The Best Tales of Hoffmann

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  When Nathanael lay on the stone pavement with a shattered head, Coppelius had disappeared in the crush and confusion.

  Several years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a pretty country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting hand in hand with a pleasant gentleman, while two bright boys were playing at her feet. From this it may be concluded that she eventually found that quiet domestic happiness which her cheerful, blithesome character required, and which Nathanael, with his tempest-tossed soul, could never have been able to give her.

  RATH KRESPEL

  Councillor Krespel was one of the strangest, oddest men I ever met with in my life. When I went to live in H——for a time the whole town was full of talk about him, as he happened just then to be in the midst of one of the very craziest of his schemes. Krespel was renowned as both a clever, learned lawyer and a skillful diplomat. One of the reigning princes of Germany—not, however, one of the most powerful—had turned to him for assistance in drawing up a memorial, which he was desirous of presenting at the Imperial Court with the view of furthering his legitimate claims upon a certain strip of territory. The project was crowned with the happiest success; and as Krespel had once complained that he could never find a dwelling sufficiently comfortable to suit him, the prince, to reward him for the memorial, undertook to defray the cost of building a house which Krespel might erect just as he pleased. Moreover, the prince was willing to purchase any site that Krespel should fancy. This offer, however, the Councillor would not accept; he insisted that the house should be built in his garden, which was situated in a very beautiful neighbourhood outside the town walls. So he bought all kinds of materials and had them carted out. Then he might have been seen day after day, attired in his curious garments (which he had made himself according to certain fixed rules of his own), slaking the lime, sifting the sand, piling up the bricks and stones in regular heaps, and so on. All this he did without once consulting an architect or thinking about a plan. One fine day, however, he went to an experienced builder of the town and requested him to be in his garden at daybreak the next morning, with all his journeymen and apprentices, and a large body of labourers, and so on, to build him his house. Naturally the builder asked for the architect’s plan, and was not a little astonished when Krespel replied that none was needed, and that things would turn out all right in the end, just as he wanted them.

  Next morning, when the builder and his men came to the place, they found a trench drawn out in the shape of an exact square; and Krespel said, “Here’s where you must lay the foundations; then carry up the walls until I say they are high enough.” “Without windows and doors, and without partition walls?” broke in the builder, as if alarmed at Krespel’s mad folly. “Do what I tell you, my dear sir,” replied the Councillor quite calmly; “leave the rest to me; it will be all right.”

  It was only the promise of high pay that could induce the builder to proceed with the ridiculous building; but none has ever been erected under merrier circumstances. As there was an abundant supply of food and drink, the workmen never left their work; and amidst their continuous laughter the four walls were run up with incredible quickness, until one day Krespel cried, “Stop!” Then the workmen, laying down trowel and hammer, came down from the scaffoldings and gathered round Krespel in a circle, while every face was asking, “Well, and what now?”

  “Make way!” cried Krespel; and then running to one end of the garden, he strode slowly towards the square of brickwork. When he came close to the wall he shook his head in a dissatisfied manner, ran to the other end of the garden, again strode slowly towards the brickwork square, and proceeded to act as before. These tactics he pursued several times, until at length, running his sharp nose hard against the wall, he cried, “Come here, come here, men! break me a door in here! Here’s where I want a door made!” He gave the exact dimensions in feet and inches, and they did as he bid them. Then he stepped inside the structure, and smiled with satisfaction as the builder remarked that the walls were just the height of a good two-story house. Krespel walked thoughtfully backwards and forwards across the space within, the bricklayers behind him with hammers and picks, and wherever he cried, “Make a window here, six feet high by four feet broad!” “There a little window, three feet by two!” a hole was made in a trice.

  It was at this stage of the proceedings that I came to H——; and it was highly amusing to see how hundreds of people stood round about the garden and raised a loud shout whenever the stones flew out and a new window appeared where nobody had for a moment expected it. And in the same manner Krespel proceeded with the rest of the house, and with all the work necessary to that end; everything had to be done on the spot in accordance with the instructions which the Councillor gave from time to time. However, the absurdity of the whole business, the growing conviction that things would in the end turn out better than might have been expected, but above all, Krespel’s generosity—which indeed cost him nothing —kept them all in good-humour. Thus were the difficulties overcome which necessarily arose out of this eccentric way of building, and in a short time there was a completely finished house, its outside, indeed, presenting a most extraordinary appearance, no two windows, etc., being alike; but on the other hand the interior arrangements suggested a peculiar feeling of comfort. All who entered the house bore witness to the truth of this; and I too experienced it myself when I was taken in by Krespel after I had become more intimate with him. For hitherto I had not exchanged a word with this eccentric man; his building had occupied him so much that he had not even once been to Professor M——’s to dinner, as he was in the habit of doing on Tuesdays. Indeed, in reply to a special invitation, he sent word that he should not set foot over the threshold before the housewarming of his new building took place.

