Aside from Gossman, one of the few who took Julia seriously as
a person was German circus owner Hermann Otto. He visited Julia
in Vienna and had a long conversation with her, later recording
his impressions in his book Fahrend Volk (Travelling People). He
wrote that Julia seemed: ‘a monster to the whole world, an
abnormality put on display for money, someone who had been
taught a few artistic turns, like a trained animal. [But] for the few
who knew her better, she was a warm, feeling, thoughtful,
spiritually very gifted being with a sensitive heart and mind… and
it affected her very deeply in her heart with sadness, having to
stand beside people, instead of with them, and to be shown as a
freak for money, not sharing any of the everyday joys in a home
filled with love.’
In the winter of 1859, the couple travelled to Moscow, where
crowds flocked to their exhibition at the Circus Salomansky. That
August, Julia discovered she was pregnant. The baby, which
arrived in March 1860 after a difficult birth, was unusually large,
covered in hair like his mother, and had the same pronounced
lower facial features. Julia was said to have held him and cried.
The baby lived only thirty-five hours, and Julia, who had been
lacerated with forceps during the birth, survived for just a few
more days after that. The official cause of death was metroperitonitis puerperalis (inflammation of the peritoneum about the
uterus), but more romantic sources say she died of a broken
heart. Lent admitted spectators to her deathbed, where she is
supposed to have said “I die happy, because I know I have been
loved for my own sake.” This fits nicely into the nineteenth
century predilection for grand last words, but it seems a little too
perfect to be true.
By impregnating his wife, Lent’s plan to secure his investment
through marriage had backfired—or so it seemed. At the hospital
where Julia gave birth, Lent met a Professor Sokolov of Moscow
University. Sokolov was an expert on embalming, and had
recently pioneered a technique that blended mummification with
42