On the Night of the Seventh Moon

ONE

When I awoke it appeared to be late afternoon. For a moment I could not think where I was; then I remembered that Ilse and Ernst had brought me from the lodge yesterday. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It said a quarter to five.

I raised myself and a pain shot through my head; I could not think what had happened to me. The walls of the room seemed to close in on me, my head was swimming, and I felt sick.

I’m ill, I thought. Worse still, my mind seemed confused. Only yesterday I had awakened glowing with good health with Maximilian beside me. I must have caught some sickness.

I tried to get up but I could not stand. I sank back into bed.

I called feebly: “Ilse!”

She came in, looking very worried.

“Ilse. What’s happened to me?”

She studied me intently.

“You don’t remember ?”

“But I was all right when we came back here last evening.”

She bit her lips and looked uncertain.

“My dear,” she said, ‘don’t worry, we’ll look after you. “

But . “

“You are feeling ill. Try to rest. Try to go back to sleep.”

“Rest! How can I? What’s happened? Why have you Suddenly become so mysterious?”

“It’s all right, Helena. You mustn’`t worry. You must try to sleep and forget.

“Forget! What do you mean? Forget? Forget what?”

Ilse said: Tm going to call Ernst. “

As she went to the door, a terrible feeling of foreboding came to me.

I thought: Maximilian is dead. Is that what they are trying to tell me?

Ernst came in, looking very grave. He took my wrist and| felt my pulse as though he were a doctor. He looked significantly at Ilse. ‘ “Are you trying to tell me that I’ve got some disease?” I”. demanded.

| “You had better tell her. Ilse,” he said. “You have been in bed since you came back on that night. It is six days since then.

“I’'ve been in bed for six days! Has anyone told Maximilian?”

Ilse put her hand on my forehead.

“Helena, you have been delirious. It was a terrible thing that happened to you. I blame myself. I should never have allowed you to go in the first place and then to lose you there.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think it would be better if she knew the truth,” said Ernst.

“On the Night of the Seventh Moon,” said Ilse, ‘we went out. You remember that? “

“But of course.”

“You remember our being in the square and watching the revellers?”

I nodded.

“We were separated and I was frantic. I searched everywhere for you but I couldn’'t find you. I wandered round looking over the town for you and then I thought you might have come back to the house so I came back, but you weren’`t here. Ernst and I went out then looking for you.

When we couldn’'t find you we were frantic with anxiety. We were going out again to search for you when you came back. Oh Helena, I shall never forget the sight of you. That we should have allowed it. “

“But when I came back you understood that I had been brought back by Maximilian.”

Ilse was looking at me shaking her head.

“You came back in a pitiable condition. Your clothes were torn; you were dazed with shock. You were delirious. You were incoherent, but we knew what had happened. It has happened to young girls before on such nights but that it should have happened to you, Helena, in our charge a carefully nurtured girl with little knowledge of the world could not face your aunts.

Oh, Helena, Ernst and I have been beside ourselves with anxiety. “

I cried out: “That’s not true. Maximilian brought me back here. The next day he called and asked me to marry him. We were married by the priest in the lodge.”

Ilse put a hand over her eyes and Ernst turned away as if overcome by emotion.

At length she sat on the bed and took my hand.

“My dearest child,” she said, ‘you must not worry. We will look after you. As soon as you face the truth you will grow away from it. I will tell you bluntly what happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon. You were lost; you were taken into the forest, I believe, and there criminally assaulted. You found your way back to us, so shocked that you didn’`t seem to remember clearly what happened. We put you to bed and called in an old doctor friend of Ernst’s to see you. His advice was that you should be given sedatives until your mind and body had recovered from the shock. He has been to see you every day . “

“Every day. But I have not been here!”

“Yes, Helena, you have been in this bed ever since that terrible night when you stumbled in.”

“It’s not possible.”

“There!” Ilse patted my hand.

“It has been a nightmare but you’re going to put it out of your mind. It is the only way.”

“But he came here,” I cried.

“You know he came here. We were married.

You two were witnesses. ” I felt for the ring he had put on my finger and turned cold with terror because it was not there.

“My ring,” I said.

“Where is my ring? Someone has taken it.”

“Ring, Helena? What ring is this?”

“My wedding-ring.”

Again those significant looks passed between them.

“Helena, I wish you’d try to rest,” said Ilse.

“We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” I cried.

“How can I rest until tomorrow?”

Ilse said: “We must be clear because I can see that you will have no rest until you have rid your mind of this hallucination.”

“Hallucination

”

“Perhaps we were wrong, Ernst. But we thought it best. Dr. Carlsberg is a brilliant doctor. He is in advance of his time. He thought that he must do all he could to blot out that shocking memory until your mind had had time to adjust itself.”

“Please, please, tell me what happened.”

“You came home in this terrible condition. Some brute had found you in the crowd and somehow got you to the forest . close to the Altstadt. There he assaulted you. Thank God you found your way back to us. “

T don’t believe it. Surely I know what happened to me . Maximilian Count Lokenberg brought me back. We were married at the lodge. You know we were. You and Ernst were witnesses. “

Ilse shook her head. She repeated slowly:

“When you came back we got you to bed and we called Dr. Carlsberg.

We knew what had happened. It was painfully obvious. He gave you some medicine in order to calm you and make you sleep. He said you had had a terrible shock and in view of what we could tell him about your family he thought it wiser to keep you under his care until you were well enough to grasp what had happened. You have been under sedation for the last few days but he did say that this was likely to produce hallucinations. In fact that’s what he hoped. “

It was the second time she had used that word. I was really frightened now.

She added: “Helena, you must believe me. Since you came home on that terrible night you have not left this bed.”

“It’s impossible.”

“It’s true. Ernst will bear me out, and so will Dr. Carlsberg when you see him. You have been raving about someone called Maximilian. But you have been here in your bed all the time.”

“But I am married.”

“My dear, try to rest now. Let’s sort it out in the morning.”

I looked from one to the other. They watched me with compassion. Ilse murmured: “If only We should never have gone out without you, Ernst. If we had stayed indoors. Oh God, if only we’d stayed indoors.”

I thought: I am dreaming. I shall wake up in a moment and find this is a nightmare.

“Ernst,” said Ilse, ‘perhaps you’d better ask Dr. Carlsberg to come and see Helena at once. “

I lay back on my pillow. I felt exhausted yet convinced that at any moment I would wake up to reality.

I touched my finger believing that my ring would miraculously be there. I had promised when Maximilian had put it on that I would never take it off.

When I opened my eyes I was alone.

I felt a little better; the dazed feeling was beginning to pass.

Of course I had proof. It was strange about my ring. Could it have slipped off my finger? It had been rather loose and might be in the bed somewhere. But why should my cousin Ilse pretend that I had been in my bed for six days if I had not? Six days! It was impossible. One could not be unconscious for six days. Under sedation? Those words were ominous. And why should Ilse and Ernst, who had been so kind to me, tell such a story? What could be their motive? I had had nothing but kindness from them and they seemed as though they were trying to help me now.

Oh no, I could not believe what they were telling me. I would stand against that. They were saying that instead of the man I loved, the noble count, who to me was the very essence of romance and my own husband, was a man who took women and forced them to submit to him and then abandoned them. I would not believe that. And yet they said I had been here for six days.

It was impossible. Yet Ilse and Ernst said it was so. Why?

If I could find that ring I could prove to them . It must be in the bed. It must have slipped off my finger. But if it had, then my cousin was lying to me. Why?

I got out of bed. The room swam round but I was determined to ignore that. I searched the bed but I could not find the ring. Perhaps it had rolled on to the floor. I could find it nowhere. I was feeling faint but the great need to find this symbol of my marriage urged me on.

What could have happened to the ring?

I was glad to get back into bed because searching for it had exhausted me.

I lay there trying to fight off the terrible drowsiness which was persisting. But I could not and when I awoke it was to find Ilse at my bedside with a strange man.

