Sleep Walking and Moon Walking Part 3

CASE 6.--I add here three autobiographical reports, which I have gathered from literature. The first originates with the famous anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach, who from his tenth to his thirtieth year had occasional attacks of moon walking, although he apparently "enjoyed the most perfect health." "I have during these periods," he himself relates, "undertaken actions which I had to recognize as mine, merely because they could have been carried out by no one else. Thus one day it was incomprehensible to me why I had on no s.h.i.+rt when I awoke, and it remained so in spite of my utmost efforts to recollect myself, until the s.h.i.+rt was found in another room rolled together under a press. In my twenty-ninth year I was awakened from a night wandering by the question, What did I want? and then the consciousness of the somnambulistic state pa.s.sed over in part to the awaking. First I found the question strange, but since I thought the reason for it would become plain, I need not betray it. Immediately, however, as I began to waken, I asked myself in what that consisted and, now that the somnambulistic state was over, the answer must be due me."

One cannot help finding this self revelation exceedingly interesting.

The hiding of the s.h.i.+rt, although the affair is so incompletely reported, especially in its motivation, points unmistakably at least to exhibitionism. The second sleep walking appears much more difficult of explanation. In this Burdach sought plainly a definite goal, which seemed so clear and transparent to him that he could not at all understand why anyone should question him about it. If we consider that his first thought on waking was that he need not betray this purpose, that moreover there enters at once a repression and causes him completely to forget it, there remains then no other possibility than that we have to do with a strongly forbidden wish, which the conscious censor will not allow to pa.s.s. It is easy to conceive a s.e.xual motivation in this second instance if we remember that in the first sleep walking something s.e.xual surely took place.

Still more probable is the strongly forbidden s.e.xual goal, if we take into consideration the circ.u.mstances of his life. In his autobiography "Ruckblick auf mein Leben" Burdach tells us how extraordinarily his mother depended upon him. "Having already lost four children in their first year, she had longed to bear another child and especially since the setting in of the illness of my father had compelled her to think of losing him, she had wished for a son as a sure object for her love-thirsty heart. Her wish was fulfilled when she bore me." Eleven months later the father died, leaving his wife and his little son not yet a year old unprovided for. Nevertheless she, the widow, rejected the proposal to return to her parents' home and preferred rather "trouble, need and a thousand cares upon herself in order that I might be better educated; for I was the object of her deepest love. About nine o'clock in the evening she went with me to bed and twined her arm about me; in the morning she stole from my side and permitted me an hour or two more of rest (p. 14).

"Women had a particular influence upon me; but it was also natural to me to attach myself to them. As my mother related, I never as a child went for a ride on my hobby horse without having at parting and on my return kissed my hand to my lady represented by a doll" (p. 24). It is superfluous to add that this lady was no other than his mother. Also the following pa.s.sage I think is significant: "I was by nature endowed with as great a sensitiveness to womanly charm as to womanly dignity and this inclination toward the other s.e.x grounded in my psychical const.i.tution was nurtured by circ.u.mstances from my earliest youth on. I could but recognize very soon the high intellectual and moral quality of my good mother, who in her struggle with poverty kept herself fresh and free from vulgarity and shunned no sacrifice for me. Likewise the matrons to whose well wis.h.i.+ng I owe my grat.i.tude, inspired me with high respect for their character. In my former nurse there seemed to me a pattern of tireless and sagacious activity of a high order and breeding.... Thus a high respect for true womanhood was implanted in me. On the other hand I was as a boy made so accustomed to this role by several young women, who entertained themselves with me and considered me as their lover to while away their time, that I later retained the inclination to play this part and considered a friendly advance as an invitation which I in turn held as a sacred claim of honor and an agreeable duty" (pp. 69 ff.).

When later the mother took a young widow into lodgings, the young man, then twenty-one years old, had "the exalted feeling of being her protector. Then it was all up with my heart" (p. 71). The death of the dearest one to him on earth, his mother, followed close upon this and brought an end to it. "I became convinced that happiness would be found for me only where I shared it with another being, and that I could be satisfied only by a relations.h.i.+p similar to that in which I had stood toward my mother; an inner bond where only a single mutual interest controlled, where one soul found its happiness only in the other.

