Page "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" Paragraph 3

Francis ( Friedrich Fehér ) and an elderly companion are sharing stories when a distracted-looking woman, Jane ( Lil Dagover ), passes by.

Francis calls her his betrothed and narrates an interesting tale that he and Jane share.

Francis begins his story with himself and his friend Alan ( Hans Heinrich von Twardowski ), who are both good-naturedly competing to be married to the lovely Jane.

The two friends visit a carnival in their German mountain village of Holstenwall, where they encounter the captivating Dr. Caligari ( Werner Krauss ) and a near-silent somnambulist, Cesare ( Conrad Veidt ), whom the doctor keeps asleep in a coffin-like cabinet, controls hypnotically, and is displaying as an attraction.

Caligari hawks that Cesare's continuous sleeping state allows him to know the answer to any question about the future.

When Alan asks Cesare how long he will live, Cesare bluntly replies that Alan will die before dawn tomorrow — a prophecy which is fulfilled.

Alan's violent death at the hands of some shadowy figure becomes the most recent in a series of mysterious murders in Holstenwall.