He was middle-aged, bearded, with piercing blue eyes.

“This is Dr. Carlsberg,” said Dse.

I half raised myself.

“There is so much I want to know.”

He nodded.

“I understand.”

“You would like me to leave you,” said Ilse; and he nodded again.

When she had gone he sat beside the bed and said, “How are you feeling?”

“That I am going mad,” I told him.

“You have been under the influence of certain sedatives,” he said.

“So they told me. But I do not believe...

He smiled.

“Your dreams have seemed as real as life,” he said.

“That is what I expected. They were pleasant dreams.”

“I don’t believe they were dreams. I can’t.”

“But they were pleasant. They were just what you wanted to happen. Was that so?”

“I was very happy.”

He nodded.

“It was necessary. You were in a deplorable state when I was called in.”

“You mean on the Night of the Seventh Moon?”

“That’s what it is called, yes. You had been out amongst the revellers, lost your cousin and that happened. It had shocked you perhaps even more than a young girl would normally be shocked in such circumstances. It was a mercy you were not murdered.”

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.

I thought of riding to the hunting lodge and his impatience and the way he had held me against him and the thrills of excitement he communicated to me. I thought of the simple ceremony with the priest.

The marriage lines! Of course I had them. I had put them away carefully. They were in the top drawer of the dressing-table. I remembered putting them with the few pieces of jewellery I possessed, in the little sandalwood box which had been my mother’s.

There was the box. I brought it out joyfully. I lifted the lid. The jewellery was there, but no marriage lines.

I stared at it blankly. No ring. No marriage lines. No proof. It was beginning to look more and more as though they were right and my romance and my marriage were indeed something induced by the doctor’s treatment to wipe out the terrible memory of the dreadful thing that had happened to me.

I don’t know how I got through the day. When I looked at my face in the mirror I saw another person. My high cheekbones stood out more than ever; there were faint shadows under my eyes; but it was the despair which was so startling. The face which looked back at me was touched with a certain hopelessness and that was when I knew that I was beginning to believe them.

Dr. Carlsberg came to see me during the morning. He was delighted, he said, that I was up. He wanted nothing put in the way of my improvement. He was sure that what had to be done now was face the truth.

He sat beside me; he wanted me to talk, to say anything that came into my mind. I explained to him what I had told Ilse, about the meeting in the mist and the night I had spent at the lodge. He did not attempt to persuade me that I had dreamed that.

“If it were possible,” he said, “I should like to obliterate completely from your mind what happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon. That is not possible. The memory is not like a piece of writing in pencil which can be wiped out with an eraser. But it is over. No good can come by preserving the memory of it. So we must come as near to forgetting as possible. I am glad that you are here away from your home. When you return to England which I hope you will not think of doing for at least two months-you will go among people who have not heard what has happened. This will help you to push the affair right to the back of your mind. No one will be able to remind you because they do not know what has happened.”

I said, “Dr. Carlsberg, I can’t believe you. I can’t believe my cousins. Something in me tells me that I am married and that it all happened as I am sure it did.”

He smiled, rather pleased.

“You are still in need of that belief.

Perhaps it is better for you to cling to it for a while. In due course you will feel strong enough to be without it and the truth will be more important to you than the crutch these dreams are at the moment offering you. “

“The time works out perfectly,” I said.

“The second day after the Night of the Seventh Moon we were married and on the morning of the fourth day news came to him that his father was in trouble, and he went. Then the next day I woke up in the room above. It’s simply impossible that I was there all that time.”

“Yet that is what you will accept in time when you are strong enough to discard your crutch.”

“I can’t believe I imagined him.”

“You have attached him to this adventurer you met in the mist. You have told me that your mother often recounted fairy stories and legends of the forest. You came here in a receptive mood; you half believed in the gods and heroes. You say you called him Siegfried.

This made “you an easy subject for this experiment. I am sorry that you were used in this way, but, believe me, it has probably saved your reason.”

“Why should I have thought of such a marriage?”

“Because you were no longer a virgin and you had thought, as a respectably brought-up girl, that this could not be the case without marriage. That’s an easy conclusion. Your terror when you knew what was happening to you has to find its opposite so the dreams gave you this ecstatic union.”

“Why should I have thought him to be a count? I never thought of marrying a count.”

“He had seemed all-powerful-rich, a nobleman. That is easily explained.”

“But Lokenberg.”

“Well, we are in the Lokenwald. The name of the town is Lokenburg. Ah, I think I have it. There is a Count Lokenberg.”

My heart began to beat wildly. I cried: “Then take me to him. I am sure he must be Maximilian. I know he was not lying to me.”

Dr. Carlsberg rose; he led me out of the room and took me to a picture which was hanging on the wall. I had noticed it when I arrived but had not studied it particularly. It was a picture of a bearded man, more elderly than middle-aged, in uniform.

“It’s the head of our ruling house,” he said, ‘you will see his picture in many loyal households. Read the inscription. “

I read: “Carl VII; Carl Frederic Ludwig Maximilian, Duke of Rochenstein and Dorrenig, Count of Lokenberg.”

“Carl Frederic Ludwig Maximilian,” I said dully.

“Duke of Rochenstein and Count of Lokenberg!”

“The Lokenberg title is one of Duke Carl’s,” he said.

“Then why did he...

“You had looked at the picture.”

“I had never looked at it closely.”

“You looked at it without realizing you did. The names became fixed in your memory without your suspecting it and in your dream you selected one of them Maximilian and attached it to one of the titles you had seen on the inscription.”

I put my hands over my eyes. But he was so clear to me. I could see his beloved face, with the passionate, arrogant eyes that gleamed for me.

I would not believe that I had imagined that. But they had the tangible evidence; for the first time there was a doubt in my mind.

That terrible day seemed interminable. I sat listlessly with my hands on my lap thinking of him. My ears were strained for the sound of horses’ hoofs because I believed that I should hear them and that he would come into the house, his eyes alight with passion.

“What have they been trying to tell you, Lenchen?” he would demand, and turn on them in his fury; and they would cringe, as in the dream my cousins had appeared to-well, not exactly cringe, but they had been eager to placate him.

But this, according to them, had not been the case. They had never known each other. How could living people know a phantom? In the dream they had shown respect because that was what I expected them to do.

None of it, according to them, had existed.

But it had. I could feel his arms about me. I could remember so many passionate and tender moments.

I knew what Ilse was thinking: “Could I really believe that a count would suddenly decide to marry an unknown girl with such haste that the day after his decision a priest married them?”

Oh yes, they had reason on their side; and I had nothing but dreams. I could not produce my wedding-ring nor my marriage lines. If I had ever had them, where were they now?

Suddenly I thought: There’s the hunting lodge. I must go back there. I would fin de HUdegarde and Hans, and they would corroborate my story.

I was excited. If I could go back to the lodge Hildegarde would corroborate my story about the marriage. But if she did, that would mean that Cousin Ilse was lying, Ernst too, and the doctor. Why should they? What motive could they possibly have?

If I believed that, I must get away from them as soon as possible for they would be my enemies. They were trying to prove . what were they trying to prove?

Sometimes I thought: I’m going mad.

Were they trying to prove me mad? For what purpose? They were trying to save me, they said, from the mental collapse which I had been near when I came in, according to them, the victim of a savage attack in the forest.

Maximilian savage! Passionate he was and fierce at times but he loved me; for he had been tender; and he had said that desiring me as he did, he was determined that I should come to him willingly.

My thoughts were going round in circles. I must know the truth. I must try to be calm. I must face the facts. I must see the truth. Where was my ring? Where were my marriage lines? I could see them clearly now the plain gold band, the writing on the paper. But they could not be found.

I must know the truth. I had lost six days from my life and I must know what had happened to me, on the Night of the Seventh Moon. Did I meet the one man whom I could love, did I marry him, did I live for three ecstatic days in his hunting lodge as his wife? Or was I attacked by a monster who robbed me temporarily of my sanity?

