Hoffmann's Strange Stories

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HOFFMANN'S

STRANGE STORIES.

FROM THE GERMAN.

Life of Hoffmann

HOFFMANN.

Models are no longer discussed, they are contemplated. The language belongs to the country that speaks it, but ideas belong to the whole human race. The language ought to be exclusive, absolute, faithful to the genius of the nation; but ideas ought to reach the greatest possible number of minds.

D. Nisard.

Ernest-Theodore-Wilhelm Hoffmann was born in Prussia at Kœnigsberg, the 21st of January, 1776. His father occupied for more than thirty-six years the office of attorney-general and commissioner at Insterberg. His mother was the daughter of the consistorial advocate Dœrfer, a man of rare merit, and who was long entrusted with the affairs of nearly all the noble families of Silesia. She was a woman of feeble health and of a sad and romantic imagination.

The childhood and youth of Hoffmann were passed at Kœnigsberg, with his serious parents and two personages worthy of interest on account of the strange contrast offered by their characters: a stiff old uncle, bombastic, systematic, like the baron who figures in the tale of Fascination; and a young aunt called Sophia, a graceful mischief-maker, whom he often likes to remember, but who died in the flower of her age—a type of grace and beauty, whose every feature is reproduced in the charming creation of Seraphine. Hoffmann likes to recall the remembrance of all the beings and all the objects that he has met with during his life. Having been born poor and dying indigent, he wore out his days in a series of monotonous occupations, and the capricious escapes which he allowed to his mind in the imaginary world.

On leaving the university, he had but one friend, Hippel, who remained his Pylades, his fidus Achates until the end. Rich, he would have cultivated the arts with an immense affection; deprived as he was of all patrimony, his friends demonstrated to him that the study of the law could alone give him bread; he became a law student. But he often threw aside the Pandects and the Institutes to take by turns his pencil, his bow, or his pen. The supernatural already furrowed deep wrinkles on his youthful forehead, but his friend Hippel was as yet the only confidant of his adventurous dreams. These two beings, closely united, balanced each other marvellously well. Hoffmann prepared his flight, Hippel sustained him; one had the fire, the other the calm. Sometimes, on fixed days in the week, they admitted to this intimacy a few chosen friends, and they talked of poetry, art and love around a pot of beer or a bottle of Rhine wine. This was the origin of the Serapion club.

Meanwhile time was passing; Hippel, nominated for judiciary functions, left Kœnigsberg. Hoffmann became lonely and sad again. Chance developed a passion in his youthful heart; but the difference of social position, of rank and fortune, rendered impossible all hope for the future. Hoffmann's heart was broken. He fled in his turn from Kœnigsberg, which no longer contained for him either friend or love, and he went to Glogau to continue the study of the law. From there he went to Posen, invested with his first degree. The world then changed its aspect in his eyes. He sees it nearer, he is called upon to appreciate it,—to judge it under its various appearances. Strongly excited by everything around him, he throws aside his melancholy, sharpens his crayons, and begins to make caricatures of everything and everybody, so much and so well that a personage in high standing, more ill-treated than the others, writes to Berlin to complain of him, and raises a fatal bar to any legal career which poor Hoffmann might undertake. Meanwhile the caricatures had brought him to light, and his reputation as a wit procured for him in a short time the care of a family.

In 1804, we find Hoffmann married and counsellor to the regency of Warsaw. A new society, elegant and select, opens before him. The resources of a great city develop his activity, and give a broader course to his studies. He connects himself with men already famous, such as Voss and Zacharias Werner: and the referendary Hitzig became as dear to him as was Hippel at Kœnigsberg.

