Without having yet put on a collar, in morning array, with slippers on his feet, Norbert leaned on the open window and gazed out. The spring, which had finally arrived in the north also, was without, but announced itself in the great quarry of the city only by the blue sky and the soft air, yet a foreboding of it reached the senses, and awoke in remote, sunny places a desire for leaf-green, fragrance and bird song; a breath of it came as far as this place; the market women on the street had their baskets adorned with a few, bright wild flowers, and at an open window, a canary in a cage warbled his song. Norbert felt sorry for the poor fellow for, beneath the clear tone, in spite of the joyful note, he heard the longing for freedom and the open.

Yet the thoughts of the young archæologist dallied but briefly there, for something else had crowded into them. Not until then had he become aware that in the dream he had not noticed exactly whether the living Gradiva had really walked as the piece of sculpture represented her, and as the women of to-day, at any rate, did not walk. That was remarkable because it was the basis of his scientific interest in the relief; on the other hand, it could be explained by his excitement over the danger to her life. He tried, in vain, however, to recall her gait.

Then suddenly something like a thrill passed through him; in the first moment he could not say whence. But then he realized; down in the street, with her back toward him, a female, from figure and dress undoubtedly a young lady, was walking along with easy, elastic step. Her dress, which reached only to her ankles, she held lifted a little in her left hand, and he saw that in walking the sole of her slender foot, as it followed, rose for a moment vertically on the tips of the toes. It appeared so, but the distance and the fact that he was looking down did not admit of certainty.

Quickly Norbert Hanold was in the street without yet knowing exactly how he had come there. He had, like a boy sliding down a railing, flown like lightning down the steps, and was running down among the carriages, carts and people. The latter directed looks of wonder at him, and from several lips came laughing, half mocking exclamations. He was unaware that these referred to him; his glance was seeking the young lady and he thought that he distinguished her dress a few dozen steps ahead of him, but only the upper part; of the lower half, and of her feet, he could perceive nothing, for they were concealed by the crowd thronging on the sidewalk.

Now an old, comfortable, vegetable woman stretched her hand toward his sleeve, stopped him and said, half grinning, “Say, my dear, you probably drank a little too much last night, and are you looking for your bed here in the street? You would do better to go home and look at yourself in the mirror.”

A burst of laughter from those near by proved it true that he had shown himself in garb not suited to public appearance, and brought him now to realization that he had heedlessly run from his room. That surprised him because he insisted upon conventionality of attire and, forsaking his project, he quickly returned home, apparently, however, with his mind still somewhat confused by the dream and dazed by illusion, for he had perceived that, at the laughter and exclamation, the young lady had turned her head a moment, and he thought he had seen not the face of a stranger, but that of Gradiva looking down upon him.

Because of considerable property, Doctor Norbert Hanold was in the pleasant position of being unhampered master of his own acts and wishes and, upon the appearance of any inclination, of not depending for expert counsel about it on any higher court than his own decision. In this way he differed most favourably from the canary, who could only warble out, without success, his inborn impulse to get out of the cage into the sunny open. Otherwise, however, the young archæologist resembled the latter in many respects. He had not come into the world and grown up in natural freedom, but already at birth had been hedged in by the grating with which family tradition, by education and predestination, had surrounded him. From his early childhood no doubt had existed in his parents’ house that he, as the only son of a university professor and antiquarian, was called upon to preserve, if possible to exalt, by that very activity the glory of his father’s name; so this business continuity had always seemed to him the natural task of his future. He had clung loyally to it even after the early deaths of his parents had left him absolutely alone; in connection with his brilliantly passed examination in philology, he had taken the prescribed student trip to Italy and had seen in the original a number of old works of art whose imitations, only, had formerly been accessible to him. Nothing more instructive for him than the collections of Florence, Rome, Naples could be offered anywhere; he could furnish evidence that the period of his stay there had been used excellently for the enrichment of his knowledge, and he had returned home fully satisfied to devote himself with the new acquisitions to his science. That besides these objects from the distant past, the present still existed round about him, he felt only in the most shadowy way; for his feelings marble and bronze were not dead, but rather the only really vital thing which expressed the purpose and value of human life; and so he sat in the midst of his walls, books and pictures, with no need of any other intercourse, but whenever possible avoiding the latter as an empty squandering of time and only very reluctantly submitting occasionally to an inevitable party, attendance at which was required by the connections handed down from his parents. Yet it was known that at such gatherings he was present without eyes or ears for his surroundings, and as soon as it was any way permissible, he always took his leave, under some pretext, at the end of the lunch or dinner, and on the street he greeted none of those whom he had sat with at the table. That served, especially with young ladies, to put him in a rather unfavourable light; for upon meeting even a girl with whom he had, by way of exception, spoken a few words, he looked at her without a greeting as at a quite unknown person whom he had never seen. Although perhaps archæology, in itself, might be a rather curious science and although its alloy had effected a remarkable amalgamation with Norbert Hanold’s nature, it could not exercise much attraction for others and afforded even him little enjoyment in life according to the usual views of youth. Yet with a perhaps kindly intent Nature had added to his blood, without his knowing of the possession, a kind of corrective of a thoroughly unscientific sort, an unusually lively imagination which was present not only in dreams, but often in his waking hours, and essentially made his mind not preponderantly adapted to strict research method devoid of interest. From this endowment, however, originated another similarity between him and the canary. The latter was born in captivity, had never known anything else than the cage which confined him in narrow quarters, but he had an inner feeling that something was lacking to him, and sounded from his throat his desire for the unknown. Thus Norbert Hanold understood it, pitied him for it, returned to his room, leaned again from the window and was thereupon moved by a feeling that he, too, lacked a nameless something. Meditation on it, therefore, could be of no use. The indefinite stir of emotion came from the mild, spring air, the sunbeams and the broad expanse with its fragrant breath, and formed a comparison for him; he was likewise sitting in a cage behind a grating. Yet this idea was immediately followed by the palliating one that his position was more advantageous than that of the canary, for he had in his possession wings which were hindered by nothing from flying out into the open at his pleasure.

