Amour fou Page #2

Bravo.

First... I do not wish to

keep this secret from you.

I love another.

You know her, I believe.

A lady of high society

and of noble education.

However,

this love has not

been reciprocated.

What can be worse than being rejected?

It makes me feel lonelier than ever.

When love is not reciprocated,

love dies.

I'm searching for an individual

who does return my love

and will share with me

the wish I hold so dear.

However, that particular lady has

refused to comply with this wish of mine.

- And so I no longer love her.

- You speak of marriage?

Not exactly.

It is in fact something else.

And now it appears to me that

you may be more right for this.

I'm falling in love with you.

Unless you are not...

It may sound odd, but I am

not looking for a partner in life.

But rather in death.

Are you ill?

One might say that.

My soul is ill with

weariness and solitude.

It's the fault of my

foolish disposition,

that can only enjoy

what cannot be.

I'm no good at life,

but I don't want to die alone,

without love.

So I seek the joy of

finding a kindred soul

who understands my suffering

and is like me,

so that we can die together.

And you thought of me?

- But why?

- Forgive me if I'm too direct.

But you seem to be

an outsider just like me.

You are also lonely.

Bereft of friends.

And nothing really matters to you.

You love nothing,

and nobody loves you.

What?

How can you say that?

I have my child

and my husband,

who loves me very much indeed.

- But do you love him?

- Yes.

And my little Pauline

loves me too,

and I love her.

Well, perhaps I was mistaken.

Forgive me.

Oh, Vogel.

I am so happy to see you.

How was your journey?

It confirmed what I keep

trying to tell the chancellor.

Many people are still not registered

in a trade, so they can't be taxed.

I am only responsible

for taxing the trades.

How can I demand payment

of the general tax

when not everyone

is registered yet?

And I doubt that the registered trades

will bear the burden in the meantime.

Mama?

Please tell me what

you really think.

What sort of infection is this?

If it really is one.

If I knew, I would tell you.

Amazing how suddenly

everything can change.

Only yesterday I was...

happy

and carefree.

And now this.

Ah, it will pass.

But do you not

worry about me?

If Pauline were ill,

I would be beside myself with worry.

That would not help her much.

Henriette.

- How lovely to see you.

- Yes.

How are you?

Madame Vogel is still weak

because of these ailments.

You must not tire her,

my friend.

- Oh, really? What is wrong with you?

- Oh, nothing.

Or at least,

they say it is nothing.

But perhaps they just

don't know what it is.

It is upsetting to have an illness

nobody knows or understands.

I also suffer

from something internal, invisible,

which nobody knows or understands.

How similar we are.

"And when the count,

during a happy hour,

asked his wife why, despite seeming

capable of withstanding all depravity,

she had fled from him

as if he were the devil,

she replied, throwing her

arms around his neck,

that he would never have

seemed like the devil to her

if he had not seemed like an angel

upon his first appearance. "

- How well-worded.

- You are smart.

But now I ask you:

When the count slept with the woman

he loved without her agreement,

was he acting

justly or unjustly?

- Unjustly.

- Precisely.

Then why are you plaguing yourself

and us with the absurd suggestion

that he could win the love

of the marquise in the end?

What useless hypochondria.

But, Mother, if the marquise

truly loves this man,

- and her love is stronger than his crime.

- Nonsense.

In that case the poor

woman is seriously ill

and needs to be cured from

an unhealthy kind of love

which is nothing more

than artificial exultation.

I hope, my child,

that I have taught you otherwise.

Mother...

I really prefer Goethe.

It's strange to have an

illness that may not be one.

A figment of the imagination

which is as real as reality.

So what's the difference?

The main thing is,

it's nothing serious.

Please, tell my wife all this.

I couldn't repeat your words.

Believe me...

It really is most interesting.

It is extraordinary and rather

difficult for me to describe.

Medicine is facing

a mystery here.

The latest examination

of Madame Vogel's urine,

which I was sure would help us

and which, to be certain, I performed

myself together with a colleague,

revealed nothing.

Nothing to cause alarm

from a medical point of view.

I shall have the results checked

by the medical board of the Charit.

Then we can be certain.

But what causes the spasms if

there's nothing wrong with me?

We doctors are in

the dark about this.

But perhaps this is

a female complaint

of a more spiritual

than physical nature.

This assumption is

based on the theory

that a certain fluidum flows through

both the soul and the body,

which therefore

influence each other.

This would explain why

spiritual disturbances

can lead to physical illnesses.

Nonsense.

Thank God,

it isn't serious at least.

So Mama doesn't have to die?

And what can be done?

Relax.

I can't.

Something is depressing

and destroying my mood,

making me anxious and sad.

Would you like to

tell us something?

I'm afraid.

There's nothing to be afraid of.

It's the flowers.

They frighten me.

The flowers?

Yes.

I can't bear to see

their sweet beauty.

It reminds me of the fact

that they will fade.

Their bittersweet scent

lingers in my nose.

- I see. The flowers.

- Yes.

The flowers and other

quite banal things.

They strike me as menacing,

and an undefined fear

arises within me

which causes me

to see the world

and everything in it

with a terrible doubt:

What if all this

was a mistake?

I can't remember anything.

That is quite normal.

Wouldn't you say?

The patient can't remember anything

she says or does during the treatment

due to a kind of

protective mechanism.

In a magnetic sleep the

patient utters things

that she would never

say in a waking state.

What did I say?

Nothing important, really.

Wouldn't you say?

This treatment requires

a number of sessions

in order to achieve success.

Is the treatment working, then?

It often takes months or even

years until one finds something

that might indicate the spiritual

origin of the current ailment.

Here,

we are in the darkness.

Where the blue mountains

Rise from the lowering skies

Look inside

Where the sun sets

Where the clouds spread

There I would like to be

There I would like to be

There in that quiet valley

Which silences pain and woe

"So I spend my evenings

with the Vogels,

because this lady does not let me

see her alone, for the sake of decency.

You see, my friend,

how limited she is by convention.

But I intend to

free her from this,

for her own good,

since this narrow-minded

life is humiliating

and deprives one of all possibility

of doing what one's soul wishes.

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