Hoffmann felt from that time the springs of life and the strength of intelligence redoubled within him. He composed music, made pictures and stories; a circle of celebrated people was formed about him. His position appeared stable and his future almost sure, when suddenly the French entered Warsaw, and drove out the Prussian government together with Hoffmann, Hitzig and company. The poor counsellor of the regency was sick with grief; then, when hardly convalescent and without resources, he drags himself as far as Berlin, solicits an office, and obtains nothing except rebuffs. By chance, he remembers that music may afford him some employment; his friend Hitzig succeeds in having him appointed as leader of the orchestra in the theatre at Bamberg. He sets off, his purse light, but his heart big with hope; he arrives:—but oh, fatality! the manager has gone off with the funds: the company in complete disorder no longer know upon what saint to call. Meanwhile, they must live, and to continue the representations without an orchestra, for want of money to pay the musicians, Hoffmann, instead of scratching notes, sets himself about composing a play. They play his piece, it succeeds; he gains nearly enough to keep him from starving to death. Once launched upon the sea of literature, he sends articles to the Leipsig journals: they are inserted, he is begged to continue his favors; but all this amounts to so little! Hoffmann was again about to resort to expedients, when a new manager came to Bamberg, Holbein, a man of probity, but bold, an innovator, and bent upon making a fortune or burying himself under the stage. Hoffmann, under his auspices, became machinist, architect and decorator of the theatre of Bamberg. The machine is again set in motion; it operates,—florins pour in, and parties of pleasure flock from all parts. But one of Holbein's caprices destroys this castle; he goes, and misery comes back to stand sentinel on the stage of the abandoned theatre. Hoffmann, driven to extremity, sells his last coat to enable him to wait until his friend Hitzig, his second providence, forwards him his commission as leader of the orchestra at Dresden. Now at Dresden, things go on no better than on his arrival at Bamberg; but, to console him, he finds there his faithful friend Hippel, and friendship makes him forget his misfortunes for a time.

We are in 1813; the dogs of war are let loose; Talma is playing French pieces at Dresden, and Hoffmann is working on the opera of Undine, and at the same time making caricatures for the bookseller Baumgartner, getting poorer from day to day. In 1814 his friend Hippel, who has made his way, reappears, and who, faithful to his attachment, does not give himself a moment's rest until he has caused the recall of Hoffmann to Berlin, where he finds Hitzig, and continues his functions of counsellor at the regency.

Here, then, ought to commence for him a new existence. Seven years of calm, are they not sufficient to heal the wounds that fate has cruelly made? Is it not time for Hoffmann to enjoy a little of the comforts of the fireside and the success of public life? Well, no! his destiny must be accomplished, like that which devotes to martyrdom whoever bears upon his forehead the sign of genius. Besides, the misery of the past has undermined his vital strength. To this prostration of the organs is joined attacks of paralysis of the extremities; then the invasion of a frightful malady, the spine disease, comes to render his situation without remedy and without hope of recovery. He vegetated five months in unspeakable suffering, which he bore with the resignation of a stoic. In the last days that preceded his death, the physicians tried to reanimate him by the application of cautery to each side of the back hone. Hitzig having come to visit him a short time after one of these painful operations, Hoffmann asked him "if he had not smelt, on entering, an odor of roast beef:" then he related in detail the proceedings of the doctor, adding, "That he imagined that they wished to stamp him, for fear that he should pass, as contraband, into paradise."

We read, in the excellent biography published by Mr. Loève Weimars, "that Hoffmann was small of stature; had a bilious complexion, thin nose, and arched, thin lips, dark hair, nearly black, which almost covered his forehead. His gray eyes had nothing remarkable in them when he looked tranquilly before him; but he sometimes gave them a tricky and scornful expression. His thin form was snugly built; his chest was broad and deep. In his youth, he dressed himself with care, without ever becoming elegant. Later he took much pleasure in wearing his counsellor's uniform, which was richly embroidered, and in which he resembled very nearly a general of the French army. What was the most striking in his person, was an extraordinary mobility, which increased when he was narrating. He spoke with great volubility; and, as his voice was husky, it was very difficult to understand him. He ordinarily expressed himself in short dry phrases. When he spoke of art and literature and became animated, his elocution was abundant and harmonious.

