of the youth walking in his sleep. The room gleamed brightly in the moonbeams trembling with mystery, which had spun themselves out in long, glimmering threads over floor and ceiling. Emil had fastened his eyes upon the great disk of the moon and staggered with uncertain steps to the window to open it." While he stood thus there came a small snow white cat--the cat is well known as a favorite animal of the romantic writers--and spoke to him: "I am come to congratulate you on your bridal night. Yes, yes, I know well that you are married.

This is a beautiful night to be married. The moon shoots down right warmly, and its strong s.h.i.+ning stings the blood and we cats also feel the impulses stirring in the whispering May night. Happy one, you who are married! Married to Rosalinde!"

"Emil, distracted, clasped his forehead. Everything which he saw about him appeared to him changed and even the inanimate things in his vicinity seemed in this moment to have been drawn into a magic alliance.

Everything, the very table, chair, press looked at him, rocking themselves saucily in the bright moonlight, personally and familiarly, and had to his eyes, arms and feet to move about, mouths to speak with, senses for communication. At the same time a fair picture rose before the youth deep out of the bottom of his heart, at which he smiled longingly. It was the recollection of Rosalinde and her matured beauty.

She pa.s.sed like a burning, ominous dream through his soul and he felt himself drunken, trembling, exultingly united with the proud but now subdued maiden in a love thrilled bridal night. While he was thus lost in thought his look was held chained by a painting, which hung on the wall opposite him. Strange, it was Rosa's portrait and he knew not whether this picture had just now arisen warm with life merely out of the force of the idea which was kindling him, or whether it had actually been formed over there in its golden frame by a painter's hand." Then the cat mewed again: "That is your young wife Rosalinde. The moonbeam chases her; see how its brightness kisses her temples unceasingly. The young woman is queen on her bridal night. We will crown her, all we who are here in this room and owe our life to the brightness of the moonlight night, we will crown her. I present her for her bridal crown burning, tender desires." Then the May blossoms in the room bestirred themselves and conferred upon her the bloom of fond innocence for her bridal crown. Also the bird in the cage made himself understood: "I give her for her bridal crown the score of my latest melody. Harmony and melody should be the dower of all young brides." Finally a c.o.c.kchafer also which flew in offered her for her bridal crown "a pair of lovely crickets."

"The dreaming Emil, surrounded by these fairy treasures of the May night, stood in sweet intoxication opposite the glowing picture, bathed in moonlight, of the maiden to whom all this homage belonged. The longer and the more vividly he pictured to himself and leaned toward all the maidenly charms, which had allowed the first pa.s.sionate wish in the young man's phantasy to blaze up, the more an impatience, almost consuming, pounding, benumbing his heart, seized him, which he did not know how to explain and had never felt before in his life. Like a seductively sweet poison the delusion imparted itself secretly to him that Rosalinde was his bride, his wife, and that this wondrously beautiful spring night, bright with moonlight, was his wedding night.

His heart swelled with mighty, growing desire, youthful pa.s.sion breathed high in him. Trembling, fearful, wavering, longing, he still felt himself strangely happy.

"Then it seemed to him that Rosalinde's picture began to move, as if the gleaming shoulders lifted themselves gradually and gently at first from it. Then the delicate outline of the bosom rose as the lovely form came forth, the face streaming with love bowed itself in modest shame before him. The form grew larger, rose to full beauty, stretched itself to life size. Smiling, beckoning, gazing at him full of mystery, promising favor and happiness, she took some steps toward him, then fled back again ashamed and as if frightened, floated away with sylphlike movements to the door and remained hidden behind it, yet peeping and looking out at the youth.

"He did not know if he should, if he might follow her. He was drawn powerfully after her and yet he stood still and hesitated. The bright moonlight seemed, like a fairy toward one enchanted, to make merry at the loud anxious beating of his heart. He restrained himself no longer; with a pa.s.sionate movement he hastened with open arms to the beloved apparition, desiring to embrace her, throw himself upon her bosom, breathe out upon her his burning desire. She fled, he followed her. She fled before him, but softly and alluringly and he, intoxicated, rushed after her from room to room unable to overtake the form flitting on with ghostly swiftness. Like a star drawing him onward she floated there before him, his footsteps were as if bewitched by her running, and thus she led him after her, on and on, through a succession of rooms, so that he marveled and thought himself wandering about in a great, unfamiliar enchanted palace.