On the Night of the Seventh Moon

I shivered. It was not like that at all. I was brought home. “

That is the result we wanted to achieve. We wanted to blot out the memory as soon as it became unpleasant. It seems that it worked. “

“I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.”

“You still find the need to shut out the evil. That’s natural, but you can’t be kept in that state any longer. It could be dangerous. Now you have to emerge and face the facts.”

“But I don’t believe...

He smiled.

“I think we have saved you from a mental col lapse. Your condition when you came in on that night was terrifying. Your cousin was afraid for you. That was why she called me. But I think we have managed very successfully and if we can work towards the fact that this was an unfortunate accident deeply to be regretted, of course-but which has to be accepted since it existed, then we shall get you back to perfect health. Others have suffered similarly; some have emerged and in time led normal lives; others have been scarred for ever. If you will try to put this thing out of your mind, in time it will leave only the smallest scar-perhaps none at all. That is why I took a rather drastic action on the Night of the Seventh Moon.”

In spite of the fact that he looked so calm and professional, I could not stop myself crying out in protest: “It isn’t possible. How could I imagine so much? It’s fantastic. I don’t believe it and I won’t believe it. You are deluding me.”

He smiled at me sadly and gently.

“I’m going to prescribe something for you tonight,” he said soothingly, ‘something gentle. You will sleep and tomorrow the dizziness will have passed.

Tomorrow you will wake up fresh; then you will be able to see this more clearly. “

“I will never accept this fantastic story of yours,” I told him defiantly; but he only pressed my hand and went out.

Soon Ilse was back with a tray on which was a little boiled fish. In spite of my disturbed state I was able to eat the fish. I drank the milk she brought and before she came to take the tray away I was asleep.

Next morning I felt a little better as the doctor said I would. But that only meant that my terrible apprehension had grown. I could picture Maximilian clearly, the tawny lights in his eyes and hair, the deep timbre of his voice, the sound of his laughter. And yet my cousins and the doctor were telling me that he did not exist.

Ilse came in with a breakfast tray, her eyes anxious.

“How do you feel, Helena?”

“I’m no longer dizzy, but I’m very worried.”

“You still believe that it happened as you dreamed?”

“Yes I do. Of course I do.”

She patted my hand.

“Don’t think about it. It will fall properly into place as you become more yourself.”

“Ilse, it must have happened.”

She shook her head.

“You have been here all the time.”

“If I could find my wedding-ring I could prove it. It must have slipped off my finger.”

“Dear Helena, there was no wedding-ring.”

I could not speak to her. She was so convinced and alas, convincing.

“Eat this,” she said.

“You’ll feel stronger then. Dr. Carlsberg had a good talk with us after he saw you last night. He has been as anxious as we have. He’s a very clever doctor much in advance of his times. His methods are not always liked. People are old-fashioned. He believes that the mind controls the body to a large extent and he has always tried to prove it. People hate new ideas. Ernst and I have always believed in him.”

That’s why you called him in to me. “

“Yes.”

“And you say he gave me this sedation which produced these dreams.”

“Yes, he believes that if some terrible misfortune overtakes a person the mind and the body have a better chance of recovery if they can be brought to a state of euphoria even if for a short time only. That is briefly his theory. “

“So when this happened, as you say it did, he gave me this drug or whatever it was to let me live in a false world for a few days. Is that what you mean? It sounds crazy.”

‘ “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” didn’`t Hamlet say that? It’s true. Oh, Helena, if you could have seen yourself when you came back. Your eyes were wild and you were sobbing and talking incoherently. I was terrified. I remembered my cousin Luisa . that would be your mother’s second cousin. She was locked by accident in the family vault and spent a night there. In the morning she was mad. She was rather like you rather gay and adventurous and I thought this could do to Helena what that did to Luisa and I was determined and so was Ernst-that we would try anything to save you. So we thought of Dr. Carlsberg and we called him in. Yours was just a case that he believed he could cure.

“

“Ilse,” I said, ‘everything that happened is so clear to me. I was married in the hunting lodge. I can remember such detail so vividly.

“

“I know, the dreams produced in this way are like that. Dr. Carlsberg was telling us. They have to be. You have to be torn from this tragedy . and this is the only way.”

“I won’t believe it. I can’t.”

“My dear, why should we, who wish only for your happiness, tell you this if it were not so?”

“I don’t know. It’s a terrible mystery, but I know I am the Countess Lokenberg.”

“How could you possibly be? There is no Count Lokenberg!”

“So he made that up?”

“He didn’`t exist, Helena. He was created out of the euphoric state into which Dr. Carlsberg had put you.”

“But I had met him before.”

I told her, as I was sure I had before, about our meeting in the mist, my visit to the hunting lodge; and how he had sent me back to the Damenstift. She behaved as though she were hearing it for the first time.

“That couldn’'t have been my euphoric dream, could it? I was not under Dr. Carlsberg’s sedation then.”

“That was the source of your dream. It was a romantic adventure. Don’t you see, what happened afterwards was based on that.

He took you to the hunting lodge, planning to seduce you perhaps.

After all, you agreed to go with him and he may have thought you were willing. Then he realized how young you were, a schoolgirl from the Damenstift . “

“He knew that from the beginning.”

“His better nature prevailed; besides, there was the servant there.

You were brought home the next day none the worse for your adventure and mentally this had had a great effect upon you. Dr. Carlsberg will be so interested when he hears of this. It will bear out his theory.

Then came the Night of the Seventh Moon; we lost each other and you were accosted. The man was masked, you have told us. You believed that he was the one whom you had met on another occasion. “

“He was. He called me ” Lenchen”. It was the name he had called me that first time. No one else has ever called me that. There was no doubt who he was.”

“That could have come up in your mind afterwards. Or it might even have been the man. In any case on this second occasion his better nature did not prevail. I must tell Dr. Carlsberg about this meeting in the mist. Or perhaps it would be better if you did.”

I cried: “You are wrong. You are wrong about everything.”

She nodded.

“Perhaps it is better that for a while you do go on believing in your dreams.”

I did eat a little breakfast and as the physical sickness had passed I got up.

I kept thinking of how I had opened the door of that room below and found him, standing there. I could experience the tingling joy the sight of him had given me.

“We’ll be married,” he had said. I had replied that people couldn’'t get married just like that. Here they could, he had assured me. Besides, he was a count and knew how to get things done.