162
PARTISAN REVIEW
fected the spellbound spectators as pregnant forebodings.
Any creative process approaches a moment when only one addi–
tional experience is needed to integrate all elements into a whole. The
mysterious figure of the strong man supplied such an experience.
On the night of this show the friends first visualized the original story
of
Caligari.
They wrote the manuscript in the following six weeks.
Defining the part each took in the work, Janowitz calls himself "the
father who planted the seed, and Mayer the mother who conceived
and ripened it." At the end, one small problem arose: the authors
were at a loss as to what to christen their main character, a psychia–
trist shaped after Mayer's archenemy during the war. A rare volume,
Unknown Letters of Stendhal,
offered the solution. While Janowitz
was skimming through this find of his, he happened to notice that
Stendhal, just come from the battlefield, met at La Scala in Milan
an officer named Caligari. The name clicked with both authors.
Their story is located in a fictitious North German town near the
Dutch border, significantly called Holstenwall. One day a fair moves
into the town, with merry-go-rounds and sideshows-among the
latter that of Dr. Caligari, a weird, bespectacled man advertising
the somnambulist Cesare. To procure a license, Caligari goes to the
town hall, where he is treated haughtily by an arrogant official. The
following morning this official is found murdered in his room, which
does not prevent the townspeople from enjoying the fair's pleasures.
Along with numerous onlookers, Francis and Alan-two students ·
in love with Jane, a medical man's daughter-enter the tent of
Dr. Caligari, and watch Cesare slowly stepping out of an upright,
coffinlike box. Caligari tells the thrilled audience that the somnam–
bulist will answer questions about the future. Alan, in an excited
state, asks how long he has to live. Cesare opens his mouth; he seems
to be dominated by a terrific, hypnotic power emanating from his
master. "Until dawn," he answers. At dawn Francis learns that his
friend has been stabbed in exactly the same manner as the official.
The student, suspicious of Caligari, persuades Jane's father to assist
him in an investigation. With a search warrant the two force their
way into the showman's wagon, and demand that he end the trance
of his medium. However, at this very moment they are called away
to the police station to attend the examination of a criminal who has
been caught in the act of killing a woman, and who now frantically
denies that he is the pursued serial murderer.
Francis continues spying on Caligari, and, after nightfall, se–
cretly peers through a window of the wagon. But while he imagines
