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Nevertheless, his resolution cannot have been firm enough or he must have delayed its execution too long; for while he was in the midst of his devotions, on December 26, in St. Stephen’s, catching sight of a strapping young woman accompanied by a smartly dressed gentleman, he could not fend off the thought that he might himself be in this gentleman’s place. This called for punishment, and that very evening it over took him like a thunderbolt. He saw himself in bright flames and sank down in a swoon. Attempts were made to rouse him but he rolled about in the room till blood flowed from his mouth and nose. He felt that he was surrounded by heat and noisome smells, and he heard a voice say that he had been condemned to this state as a punishment for his vain and idle thoughts. Later he was scourged with ropes by Evil Spirits, and was told that he would be tormented like this every day until he had decided to enter the Order of Anchorites. These experiences continued up to the last entry in his diary (January 13).

We see how our unfortunate painter’s phantasies of temptation were succeeded by ascetic ones and finally by phantasies of punishment. The end of his tale of suffering we know already. In May he went to Mariazell, told his story of an earlier bond written in black ink, to which he explicitly attributed his continued torment by the Devil, received this bond back, too, and was cured.

During his second stay there he painted the pictures which are copied in the Trophaeum. Then he took a step which was in keeping with the demands of the ascetic phase of his diary. He did not, it is true, go into the wilderness to become an anchorite, but he joined the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers: religiosus factus est.

Reading the diary, we gain insight into another part of the story. It will be remembered that the painter signed a bond with the Devil because after his father’s death, feeling depressed and unable to work, he was worried about making a livelihood. These factors of depression, inhibition in his work and mourning for his father are somehow connected with one another, whether in a simple or a complicated way. Perhaps the reason why the apparitions of the Devil were so over-generously furnished with breasts was that the Evil One was meant to become his foster father. This hope was not fulfilled, and the painter continued to be in a bad state. He could not work properly, or he was out of luck and could not find enough employment. The village priest’s letter of introduction speaks of him as ‘hunc miserum omni auxilio destitutum’. He was thus not only in moral straits but was suffering material want. In the account of his later visions, we find remarks here and there indicating - as do the contents of the scenes described - that even after the successful first exorcism, nothing had been changed in his situation. We come to know him as a man who fails in everything and who is therefore trusted by no one. In his first vision the cavalier asked him ‘what he is going to do, since he has no one to stand by him’. The first series of visions in Vienna tallied completely with the wishful phantasies of a poor man, who had come down in the world and who hungered for enjoyment: magnificent halls, high living, a silver dinner-service and beautiful women. Here we find what was missing in his relations with the Devil made good. At that time he had been in a melancholia which made him unable to enjoy anything and obliged him to reject the most attractive offers. After the exorcism the melancholia seems to have been overcome and all his worldly-minded desires had once more become active.