  All his friends and acquaintances, therefore, confidently looked forward to a great banquet; but Krespel invited nobody except the masters, journeymen, apprentices, and labourers who had built the house. He entertained them with the choicest viands: bricklayer’s apprentices devoured partridge pies regardless of consequences; young joiners polished off roast pheasants with the greatest success; while hungry labourers helped themselves for once to the choicest morsels of truffes fricassées. In the evening their wives and daughters came, and there was a great ball. After waltzing a short while with the wives of the masters, Krespel sat down among the town musicians, took a violin in his hand, and directed the orchestra until daylight.

  On the Tuesday after this festival, which exhibited Councillor Krespel in the character of a friend of the people, I at length saw him appear, to my no little joy, at Professor M——’s. Anything more strange and fantastic than Krespel’s behaviour it would be impossible to find. He was so stiff and awkward in his movements that he looked every moment as if he would run up against something or do some damage. But he did not; and the lady of the house seemed to be well aware that he would not, for she did not grow a shade paler when he rushed with heavy steps round a table crowded with beautiful cups, or when he maneuvered near a large mirror that reached down to the floor, or even when he seized a flower pot of beautifully painted porcelain and swung it round in the air as if desirous of making its colours play. Moreover, before dinner he subjected everything in the Professor’s room to a most minute examination; he also took down a picture from the wall and hung it up again, standing on one of the cushioned chairs to do so. At the same time he talked a good deal and vehemently; at one time his thoughts kept leaping, as it were, from one subject to another (this was most conspicuous during dinner); at another, he was unable to have done with an idea; seizing upon it again and again, he gave it all sorts of wonderful twists and turns, and couldn’t get back into the ordinary track until something else took hold of his fancy. Sometimes his voice was rough and harsh and screeching, and sometimes it was low and drawling and singing; but at no time did it harmonize with what he was talking about.

  Music was the subject of conversation; the praises of a new comp
oser were being sung, when Krespel, smiling, said in his low singing tones, “I wish the devil with his pitchfork would hurl that atrocious garbler of music millions of fathoms down to the bottomless pit of hell!” Then he burst out passionately and wildly, “She is an angel of heaven, nothing but pure god-given music!—the paragon and queen of song! ”—and tears stood in his eyes. To understand this, we had to go back to a celebrated artiste, who had been the subject of conversation an hour before.

  Just at this time a roast hare was on the table; I noticed that Krespel carefully removed every particle of meat from the bones on his plate, and was most particular in his inquiries after the hare’s feet; these the Professor’s little five-year-old daughter now brought to him with a very pretty smile. Besides, the children had cast many friendly glances towards Krespel during dinner; now they rose and drew nearer to him, but not without signs of timorous awe. What’s the meaning of that? thought I to myself. Dessert was brought in; then the Councillor took a little box from his pocket, in which he had a miniature steel lathe. This he immediately screwed fast to the table, and turning the bones with incredible skill and rapidity, he made all sorts of little fancy boxes and balls, which the children received with cries of delight.

  Just as we were rising from table, the Professor’s niece asked, “And what is our Antonia doing?”

  Krespel’s face was like that of one who has bitten of a sour orange and wants to look as if it were a sweet one; but his expression soon changed into the likeness of a hideous mask, whilst he laughed behind it with downright bitter, fierce, and as it seemed to me, satanic scorn. “Our Antonia? our dear Antonia?” he asked in his drawling, disagreeable singing way.

  The Professor hastened to intervene; in the reproving glance which he gave his niece I read that she had touched a point likely to stir up unpleasant memories in Krespel’s heart.

  “How are you getting on with your violins?” interposed the Professor in a jovial manner, taking the Councillor by both hands. Then Krespel’s countenance cleared up, and with a firm voice he replied, “Capitally, Professor; you recollect my telling you of the lucky chance which threw that splendid Amati into my hands. Well, I’ve only cut it open today—not before today. I hope Antonia has carefully taken the rest of it to pieces.”

  “Antonia is a good child,” remarked the Professor.

  “Yes, indeed, that she is,” cried the Councillor, whisking himself round; then, seizing his hat and stick, he hastily rushed out of the room. I saw in the mirror that tears were in his eyes.

  As soon as the Councillor was gone, I at once urged the Professor to explain to me what Krespel had to do with violins, and particularly with Antonia. “Well,” replied the Professor, “not only is the Councillor a remarkably eccentric fellow altogether, but he practices violin making in his own crack-brained way.” “Violin making!” I exclaimed, perfectly astonished. “Yes,” continued the Professor, “according to the judgment of men who understand the thing, Krespel makes the very best violins that can be found nowadays; formerly he would frequently let other people play on those in which he had been especially successful, but that’s been all over and done with now for a long time. As soon as he has finished a violin he plays on it himself for one or two hours, with very remarkable power and with the most exquisite expression; then he hangs it up beside the rest, and never touches it again or suffers anybody else to touch it. If a violin by any of the eminent old masters is hunted up anywhere, the Councillor buys it immediately, no matter what the price put upon it. But he plays it as he does his own violins, only once; then he takes it to pieces in order to examine closely its inner structure, and should he fancy he hasn’t found exactly what he was looking for, in a pet he throws the pieces into a big chest, which is already full of the remains of broken violins.”