I must know the truth.

I would go to the lodge. I would see Hildegarde and Hans and if they told me that I had never been there except on that one nighi when he had brought me there in the mist, I would have to believe them. Then I would see him. And I would then know whether he was indeed my husband.

At the very earliest moment I must go back to the lodge.

Ilse consulted Dr. Carlsberg and they all agreed that I must have my way.

How should we find this lodge? ” asked Ilse.

“It is not far from Liechtenkinn some eight miles, I think.

And you remember, Ilse, when you drove me over for my wedding . “

She looked at me blankly, sadly.

“Well, we’ll try to find it,” she said.

Ernst drove the horses; Ilse and I sat side by side; she had taken my hand and pressed it.

“We shall find the lodge you stayed at that night when you were lost in the mist. It will help you if you see the servant whom you saw then.”

I was thinking of Hildegarde. If she told me that I had never been there but once, I should have to believe her. I was afraid and my fear was a sign that I was beginning to waver. When there was so much evidence how could one go on believing in what they were telling me was a dream?

Is it possible? I asked myself. Can such things be done? I kept thinking of Dr. Carlsberg’s calm, intelligent and kindly face. What point would there be in their trying to confuse me? Yet on the other hand what did I know of Maximilian? He had never really told me anything about his life. I had no idea even where he lived. The more I thought of everything that happened, the more flimsy it seemed.

I could not remember the road. On the first occasion we had taken it when in my dream if dream it was had not noticed any landmarks.

That had been my wedding-day. I had been thinking of him and wondering when he would come back and had not noticed the road then either.

Ernst had driven to Liechtenkinn and when we reached the town with its gable-roofed houses clustered round the Pfarrkirche we were not far from the Damenstift.

I looked at the convent with some emotion, but it was not my schooldays that I remembered but that morning when Hildegarde had driven me back from the hunting lodge and how desolate I had been then because I feared I would never see him again. I was a hundred times more so now; but my spirits were rising. When we found the lodge I would see Hildegarde. She would tell them that I had stayed there three days and nights as Maximilian’s bride. But what of Ilse and Ernst? They could surely not be suffering from delusions?

We must find the lodge. I must speak to Hildegarde. And if she said that I had never been there . I felt cold at the thought. Then, I reasoned, I will have to accept what they tell me.

But not yet. I would find the lodge and insist on Hildegarde’s corroborating my story.

“Now,” said Ernst, ‘we have to find the way from here. You say it was some eight miles from the Damenstift. “

“Yes. I’m sure of that.”

“But in what direction?”

I pointed towards the south.

“I am sure that is the way I remember driving up to the Damenstift with Hildegarde from there.”

Ernst took the road, which was straight for some miles as I remembered it. We came to a fork and he hesitated.

“It’s a wild goose chase,” he said.

“No,” said Ilse, ‘we must find the lodge. It’s the only thing that will satisfy Helena. “

I was sure it was the left-hand fork. I seemed to remember the grey farmhouse down the road. We went on.

This was the road Schwester Maria had taken on that fateful afternoon.

We climbed and soon were in the pine forest. Here was the very spot where we had picnicked. There Schwester Maria had sat under the tree to doze. And I wandered off into a dream that had become a nightmare.

“Now the lodge you visited on that night could not be very far from here,” said Ernst.

Unfortunately I could not direct him. We took one turning and drove on for a while. We saw a man gathering wood. Ernst pulled up and asked him if be knew of a hunting lodge nearby.

The man paused, set down his bundle and scratched his head.

Yes, there was a lodge. A fine lodge, belonged to a lord or a count or some nobleman.

My spirits began to rise; my heart was beating fast.

Oh God, I prayed. Let this be it. Let me find Hildegarde. Let me come out of this nightmare.

Yes, he could tell us. If we were to go straight on to the end of the road, then take the path that climbed a bit and then a sharp veer to the left, there we would find a hunting lodge, i “They come here in the season,” he said.

“Gentlemen and ladies too.

There’s boar in the forest. Sometimes it’s stags. “

Ernst thanked him and we drove on in silence. I felt it took a long time to climb and I was impatient because we were forced to slacken our pace. And then we reached the top of the hill and I cried out in delight for there was the grove of pine trees that I remembered. The lodge was just beyond them.

Ernst drove on; we were in the grove now because the road ran through them-just as I remembered. There were the two stone posts, beyond them were the grey walls which I knew so well.

I cried out in joy.

“We’re here.”

I wanted to leap out of the carriage but Ilse restrained me.

“Be careful, Helena,” she said.

“You’re not strong yet.”

Ernst fixed the reins to the post and we alighted.

I ran forward. There was a strange silence everywhere. I noticed that the stables had disappeared. They should have been to the left of the house. It was from them that Hans had come out to take our horses when we had been riding. I could not understand. It seemed different.

Everything was different. This was the lodge; those were the stone posts. Those were the walls. There was no door. I could see through into emptiness.

I was looking at the shell of the hunting lodge where until that moment I had been certain that I had been married to Maximilian.

Ilse was beside me, her arm slipped through mine, her eyes compassionate.

“Oh, Helena,” she said, ‘come away. “

But I wouldn’`t. I ran through that gap where the door had been. I stood inside those blackened walls. There was nothing there-nothing of the room where we had dined; the bedroom we had shared, my little room where I had spent the first night, the blue room which contained another woman’s clothes, the hall with its stuffed heads of animals and weapons hanging on the wall Hildegarde and Hans, all gone.

“This is the place,” I cried.

“Helena, my poor child,” said Ilse.

“But what has happened to it?” I demanded.

“It looks as though it has been burned out at some time. Come away now. Come home. You have had enough.”

I didn’`t want to go. I wanted to stand there in that ruin and think of it all. How could I remember a dream so vividly? It wasn’`t possible. I could not bear my misery, because every minute they were convincing me that what had happened had indeed been unreal.

Ilse led me back to the carriage.

We drove home in silence. There was nothing more I could think of. The evidence against the fact that I had married was overwhelming.

Back at the house I sank into a deep depression. Ilse tried to interest me in embroidery and cooking. I was listless. Sometimes I would let myself dream that Maximilian came back for me; but I was afraid to indulge in too many dreams for fear I should again stray into a dangerous realm of fancy.

Not only was I desolate and melancholy while my heart called out for my husband, but I was afraid of myself. There was a great deal of talk about the powers of suggestion and hypnotism. The fame of the Pox sisters had spread from America to England some ten years ago; they believed that it was possible to communicate with the dead; and although the world was full of sceptics many people were convinced that it was becoming increasingly easier to accept what some time ago would have appeared to be completely incredible, and that certain people were possessed of knowledge and the power to reveal undreamed of secrets. Dr. Carlsberg was clearly experimenting with new forms of treatment; and because of my circumstances I was a likely subject for his tests.

I no longer felt that I was uncomplicated Helena Trant. I had had, according to the evidence, a frightening experience, which many believed was the worst which could befall an innocent young girl, or I had enjoyed the exultation which the perfect union between two people can bring. I was not sure which. If they were right, I had lost six days of my life and those were the days during which I had known a state of existence which I could never hope to experience again; I had loved with a deep abiding passion a man whom they told me was a phantom. I could never love again in that way. I had therefore suffered an irreparable loss.

I felt I was a stranger to myself. I often looked searchingly in the mirror and felt I did not know the face which was reflected there. How could I help it when I was not at all sure whether I myself was not in the plot to blot out the fearful memory of a terrifying experience by replacing it with a dream of perfection?

Sometimes I awoke in the night startled because I had dreamed that I was being pursued through the forest by a monster who had disguised himself as Maximilian. I thought in that waking moment-Was that how it happened? We had gone into the forest. There was a moment when he had hesitated. Was that the moment when I started to dream?

I was afraid. I watched everything that I did spontaneously. I had a fear that I was becoming unbalanced. Luisa, my mother’s cousin-of whom my mother had never spoken-had gone mad. I was frightened.

