“Somewhere in the sun Gradiva sat making a trap out of a blade of grass in order to catch a lizard, and she said, ‘Please stay quite still—my colleague is right; the method is really good and she has used it with the greatest success.’”
To this dream he offers resistance even while sleeping, with the critique that it is indeed the most utter madness, and he casts about to free himself from it. He succeeds in doing this, too, with the aid of an invisible bird who utters a short, merry call, and carries the lizard away in his beak.
Shall we risk an attempt to interpret this dream also, that is, to substitute for it the latent thoughts from whose disfigurement it must have proceeded? It is as nonsensical as one could expect a dream to be and this absurdity of dreams is the mainstay of the view which denies to the dream the character of a valid psychic act, and has it proceed from a desultory stimulus of the psychic elements.
We can apply to this dream the technique which can be designated as the regular procedure of dream-interpretation. It consists in disregarding the apparent sequence in the manifest dream but in examining separately every part of the content, and in seeking its derivation in the impressions, memories and free ideas of the dreamer. As we cannot examine Hanold, however, we must be satisfied with reference to his impressions, and may with due caution substitute our own ideas for his.
“Somewhere in the sun Gradiva sat catching lizards, and said ...” What impression of the day is this part of the dream reminiscent of? Unquestionably of the meeting with the older man, the lizard-catcher, for whom Gradiva is substituted in the dream. He was sitting or lying on a “hot, sunny” slope and spoke to Hanold, too. Even the utterances of Gradiva in the dream are copied from those of the man. Let us compare: “‘The method suggested by my colleague, Eimer, is really good; I have already used it often with the best of success. Please remain quite still.’”—Quite similarly Gradiva speaks in the dream, only that for the colleague, Eimer, is substituted an unnamed woman-colleague; the often from the zoologist’s speech is missing in the dream, and the connection between the statements has been somewhat changed. It seems, therefore, that this experience of the day has been transformed into a dream by some changes and disfigurements. Why thus, and what is the meaning of the disfigurements, the substitution of Gradiva for the old gentleman, and the introduction of the puzzling “woman-colleague”?
There is a rule of dream-interpretation as follows: A speech heard in a dream always originates from a speech either heard or uttered in waking life. Well, this rule seems followed here; the speech of Gradiva is only a modification of a speech heard in the daytime from the zoologist. Another rule of dream-interpretation would tell us that the substitution of one person for another, or the mixture of two people by showing one in a position which characterizes the other means equivalence of the two people, a correspondence between them. Let us venture to apply this rule also to our dream; then the interpretation would follow: “Gradiva catches lizards, as that old gentleman does, and like him, is skilled in lizard-catching.” This result is not comprehensible yet, but we have another riddle before us. To which impression of the day shall we refer the “woman colleague,” who is substituted in the dream for the famous zoologist, Eimer? We have here fortunately not much choice; only one other girl can be meant by “woman-colleague,” the congenial young lady in whom Hanold has conjectured a sister travelling with her brother. “In her gown she wore a red Sorrento rose, the sight of which, as he looked across from his corner, stirred something in his memory without his being able to think what it was.” This observation on the part of the author surely gives us the right to assert that she is the “woman-colleague” of the dream. What Hanold cannot remember is certainly nothing but the remark of the supposed Gradiva, as she asked him for the grave-flower, that to more fortunate girls one brought roses in spring. In this speech, however, lay a hidden wooing. What kind of lizard-catching is it that this more fortunate woman-colleague has been so successful with?
On the next day Hanold surprises the supposed brother and sister in tender embrace and can thus correct his mistake of the previous day. They are really a couple of lovers, on their honeymoon, as we later learn, when the two disturb, so unexpectedly, Hanold’s third meeting with Zoë. If we will now accept the idea that Hanold, who consciously considers them brother and sister, has, in his unconscious, recognized at once their real relation, which on the next day betrays itself so unequivocally, there results a good meaning for Gradiva’s remark in the dream. The red rose then becomes a symbol for being in love; Hanold understands that the two are as Gradiva and he are soon to be; the lizard-catching acquires the meaning of husband-catching, and Gradiva’s speech means something like this: “Let me arrange things; I know how to win a husband as well as this other girl does.”
