On the Night of the Seventh Moon Read online

  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.”

  “I don’t believe it. Surely I know what happened to me. Maximilian Count Lokenburg 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 myself 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 will not believe that. And yet they said I had been here for six days.

  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 onto 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 Ilse.

  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 have 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 revelers, 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 coll
apse. 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 toward 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 forever. 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 twixt 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 called him in. Yours was just such 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 Lokenburg.”

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

  “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 how we had ridden 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 jewelry 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 jewelry 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 deduced 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 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.”