I clung to Ilse. There was something so kind and compassionate about her. The manner in which she used to take care of me, to take my mind off my tragedy, was touching. I could see so clearly what she was trying to do.

The days began to pass; I was listless, unless at any time I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs; then I would start up expectantly, for I could not rid myself of the hope that one day Maximilian would come to claim me.

Dr. Carlsberg came every day to visit me. His care for me was wonderful.

I think it must have been about a week after I awoke to the nightmare that Ilse told me they would have to leave Lokenburg. Ernst’s holiday had come to an end. He must return to Denkendorf. He had his work there.

I used to listen idly to their conversation. There had been some plot to replace Duke Carl by his brother Ludwig. They chattered excitedly about it and were clearly delighted that it had gone against Ludwig.

They were very loyal to the Duke.

So shortly after that we said goodbye to Dr. Carlsberg, who assured me that I would gradually regain my old spirits if I could stop brooding on what had happened and learn to accept it as a regrettable accident.

No good could be done by brooding. In fact only harm could come of it.

I said to Ilse as we left, “What if Maximilian should come here to look for me? He said he would come to the lodge but he wanted me to go to you so he will know.

I stopped. She looked so sad.

Then she said: “We have taken the house before. The owner knows we come from Denkendorf. If any people come looking for us they could be told where we had gone.”

I was sorry to hurt her by this proof that I believed she bad lied to me, but she understood.

She knew that I still had to cling to the dream.

Denkendorf was like so many of the little towns I had seen in this part of the world. The centre of the town had its shops under the arcades; the pavements were cobbled, and the aspect medieval; because this was a spa and people came to take the waters there were several inns; and the shops were well stocked, the streets more lively than those of Lokenburg. We were near a river and it was possible to walk out to its bank and see there, perched on the opposite bank, the ruin of a castle in pale silver-grey stone.

I realized when we arrived there that I had grown a little away from my nightmare; I had begun to accept, which I had believed I never could. It was possible, I knew, for people to be drugged to such an extent that they missed days of their lives. It was possible to evoke dreams that seem real. How could I doubt that good kind Ilse was speaking the truth? I should have known that what I had imagined was too wildly and fantastically wonderful to be true.

We had only just settled in to Denkendorf when Ernst left us to go to Rochenburg, the capital city of the Duchy of Rochenstein. This crisis in the affairs of the country meant that in spite of his indifferent health he was recalled to his post in the government, so Ilse and I were alone together.

We grew very close. She would not let me go out without her and each morning we would go into the market to shop. Sometimes she introduced me as her English cousin and I would join in the conversation which ensued somewhat automatically. How did I like the country? How long was I going to stay with my cousin? To these I always replied that I found the country interesting and that I was not sure how long I would stay. I could see they thought me a little dull, perhaps strange. When I thought of what I should have been like a few weeks ago I was appalled. I would never again be that carefree impulsive girl who had attracted Maximilian . But how could she have captivated a phantom? In the beginning, I reasoned with myself, he was attracted by me. There was no harm in thinking of that incident which had begun in the mist. That had actually happened.

I wrote to the aunts and in time received letters from them.

By that time I had been in Denkendorf for six weeks. Each day was much the same; Ernst paid occasional visits; I learned to embroider and do tapestry work-very fine petit-point on which we could only work by day. In the evenings we did ordinary sewing or embroidery. I read a great many books on German history and I was particularly interested in the ancestors of Carl, Duke of Rochenstein. It was astonishing how quickly the time was passing.

Aunt Caroline wrote of the affairs which concerned her; how much strawberry jam she had put down; how many jars of black currant jelly; she implied that she expected me soon to be coming home. She could not understand why I had wanted to go gadding about in the first place. Aunt Matilda wrote of the strange wheezing Aunt Caroline had developed. She got quite breathless; and there was mention of Mr. Clees’s solitary kidney which had to do the work of two; and Amelia Clees was looking a little pale; Aunt Matilda hoped she was not going into a decline as, she had gathered, her mother had. There was a great deal about Mr. Clees in Aunt Matilda’s letter. It seemed that a man who had had a wife in a decline and himself possessed only one kidney was very attractive. I heard from Mrs. Greville too. They missed me and wondered when I planned to come back. She and Mr. Greville might manage a trip out so that I could come back with them.

Anthony had said only the other day that it didn’`t seem the same without me there.

I re-read the letters. That life all seemed so far away. The thought of going back there and trying to pretend that everything was the same as it always had been did not attract me.

Ilse came in suddenly. She had a way of gliding about as though not to disturb me.

“What’s the matter, Helena?” she asked.

“You are looking lost.”

“Letters from home,” I explained.

“I was thinking of going back there.”

“You’re not ready yet, are you?”

“I don’t think I could face them.”

“No, not just yet. It’ll change. But there is nothing to worry about.

You must stay here with us until you are ready to go. “

“Dear Ilse,” I said, ‘what should I have done without you? “

She turned away to hide her emotion. She always liked to keep her feelings in check.

Several more weeks passed. Perhaps I was becoming reconciled. But I seemed to grow more listless; it was as though I had changed my personality. I smiled rarely, and remembering the old days when I had been so often unable to restrain my laughter, I was astonished. And yet I suppose what I had endured whichever was the truth-would most certainly change one.

As time passed everything seemed to point to the fact that those six days had been spent in my bed. I continued to hope that Maximilian would come to me. I used to look at faces in the streets of the little town and every time I saw a tall man in the distance my heart would leap with hope. Each passing day meant that a little of my hope must fade. If there had really been a marriage, where was my husband? Surely he would have come to claim me?

I suppose when I had seen that shell where the lodge had been I had begun to accept the truth of what Ilse, Ernst and Dr. Carlsberg had told me. But I felt as though a part of me had died. I knew I should never be the same insouciant girl I had been before.

Ilse appeared to have no friends in the place so there was no visiting. She explained that she and Ernst had only recently come to live in Denkendorf and the people being rather formal would take some time before they accepted them.

I tried to interest myself in the vegetables she bought in the market or the skeins of silk we chose for our embroidery; but I simply did not care whether we ate carrots or onions, or chose purple or azure-blue for the flowers we were working.

I went about my days mechanically. I was once more in limbo, waiting I was not sure for what.

In the shops we visited people often mentioned Count Ludwig’s attempted coup. They all seemed delighted that it had failed. I often saw pictures similar to that which Dr. Carlsberg had pointed out in the hall of the house in Lokenburg. There was the same face and the inscription, Carl Ludwig Maximilian, Seventh Duke of Rochenstein and Dorrenig. Count of Lokenberg.

Maximilian, Count of Lokenberg. Those were the words on which my eyes lingered.

It is a strange feeling to know that a part of your life is wrapped in mystery; and that you have been unconscious of what happened to you during that period. You feel apart from your fellow human beings. You are both a stranger among them and to yourself.

I tried to explain this to Ilse, for I was talking to her very freely and intimately now; she said she understood and she knew that in time I would grow away from this.

“Never hesitate to talk to me,” she said, ‘that is, if you wish to do so. The last thing I want to do is to force confidence, but I want you to know that I am here if you should need me. “

“I shall have to think about going home soon,” I told her. Not yet,” she begged.

“I want to wait until you are quite recovered before you leave us.”

“Quite recovered. I don’t think I shall ever be that.”

“You think so now because it is so close later you will see.” Oh yes, she comforted me a great deal.

Yet each day I awoke I said to myself: I must go home. It was only to be a short visit and it was three months since I had left England.

One morning I woke up feeling ill. I was frightened because I remembered waking in my bed and learning that what I believed had happened had been only in my imagination.

I got out of bed and felt dizzy.

I sat on the edge of the bed wondering whether I had been unconscious for another six days. This time there were no pleasant memories.

I was still sitting there when there was a knock on the door and Ilse looked in.

“Are you all right, Helena?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, I think so. I just felt a little dizzy.”

