The brilliance in the eyes of the young daughter of the zoologist rivalled these, but to the announced desire about the destination of their journey by her childhood friend who had, in a way, also been excavated from the ashes, her wise lips responded: “I think we won’t worry about that to-day; that is a thing which may better be left by both of us to more and maturer consideration and future promptings. I, at least, do not yet feel quite alive enough now for such geographical decisions.”
That showed that the speaker possessed great modesty about the quality of her insight into things about which she had never thought until to-day. They had arrived again at the Hercules Gate, where, at the beginning of the Strada Consolare, old stepping-stones crossed the street. Norbert Hanold stopped before them and said with a peculiar tone, “Please go ahead here.” A merry, comprehending, laughing expression lurked around his companion’s mouth, and, raising her dress slightly with her left hand, Gradiva rediviva Zoë Bertgang, viewed by him with dreamily observing eyes, crossed with her calmly buoyant walk, through the sunlight, over the stepping-stones, to the other side of the street.
PART II
DELUSION AND DREAM
IN
WILHELM JENSEN’S GRADIVA
BY
DR. SIGMUND FREUD