But that was an idea which developed more upon reflection. Norbert gave himself up for a time to this occupation, yet it was not long before the project of a spring journey assumed definite shape. This he carried out that very day, packed a light valise, and before he went south by the night express, cast at nightfall another regretful departing glance on Gradiva, who, steeped in the last rays of the sun, seemed to step out with more buoyancy than ever over the invisible stepping-stones beneath her feet. Even if the impulse for travel had originated in a nameless feeling, further reflection had, however, granted, as a matter of course, that it must serve a scientific purpose. It had occurred to him that he had neglected to inform himself with accuracy about some important archæological questions in connection with some statues in Rome and, without stopping on the way, he made the journey of a day and a half thither.

Not very many personally experience the beauty of going from Germany to Italy in the spring when one is young, wealthy and independent, for even those endowed with the three latter requirements are not always accessible to such a feeling for beauty, especially if they (and alas they form the majority) are in couples on the days or weeks after a wedding, for such allow nothing to pass without an extraordinary delight, which is expressed in numerous superlatives; and finally they bring back home, as profit, only what they would have discovered, felt or enjoyed exactly as much by staying there. In the spring such dualists usually swarm over the Alpine passes in exactly opposite direction to the birds of passage. During the whole journey they billed and cooed around Norbert as if they were in a rolling dove-cot, and for the first time in his life he was compelled to observe his fellow beings more closely with eye and ear. Although, from their speech, they were all German country people, his racial identity with them awoke in him no feeling of pride, but rather the opposite one, that he had done reasonably well to bother as little as possible with the homo sapiens of Linnæan classification, especially in connection with the feminine half of this species; for the first time he saw also, in his immediate vicinity, people brought together by the mating impulse without his being able to understand what had been the mutual cause. It remained incomprehensible to him why the women had chosen these men, and still more perplexing why the choice of the men had fallen upon these women. Every time he raised his eyes, his glance had to fall on the face of some one of them and it found none which charmed the eye by outer attraction or possessed indication of intellect or good nature. To be sure, he lacked a standard for measuring, for of course one could not compare the women of to-day with the sublime beauty of the old works of art, yet he had a dark suspicion that he was not to blame for this unkind view, but that in all expressions there was something lacking which ordinary life was in duty bound to offer. So he reflected for many hours on the strange impulses of human beings, and came to the conclusion that of all their follies, marriage, at any rate, took the prize as the greatest and most incomprehensible one, and the senseless wedding trips to Italy somehow capped the climax of this buffoonery.

Again, however, he was reminded of the canary that he had left behind in captivity, for he also sat here in a cage, cooped in by the faces of young bridal couples which were as rapturous as vapid, past which his glance could only occasionally stray through the window. Therefore it can be easily explained that the things passing outside before his eyes made other impressions on him than when he had seen them some years before. The olive foliage had more of a silver sheen; the solitary, towering cypresses and pines here and there were delineated with more beautiful and more distinctive outlines; the places situated on the mountain heights seemed to him more charming, as if each one, in a manner, were an individual with different expression; and Trasimene Lake seemed to him of a soft blue such as he had never noticed in any surface of water. He had a feeling that a Nature unknown to him was surrounding the railway tracks, as if he must have passed through these places before in continual twilight, or during a grey rainfall, and was now seeing them for the first time in their golden abundance of colour. A few times he surprised himself in a desire, formerly unknown to him, to alight and seek afoot the way to this or that place because it looked to him as if it might be concealing something peculiar or mysterious. Yet he did not allow himself to be misled by such unreasonable impulses, but the “diretissimo” took him directly to Rome where, already, before the entrance into the station, the ancient world with the ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica received him. When he had finally freed himself from his cage filled with “inseparables,” he immediately secured accommodations in a hotel well known to him, in order to look about from there, without excessive haste, for a private house satisfactory to him.