“Do you think I should get the doctor?”

“No, no. It’s passing. You are not going to tell me that I have been in bed for days and didn’`t go to the town with you yesterday?”

She shook her head.

“No. No. Dr. Carlsberg has not been treating you since you have been here. But I’m sorry you feel dizzy. I wonder whether you ought to see a doctor.”

“No, no,” I insisted.

“It is already passing.”

She looked at me intently, and I said I would get up.

We went into the town and it was just such another day as those which had preceded it.

It suddenly occurred to me that if I went home I would be able to think more clearly. I would be able to assess my adventure against the reality of home. Here I still sensed the bewilderment. The very cobbled streets and gabled shops with their creaking signs were like the settings of the old fairy stories. I could not get out of my mind the belief that here, the home of trolls, hobgoblins and the ancient gods, nothing was too fantastic to happen. At home, among the towers and spires of Oxford where I might listen to the prosaic talk of the aunts and enjoy the friendly atmosphere of the Grevilles’ home, I would reason clearly. I would begin to understand what had happened to me.

One morning I said to Ilse: “I think I must get ready to go home.”

She looked at me anxiously.

“Do you really want to?”

I hesitated.

“I think it would be better to.”

“This decision surely means that you are beginning to accept what has happened. You are getting over the shock.”

“Perhaps. I know that I have to come out of the strange state into which I have fallen. I’ve got to go on living. I would do it best where I belong.”

She touched my hand gently.

“My dear child, you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. You know that. But I feel that you are right. In Oxford resuming your everyday , life you will come to terms with what has happened to you. You will realize that it is not the first time a young girl has been so cruelly awakened to the cruder aspects of life.”

“It is perhaps the first time a girl has believed herself to have been married and discovered that she has lost six days of her life.”

“Of that I am not sure. But I am firmly of the opinion what Dr. Carlsberg did was right and the only thing to do in the circumstances.

He had blotted out an evil thing and replaced it by something beautiful. “

“But, according to you all, the evil was the truth and the beauty a dream.”

“Alas, but the memory of evil has been obliterated. While you have suffered, my dear, you have the consolation of knowing that you have been of great help to Dr. Carlsberg. You have proved his experiment to be so successful. that you cannot even remember the brutality you suffered and you still persist in believing the dream.

It is only the force of tangible evidence against it that has made you accept it; and I believe that deep in your heart you still believe that you married this man. “

How well she had summed up my feelings.

“So I have been a kind of guinea-pig in Dr. Carlsberg’s researches.”

“Only because the circumstances were as helpful to you as they were to him. But tell me, Helena, do you still believe in this marriage?”

“I know everything is against it, but it is clear in my mind as it ever was. And I believe it always will be.”

She nodded.

“And I believe that is what Dr. Carlsberg would wish.” She paused for a moment.

“Helena, I want you to know that as soon as you wish to go I shall take you back. Will you see Dr. Carlsberg once more?

I should like you to see him before you go. “

I hesitated. I felt a sudden revulsion for the man which I had not felt before. It was wrong. He had been kind to me; he had, according to himself. Ilse and Ernst, saved my reason. Yet I did not want to see him again. I wondered whether if I had faced the truth in the first place I might not have been better able to cope with the situation. Bluntly, I had been assaulted in the most cruel and brutal way. If I had come back that night knowing this, how should I have reacted? I was not sure. But there was one thing of which I was certain. The man whom I had met on the Night of the Seventh Moon was the same one who had found me in the mist. If he had been the cruel ravisher of that night would he have hesitated when I was in his lodge? I thought of the door handle slowly turning. The door was bolted. But would that have been any real deterrent to a man determined to have his way?

If they had let me face the truth I believed I would have done so with courage. I could not believe I had nearly lost my reason. I had been frivolous and impulsive, but never hysterical. How could I be sure what I would have been like suffering under such an outrage? We do not really know ourselves and it is only when we face a crisis that unexpected facets of our characters are betrayed.

Ilse went on: “I should feel so relieved if he could see you as an ordinary physician this time. I know that he greatly wishes it and I should like to have his advice about your going home.”

I said I would see him, and she wrote to him that day. His reply came.

He would be with us in two days’ time.

I had had a few more dizzy spells on rising and I was wondering if I was going to be ill. Ilse asked how I was solicitously every morning; she seemed very concerned.

“I think I ought to get home soon,” I said.

“Everything will be different then.”

I was thinking that if Maximilian had really married me he would have come to claim me by now. Each passing day was confirmation that the marriage had never taken place.

If I could get away I would perhaps forget. Home seemed so remote from all that happened; so presumably when I was home, this would be remote.

I could start again.

I wrote to Aunt Caroline and Mrs. Greville to tell them I should be coming home shortly. The evenings I had spent at the Grevilles’ house had been the most enjoyable of that period. I remembered how amused I had been because of their admiration for Anthony and how Anthony talking above our heads had a pleasant way of assuming that we understood. It was all so cosy. The last word I could apply to this place; and I was beginning to see the virtues of that cosiness from which I had wanted to escape.

Dr. Carlsberg came as arranged. I was in the little garden when he arrived and did not hear him come. He must have been with Ilse for a quarter of an hour when I walked into the house and found him there.

When he saw me his face lit up with pleasure. He rose and took both my hands in his.

“How are you?” he asked.

When I told him that I felt I was getting back to normal he smiled with pleasure and gratification. Ilse left us together and he wanted to know every detail of what had happened. What dreams had I had? Had I suffered from nightmares? Every little item seemed of the utmost importance to him.

Then he asked about my physical health and I told him that I often felt unwell on rising.

He said he would like to examine me. Would I agree?

I did.

I shall never forget what followed. It was one of the most dramatic moments in my life.

“I have to tell you that you are to have a child,” he said.

TWO

I was deeply moved by the manner in which Ilse received the news. She was stricken with horror and dismay.

“Oh God!” she cried.

“This is terrible.”

I found myself comforting her, for to tell the truth I could only feel exultation. I was to have a child-his child. I was not mad. He had existed. From the moment I realized this I started to emerge from the depth of my unhappiness.

My own child! I did not think of the difficulties which must inevitably lie ahead simply because I could see nothing beyond the wonder of having our child.

I knew then that deep in my heart I must always believe that Maximilian had loved me; I could not associate him with a criminal in the forest; the prospect of bearing his child could do nothing but fill me with a fierce exhilaration.

When the doctor had gone Ilse said to me: “Helena, do you realize what this means?”

“Yes, I do.” I could not help it if my delight was obvious. I possessed what my father had called a mercurial temperament.

“Up and down,” said my mother.

“Irresponsible,” Aunt Caroline called it. And I was sure Ilse thought me odd and illogical. I had been sunk in depression when I had had every chance of putting an ugly incident behind me and starting a new life; and now that would be impossible because there would be a living reminder. I was rejoicing. I couldn’'t help it. The wonder of having a child subdued all else.

“This is shattering,” said Ilse at length.

“That this should have happened as well as everything else ! What can we do now? You can’t go back to England. Helena, have you thought of what this is going to mean?”

But all I could think was: I am going to have a child.

“We must be practical,” she warned me.

“Can you go back to your aunts and tell them that you are going to have a child? What will they say?

You would be disgraced. They might not even receive you. If I wrote to them and told them what had happened . No, they would never understand. You will have to stay here until the child is born. It’s the only way. Yes, we shall have to arrange that. “

I had to confess I had not given much consideration to the months between only the arrival of the child. I should like a boy but I would not think about that until it came. If it were a girl I should not wish her to think that I was not completely delighted with her.

But I was right. I must try to be practical. What was I going to do?

How was I going to keep a child, educate it, bring it up in the best possible way? It would have no father. And what should I do while I waited for the child to be born?

The first exultation had passed.

Ilse seemed to have come to a decision.

“You must stay with us, Helena, and I shall look after you. I shall never forgive myself for going out that night without Ernst and then losing you in the crowd. Yes, we will arrange something. You’ll be all right. You can trust us.”

