In Goethe’s novel ‚Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre‘, Hersilie is one of the most radical and erratic female figures in literature. Her modern counterpart is André Breton’s Nadja. In the eponymous novel, she has neither a voice nor a story of her own. Rather, Nadja is an object with whose help Breton program matically tries to make surrealism become an event. As in Goethe’s novel, Breton’s experimental arrangement reflects the order of the sexes: Nadja falls, Breton observes her and turns her story into a work of art.