Why must this penetration of Zoë’s intentions appear throughout in the form of the speech of the old zoologist? Why is Zoë’s skill in husband-catching represented by that of the old man in lizard-catching? Well, it is easy for us to answer that question; we have long ago guessed that the lizard-catcher is none other than the professor of zoology, Bertgang, Zoë’s father, who must, of course, also know Hanold, so that it is a matter of course that he addresses Hanold as an acquaintance. Again, let us accept the idea that Hanold, in his unconscious, immediately recognizes the professor—“It seemed to him dimly that he had already seen the face of the lizard-hunter probably in one of the two hotels.” Thus is explained the strange cloaking of the purpose attributed to Zoë. She is the daughter of the lizard-catcher; she has inherited this skill from him. The substitution of Gradiva for the lizard-catcher in the dream-content, is, therefore, the representation of the relation between the two people, which was recognized by the unconscious; the introduction of “woman-colleague” in place of colleague, Eimer, allows the dream to express comprehension of her courtship of the man. The dream has welded two of the day’s experiences in one situation, “condensed” as we say, in order to procure, to be sure, very indiscernible expression for two ideas which are not allowed to become conscious; but we can go on diminishing the strangeness of the dream still more and pointing out the influence of other experiences of the day on the formation of the manifest dream.
Dissatisfied by the former information, we might explain why the scene of the lizard-catching was made the nucleus of the dream, and suppose that the other elements in the dream-thoughts influence the term “lizard” in the manifest dream. It might really be very easy. Let us recall that Hanold has discovered a cleft in the wall, in the place where Gradiva seems to him to disappear; this is “wide enough to afford passage to an unusually slender figure.” By this perception he is forced in the day-time to an alteration in his delusion; Gradiva did not sink into the ground when she disappeared from his sight, but was going back, by this route, to her grave. In his unconscious thought he might say to himself that he had now found the natural explanation for the surprising disappearance of the girl; but must not forcing one’s self through narrow clefts, and disappearing in such clefts recall the conduct of lizards? Does not Gradiva herself, then, in this connection, behave like an agile little lizard? We think, therefore, that the discovery of this cleft in the wall had worked as a determinant on the choice of the “lizard” element for the manifest dream-content; the lizard-situation of the dream, therefore, represented this impression of the day, and the meeting with the zoologist, Zoë’s father.
What if, become bold, we now wished to attempt to find in the dream-content a representation also for the one experience of the day which has not yet been turned to account, the discovery of the third hotel, “del Sole”? Our author has treated this episode so exhaustively and linked so much with it, we should be surprised if it, alone, had yielded no contribution to the dream-formation. Hanold enters this hotel, which, because of its secluded situation and its distance from the station, has remained unknown to him, to get a bottle of lime-water for congestion of blood. The hotel-keeper uses this opportunity to extol his antiques and shows him a brooch which, it was alleged, had belonged to that Pompeiian girl who was found near the Forum in fond embrace with her lover. Hanold, who had never before believed this frequently repeated story, is now compelled, by a force strange to him, to believe in the truth of this touching story and in the genuineness of the article found, buys the brooch and leaves the hotel with his purchase. In passing, he sees nodding down at him from one of the windows a cluster of white, asphodel blossoms which had been placed in a water-glass, and he feels that this sight is an attestation of the genuineness of his new possession. The sincere conviction is now impressed upon him that the green brooch belonged to Gradiva, and that she was the girl who died in her lover’s embrace. The tormenting jealousy, which thereupon seizes him, he appeases with the resolution to assure himself about this suspicion, the next day, from Gradiva, herself, by showing the brooch. This is a strange bit of new delusion; and shouldn’t any trace point to it in the dream of the following night?