Das schwindende Herz (1917)

Count Julian has inherited, but he takes little pleasure in his father’s legacy. The estate is heavily in debt and is immediately taken over by the creditor. The young count therefore decides to go to the university town and start an entirely new life there. He has no idea that two men are following him. While looking for an affordable room, Julian meets the young Stella, whose mother rents out apartments. But he makes no progress in his career, and his savings gradually slip through his fingers. One day, one of the two men following him—a stranger—approaches Julian in the university library. They get talking, and suddenly the stranger offers to help him. He knows an actress named Thea Aderstrom who likes to encourage young talent. They meet, and Julian soon falls under the spell of the beautiful woman. At the same time, Stella receives a silver heart from an unknown sender, along with a few explanatory lines. They say that the heart will bring good luck to whoever she gives it to out of love. Stella immediately sends the heart to Julian, the great love she has secretly cherished, and encloses a substantial sum of money in the same letter so that Julian can make ends meet for a while. Not wanting to embarrass him, Stella denies being the one who brought him this generous gift. Julian gives the matter no further thought and is pleased that the money will let him make more of himself and impress Thea as a man of the world. But on closer inspection of the heart, Julian also discovers an inscription that amounts to a warning. The heart can grant his wishes, but the greater the wish, the more the heart will shrink, along with the time he has left to live. Julian nevertheless dismisses this grim prophecy and begins making one wish after another. Suddenly, he wins a large sum of money gambling and uses it to fulfill another heartfelt wish: buying himself a large house. To his astonishment, he also finds heirlooms from his father’s estate there. Julian also uses the power of the heart to grant various wishes of Thea’s. But the gift does not truly make him happy. The heart grows smaller each time, and this frightens Julian. The inexplicable effects of the miraculous silver gift also take a heavy toll on his already fragile nerves. Julian blames Thea’s insatiability for the fact that he can feel his life slipping away, and one day, when she once again wants him to grant a wish, he brusquely sends her away. Only belatedly does Julian realize that, in pursuit of outward trappings he has squandered on Thea, he has forgotten his true love, Stella. In his pursuit of material things, he never made the most important wish of all: to ask for her love. Dejected, Julian drags himself to the park and, in utter disappointment, throws the heart away after making one final wish: for Stella’s happiness. The mysterious stranger appears again, seemingly out of nowhere. He picks up the silver heart and sends it back to Stella. It comes with a message saying that a large sum of money is waiting for Stella at a bank. There is only one condition: from then on, Stella must wear the heart openly. The stranger asks Stella and her mother to come to Count Julian. When Julian sees his old love again, he immediately believes that his final wish has come true after all. Overjoyed, he takes his former love in his arms, but is puzzled to see the silver heart hanging from her neck at its original size. The stranger explains the mystery: he and the old Count Rolberg once belonged to a secret society whose purpose was to work for the good of humanity. Rolberg knew that his spendthrift son was frivolous, and asked two members of the society, including the stranger, to keep an eye on his offspring from then on. The old Count Rolberg transferred his estate to the stranger, making it look as though he were bankrupt on his death. The silver heart, which held a secret of its own, was also entrusted to the stranger. Like Russian matryoshka dolls, the heart contained more silver hearts inside it, each one smaller than the last. After every wish Julian made, it was the mysterious stranger who secretly removed the next-smallest heart, creating the impression that the heart was shrinking. At the last moment, just as the old count had hoped, Count Julian came to understand which things in life matter and which do not—and that happiness cannot be bought, but is rooted in genuine love for another person.