She seemed to have grown calmer; the first horror had passed and characteristically she was making plans.

The first feeling of triumphant joy had passed. I had had a glimpse of how I should have felt if I had been truly married to Maximilian and he had been with me so that we could have shared the joy of prospective parenthood. I asked myself if there was not something I could do to find him. He was the father of my child. Yet what could I do? If I talked this over with Ilse I would see that sad, patient look come into her face. I had given up trying to make her understand that no matter what evidence they showed me I could never believe that I had dreamed my life with Maximilian. I began to make wild plans. I would travel the country looking ‘for him. I would call at every house seeking information concerning him. Now that I was going to have a child I must find him.

I said to Ilse: “Could I put an advertisement in the newspapers? Could I ask him to come back to me?”

Ilse looked horrified: “Do you believe that a man who did that would answer such an advertisement?”

“I was thinking ” I began; and saw how hopeless it was to talk to Ilse, for she insisted that the Maximilian I had known had never existed.

She was patient with me.

“Suppose you mentioned Count Lokenberg. You would be deemed mad. There could even be trouble.”

So whichever way I looked I could do nothing.

I knew that she was right about my not going home. The aunts would be horrified at the prospect of sheltering an unmarried pregnant niece. I could imagine the scandal. No one would believe the story of the attack in the forest any more than they would believe that other version of my unusual marriage.

I needed Use’s kindnesses and ingenuity to help me in my difficult situation, and I knew I could rely on her. She was very soon her calm and practical self.

“You will certainly have to stay here until after the child is born.

Then we shall have to decide from there. “

“I have a little money, but it is not enough to keep us and educate the child. “

“We’ll think about that later,” she said.

Ernst came back. His health seemed much better and when he heard the news he shared rise’s horror and compassion. They were both very gentle with me and very anxious because they assumed guilt for what had happened.

He and Ilse, I know, discussed my affairs continuously, but for me the state of euphoria persisted and every so often I would forget my circumstances and think solely of the delight of having a child.

Sometimes I wondered whether Dr. Carlsberg had given them something to put into my food to make me happy. I had a terrible thought once that he might have made me imagine I was going to have a child. I didn’`t think this was so as Ilse and Ernst seemed to think it such a tragedy. But once one has been the subject of such an experiment one becomes suspicious.

We all decided that for the time being we would not tell the aunts, and during the next months would think very carefully what we should do.

In the meantime an excuse must be made to keep me with my cousin. Ilse took that into her own hands and wrote to Aunt Caroline to tell her that I was staying on because Ernst had taken a turn for the worse and she needed my help.

“A little white lie,” she said with a grimace.

So I stayed on in Denkendorf and the weeks began to slip by. I no longer felt ill when I arose; and I thought constantly of the baby. I bought material and started making a layette. I would sit for hours stitching and thinking.

Dr. Carlsberg came to me. He said he was going to pass me over to Dr. Kleine, a doctor friend of his who had a little nursing home in Klarengen, not very far away, and soon he would drive me over and introduce me to his colleague. There, in Dr. Kleine’s clinic, I should have the child.

I wondered about the cost but they wouldn’`t discuss it and in my present state I was content to let things go.

Ilse said one day: “When the child is born you can stay with us for a while and perhaps later on you could take a post teaching English in one of our schools. It might just be possible to have the child with you.”

“Do you think there would be such a post?”

“Dr. Carlsberg might be able to help. He and his colleagues know a great deal that is going on. They would find out and if there was anything I am sure they would be only too glad to help.”

“You are so good to me, all of you,” I cried gratefully.

“We feel responsible,” replied Ilse.

“Ernst and I will never forget that not only did this happen to you in our country but when you were under our care.”

I was content to allow them to plan for me, which was unlike myself because I had always been so independent. It certainly seemed as though the Seventh Moon had cast a spell upon me and all my actions had become unpredictable.

So I allowed Ilse to cos set me. I was almost unaware of what went on.

I stitched at my little garments and delightedly folded them when they were done and laid them away in the drawer I had prepared for them.

White, blue and pink. Blue for a boy, they said. So I would have both pink and blue so that I should not have planned for either sex. I knitted and sewed and read. The summer passed and the autumn was with us.

Aunt Caroline wrote that she was surprised that I should enjoy living with foreigners in some outlandish place rather than in my own home but Aunt Matilda, realizing that my cousin Ernst had a ‘heart’ and hearts being funny things, quite understood that Ilse should want me at hand to help.

Mrs. Greville wrote. She had heard that I was staying on to help my cousin nurse her husband. She thought it would be a good experience for me, but she and her husband as well as Anthony were looking forward to my return.

They all seemed so far away in the world of reality where life pursued an even tenor. The fantastic adventures of the last months had sent me worlds away from them.

One day Ilse said: Dr. Carisberg has news. He says that the nuns at your old Damenstift would take you in to teach English to the pupils.

You could have the child with you. “

“You do so much for me,” I said emotionally.

“It’s our duty,” replied Ilse solemnly.

“In any case we are so fond of you. We must think of the future, you know.”

I was growing obviously larger. I could feel the movement of my child and whenever I did my heart leaped with joy. How could this be so, I asked myself, if this life within me was the result of an encounter with a savage brute in the forest? I would never stop believing in those ecstatic days no matter what evidence they brought forward to try to convince me that they had never existed.

Ilse introduced me to people in the town when it was necessary as Mrs. Trant, who had recently suffered a bereavement in the loss of her husband and who was shortly to bear his posthumous child. I was seen as a tragic figure and people were very kind to me.

When I went into the market they called to me to ask how I was; I would stay and chat with them and the women would tell me about their childbearing, the men about their vigils during their wives’ ordeals.

Dr. Carisberg came alone one day and drove me into the town where his friend had his nursing home. He thought it was better for me to see the doctor there at this stage.

I did so and Dr. Kleine told me that at the beginning of April I should come into his nursing home to be prepared for the birth of the child.

He called me Mrs. Trant and had evidently been told the story about my recent bereavement.

As we drove away Dr. Carisberg said: “You can rely on Dr. Kleine. He’s the best man in his line in these parts.”

“I’m wondering if I shall be able to pay.”

“We are taking care of that,” he said.

“I can’t accept.

“It’s easy to give,” he said ruefully.

“So difficult to receive. But it is you who must give us the satisfaction of helping you out of this situation. I know your cousin is filled with self-reproach. She and her husband can only regain their peace of mind if they do everything possible for you. As for me, you have helped me in my work tremendously. You have given me an opportunity to prove a theory. I can’t thank you enough. Please tell me-have you now come to accept the truth?”

I hesitated and he said: “I see that you cannot give up your belief in the dream.”

“I lived it,” I said.

“Of the other.

I remember nothing.”

He nodded.

“It is even better than I thought. And now that you are to have the child you believe that child is the fruit of your marriage, and that is the reason why you feel ready to welcome it. Had you thought but no matter. This is good. Anything we can do for you we shall be delighted to do, rest assured of that.”

Sometimes, looking back, -I ask myself: Why did you accept this and that? Why did you not enquire more closely into these strange things that happened to you? I suppose the answeris: I was very young and I appeared to have stepped into a world where strange things seemed the natural course of events.

I was brought down to reality one day in February. I was visiting Dr. Kleine once every three weeks and Ilse used to drive me into Klarengen; she would put the trap in an inn yard and shop while I went to Dr. Kleine’s nursing home.

He was satisfied with my progress and he did pay very special attention to me on Dr. Carlberg’s instruction. I had had a shock, Dr. Carlsberg had told him-Dr. Kleine believed this to be the death of my husband and in the circumstances might have a difficult confinement.

On this February day the sun was brilliant and there was a frost in the air. As I came out of the nursing home a voice behind me startled me as it took me right back to Oxford.

If it isn’t Helena Trant! “

I turned and there were the Misses Elkington who ran a little tea-shop near the Castle Mound, which was only open during the summer months.

