Freud - Complete Works (322 page)

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1824

   For the following day one thing
only was fixed: that Hanold must once more be in the House of
Meleager at mid-day; and, in expectation of that moment, he made
his way into Pompeii by an irregular route - over the ancient city
wall. A sprig of asphodel, hung about with its white bell shaped
blossoms, seemed to him significant enough, as the flower of the
underworld, for him to pluck it and carry it with him. But as he
waited, the whole science of archaeology seemed to him the most
pointless and indifferent thing in the world, for another interest
had taken possession of him: the problem of ‘what could be
the nature of the bodily apparition of a being like Gradiva, who
was at once dead and, even though only at the mid-day hour,
alive’. (80.) He was fearful, too, that he might not meet her
that day, for perhaps her return could be permitted only at long
intervals; and when he perceived her once again between the
columns, he thought her apparition was only a trick of his
imagination, and in his pain exclaimed: ‘Oh! if only you
still existed and lived!’ This time, however, he had
evidently been too critical, for the apparition possessed a voice,
which asked him if he was meaning to bring her the white flower,
and engaged him, disconcerted once again, in a long
conversation.

   To his readers, however, to whom
Gradiva has already grown of interest as a living person, the
author explains that the displeased and repelling look which she
had given him the day before had yielded to an expression of
searching interest and curiosity. And indeed she now proceeded to
question him, asked for an explanation of his remark on the
previous day and enquired when it was that he had stood beside her
as she lay down to sleep. In this way she learnt of his dream, in
which she had perished along with her native city, and then of the
marble relief and the posture of the foot which had so much
attracted the archaeologist. And now she showed herself ready to
demonstrate her gait, and this proved that the only divergence from
the original portrait of Gradiva was that her sandals were replaced
by light sand-coloured shoes of fine leather - which she explained
as being an adaptation to the present day. She was evidently
entering into his delusion, the whole compass of which she elicited
from him, without ever contradicting it. Only once did she seem to
be distracted from the part she was playing, by an emotion of her
own; and this was when, with his thoughts on the relief, he
declared that he had recognized her at the first glance. Since at
this stage of their conversation she still knew nothing about the
relief, it was natural for her to misunderstand Hanold’s
words; but she quickly recovered herself, and it is only to us that
some of her remarks sound as though they had a double sense, as
though besides their meaning in the context of the delusion they
also meant something real and present-day - for instance, when she
regretted that he had not succeeded in confirming the Gradiva gait
in his experiments in the streets: ‘What a pity! perhaps you
would not have had to make the long journey here!’ (89.) She
also learned that he had given her portrait on the relief the name
of ‘Gradiva’, and told him her real name,
‘Zoe’. ‘The name suits you beautifully, but it
sounds to me like a bitter mockery, for Zoe means life.’
‘One must bow to the inevitable’, was her reply,
‘and I have long grown used to being dead.’ Promising
to be at the same place again at the mid-day hour next day, she
bade him farewell after once more asking him for the sprig of
asphodel: ‘to those who are more fortunate people give roses
in the spring; but to me it is right that you should give the
flower of forgetfulness.’ No doubt melancholy suited some one
who had been so long dead and had returned to life again for a few
short hours.

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1825

   We are beginning to understand
now, and to feel some hope. If the young lady in whose form Gradiva
had come to life again accepted Hanold’s delusion so fully,
she was probably doing so in order to set him free from it. There
was no other way of doing so; to contradict it would have put an
end to any such possibility. Even the serious treatment of a real
case of illness of the kind could proceed in no other way than to
begin by taking up the same ground as the delusional structure and
then investigating it as completely as possible. If Zoe was the
right person for the job, we shall soon learn, no doubt, how to
cure a delusion like our hero’s. We should also be glad to
know how such delusions arise. It would be a strange coincidence -
but, nevertheless, not without an example or parallel - if the
treatment of the delusion were to coincide with its investigation
and if the explanation of its origin were to be revealed precisely
while it was being dissected. We may suspect, of course, that, if
so, our case of illness might end up as a ‘commonplace’
love-story. But the healing power of love against a delusion is not
to be despised - and was not our hero’s infatuation for his
Gradiva sculpture a complete instance of being in love, though of
being in love with something past and lifeless?