Without such an absolute love, penetrating the whole being, life seemed to me worthless and stale. My mother, whose unbounded love I had enjoyed, was torn from me; my excellent uncle, heartily devoted to me, I saw in the enjoyment of his own family happiness. And an unconquerable desire for the same happiness tortured me as I felt my utter loneliness"

(p. 79). So he concluded to marry although he had only limited prospects for supporting a family.

"The first intimation that my wife was pregnant filled me with delight.

I took it for granted that Heaven would send me a daughter. With my idea of the value of woman all my wishes tended thither, to possess a daughter and to be able to watch over her while she unfolded to a n.o.ble womanhood. She should have my mother for her pattern and therefore also be named Caroline after her.[16a] I spoke so confidently, after I had left Vienna, of 'our daughter Caroline' in my letters to my wife that she was finally quite concerned and sought to prepare me for the birth of a son. I had not however made a mistake and my confidence was in the end justified" (pp. 83 ff.). His wife was confined at some distance from him and then as soon as possible journeyed to him with the little one.

He relates as follows: "I went in Borsdorf with a beating heart to the carriage which brought her to me, kissed her hastily, took my child out of her arms and carried it hastily into the inn, laid it upon the table, loosed the bindings which bound it to its tiny bed and was lost in happy contemplation of the beautifully formed, lovely, vigorous and lively little girl and then first threw myself into the arms of my wife, who in her mother's pride and joy was feasting her eyes upon us, and then I had again to observe the lovely child. What cared I for mankind! What cared I for the whole world! I was more than happy" (pp. 85 ff.).

[16a] Cf. Barrie: "Dear Brutus," Act. II. for the dream daughter, who bears the name of the author's mother. See also "Margaret Ogilvy." The dream daughter's apostrophe to the moon is also interesting in connection with the present study. Tr.

The manner also in which he brought up his child is highly significant: "Our hearts clung mostly to our daughter.... I enjoyed the pleasure of possessing her with full consciousness of her worth, gazed upon her with rapture and was delighted when I observed in her a new trait of beautiful womanly character. She recognized by my serious treatment of her the entire depth of my love, repaid it with inner devotion and challenged it with merry playfulness. From her first year I delighted to lift her from her bed in the morning and even when she was eight years old she often got up of herself, knocked on the window of the alcove door leading into my work room and whisked back to her bed, so that when I came she could throw herself with hearty laughter into my arms and let me take her up. Or she slipped behind my chair and climbed up behind my back, while I was deep in my work, so that she could fall triumphantly upon my neck.

"I must refrain from mentioning more of her winsome childhood. She was the most beautiful ornament of my life and in the possession of her I felt myself, in spite of all pecuniary need, immeasurably happy." It will not surprise any one with knowledge of these things that a child so insatiable for love should become hysterical. "Her sensitiveness was unnaturally exaggerated," also she was seized once with a hysterical convulsion, as Burdach relates. She died young and "the flower of my life was past. The fairest, purest joy was extinguished for me. I had wished her for myself and Heaven had heard me. Finding in her the fulfilment of my warmest wishes, I had never thought it would be possible that I should outlive this daughter. Nevertheless I bore the pain ... confident of being reunited with her.... For thirty years scarcely a day has pa.s.sed on which I have not at least once thought in my inmost soul of my Caroline" (pp. 142-147).

I will cite in conclusion still one more fragment of self characterization: "A chief trait in my character was the need for love, not that everyday love which limits itself to a personal pleasure and delight, but that unbounded, overflowing love which feels itself completely one with the beloved.... The ideal of marriage was before me in youth, for this need for love has been mine all my life.... I remember as a student having written in my diary that I would rather forego life itself than the happiness of family life" (pp. 53 ff.).