Hoffmann read badly: when he came to effective passages, he took an affected tone, taking good care to throw a glance among his auditors, as if to assure himself that he was understood, which habit often occasioned them much embarrassment. It was pretty difficult to form acquaintance with this strange man, but he was a firm friend. He did not like the society of women, and the hatred that he had sworn towards learned women often made him exceed the bounds of politeness.—When an authoress had the misfortune to make advances to him and came to seat herself near him at table, he took his plate and carried it to the other extremity. As for the men, he gave the preference to those who amused him, that is to say, to those who were quick at witty repartee, and knew how to relate anecdotes, or who took pleasure in listening to him. When he received company at his own house, Hoffmann was extremely pleasant. He bore then, with angelic patience, whims and follies which would have put him to flight under any other circumstances. His humor was of the most variable character: in his journal he has left a quantity of expressions by which he designated the different dispositions of mind that he remarked in himself; here are a few of them: romantic and religious humor; exalted humorous humor, resembling madness; exalted musical humor, romantic humor disagreeably exalted, capricious excess, purely poetic, very comfortable, stiff, ironical, very morose, excessively depressed, exotic, but miserable; "The purely poetic humor, in which," said he, "I felt a profound respect for myself."

Hoffmann was continually possessed with an idea which furnishes us in some measure with a key to his works. He had the conviction that evil is always hidden behind the good; or, as he expressed himself, that the devil had a hand in everything. His soul was continually a prey to fatal forebodings; he saw all the frightful figures that appear in his works, near him when he wrote; so that it often happened that he awoke his wife in the middle of the night, to beg of her to sit up in bed with her eyes open whilst he wrote. His writings bear the stamp of truth; in general there are few poets who offer so strong an identity with their creations.—The same writer who described terrible effects with so powerful an energy, excelled in satire and caricature, and he repaid himself for the terrors that shook his soul, by contemplating the mad creations that his imagination gave birth to, in his moments of calm and gaiety. Hoffmann attached no value to those of his productions in which the two distinctive qualities of his mind were not produced, as, for example, The Cooper of Nuremberg, the best of his works. His reading was very limited; he knew only the poets of the first class, and troubled himself very little about the new literature of the day. He drew the subject of his narrations from his imagination, from old chronicles, or from observations made in taverns and other places of resort that he frequented. The criticisms of the journalists caused him no emotion, and he rarely read them; the criticisms of his friends alone had any value in his eyes.

On the first appearance in France of the Strange Stories, the singularity of the work made a rapid fortune; but as a fatal law wills that to every genius a persecution is attached, those who called themselves the interpreters of Hoffmann miserably derided him; caricature nailed him, like another Silenus, astride a beer barrel; it enveloped him in the nauseous vapor of the bar room, it covered him with stains of wine, and, to shut out his book from good company, it made it the product of drunkenness and debauchery. It is time to protest against this odious lie, which had deceived Sir Walter Scott, at the same time the whole public, who are too ready to be deceived. The man the ignorant and jealous critics have so often calumniated, died the 25th of June, 1822, in the flower of his age, counsellor at Berlin. His life, destroyed by the long suffering of an acute disease, was extinguished in the midst of his wife and several friends, who yet live to honor the memory of the magistrate, the genius of the poet, and the souvenir of the virtues of the citizen.

Hoffmann was a man who knew life by experience; he had labored and suffered; he had exhausted, like many others, his part of the illusions of life. At the time he commenced writing his stories, he had lived three quarters of the time allotted to man; it was in 1814; the storms are passed, his position is assured, his rank is surrounded with honor and consideration; Germany has consecrated his genius as a writer; fame comes to him like glory, both dearly tax his leisure. But Hoffmann predominates over the world, he disdains its praises, he looks forgivingly on its seductions. Formerly he hated it for its hardness, now he sees it with its bitterness, with its ridiculousness, and he laughs at it. Retired henceforth into the circle of a few chosen men whose hearts have never betrayed his affections, with Chamisso, Contessa, Hitzig and doctor Koreff, he makes himself another world, of which they are the elect. Amongst them is organized the Serapion Club, thus called from the name that figured that day in the calendar. It was in those reunions that Hoffmann liked to exhaust his strangest inspirations.