   After Gradiva’s
disappearance, there was only a distant sound, like the laughing
call of a bird flying over the ruined city. The young man, now by
himself, picked up a white object that had been left behind by
Gradiva: not a sheet of papyrus, but a sketch-book with pencil
drawings of various scenes in Pompeii. We should be inclined to
regard her having forgotten the book there as a pledge of her
return, for it is our belief that no one forgets anything without
some secret reason or hidden motive.

   The remainder of the day brought
Hanold all manner of strange discoveries and confirmations, which
he failed to synthesize into a whole. He perceived to-day in the
wall of the portico where Gradiva had vanished a narrow gap, which
was wide enough, however, to allow someone unusually slim to pass
through it. He recognized that Zoe-Gradiva need not have sunk into
the earth here - an idea which now seemed to him so unreasonable
that he felt ashamed of having once believed in it; she might well
have used the gap as a way of reaching her grave. A slight shadow
seemed to him to melt away at the end of the Street of the Tombs in
front of what is known as the Villa of Diomedes.

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1826

   In the same whirl of feeling as
on the previous day and deep in the same problems, he now strolled
round the environs of Pompeii. What, he wondered, might be the
bodily nature of Zoe-Gradiva? Would one feel anything if one
touched her hand? A strange urge drove him to a determination to
put this experiment to the test. Yet an equally strong reluctance
held him back even from the very idea.

   On a sun-bathed slope he met an
elderly gentleman who, from his accoutrements, must be a zoologist
or botanist and who seemed to be engaged in a hunt. This individual
turned towards him and said: ‘Are you interested in
faraglionensis
as well? I should hardly have suspected it,
but it seems to be quite probable that it occurs not only on the
Faraglioni Islands off Capri, but has established itself on the
mainland too. The method prescribed by our colleague Eimer is a
really good one; I have made use of it many times already, with
excellent results. Please keep quite still . . .’ (96.) Here
the speaker broke off and placed a snare made of a long blade of
grass in front of a crack in the rocks out of which the small
iridescent blue head of a lizard was peering. Hanold left the
lizard-hunter with a critical feeling that it was scarcely credible
what foolish and strange purposes could lead people to make the
long journey to Pompeii - without, needless to say, including in
his criticism himself and his intention of searching in the ashes
of Pompeii for Gradiva’s footprints. Moreover, the
gentleman’s face seemed familiar, as though he had had a
glimpse of it in one of the two hotels; his manner of address, too,
had been as though he were speaking to an acquaintance.

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1827

   In the course of his further
walk, he arrived by a side road at a house which he had not yet
discovered and which turned out to be a third hotel, the
‘Albergo del Sole’. The landlord, with nothing else to
do, took the opportunity of showing off his house and the excavated
treasures it contained to their best advantage. He asserted that he
had been present when the pair of young lovers had been found in
the neighbourhood of the Forum, who, in the knowledge of their
inevitable doom, had awaited death closely embraced in each
other’s arms. Hanold had heard of this before, and had
shrugged his shoulders over it as a fabulous tale invented by some
imaginative story-teller; but to-day the landlord’s words
aroused his belief and this was increased when a metal clasp was
produced, covered with a green patina, which was said to have been
retrieved from the ashes beside the girl’s remains. He
purchased this clasp without any further critical doubts, and when,
as he left the
albergo
, he saw in an open window a nodding
sprig of asphodel covered with white blossoms, the sight of the
funeral flowers came over him as a confirmation of the genuineness
of his new possession.

   But with the clasp a new delusion
took possession of him, or rather the old one had a small piece
added to it - no very good augury, it would seem, for the treatment
that had been begun. A pair of young lovers in an embrace had been
dug out not far from the Forum, and it was in that very
neighbourhood, by the Temple of Apollo, that in his dream he had
seen Gradiva lie down to sleep. Was it not possible that in fact
she had gone further along from the Forum and had met someone and
that they had then died together? A tormenting feeling, which we
might perhaps liken to jealousy, arose out of this suspicion. He
appeased it by reflecting on the uncertainty of the construction,
and brought himself to his senses far enough to be able to take his
evening meal at the Hotel Diomède. There his attention was
drawn by two newly-arrived visitors, a He and a She, whom he was
obliged to regard as a brother and sister on account of a certain
resemblance between them - in spite of the difference in the colour
of their hair. They were the first people he had met on his journey
who made a sympathetic impression on him. A red Sorrento rose worn
by the girl aroused some kind of memory in him, but he could not
think what. At last he went to bed and had a dream. It was a
remarkably senseless affair, but was obviously hashed up from his
day’s experiences. ‘Somewhere in the sun Gradiva was
sitting, making a snare out of a blade of grass to catch a lizard
in, and said: "Please keep quite still. Our lady colleague is
right; the method is a really good one and she has made use of it
with excellent results."' He fended off this dream while
he was still asleep, with the critical thought that it was utter
madness, and he succeeded in freeing himself from it with the help
of an invisible bird which uttered a short laughing call and
carried off the lizard in its beak.

