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

his source of hope and spiritual guidance before he replaced her with the Virgen
de Atocha. Standing now in front of the shrine of the former, he feels that “Ein
Stück Leben war ihm abgestroben, und er bedauerte es nicht einmal” (Goya 402;
“Part of him had died, and he did not even regret it” This Is 363). As he walks
home through the city, he realizes that Zaragoza is not as he remembers it, but
“dreary and dusty” and “silent” (This Is 364). This dreariness and desolation is
now “around him and within him” (ibid.), producing once again an attack of his
mental demons:
Dann aber kam es wieder, mitten am hellen Tag, das verzweifelte
Geträume. Um ihn hockte es, flog es, spukhaft, katzenköpfig, eulenäugig,
fledermausflügelig.
Mit furchtbarer Anstrengung riß er sich zusammen, griff zum Stift.
Warf sie aufs Papier, die bösen Geister. Da waren sie. Und da er sie auf
dem Papier sah, wurde er ruhiger.
An diesem Tag, am nächsten und am übernächsten, ein zweites, ein
drittes Mal und immer öfter, ließ er sie aus sich heraus, die Gespenster, auf
Papier. So hielt er sie fest, so wurde er sie los. Wenn sie übers Papier
krochen und flogen, waren sie nicht mehr gefährlich (Goya 402). 168
In this dramatic ekphrasis, Goya’s aquatint is alluded to and evoked by the
second sentence, but the rest of this quoted passage dramatizes the image by
going beyond the represented scene. Taking the cue from Goya’s image,
Feuchtwanger interprets the Sueño de la razón as an image to be overcome by a
vision of reason awakening through the artist’s work. Bringing the “evil spirits”
168 “And then, in broad daylight, the nightmare of despair came back. It squatted by him, flew
about, spectral, cat-headed, owl-eyed, bat-winged. With a fearful effort he pulled himself together,
seized a pencil. Dashed them down on paper, the evil sprits. There they were. He spent almost a
whole week alone in his bare rooms with his ghosts. He did not shut his eyes against the demons,
did not through himself across the table to hide his head from them. He looked them in the face,
held onto them till they had revealed themselves to him fully, then forced them and his fear and
madness onto paper.” (This Is 364)
141