Pour him out some prince's wine, let a flow of Johannisberg tint his glass with golden reflections, and the poet's imagination sets off at a gallop, like the courser who carried Burger's Leonora;—then springs forth all the train of strange beings, children of his wandering thoughts, that appear when he calls them, come, grow and range themselves before him. It is a drama that he raises between heaven and earth;—it is his world, peopled with personages whose secret he alone possesses. Pour out for the poet a flow of Johannisberg, and his thought, so many times trodden down by the dry pre-occupations of daily labor, so many times ruffled by trust deceived, becomes illumined with a magic brilliancy; the scene becomes enlarged, all the arts furnish their part to the work; painting brings its lively colors; music its trembling vibrations; poetry its secret treasures. Pour out Johannisberg, and life fires the drama! Advance on this new earth, amongst these personages that you have nowhere seen, and that you seem nevertheless to recollect; all the most diverse emotions will surprise and fascinate you.

Listen to the melancholy echo of Antonia's Song, immediately you are bursting with laughter at the relation of the Lost Reflection;—then a delicious curiosity drags you on to the last page of the Walled-up Door; farther on, all the spirit, all the elegance of the age of Louis XIV. shines in the description of manners which serves as a frame to Cardillac the Jeweller;—do you wish for comedy in real life, read the Agate Heart:—do you wish for the strange in its highest perfection, take Coppelius or Berthold the Madman. At whatever page the book is opened, there is instruction for things in life. By the side of the wanderings of a burning imagination, is found at every line an observation of the world, which mingles all the delicacy of a criticism in good taste with the traits which prove the most intimate acquaintance with the human heart:—the moral deduction is never separated from the marvellousness of the form.

The Cooper of Nuremberg

THE COOPER OF NUREMBERG.

The Cooper's trade is noble; And may his companions be, Love—pure, chaste and stable; Wine—generous, rich and free.

I.

At the commencement of the month of May, in 1580, the respectable society of coopers, of the free city of Nuremberg, celebrated, according to an ancient custom, the annual feast of its institution. A short time after this solemnity, one of the chief men, clothed with the title of Master of the Candles, having departed this life, they thought of choosing his successor. The voices in favor of master Martin were unanimous. Master Martin yielded to no one in all that concerned his profession. He knew marvellously well how to make casks, both elegantly and strongly, and understood how to organize a cellar according to the best rules. His well known reputation increased his custom, entirely composed of rich and distinguished people; and, thanks to luck, which had favored all his enterprises, he enjoyed a very considerable fortune for a man in his station.

When the election of master Martin was known and proclaimed, the counsellor Jacob Paumgartner, who presided over the assembly, arose and said—"You have done perfectly well, my dear friends, in choosing master Martin for one of your chief officers, for this dignity could not be conferred upon a man more capable of exercising it. Master Martin enjoys the general esteem, and all those who know him bear witness to his skill. Notwithstanding his riches, he has preserved the habit and taste for labor. His whole conduct is a model worthy of being offered to you. Let us salute our dear master Martin, and let us congratulate him on the unanimous choice which honors and rewards in his person a whole life of probity and labor."

On finishing this discourse, Paumgartner arose and advanced several steps towards the subject of it, his arms stretched out as if to embrace master Martin. But the latter, rising only for good manners, and very much embarrassed by his corpulence, returned the salutation of the counsellor with very little ceremony, and fell back into his arm-chair, without appearing to care much for the brotherly embraces of Jacob Paumgartner.

"Ah, so, master Martin," continued the counsellor, "are you then not satisfied with being elected by us Master of the Candles?"

