Adelaide’s sleepwalking and fits

Adelaide’s sleepwalking and fits shape both the account of her brief married life and Alm-Uncle’s later argument for protecting Heidi from the demands of winter travel to school. The narrative links her earlier, poorly understood episodes with the shock and grief that followed Tobias’s death, while leaving open whether Heidi could inherit or develop a similar condition.

Earlier Episodes and Family Loss

Dete recounts that Adelaide had been delicate and subject to unusual attacks during which those around her could not tell whether she was awake or asleep. The account establishes these episodes as a condition that preceded the crisis of her marriage, rather than as something first brought on by bereavement.

Adelaide and Tobias had been fond of one another before their marriage and were happy together afterward. Their marriage lasted only two years: Tobias died in a workplace accident when a falling beam struck him. After seeing the aftermath of his death, Adelaide was overcome by grief and horror and developed a fever from which she did not recover. She died two months after Tobias was buried.

Alm-Uncle’s Concern for Heidi

Years later, when the Village Pastor urges Alm-Uncle to let Heidi attend school, Alm-Uncle invokes Adelaide’s history in arguing against sending a young child down the mountain in winter and back again at night. He points to the icy mornings, storms, snow, and strong winds, and asks whether the exertion might bring on a similar condition in Heidi. His concern is presented as a fear, not as evidence that Heidi has experienced sleepwalking or fits.

The exchange also shows how Adelaide’s history remains consequential after her death. Alm-Uncle’s appeal to it is part of his defense of keeping Heidi on the mountain; the pastor, acknowledging the practical danger of the journey from there, shifts his appeal toward Alm-Uncle’s return to life among the people of Dorfli. Adelaide’s condition thus enters a later dispute about Heidi’s safety and upbringing, though the passage does not establish a medical connection between mother and child.