The center of this interesting life is Burdach's deep oneness with his mother. She on her part took him from the beginning unconsciously as a s.e.xual object, as a subst.i.tute for her husband, who was failing in health and soon after died. She lay in bed near her little one, her arm twined about his body and slept with him until morning. No wonder that the boy was so sensitive to womanly charm and likewise that later different women looked upon him as their lover. The thought early established itself with Burdach that only such a relations.h.i.+p could satisfy him as that in which he had stood toward his mother. And as he stood for the father it seemed to him a certain fact that now a little girl should come to be the surrogate for his mother. Noteworthy also is his att.i.tude toward the mother who had just been confined and the child.

The former is to him almost incidental, while in the contemplation of his child, in whom he secures his mother again, he can scarcely get his fill, and he overwhelms her later with such pa.s.sionate love as he had once obtained from his mother. When the girl was torn from him, he was consoled only by the thought of being united again with her in heaven.

We may see finally in the fond play in bed with his daughter a repet.i.tion of that which he carried on with his mother, and we may remember also that as a child he always slept with his mother. From all this it seems to me a light falls upon the unexplained purpose of Burdach's sleep walking. If this seems completely clear to him but so objectionable that he not only concludes to keep it secret, but, more than that, forgets it on the spot, then the probability is, that he desired that night to climb into bed with his beloved mother.

CASE 7. A second autobiographical account of repeated sleep walking I find in the "Buch der Kindheit," the first volume of Ludwig Ganghofer's "Lebenslauf eines Optimisten." When the boy had to go away to school his mother gave him four b.a.l.l.s of yarn to take with him, so that he might mend his own clothing and underwear. She had hidden a gulden deep within each ball, a proof of mother love, which he later discovered. In the course of time while at the school the impulses of p.u.b.erty began to stir in him and pressed upon him so strongly at first that frequent pollutions occurred. He thought he must surely be ill, until finally a colleague explained to him that this was on the contrary a special sign of health. This calmed him and now he could sleep splendidly.

"One night I awoke suddenly as if roused by a burning heat. I experienced a horrible suffering and believed I felt a hand on my body.

I cried out and pushed with my feet, and as I lay there in a half consciousness it was as if many of my dormitory companions were awake and I heard them ask, 'What is it? Who has called out this way?' A voice, 'Some one has been dreaming!' And another voice, 'Silence in the dormitory!' And all was gone from me as if under a heavy veil. Once again quiet. Am I asleep or am I awake? A wild beating in the arteries of my neck, a roaring in my ears. Yet in the dormitory all is quiet. The lamp is burning, I see the white beds. I see the copper of the washstand glimmer like red gold. Must I have dreamed--an oppressive, frightful dream? Drops of sweat stood out on my forehead. Then came a heavy sleep.

What was this? I rarely had days of depression or restless, disturbed nights. And yet in these weeks I entered upon this uncomfortable experience.

"One night I awoke. Darkness was round about me. And I was cold. And I saw no lamp, no bed, no s.h.i.+ning copper. Was this also a dream? Yet my hands felt plainly the hard wood in front of me. Slowly I recognized a number of vaguely outlined squares, the great windows. Clad only in my s.h.i.+rt, I sat in the study room before my desk. Such a horror fell upon me as I cannot describe. I ran wildly up the stairs, threw myself into my bed and shook. Another night I awoke. Darkness was about me. Again I was cold. And I believed that I was again sitting at my desk. No; I was standing. My hands however felt no wood, my eyes found not the gray windows. As I moved, my head struck against something hard. I became aware of a feeble light s.h.i.+ning. As I went towards it, I came from some dark room upon the dimly lighted stair landing.

"I awoke again in the night. I was cold. A semi-darkness was about me and over me many stars twinkled. I sat upon the s.h.i.+ngle roof of the bowling alley. It was not a far leap to the ground below. But the pebble stones of the seminary garden p.r.i.c.ked my bare feet. Moreover, when I wanted to get into the house, I found the gate closed. My G.o.d! how had I then come out? Somewhere I found an open window and climbed into the house and noiselessly up to the dormitory. The window near my bed stood open--and there outside, I believe, was a lightning rod.

