Then, however, there obtrudes itself upon him a would-be scientific problem which demands solution. Now it is a matter of his passing a critical judgment “whether the artist had reproduced Gradiva’s manner of walking from life.” He cannot produce it in himself; in the search for the “real existence” of this gait, he arrives only at “observation from life for the purpose of enlightenment on the matter” (_G._ p. 18). This forces him, to be sure, to a mode of action utterly foreign to him. “Women had formerly been for him only a conception in marble or bronze, and he had never given his feminine contemporaries the least consideration.” Society life has always seemed to him an unavoidable torture; young ladies whom he meets, in such connections, he fails to see and hear, to such a degree that, on the next encounter, he passes without greeting, which, of course, serves to place him in an unfavourable light with them. Now, however, the scientific task which he has imposed upon himself forces him in dry weather, but especially in wet weather, to observe diligently the feet of ladies and girls on the street, an activity which yields him many a displeased and many an encouraging glance from those observed. “Yet one was as incomprehensible to him as the other.” (_G._ p. 19.) As a result of these careful studies, he finds that Gradiva’s gait cannot be proved to exist really, a fact which fills him with regret and annoyance. Soon afterwards he has a terribly frightful dream, which transports him to old Pompeii on the day of the eruption of Vesuvius, and makes him an eye-witness of the destruction of the city. “As he stood thus at the edge of the Forum near the Jupiter temple, he suddenly saw Gradiva a short distance in front of him. Until then no thought of her presence there had moved him, but now suddenly it seemed natural to him, as she was, of course, a Pompeiian girl, that she was living in her native city and, _without his having any suspicion of it, was his contemporary_.” (_G._ p. 20.) Fear about her impending fate draws from him a cry of warning, in answer to which the unperturbed apparition turns her face toward him. Unconcerned, she continues her way to the portico of the temple, sits down there on a step and slowly rests her head upon it, while her face keeps growing paler, as if it were turning to white marble. As he hastens after her, he finds her, with calm countenance, stretched out, as if sleeping, on the broad step; soon the rain of ashes buries her form.