The cooper, throwing back bis head, and patting gently with both hands his ample paunch, appeared to collect himself in the midst of the silence of the company; then taking up the conversation—"Well, my worthy friend," said he to Paumgartner, "how should I not be satisfied with the justice that is done me! And what man, I pray you, is such an enemy to himself, as to disdain the legitimate price of the efforts he has made? Is the tardy debtor, who comes some day to settle the whole or part of an old account, chased from the door? What has been, my dear friends," continued he, turning towards the assembly, "the motive which has inspired you with the idea of choosing me? What duties shall I have to perform? Will it be necessary, to justify the honor of your choice, to know pertinently every detail of our trade? I flatter myself with having given proof, in constructing, without the assistance of fire, my mammoth tun, a masterpiece known by you all! Will it be necessary, to please you more, to add to this goods and money? Come to my house, I will open to you my chests and closets; I will satiate your eyes with the pleasure of counting a mass of bags of gold and vessels of silver, of no trifling weight. If to flatter your vanity, the newly elected Master of the Candles ought to receive the humble respect of the lowly and the consideration of the great, ask the first of the citizens of our good city of Nuremberg, ask of the noble bishop of Bamberg what opinion they have formed concerning master Martin. I do not fear, God be thanked, either comparison or criticism."

Hereupon master Martin, satisfied with the speech that he had just improvised, threw himself back in his arm-chair, and patting again his big belly; he threw around him glances that called for applause; then, seeing that his audience remained dumb, except some slight attacks of cough, which signified pretty distinctly the discontent of some of his fellow members, he added some few words to bring back the minds that his pride had just wounded.

"Receive," said he to them, 'my very sincere thanks for a choice which honors you; for you have all felt that the dignity of Master of Candles ought justly to reward the man who has raised to such renown the respectable society of coopers. You all know that I shall zealously fulfil the duties that are laid out for me. Every one of you will find in me a counsellor and an assistant. I shall defend as my own the privileges of all; and to seal the compact of devotion which ought to unite us, I invite you to a friendly banquet which shall take place on Sunday. It is in joyfully tasting some old flagons of Johannisberg, that we will agree upon measures to be taken, with one consent, to assure protection to the general interest."

This gracious speech produced a marvellous effect. All faces were radiant, all voices broke out into noisy acclamations, which raised to the clouds the capacity, the merit and the liberality of master Martin. Each one came in his turn to embrace the new Master of the Candles, who allowed it to be done by some without making too many grimaces, and who even deigned to grant to some the favor of extending to them his horny hand.

II.

The worthy counsellor, Jacob Paumgartner, had to pass the house of master Martin to go on his own. On arriving before the cooper's door, Jacob, after a sign of farewell, was about to continue his road, when master Martin, taking off his fur cap, and bowing as low as his enormous obesity would allow, addressed him in these words—"Could I not have the honor of receiving, for a few minutes, in my humble domicil, my worthy friend the counsellor? I should be too happy if he would do me the favor to allow me to enjoy more of his esteemed conversation."

"By my faith, master Martin," answered Paumgartner, I will very willingly make a short stay under your roof; but, truly, you are too modest in speaking of what belongs to you, as if we did not know that your humble domicil, as it pleases you to call it, is more amply furnished than any other with quantities of furniture and objects of value, whose variety and elegance are the envy of the richest citizens of Nuremberg; and I lay a wager that there is not a great lord who would not be glad to possess such a jewel."

Now there was no exaggeration in the praises lavished on the cooper's abode; for as soon as the door was open, the peristyle, of exquisite architecture, already offered the graceful effect of a little fanciful room. The floor was figured in the wood mosaic very artistically put together; the pannels of the wood work enclosed paintings which were not without merit, and chests, sculptured by the best workmen of that epoch, stood along the walls. It was, at the time we see these two personages enter, suffocatingly hot; a sultry and heavy atmosphere oppressed the breathing on reaching these apartments. For this reason, master Martin conducted his guest into a room disposed in such a manner that a current of fresh air circulated unceasingly through it; this room resembled a dining room; it was garnished with the furniture and plate necessary for splendid feasts. On entering, the sonorous voice of master Martin called Rosa. This was the only daughter of the proprietor of the dwelling.