"All day I racked my brains to find a way to escape from the fear of this dreadful thing. I dared not confide in anyone, for fear of the ridicule of the others, for fear--I never knew just what I feared. In the evening I took one of Mother's b.a.l.l.s of yarn to bed with me, bound two double strands about my wrists and tied the ends around the k.n.o.bs of the bedstead. In the night, as I was about to wander again, I felt the pull of Mother's threads and awoke. It never came again. I was cured."

This appears at the first glance a non-s.e.xual sleep walking. This is only however in its first appearance, although it is to be regretted that the full explanation can scarcely be given in the absence of any a.n.a.lysis. It is first to be noted that sleep walking sets in at p.u.b.erty and is ushered in by anxiety dreams, pollutions and various anxiety equivalents. The hammering in the arteries, the roaring in the ears, the restless, disturbed nights, as well as the unusually disturbed days, we know these all as manifestations of an unsatisfied libido. The first "frightful" anxiety dream seems to lead deeper, as well, as the "horrible suffering" started by a hand, which he felt upon his body.

Must not this hand, which causes this "horrible suffering" to the youth who had never yet known trouble, have touched his genitals?[17] Behind this perhaps, moreover, are very early memories of the care bestowed upon the nursing infant and the child.

[17] One may also think of the fear of castration, a.s.sociated with the threats of parents so very frequently made when children practice masturbation.

The terror which fell upon him every time that he walked in his sleep is worthy of note, for he was not otherwise easily frightened. "A terror which I could not describe," "fear of that dreadful thing" and fear not merely of the ridicule of his fellows but of something, what, he never knew, which is a far more violent reaction than we have been accustomed to find with sleep walkers. This excessive reaction may be very well understood, however, if behind it a particularly inacceptable s.e.xual factor hides itself. Finally the cure by means of the mother's b.a.l.l.s of yarn, homely proof of her love, doubtless has to do with the erotic. It must be admitted to be sure that we have to confine ourselves to mere conjectures. Only one may well maintain that even an apparently non-s.e.xual case soon reveals its s.e.xual grounding. Moreover, a strong muscle erotic is demonstrated further throughout Ganghofer's autobiography.

CASE 8. I will now, especially upon the subject of moon walking, cite an author who shows a very unusual preference for this heavenly body. In many a description and in many of the speeches which he has put into the mouths of his heroes, has Ludwig Tieck, who also has sung of the "moon-l.u.s.tered magic night," given artistic expression to this quite remarkable love mania--this is the correct designation for it. Ricarda Huch in her "Blutezeit der Romantik" makes the striking statement that from this poet's figures one must "tear away the labels stuck upon them and name them altogether Ludwig Tieck, for in truth they are only refractions of this one beam." One may hear for example how Sternbald felt: "The orb of the moon stood exactly opposite the window of his room." He watched it with longing eyes, he sought upon the s.h.i.+ning disk and in the spots upon it mountains and forests, wonderful castles and enchanted flowers and fragrant trees. He believed that he saw lakes with s.h.i.+ning swans which were drawing boats, a skiff which carried him and his beloved, while about them charming mermaids blew upon their twisted conchs and stretched their arms filled with water lilies over into the bark.

"Ah, there, there!" he would call out, "is perchance the home of all desire, all wishes; therefore there falls upon us so sweet a melancholy, so soft a charm, when that still light, full and golden, floats upon the heavens and pours down its silver light upon us. Yes, it awaits us and prepares for us our happiness, and for this reason its sorrowful look toward us, that we must still remain in this earthly twilight." The similarity here with the phantasies of the psychoa.n.a.lytic patient at the beginning is indeed unmistakable.

