Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

that emphasizes the personal, aesthetic function of this image and mirrors its use
as metaphor for the whole novel.
The first, interpretive, ekphrasis of Goya’s Capricho 43 occurs after Goya
has learned from his doctor Peral that he will become irreversibly deaf and that
the origin of his sickness lies in his brain, probably due to a venereal disease.
Although Peral emphasizes that it has not yet affected his brain, Goya concludes
that he will not only be deaf but also become mad. In the trochees that end this
chapter, the narrator presents Goya’s response to learning about this illness in a
brief tableau vivant of the Sueño de la razón:
Oh, da
Sind sie wieder, die Dämonen!
Heller Tag ist’s, und er hat es
Stets gewußt: die Ungeheuer,
Die bei Tage kommen, sind die
Schlimmsten, viel gefährlicher als
Die der Nacht. Er träumt und ist doch
Furchtbar wach. Er wirft sich
Übern Tisch, verzweifelt, um sie
Nicht zu sehen, doch er sieht sie.
Sie sind in ihm, sind er selber,
Sind gleichzeitig in und außer
Ihm. (Goya 355) 167
The image is evoked through the description and interpretation of the
setting which will remind the reader of Goya’s aquatint. Especially the lines “Er
wirft sich / Übern Tisch, verzweifelt, um sie / Nicht zu sehen” provide a brief
tableau vivant of this aquatint, allowing the reader to visualize Goya’s position
167 “Oh, there they / Were again, there were the demons! / Broad daylight it is, and he has /Always
known it: known the monsters / Who by day present themselves are / Worst of all, more fearsome
than the / Ones by night. He dreams, but yet is / Frightfully awake. He writhes and / Flings himself
across the table / Desperately, not to see them, / But he sees them, notwithstanding, / They are in
him, are his very / Self, at once inside and outside / Him.” (This Is 319)
139