Historical dream account · English · machine translation
The black cards and the sudden visitor
Friedrich Hebbel (1813–1863)
Friedrich Hebbels Tagebücher. Zweiter Band (1887) · Printed p. 548
Dreamer identified by the source: Hebbel’s wife (as identified in the diary)
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A strange dream of my wife’s. She enters my room; I am sitting on the sofa, and at my feet an old woman crouches on the carpet, laying cards for me while I watch intently. My wife: “But what is this? All black! That means death.” I: “Hasn’t Lang died yet?”—the wife of the castle captain was meant. My wife: “I don’t think so.” Professor Glaser, flinging open the door: “I have come from Lang’s; it is over.” My wife: “Well, the rest of the cards are good.”
Den 7. März.; year not repeated in this heading.
Read the original German account
The black cards and the sudden visitor
Seltsamer Traum meiner Frau. Sie tritt in mein Zimmer, ich sitze auf dem Sopha und zu meinen Füßen auf dem Teppich kauert ein altes Weib, das mir Karten legt und dem ich gespannt zuschaue. Meine Frau. Aber was ist das? Alles schwarz! Das bedeutet Tod. Ich. Ist denn die Lang (die Schloßhauptmännin war gemeint) noch nicht gestorben? Meine Frau. Ich glaube nicht. Professor Glaser (die Thüre aufreißend.) Ich komme von Lang’s; es ist aus. Meine Frau. Nun, die übrigen Karten sind gut.
Source & context
English machine translation. The original account, source credit and publication terms remain available.
Hebbel records his wife’s dream. The first-person “I” inside her account is Hebbel as a dream figure, not evidence that Hebbel dreamed it. Lang, the cards, the death remark and Professor Glaser’s message are dream dialogue, not verified facts about a real death. The wording “it is over” is preserved without expanding it to a confirmed death announcement.
Friedrich Hebbel, Friedrich Hebbels Tagebücher. Zweiter Band (Berlin: G. Grote’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1887), edited by Felix Bamberg, Printed p. 548. Dreamer: Hebbel’s wife (as identified in the diary); recorded by Friedrich Hebbel. Original German witness: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Biogr.506sv-2, via Internet Archive. Editorial title and navigation metadata added by Synastry; source wording, narrative uncertainty and distinct reported voices retained.
The diary heading reads Den 7. März., without repeating a year. The surrounding entry mentions Hebbel’s approaching fiftieth birthday, but no exact dream date is assigned.
Public domain in the United States (original German 1887 edition) ↗
Original German diary passage from the independently witnessed 1887 second volume, edited by Felix Bamberg (1820–1893), of Friedrich Hebbel (1813–1863). The 1887 publication has an expired-US-publication basis; author/editor ordinary life-plus-70 terms have elapsed. No modern edition or English translation is copied. Public archive access is not itself a reuse grant; no new licence or blanket worldwide clearance is asserted.
Source locator and text provenance
Printed p. 548
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Original-scan-witnessed OCR letter/punctuation repairs; long-s transcribed as s; physical line/page furniture and division hyphens normalized exactly as the reversible ledger records. Historical spelling, wording and dream uncertainty retained. Complete wife’s dream dialogue through the final remark about the remaining cards. Earlier party/circus entries and the following day’s newspaper discussion are outside the dream.
- Account text SHA-256
- 3af15851585ab1582960116a065f0d4f9e3b7bee07364bfb983d6f668a0135e4
- Source file SHA-256
- ebd64c69b8734682c1c03d597a68ea4332c644f521634ab61208df941367032c
Content notes
- Historical recollection
Connections in the Loom
Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.