Yet one or two extracts from the novel "Der Mondsuchtige,"[18] the t.i.tle of which is misleading since it in no way treats of one afflicted with lunacy but of a veritable moon lover, presumably our poet himself. There the nephew, Ludwig Licht(!), writes to his uncle: "It is now three months since I had a very serious quarrel with my friend, a quarrel which almost separated us, for he mocked at an entire world which is to me so immeasurably precious. In a word, he railed at the moon and would not admit that the magic light with which it s.h.i.+nes was anything beautiful or exalting. From Ossian to Siegwart he reviled a susceptibility toward the moon although the poets express it, and he almost had declared in plain words that if there were a h.e.l.l, it certainly would be located in the moon. At any rate he thought that the entire sphere of the moon consists of burned out craters, water could not be found upon it, and hardly any plant life, and the wan, unwholesome reflection of a borrowed light would bring us sickness, madness, ruin of fruits and grains, and he who is already foolish will without doubt behave himself worst at the time of full moon.... What concern is it of mine what the astronomers have discovered in the moon or what they will yet discover?... It may be ludicrous and vexatious to devote oneself exclusively and unreservedly to this or that, any observation, any favorite object. Upon my earlier wanderings I met a rich Englishman who traveled only to waterfalls and battlefields.

Ridiculously enough, though I have not journeyed only in the moonlight, yet I have from my earliest youth forever taken note of the influence of its light, have never in any region missed the light of the full moon and I dream of being, not quite an Endymion, but yet a favorite of the moon. When it returns, its...o...b..little by little growing full, I cannot suppress a feeling of longing while I gaze upon it, whether in meadow and woodland, on the mountains or in the city itself and in my own room."

[18] Literally, "Moonsick." [Tr.]

And the uncle answers him: "It is true, you are moon sick, as we have always called you, and to such a one much must be forgiven which would have to be reckoned differently to a well man. I have myself however always inclined to this disease." In fact the entire action, loving and losing, the development and solution of the plot, takes place almost exclusively under the light of the moon. At the conclusion, when the hero finds the beloved given up for lost, he cannot refrain from the outcry: "Yes, the moonlight has given her and led her to me, he, the moon has so rewarded me, his true friend and inspired panegyrist!" I regret that I find nothing in the biographies which would explain Tieck's exquisite amorousness toward the moon.

PART II

Literary Section

It is my purpose to bring also our beautiful literature to the solution of the exceedingly difficult and obscure problem of sleep walking and moon walking. Our poets, for all our psychiatrists and psychologists, possess the finest knowledge of the psyche and during the centuries before science was able to throw light upon the puzzles of the mind, they solved them prophetically with discerning spirit. Thus they knew how to bring to light various elements of our problem. Their creations directed to that end arose from their own inner nature, through a.n.a.logy, or because sleep walking was not foreign to them themselves. And even if neither were the case, they still had the ability of those who have a real true knowledge of men, quite intuitively to see clearly into the unconscious of others. We will come to know what profound interest many of the great poets, like Otto Ludwig and Heinrich von Kleist took in night wandering and moon walking and how they have first introduced these dark problems into other traditional material. A striking similarity is revealed if one compares that which the poet has in mind with that which I have been able to report in the medical section. I shall be able satisfactorily to verify the statement that science and art have reached exactly the same result. First however I will present the examples from the poets according to their comprehensibility and their transparency. I begin with

"AEBELo," by Sophus Michaelis.

Twice had Soelver drawn near to the maiden Gro, daughter of his neighbor, Sten Ba.s.se. The first time was when in the spring he visited the island Aebeloe, which belonged to him but was quite uninhabited. So bright the day and so warm the kiss of the sun upon him, yet suddenly it was "as if his bare neck were flooded by a still warmer wave of light."

A maiden stood before him, "who was like pure light. The eyes were as if without pupils, without a glance; as she looked it was as if white clouds floated forth out of a heavenly blue background. Soelver sprang up and stood face to face before her. Her cheeks grew red. Although unknown to each other, they smiled one at the other like two seraphim.

Her hands opened toward his and before her, as out of her lap, fell the flowers which she had gathered. Soelver believed for a moment that it was all a dream. He swung his hands into the air and a hand waved toward him. He closed his eyes that he might enjoy to the full the soft, fleeting impression. It floated over his hand like an incorporeal breath. Was it then a ghostly vision, that wandered there at his side!"

