This anecdote, which he learned from a friend, took such a hold upon him that he immediately wrote down not only what he had heard but the first plan, although upon the insistent protestation of that friend he did not work out the story as it had been first conceived nor so glaringly. "I saw," writes our poet, "at first only the psychological interest in this material. The problem was to present the story as well as possible and this was indeed a significant one for the narrator. A distinctly esthetic interest would not be possible in conjunction with that." There is no doubt in the mind of the experienced psychoanalyst that, when a poet is laid hold of in this manner by an anecdote, this only happens because his own significant infantile complexes are roused out of the unconscious. Also the transformations, not unworthy of consideration, which the poet makes with the story are highly indicative. The seemingly dead maiden becomes a moon walker, the landlord's daughter is changed to the attractive daughter of a pastor. "Out of the linen draper there is finally made a cultivated, artistically sensitive youth, who has in him much of Ludwig's own personality" (Borcherdt). The finished romance the poet considered the best which he had so far created, it came nearest to his ideal of a story. Although his attempts always failed to find a publisher for the "Maria," the poet retained his love for this work all his life and it was one of the few productions of his youth which he occasionally still shared with his friends in his last years. The theme of "Maria" is, as indeed the significant title represents, the unconscious, not to say, the immaculate conception. It is unconscious because the heroine, drawn by the moon and walking in her sleep, comes to her beloved and becomes pregnant by him without a conscious memory of the experience. Furthermore the analogy with the Mother of God becomes emphasized by the fact that in a picture "Mary and Magdalene" described at the beginning, the Queen of Heaven bears quite unmistakably the features of the heroine of the title. The main event, with its results and discovery, is developed out of the character of both hero and heroine with extraordinary psychical keenness.