It all began with two men in love with the same woman. In the shadowy mountain town of Holstenwall, two friends named Francis and Alan had gone to the carnival to see the traveling doctor Caligari and his exhibit of a somnambulist in a box. Twenty-five to thirty people gathered into the tent that faithful morning, eager to see this mysterious man and his sideshow spectacle.
"Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be amazed!" Dr. Caligari addressed to the anxious crowd. "For I, Dr. Caligari, are about to present to you an attraction so astounding, that your eyes will hardly dare to believe it!"
And so he did. From the moment the doctor revealed the 23 year old man in the box, the entire crowd gasped and murmured to each other, amazed by the incredible act about to be performed. At the very moment, the somnambulist known as Cesare was sleeping in his box, dreaming a most peaceful dream.
"Cesare...", Dr. Caligari spoke to the sleeping man. "Come forth, Cesare...I, Dr. Caligari, your master, command you to awaken from your eternal sleep...Awake."
With a soft moan and a twitch of his face, Cesare slowly opened his eyes halfway, his mouth slightly opened. He blinked once and slowly widened his eyes, gazing deep into the souls of those before him. Raising his hands out to the audience like a member of the undead, Cesare slowly came out of his box, each step of his slow and steady. He dropped his arms down to his sides, looking as though he were under a trance.
"Step right up, ladies and gentleman!" Dr. Caligari spoke to the audience. "Have your fortune told through the eyes of Cesare. He sees all and knows every secret."
Francis and Alan looked at each other and approached the stage. When they came too close to his beloved somnambulist, Dr. Caligari blocked them both with a swift motion of his cane. Dr. Caligari looked at Cesare and smiled at him, lowering his cane and allowing the two men to proceed with their questions.
"How long will I live?" Alan asked the somnambulist, sounding nervous.
With a slow turn of his head and an unblinking stare, his intense blue eyes shining like a pair of moonstones, Cesare looked at Alan and told him, "Your time is short. You die at dawn."
Alan shook with fear, his face twisting into one of horror as a scream of fright escaped from his lips. The poor man ran away and out of the tent. His friend followed after him.
"Don't hold back, ladies and gentlemen. Judge for yourselves. Ask away!" Dr. Caligari encouraged the audience, who stood up immediately and left, too afraid and too horrified as to what their futures might hold. Dr. Caligari smiled triumphantly and looked at Cesare again, but the somnambulist hardly seemed to notice him.
Later that night, when the doctor placed the knife into his hands, Cesare showed no signs of resistance and carried out the act of murdering Alan under the cover of darkness.
The following day, the woman named Jane went to the fairgrounds and encountered the doctor, asking him if he knew the whereabouts of her father. The doctor shook his head, meaning no. Struck by the beauty of the young woman, Dr. Caligari invited Jane into the tent and presented her with the sleeping man in the coffin-like box, awakening Cesare, who stared longingly at the girl, before she, too, ran away in fright. Stricken with a lust of insanity, Dr. Caligari turned to Cesare and ordered him to kill the girl. He gave him the knife again and instructed Cesare to wait until nightfall.
When darkness came, Cesare walked along the deserted streets of Holstenwall, keeping himself in close proximity to the wall. A living shadow, as it were. Slowly and silently, and with the most delicate and graceful of steps, Cesare crept up to the room in the high tower of the building that housed Jane Olsen. He broke in through the window, proceeding to approach the sleeping woman lying in her bed. Just as he raised the knife to pierce her heart, Cesare froze and stopped himself immediately, breaking free momentarily from his spell.
Throughout most of his life, Cesare felt as though he had almost no control over his own actions. Ever since his parents died in a plague when he was a baby, Cesare had been taken under the wing of Dr. Caligari and trained in the ways of somnambulism. For years, the mad doctor became obsessed with the idea of using a sleepwalker to act as a murder weapon. Cesare, he thought, would be the perfect example of that. Traveling from town to town, hidden inside a coffin-like box, Cesare was nothing more than a pawn in acting out the murders Dr. Caligari ordered him to do. All his life, Cesare felt as though he were a puppet being controlled by an ill-blooded man, which was exactly the case. Even when he was able to snap out of his hypnotic enchantment, even if it was for only a minute, Cesare became sadden with the knowledge that while he knew what he was doing was bad, he still felt himself incapable of doing anything about it. If he did not follow through with a murder, Dr. Caligari made sure that there were consequences for him.
So beautiful was Jane that Cesare could not allow himself to carry out the horrendous deed. He dropped the knife and slowly reached over Jane to touch by one strand of hair on her pretty head. Jane suddenly bolted up and screamed upon seeing the somnambulist standing in her room. Cesare grabbed at her violently. He experienced difficulty while trying to steal her out of bed, but ultimately pulled her out of the room and carried her out the window. Jane's father and the servants heard the commotion, but arrived too late.
Somehow, Cesare found himself escaping to the zigzag patterns of the rooftop, dragging an unconscious Jane heavily under his arm. He heard the voices of the villagers and looked back, worrying. He looked to the nighttime sky bathed in silver moonlight and then managed to find his way back down to the narrow street from which he came by before.
The villagers soon began to give chase, while Cesare desperately tried to find his way out of the labyrinth of bizarre and twisted buildings that made up most of Holtsenwall. The unfamiliarity of it all was redoubtable to his wide awake eyes compared to the dreamlike state he was usually placed under. Even when he was awake, Cesare knew he could never be free from his nightmares. While looking back to see how close the villagers were, Cesare tripped and fell down near the end of the path, dropping the unconscious Jane to the ground with him. He tried to stir her awake, but the villagers were right behind him. Seeing that he had no other choice but to escape, Cesare stood up and began running out to the field just outside of town.
Jane's father, Dr. Olsen, was one of the few pursuers who followed behind the villagers and stopped to see if his daughter was harmed.
Cesare hid himself behind a tree and kept out of sight as he looked back at Jane, breathing fast and very heavily. He was clearly exhausted.
Jane woke up from her faint and held onto her father, who ordered the villagers to hunt down the somnambulist, as well as the evil Dr. Caligari, the man who disrupted their once-peaceful town. Once he saw torches being lit and people raising up their pitchforks, Cesare took off running again and started heading deep into the black forest.
Traveling by night, no living man would ever think twice about setting foot into the black forest, on account of the flesh-hungry beasts that lurked in it, but Cesare did not know about this. The alluring light of the moon did not stay with him for long, as it was soon covered up by a veil of black clouds. The glowering deadwood trees took on an appearance that made them look more like blackened corpses, the twisting and coiling of the branches reaching out to him like wrinkled hands that scratched and tore away at his black clothing. Cesare heard the howling of dogs. As if he wasn't already frightened enough, the villagers were approaching closer and closer to him.
Cesare tripped over a log and fell into a pond, but soon recovered and ran a good distance before he hid himself inside a hollow tree, avoiding the villagers while they searched the area. They did not find him and decided to move on. Cesare slowly came out from his hiding place and took off in another direction. Though he did not know the way of where he was going, he did not care. If he could reach down the mountain and cross over to the other side of the country, he would be free.
Eventually, the villagers gave up and returned back to Holstenwall.
Two days later, a weak and feeble Cesare managed to reach the other side of the unforgiving mountain. Heavily exhausted from his long journey, Cesare leaned himself sideways against a tall tree, his arm reaching up towards the heavens. In the distance, he saw smoke coming from the chimney of a nearby cottage. Desperately in need of help, Cesare took but one step and collapsed near the edge of the forest.