When however he knew that the maiden near him was a living being, then "his lips sank toward her trembling with desire, unintentionally and yet irrevocably." At this moment a "cloud pa.s.sed over the sun and the light became at once dulled as if a mist had fallen upon all the flowers. Of all this he did not become so quickly aware, as that his own cheeks resounded from a whizzing blow." Her face glowed bright with anger and the delicate blue veins were swollen on her forehead, while with a scornful look she turned her back to him. His blood was however aflame with desire for revenge.

A second time had the young n.o.bleman Soelver sought to satisfy his masculine pa.s.sion, when he surprised Gro bathing upon Aebeloe. She however had defended her maidenhood and struck him about the head with an old, rusty sword, which she found on the sh.o.r.e, so that he sank upon the gra.s.s covered with blood. "He felt the pain of his wounds with a strange glow of pleasure. The blow had fallen upon the hard flint stone within him so that the sparks of pa.s.sion had sprung forth. He loved the maiden Gro. A consuming pa.s.sion raged in his blood. In his thoughts he knelt always before that ineffaceable image, which struck him to the earth with a flame of divine wrath in her eyes." In revenge for the trespa.s.s committed Sten Ba.s.se fell upon Soelver's castle and took the young n.o.bleman himself prisoner.

Wild violence of this sort was indeed familiar to Sten Ba.s.se. He himself had once taken his wife thus by force. Just as he was flattering himself that he had broken her will once for all, she bit him in his chin so that the blood gushed forth and she spit his own blood into his eyes. He was struck with admiration at such strength. He had thought to desert her at once. Now he lifted her in his arms, carried her from her father's castle into the stable, bound her to his horse and rode forth--to his own home. Their marriage had been at first a long series of repet.i.tions of the first encounter. In the end she loved him as the horse loves the iron bit between his teeth and the spur in his flank.

She did not allow herself to be subdued by the blows which he gave her, but she was the weaker and she loved him because he was strong enough to be the stronger. An evil fate had taken his sons from him one after the other. Therefore he wished to call forth in his only daughter the traits of his own blood, his pride, disdainfulness and stiff-neckedness. "She must know neither fear nor weakness; her will must be hardened and her courage steeled like that of a man. When he heard that his daughter had been in danger but had saved herself, he swore revenge to the perpetrator of the outrage, yet at the same time his heart laughed with pride at Gro's fearlessness. He took the young n.o.bleman prisoner and rewarded him with heavy and tedious torture as penance for his insolence. Yet at the same time he delighted himself with the thought of putting his daughter to a still more dangerous proof. He wished to see the young-blooded, inexperienced birds reach out swinging and scratching in attack and defense."

As if in mockery he gave to the imprisoned youth the pa.s.sionately desired Gro to be with him in the dungeon. "She stood there as if she had glided into his prison by the flood of light entering in and he trembled lest the light would again absorb her into itself." He knew not what power forced him to his knees and threw him at her feet with a prayer for forgiveness. She had however merely a scornful laugh for the man humbling himself in his love and the cruelly abusive word, "Creeping worm!" Then in his sense of affront there comes the thought that Gro was given into his power. While he tried the walls of his dungeon to ascertain if he was perhaps watched, Gro stood and stared out by the aperture through which the light entered, now paler than before. Soelver stepped near her, drew the single gold ring from his finger, which had come down to him through many generations of his forefathers, and extended it to her as a bridal gift. But she threw it unhesitatingly out through the peephole.

Now bitterness raged in Soelver's blood. "He bowed himself before her face in order to intercept her gaze, but he did not meet it though her eyes were directed toward his. It was indeed no glance but a depth into which the whole light of day, which was blue now without overhead, was drawn down into a deep well. Soelver became intoxicated with this light, which, as it were, appeared to seek her alone and threw an aureole of intangible beauty about her form." He crept up and pushed forward the wooden shutter, then carried Gro to his cot. "She had let herself go without resistance and fell lifelessly with her arms hanging down.