They sold tea and coffee with homemade cakes, besides egg-cosies, tea-cosies and embroidered mats which they made themselves. I had never liked them. They were constantly apologizing for selling their wares and making sure that everyone knew it was something they were not used to as they had come down in the world, their father having been a General.

“Oh, it’s Miss Elkington and Miss Rose,” I said.

“Well, fancy meeting you here of all places.”

Their little eyes scrutinized me. They must have seen me come out of Dr. Kleine’s nursing home and would be wondering why. But not for long.

Although I wore a loose coat my condition could not but be perfectly obvious.

“And what are you doing here, Helena?” Miss Elkington the elder was roguishly censorious.

“I’m staying with my cousin.”

“Oh yes, of course, you`’ve been away some months.”

“I dare say I shall soon be back.”

“Well, well. It is a small world. So you are really staying here?”

“Not exactly. I’ve come in with my cousin. I’m joining her now.”

“I’m so glad we saw you,” said Miss Elkington.

“So nice to see people from home,” added her sister.

“I must hurry. My cousin is waiting.

I was relieved to get away from them. I looked at my reflection in a shop window. I didn’`t think there could be much doubt of my condition.

The weeks had passed and my time was getting near. Ilse fussed over me; often I would find her seated in silence with a worried frown on her forehead and I knew she was concerned for me.

She had consulted both Doctors Carlsberg and Kleine and they had decided that I should go into Dr. Kleine’s nursing home a week or so before my child was expected. As for myself, I continued in my state of placid euphoria. I could think of nothing but my child.

“You will have to wait until the baby is about a year old before you go to the Damenstift to teach English,” said Ilse. Dr. Carlsberg has not mentioned your name, but on his recommendation no obstacles would be put in the way of your going there. “

How strange-that would be! I thought. I remembered the old days (good heavens! It was not two years ago) when I had been a pupil-Helena Trant who had always been in trouble through her irrepressible spirits and love of adventure. How strange that I might go back, a mother.

I pictured Schwester Maria taking sly peeps at the baby and trying to spoil it; and Schwester Gudrun saying: “Where Helena Trant was, there was always trouble.”

Then sometimes I would think of those three days and my love was as strong as ever, making the longing to see Maximilian unbearable. Only the thought of our child could comfort me and I eagerly waited for the time when I should hold it in my arms.

On a bright April day Ilse drove me to the nursing home. I was taken to a private room, apart from the other patients. Dr. Carlsberg had asked that this should be so in view of the circumstances.

It was a pleasant room, everything gleaming white, yet seeming clinical in its cleanliness. There was a window from which I could look down on a lawn, which was very neatly bordered by flowerbeds.

Dr. Kleine introduced me to his wife, who expressed concern for my comfort. I asked how many other mothers were in the nursing home and I was told that there were several.

They were constantly coming and going.

On the first day I looked through my window and saw five or six women walking about the lawn-all in various stages of pregnancy. They were chatting together and two of them sat side by side on one of the wooden benches near the flowerbeds; one was knitting, the other crocheting. They were joined by another woman who took out her sewing; and they talked animatedly together.

I was sorry they had decided to isolate me. I wanted to be down there with those other women.

I had been told that I could use the Kleines’ little garden to get some fresh air, but this was not the one where the women met. I went down to the Kleines’ garden and sat for a while on a garden seat but there was no one there and I wanted to talk about babies, to compare knitting.

While I was in the garden Frau Kleine came out to me and I told her I had seen another garden from my room.

“There’s a lawn and there were several expectant mothers there. I should like to talk to them.”

She looked alarmed.

“I think the doctor doesn’`t feel that would be wise.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose he thinks it might upset you Why ever should it?”

“They all have homes and husbands. I think he thinks it might depress you.”

“It wouldn’`t,” I cried vehemently. And I thought then I would not change the father of my child for any respectable husband these women might have. Then I knew that the reason I could be so happy was that I still believed that one day Maximilian would come back for me and then I should proudly show him our child; and within me there flourished still my childish dream that we should live happily ever after.

When I went back to my room the first thing I did was look out of the window. The lawn was deserted; they had all gone back to their rooms.

But I determined to go down to the lawn.

Dr. Kleine now knew my story (Dr. Carlsberg had thought it wise to tell him) but it had been agreed that for the purposes of preventing gossip-which would have been magnified in any case and no doubt distorted. I was to be known as Mrs. Trant, a widow who had lost her husband some months before.

It was early afternoon, the siesta hour, when I decided to find my way down to the lawn. The house appeared to have been built round the garden which contained the lawn, and the women I had seen there had come from a door completely opposite the wing in which I had my room.

I would have to work my way round to it so that I could come out by the door through which I had seen the women emerge.

I opened my door quietly. There was not a sound in the corridor. I went swiftly to a flight of stairs, descended it and found myself on a landing. I went along this in what I thought was the right direction and I came to a short flight of stairs which led to a door. As I approached I heard the sound of sobbing. I paused and listened.

There was no doubt that someone was in great distress.

I hesitated, wondering whether it would be better to find out if I could be of use or to ignore what I heard. Then on impulse I went up the three or four stairs and knocked on the door. The sobbing stopped.

I knocked again.

“Who’s there?” said a high-pitched, frightened voice.

“May I come in?” I asked. There was a sound which could have been an affirmative so I opened the door and entered a room rather like my own but smaller, and hunched on the bed was a girl of about my own age, her face swollen with crying, her hair in disorder.

We stared at each other.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Everything,” she replied bleakly.

I approached the bed and sat on it; “I feel so terrible,” she said.

“Should I call someone?”

She shook her head.

“It’s not that. I wish it were. It’s long overdue.

I know I’m going to die. “

“Of course you won’t. You’ll feel better when the baby comes.”

Again she shook her head.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Last night I thought of jumping out of the window.”

Oh no! “

“It’s different for you. You`’ve got a husband and a home and it’s all going to be wonderful.”

I didn’`t answer. I said: “And you haven’t?”

“We should have been married,” she said.

“He was killed six months ago. He was in the Duke’s Guard and the bomb was meant for the Duke. He would have married me.”

“So he was a soldier.”

She nodded.

“We would have been married if he’d lived,” she reiterated.

In the Duke’s Guard, I was thinking. Duke Carl of Rochenstein and Dorrenig, Count of Lokenberg.

“Your family will look after you,” I soothed.

Again the doleful shake of the head.

“No they won’t. They won’t have me back. They brought me to Dr. Kleine but when it’s over they won’t have me back. I tried to kill myself once before. I walked out into the river but then I was frightened and they rescued me and brought me here.”

She was small and very young and frightened and I longed to help her.

I wanted to tell her that I myself had a future to face which might not be easy; but my story was so fantastic, so different from one of a soldier lover who had come to an untimely end.

She was only sixteen, she told me. I felt so much older and protective. I said it was always wrong to despair. I was of some use to her, I believe, because of my recent suffering. I could recall, because it was so recent, the terrible desolation which had swept over me when I had been told that my romantic marriage was nothing but a myth.

At least, I thought, this girl has a plausible tragedy to relate.

I made her talk and she told me about the town of Rochenburg, the chief city of Rochenstein, where she had lived with her grandmother who remembered the day the present Duke’s father died, and he became the head of the ruling house. He had always been a good and serious-minded Duke-rather different from his son Prince Carl, who was notoriously wild. Her grandmother had been a great loyalist and she would have welcomed a soldier of the Duke’s Guard into the family, but if he had been one of Ludwig’s men she would never have accepted him.

But that made it all the more terrible because if they had not anticipated their marriage vows, if they had waited, they could have been respectably married in due course. But fate had gone against them. Their child was conceived just before the bomb intended for the Duke had destroyed her lover, leaving her desolate for ever-and with a double burden, for to her grief was added shame. She could not endure it; nor would her grandmother. She had no notion how she was going to fend for herself and the child, and the river had seemed an easy solution.

