Behind them, close to the open door, there runs - no, that is not the
word, there flies, or rather there hovers - the object of my dreams,
which slowly assumes the proportion of a harming nightmare. A fantastic
figure - should I call her a servant girl, or rather a classical nymph?
(...) This lively, light-footed and rapid gait, this striding step,
which contrasts with the aloof distance of all other figures, what is
the meaning of it all? (...) My condition varied between a bad dream and
a fairy tale (...). I lost my reason. It was always she who brought life
and movement into an otherwise calm scene. Indeed, she appeared to be
the embodiment of movement (...) but is it very unpleasant to be her
lover? (...) Who is she? Where does she come from? Have I encountered
her before? I mean one and a half millennia earlier? Does she come from
a noble Greek lineage, and did her great-grandmother have an affair with
people from Asia Minor, Egypt or Mesopotamia?




pAby Warburg (1866-1929)