Rosa made her appearance immediately. All the beautiful creations of Albert Durer could not give the idea of so perfect an assemblage of feminine graces. Figure to yourself a waist supple and frail as the stalk of a white lily—cheeks in which the rose was mingled with the alabaster—a mouth ornamented with every seduction—a look impressed with a mysterious melancholy, which hid itself under long eyelids, surmounted by ebony-hued eyebrows, and shone like the soft reflection of the May morn—hair running in silky waves on her alabaster shoulders,—and you will only have a faint idea of all the attractions of this young and interesting person, who looked more like an angel than a woman. You would have thought that you saw alive the beautiful Margaret of Faust, whose ideal the painter Cornelius has so well represented.

The charming Rosa made a childlike salutation to her father, and took his hands, which she kissed with a respect full of tenderness. At the sight of this sweet creature, the face of old Jacob was covered with a warm tint of red, and the almost extinguished fire of his antique youth struck some sparks from his embers, long since grown cold. The honorable counsellor was re-animated for an instant, as the pale ray of the setting sun colors, before fading away, with a last flame-tint, the embrowned foliage of an autumn landscape. "Surely," exclaimed he, "master Martin, you have there a treasure which is singly worth all those that your house contains; and if our old beards tremble with pleasure when we look at such sweet attractions, we must not be astonished at the effect produced by them upon youth. I am sure that your Rosa causes many distractions at church among the youth of the neighborhood, and that in the parties frequented by the young girls, gallantries and bouquets are for her alone! And I engage, that to marry her to whoever is best in Nuremberg, you will only have, dear master Martin, the embarrassment of choice."

Instead of listening with pleasure to the praises of the counsellor, master Martin frowned discontentedly, and after having ordered his daughter to bring a flagon of his best Rhine wine, he said to the ardent Jacob, who watched Rosa as she retired, red as a cherry, and with her eyes modestly lowered—"You are right, counsellor; I confess that my daughter is endowed with remarkable beauty; and I add, that she possesses besides, other precious qualities. But you must not speak of those things before a young girl. And as to the best in the city of Nuremberg, I think little of it, truly, as for as regards choosing a son-in-law."

Rosa, who re-entered at this moment, placed on the table a flagon and two crystal glasses superbly cut. The two old men took seats at the table facing each other, and master Martin was pouring into the glasses his favorite liquor, when the step of a horse rang on the pavement before the house. Rosa ran to see who it was, and came back to announce to her father that an old nobleman, named Heinrich of Spangenberg, wished to speak to him.

"Blessed be this day!" exclaimed the cooper, "since it brings to me the noblest and the most liberal of all my customers. It is undoubtedly concerning some important order. Heinrich of Spangenberg, is a man who deserves a good reception."

Saying which, master Martin ran to meet the new comer, as fast as his old legs would allow him.

III.

The wine of Hochheim sparkled in the Bohemian crystal, and the three personages soon felt a new life diffuse itself within them. Many a sprightly story was given forth by them without too many scruples, to such a point that the chest of master Martin floated on his enormous belly, here and there, giving vent to tremendous bursts of laughter. The counsellor Jacob himself felt his parchment face unwrinkling.

Rosa was not long in entering the room with an elegant willow basket, from which she drew a tablecloth, as white as snow. The table was laid in the twinkling of an eye, and master Martin's dinner had a very inviting appearance. Paumgartner and Spangenberg could not take their eyes from this admirable young girl, who invited them, in her sweetest voice, to partake of her father's repast, which she herself had prepared; and master Martin, buried in his armchair, with his hands clasped, contemplated her with the pride of an idolizing father. As she was about retiring discreetly, the old Spangenherg sprang from his seat with the quickness of a young man, and seizing the young girl by her waist, he exclaimed, his eyes moistened with tears—"Oh, dear angel! Oh, child of heaven!" Then he pressed to his lips, twice or thrice, the forehead of the beautiful maiden, and sank back into his seat, a prey to a sad pre-occupation.

The counsellor Jacob proposed to drink a full glass in honor of Rosa. "I tell you, master Martin," exclaimed he, "and the worthy lord Spangenberg is assuredly of my opinion, I tell you that Heaven has made you a priceless present in giving you this beautiful daughter; and I already see her, in a near future, the wife of some high personage, with a string of pearls on her forehead, and a splendid carriage covered with the most illustrious blazonry."