“You must never do that again,” I told her.

“You’ll find a way. We all do.”

“You’re all right.

“I I ha vent a husband to go to.”

Oh, so you’re a widow? That’s sad. But you have money, I suppose.

Most people who come to Dr. Kleine’s have. I don’t know why he has taken me in. When I was brought in half drowned and they were scolding me about having done harm to my child he said he would take me in here and look after me. “

“That was kind of him. But I haven’t any money either. I shall have to support myself and my child. I may be teaching English at a convent.”

“You are accomplished. I have nothing to recommend me. I’m just a simple girl.”

“What is your name?”

“Gretchen,” she said.

“Gretchen Swartz.”

“I’ll come and see you again, Gretchen,” I said.

“We’ll talk to each other. We’ll discuss what you can do when you have a child and no money. I’m sure there’s always a way.”

“You will come back then?” she said.

I promised.

We talked for some time and when I left her I had forgotten about the women on the lawn.

Dr. Kleine came to see me later that day. He was pleased, he said, that everything seemed to be going well. He thought the birth was imminent and we must be prepared for that.

I slept well and the next morning I felt comparatively well. After I had breakfasted in my own room I put on my loose dressing-gown and went to the window and there were the women on the lawn again. I immediately thought of Gretchen Swartz and decided to go along and talk to her.

I found my way to her room. I mounted the stairs and knocked. There was no answer so I opened the door and looked in.

There was no one there. The bed was made, and there was an impersonal look about it. The floor was highly polished, the window slightly open; the room looked as though it had been prepared for the next occupant.

Disappointed, I went back to my room. Then it occurred to me that Gretchen must have been taken somewhere to have her baby. Perhaps at that very moment it was being born.

I sat at the window for some little time watching the women below and I could not get poor Gretchen out of my mind.

That afternoon my pains started and for the second time in a very brief period I suffered tragedy.

I can remember the agony; I can remember thinking: It will all be worth while when I have my child . everything . everything.

I lost consciousness and when I was aware again I was no longer in pain.

“How is she?” I heard a voice say.

There was no answer.

My first thought was for my child, and I held up my arms.

Someone was bending over me.

I said: “My baby.

There was no answer. Then from a long way off I heard someone say:

“Shall she be told?”

And somebody else said: “Wait.”

I was terribly frightened. I tried to cling to consciousness but it had gone again.

Dr. Kleine was at my bedside. Ilse was with him. I saw Dr. Carlsberg too. They all looked very grave.

Ilse had taken my hand.

“It was for the best,” she said.

“In the circumstances.”

What? ” I cried.

“My dear Helena, in view of everything you will see in time it will be easier.”

I could not endure the terrible fear. I must know the truth.

“Where is my child?” I cried.

“The child,” said Dr. Kleine, ‘wbs born dead. “

No! “

“Yes, dear,” said Ilse tenderly.

“All the horror .. all the anxiety it was inevitable.”

“But I wanted my child. I wanted my little a’s . was it a boy?”

“It was a girl,” said Ilse.

I saw her so clearly my little daughter. I could see her in a little silk dress aged one, aged two . and then growing up and going to school. I felt the tears on my cheeks.

“She was alive,” I said.

“I used to smile because she was so lively. I used to feel her there. Oh no, there is some mistake.”

Dr. Carlsberg bent over me.

“The shock of everything,” he said, ‘was too much for you. We expected this. Please, do not fret. Remember that you are free now to live a happy life. “

A happy life! I wanted to scream at them. My lover you tell me never existed. I dreamed of my marriage. But the child was there a living thing and now you tell me she is dead.

Ilse said: “We will take care of you, Helena . , .”

I wanted to cry out: “I don’t need taking care of. I want my child.

How dare you experiment with me! How dare you give me dreams that are without reality! If I have been abused I want to know it. There is nothing worse than uncertainty. Oh yes, there is. There is this terrible loss. The baby who was to have been my consolation has been taken from me. “

I lay there limply. I had not known such desolation since they had told me that Maximilian, whom I had believed to be my husband, was a myth.

I was very weak, they told me. I must not leave my bed. I did not feel physically weak, only mentally exhausted and in deep despair.

All these months I had lived for my child. I had made a dream in which Maximilian came back to me and proudly I showed him the child. I had believed that . just as I had always really believed in those three days of perfect happiness. It was only when Ilse smothered me with her goodness that I wavered. But I was never convinced. I could not be convinced.

“I must see my child,” I said.

Dr. Kleine was horrified.

“It would increase your distress.”

I insisted that I wanted to see my baby.

“We were burying her today,” said Dr. Kleine.

“I should be there!”

“It is a simple ceremony, and you must not leave your bed. You have to concentrate on getting well now.”

I repeated that I wanted to see my child.

Ilse came to see me.

“Helena, dear,” she said, ‘it is all over. What you have to do now is forget. You can go back to your home. You can forget all this . nightmare. In a little while it will be as though it never happened. You are so young . “

I said stonily: “It will never be as though it has not happened. Nothing that can possibly happen to me will ever be so real, so important to me, as this. Do you think I can ever forget?”

“That is not what Dr. Carlsberg wants. His object has been achieved.

Now he would like you to go back to normality. “

“Dr. Carlsberg is too glib with his dream-producing drugs. I want to see my baby.”

“My dear Helena, it would be better not.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I have given birth to some monster?”

“Certainly not. A little girl who was born dead.”

I was so much aware of her alive.”

“It was a difficult birth. All that you had suffered and you suffered far more than you realized has taken its toll. That is what the doctors feared. In such circumstances it is much better so.”

I said: “They are going to bury my baby today. I must see her before they do so.”

It would be better . “

I raised myself on my elbow. I cried: “I will not be told any more what I must do. I will not be the victim of your experiments.”

Ilse looked frightened.

“I will speak to the doctors,” she said.

They put me in a wheelchair because the doctor would not allow me to walk. I was taken into a room in which stood a tiny coffin on trestles; the Venetian blinds had been arranged so that a little light came through the slats. And there she lay -my little baby-a small pinched face framed by a little white bonnet. I wanted to pick her up, to hold her to me, to breathe life into that limp little body. Hot tears were in my eyes and bitter despair in my heart. They wheeled me silently back to my room. The put me to bed; they smoothed my pillows and tucked in the bedclothes; they did everything they could to comfort me; but there was no comfort.

I lay in my bed; I could hear the voices of the women on the lawn.

It was over. The dream and the nightmare. I was not yet nineteen years old and I felt I had had a greater experience than many people encountered in a lifetime.

Use was with me every day. She constantly stressed the fact that I was free now. I could take up my life again as it had been before the Night of the Seventh Moon. She would take me back to England: and there I would find everything was as it had been. It was the best thing for me.

I thought about it a good deal and I could see that it was what I should have to do.

I had to grow away from this mad adventure. I had to forget. I would have to start again.

I stayed in Dr. Kleine’s nursing home for two weeks and it was almost when I was on the point of leaving so immersed in my own tragedy had I been-that I remembered Gretchen Swartz.

I told Ilse how I had found her sobbing in her room and Ilse said she would ask the doctor or Mrs. Kleine about the girl.

It was the doctor who mentioned her to me.

“You were asking about Gretchen Swartz. So you had a word with her?

Did she tell you her story? “

“Yes, poor girl. She was very unhappy.”

“She didn’`t come through. She died but the child was all right. A fine boy.”

“And what happened to the boy?”

“Her family took him. The old grandmother will look after him and then he will go to an uncle.”

“Poor Gretchen! I was so sorry for her.”

“Now you are going to stop being sorry. You are going to get well and Frau Gleiberg tells me that in a few weeks’ time she will be taking you back to your home.”

He seemed almost gleeful. I had an impression that he had ticked my name off a list. A difficult case which has been satisfactorily settled.

And then I felt the tears prickling my eyelids-they had come very easily in the last few days-and I was weeping for the loss of my dream and my child.