Soelver laid his face close to hers. His breath was eager, his blood was on fire and in his fierce wrath he intended to yield himself to the boiling heat of sensual pa.s.sion. Her cheeks however, her skin, her lips were cold as those of death. He began nevertheless wildly to kiss her face, once and again, as if to waken warmth and life in the cold skin.

Yet with every kiss it was as if she grew more fixed, as if the lips shriveled and grew cold and damp as ice over the teeth. The cold from this embrace crept over Soelver, and drew the heat and fervor from his nerves, until he shook suddenly with the cold and shuddered with the thought that he had a corpse under him. Yet in that selfsame moment he marked the rising of her breast as she drew in her breath, full of strength with all its coldness, so full of strength that it pushed Soelver away and he slipped down to the hard flags of the floor.

"Soelver lay upon the floor, congealed with a coldness which was stronger than that of the hard tiles. It was as dark as in a walled-in grave. He dared not move however for fear that he would again feel that ice cold body. 'Hear me,' sounded suddenly a strangely shrill whisper, 'hear me, if you are a man, let me get out! Call my father! I want to get out--make light--give me air--I am almost choking--I want to get out!'" As Soelver opened the shutter again so that the dim shadowy glow of the night could enter, he saw Gro "tall and slender in the pale light." "Let me out, let me out!" she begged. "I am afraid here below--not of you--but of myself and of the dark--let me out!" "For the first time Soelver heard a soft rhythm in this voice smooth as steel. A soft breath breathed itself in her entreaty. He became a man, a protector and felt his power grow through her supplication."

Yet though he exerted himself to the utmost to open the door of his dungeon, it was all in vain. It must have been fastened on the outside with ma.s.sive oak or iron bars. "So finally he gave up entirely and turned back to the opening where the light came in. Gro had sunk down under the last bit of light, without complaint, without sound. Her eyes were closed, she leaned her head against the sharp edge of the aperture and her arms hung down lifelessly. Soelver bent over her; her breath was almost inaudible, but irregular and did not suggest sleep. Like a thirsty plant she stretched herself out of the single airhole of the dungeon that she might seize the last drop of light before the darkness extinguished everything. Soelver divined that she could not be brought away from this aperture for light." He brought all the skins from the couch, spread them over her, pushed them under her body and "solicitously, with infinite carefulness he protected her from the damp floor, while he shoved his arm under her for support without ever touching her with his hand. All his brutality was gone, all his burning pa.s.sion. Here she lay before him like a delicate sick flower, which must be covered over from the cold of night."

When Soelver awoke the next morning he noticed that one of his hands was seized by her, grasped in the unconsciousness of sleep and held fast by her long, slender fingers, which clasped themselves about his hand. It was as if her soul clung to him in sleep as helper and savior from him himself, from his own brutal savagery. When Gro however opened her eyes and stared into Soelver's face, lit up by the sun, she broke out into weeping which could not be stilled. "She was terrified at awaking in a cellar hole, into the close damp darkness of which she looked, while the face of her vanquisher blazed strong in the sunlight before her; she wept without understanding or comprehending anything of what had happened about her." Perplexed, Soelver bent over her hand and kissed it. Then came Sten Ba.s.se and saw how uncontrollably Gro sobbed. "If you have gone near my daughter," he hissed at the young n.o.bleman, "there will be no punishment strong enough for you." At this there shot up in Soelver a wild l.u.s.t for revenge and he answered his enemy with irritating coldness: "Yes, I took what you gave. You brought her yourself into my presence, you laid her yourself in my arms. Now you may take her back again. I spurn your daughter for I have not desired her for the honor and keeping of my house, but only for the entertainment of a night. Take her back now! Take her back!"

Nevertheless better treatment was from this time on accorded Soelver, which he never for a moment doubted he owed to Gro. As he dwelt in his cell upon his phantasies, he suddenly heard her voice singing that melancholy song of Sir Tidemand, who tried to lure the maiden Blidelille into his boat by vigorous runes written upon roses. Blidelille awoke at midnight and knew not what it was that compelled her.

"It drew me along to Sir Tidemand Whom never mine eyes had seen."