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1828

   In spite of all this turmoil, he
woke up in a rather clearer and steadier frame of mind. A branch of
a rose-tree bearing flowers of the sort he had seen the day before
on the young lady’s breast reminded him that during the night
someone had said that people give roses in the spring. Without
thinking, he picked a few of the roses, and there must have been
something connected with them that had a relaxing effect on his
mind. He felt relieved of his unsociable feelings, and went by the
usual way to Pompeii, burdened with the roses, the metal clasp and
the sketch-book, and occupied with a number of problems concerning
Gradiva. The old delusion had begun to show cracks: he was
beginning to wonder whether she might be in Pompeii, not at the
mid-day hour only, but at other times as well. The stress had
shifted, however, to the latest addition, and the jealousy
attaching to it tormented him in all sorts of disguises. He could
almost have wished that the apparition might remain visible to his
eyes alone, and elude the perception of others: then, in spite of
everything, he could look on her as his own exclusive property.
While he was strolling about, waiting for the mid-day hour, he had
an unexpected encounter. In the
Casa del Fauno
he came upon
two figures in a corner in which they must have thought themselves
out of sight, for they were embraced in each other’s arms and
their lips were pressed together. He was astonished to recognize in
them the sympathetic couple from the previous evening. But their
behaviour now did not seem to fit a brother and sister: their
embrace and their kiss seemed to him to last too long. So after all
they were a pair of lovers, presumably a young honeymoon couple -
yet another Edwin and Angelina. Curiously enough, however, this
time the sight of them caused him only satisfaction; and with a
sense of awe, as though he had interrupted some secret act of
devotion, he withdrew unobserved. An attitude of respectfulness,
which he had long been without, had returned to him.

Delusions And Dreams In Jensen's Gradiva

1829

   When he reached the House of
Meleager, he was once more overcome by such a violent dread of
finding Gradiva in someone else’s company that when she
appeared the only words he found to greet her with were: ‘Are
you alone?’ It was with difficulty that he allowed her to
bring him to realize that he had picked the roses for her. He
confessed his latest delusion to her - that she was the girl who
had been found in the forum in a lover’s embrace and who had
owned the green clasp. She enquired, not without a touch of
mockery, whether he had found the thing in the sun perhaps: the sun
(and she used the [Italian] word ‘
sole
’)
produced all kinds of things like that. He admitted that he was
feeling dizzy in his head, and she suggested as a cure that he
should share her small picnic meal with her. She offered him half
of a roll wrapped up in tissue paper and ate the other half herself
with an obviously good appetite. At the same time her perfect teeth
flashed between her lips and made a slight crunching sound as they
bit through the crust. ‘I feel as though we had shared a meal
like this once before, two thousand years ago’, she said;
‘can’t you remember?’ (118.) He could think of no
reply, but the improvement in his head brought about by the food,
and the many indications she gave of her actual presence, were not
without their effect on him. Reason began to rise in him and to
throw doubt on the whole delusion of Gradiva’s being no more
than a mid-day ghost - though no doubt it might be argued on the
other hand that she herself had just said that she had shared a
meal with him two thousand years ago. As a means of settling the
conflict an experiment suggested itself: and this he carried out
craftily and with regained courage. Her left hand, with its
delicate fingers, was resting on her knees, and one of the
house-flies whose impertinence and uselessness had so much roused
his indignation alighted on it. Suddenly Hanold’s hand was
raised in the air and descended with a vigorous slap on the fly and
Gradiva’s hand.