Such a one he had not yet found in the course of the next day, but returned to his “albergo” again in the evening and went to sleep rather exhausted by the unaccustomed Italian air, the strong sun, much wandering about and the noise of the streets. Soon consciousness began to fade, but just as he was about to fall asleep he was again awakened, for his room was connected with the adjoining one by a door concealed only by a wardrobe, and into this came two guests, who had taken possession of it that morning. From the voices which sounded through the thin partition, they were a man and a woman who unmistakably belonged to that class of German spring birds of passage with whom he had yesterday journeyed hither from Florence. Their frame of mind seemed to give decidedly favourable testimony concerning the hotel cuisine, and it might be due to the good quality of a Castellin-romani wine that they exchanged ideas and feelings most distinctly and audibly in North German tongue:

“My only Augustus.”

“My sweet Gretchen.”

“Now again we have each other.”

“Yes, at last we are alone again.”

“Must we do more sight-seeing to-morrow?”

“At breakfast we shall look in Baedeker for what is still to be done.”

“My only Augustus, to me you are much more pleasing than Apollo Belvedere.”

“And I have often thought, my sweet Gretchen, that you are much more beautiful than the Capitoline Venus.”

“Is the volcano that we want to climb near here?”

“No, I think we’ll have to ride a few hours more in the train to get there.”

“If it should begin to belch flame just as we got to the middle, what would you do?”

“Then my only thought would be to save you, and I would take you in my arms – so.”

“Don’t scratch yourself on that pin!”

“I can think of nothing more beautiful than to shed my blood for you.”

“My only Augustus.”

“My sweet Gretchen.”

With that the conversation ceased, Norbert heard another ill-defined rustling and moving of chairs, then it became quiet and he fell back into a doze which transported him to Pompeii just as Vesuvius again began its eruption. A vivid throng of fleeing people caught him, and among them he saw Apollo Belvedere lift up the Capitoline Venus, take her away and place her safely upon some object in a dark shadow; it seemed to be a carriage or cart on which she was to be carried off, for a rattling sound was soon heard from that direction. This mythological occurrence did not amaze the young archæologist, but it struck him as remarkable that the two talked German, not Greek, to each other for, as they half regained their senses, he heard them say:

“My sweet Gretchen.”

“My only Augustus.”

But after that the dream picture changed completely. Absolute silence took the place of the confused sound, and instead of smoke and fire-glow, bright, hot sunlight rested on the ruins of the buried city. This likewise changed gradually, became a bed on whose white linen golden beams circled up to his eyes, and Norbert Hanold awoke in the scintillating spring morning of Rome.

Within him, also, however, something had changed; why, he could not surmise, but a strangely oppressive feeling had again taken possession of him, a feeling that he was imprisoned in a cage which this time was called Rome. As he opened the window, there screamed up from the street dozens of venders’ cries far more shrill to his ear than those in his German home; he had come only from one noisy quarry to another, and a strangely uncanny horror of antique collections, of meeting there Apollo Belvedere or the Capitoline Venus, frightened him away. Thus, after brief consideration, he refrained from his intention of looking for a dwelling, hastily packed his valise again and went farther south by train. To escape the “inseparables,” he did this in a third-class coach, expecting at the same time to find there an interesting and scientifically useful company of Italian folk-types, the former models of antique works of art. Yet he found nothing but the usual dirt, Monopol cigars which smelled horribly, little warped fellows beating about with arms and legs, and members of the female sex, in contrast to whom his coupled country-women seemed to his memory almost like Olympian goddesses.

Two days later Norbert Hanold occupied a rather questionable space called a “room” in “Hotel Diomed” beside the eucalyptus-guarded “ingresso” to the excavations of Pompeii. He had intended to stay in Naples for some time to study again more closely the sculptures and wall-paintings in the Museo Nazionale, but he had had an experience there similar to that in Rome. In the room for the collection of Pompeiian household furniture he found himself wrapped in a cloud of feminine, ultra-fashionable travel-costumes, which had doubtless all quickly replaced the virgin radiance of satin, silk or lace bridal finery; each one clung to the arm of a young or old companion, likewise faultlessly attired, according to men’s fashion standards; and Norbert’s newly gained insight into a field of knowledge formerly unknown to him had advanced so far as to permit him to recognize them at first glance; every man was Augustus, every girl was Gretchen. Only this came to light here by means of other forms of conversation tempered, moderated and modified by the ear of publicity.

“Oh, look, that was practical of them; we’ll surely have to get a meat warmer like that, too.”

“Yes, but for the food that my wife cooks it must be made of silver.”

“How do you know that what I cook will taste so good to you?”

The question was accompanied by a roguish, arch glance and was answered in the affirmative, with a glance varnished with lacquer, “What you serve to me can be nothing but delicious.”

“No; that surely is a thimble! Did the people of those days have needles?”

“It almost seems so, but you could not have done anything with that, my darling, it would be much too large even for your thumb.”

“Do you really think that? And do you like slender fingers better than broad ones?”

“Yours I do not need to see; by touch I could discover them, in the deepest darkness, among all the others in the world.”

“That is really awfully interesting. Do we still really have to go to Pompeii also?”

“No, that will hardly pay; there are only old stones and rubbish there; whatever was of value, Baedeker