  “But who and what is Antonia?” I inquired, hastily and impetuously.

  “Well, now, that,” continued the Professor, “that is a thing which might very well make me conceive an unconquerable aversion to the Councillor, were I not convinced that there is some peculiar secret behind it, for he is such a good-natured fellow at bottom as to be sometimes guilty of weakness. When he came to H——, several years ago, he led the life of an anchorite, along with an old housekeeper, in——Street. Soon, by his oddities, he excited the curiosity of his neighbours; as soon as he became aware of this, he sought and made acquaintances. Not only in my house but everywhere we became so accustomed to him that he grew to be indispensable. In spite of his rude exterior, even the children liked him, without ever proving a nuisance to him; for notwithstanding all their friendly passages together, they always retained a certain timorous awe of him, which secured him against all overfamiliarity. You have had today an example of the way in which he wins their hearts by his ready skill in various things. We all took him at first for a crusty old bachelor, and he never contradicted us.

  “After he had been living here some time, he went away, nobody knew where, and returned at the end of some months. The evening following his return his windows were lit up to an unusual extent! This alone was sufficient to arouse his neighbours’ attention, and they soon heard a surpassingly beautiful female voice singing to the accompaniment of a piano. Then the music of a violin was heard chiming in and entering upon a keen ardent contest with the voice. They knew at once that the player was the Councillor. I myself mixed in the large crowd which had gathered in front of his house to listen to this extraordinary concert; and I must confess that, beside this voice and the peculiar, deep, soul-stirring impression which the execution made upon me, the singing of the most celebrated artistes whom I had ever heard seemed to me feeble and void of expression. Until then I had had no conception of such long-sustained notes, of such nightingale .trills, of such undulations of musical sound, of such swelling up to the strength of organ notes, of such dying away to the faintest whisper. There was not one whom the sweet witchery did not enthrall; and when the singer ceased, nothing but soft sighs broke the impressive silence.

  “About midnight the Councillor was heard talking violently, and another male voice seemed, to judge from the tones, to be reproaching him, while at intervals the broken words of a sobbing girl could be detected. The Councillor continued to shout with increasing violence, until he fell into that drawling, singing way that you know. He was interrupted by a loud scream from the girl, and then all was as still as death. Suddenly a loud racket was heard on the stairs; a young man rushed out sobbing, threw himself into a post-chaise which stood below, and drove rapidly away.

  “The next day the Councillor was very cheerful, and nobody had the courage to question him about the events of the previous night. But on inquiring of the housekeeper, we gathered that the Councillor had brought home with him an extraordinarily pretty young lady whom he called Antonia, and she it was who had sung so beautifully. A young man also had come along with them; he had treated Antonia very tenderly, and must evidently have been her fiancé. But he, since the Councillor peremptorily insisted on it, had had to go away again in a hurry. What the relations between Antonia and the Councillor are has remained a secret, but this much is certain, that he tyrannizes over the poor girl in the most hateful fashion. He watches her as Doctor Bartolo watches his ward in the Barber of Seville; she hardly dares show herself at the window; and if, yielding now and again to her earnest entreaties, he takes her into society, he follows her with Argus’ eyes, and will on no account suffer a musical note to be sounded, far less let Antonia sing—indeed, she is not permitted to sing in his own house. Antonia’s singing on that memorable night, has, therefore, come to be regarded by the townspeople in the light of a tradition of some marvellous wonder that suffices to stir the heart and the fancy; and even those who did not hear it often exclaim, whenever any other singer attempts to display her powers in the place, ‘What sort of a wretched squeaking do you call that? Nobody but Antonia knows how to sing.’ ”

  Having a singular weakness for such fantastic histories, I found it necessary, as ma
y easily be imagined, to make Antonia’s acquaintance. I had myself often enough heard the popular saying about her singing, but had never imagined that that exquisite artiste was living in the place, held a captive in the bonds of this eccentric Krespel like the victim of a tyrannous sorcerer. Naturally enough I heard Antonia’s marvellous voice in my dreams on the following night, and as she besought me in the most touching manner in a glorious adagio movement (very ridiculously it seemed to me, as if I had composed it myself) to save her, I soon resolved, like a second Astolpho, to penetrate into Krespel’s house, as if into another Alcina’s magic castle, and deliver the queen of song from her ignominious fetters.

  It all came about in a different way from what I had expected; I had seen the Councillor scarcely more than two or three times, and eagerly discussed with him the best method of constructing violins, when he invited me to call and see him. I did so; and he showed me his treasures of violins. There were fully thirty of them hanging up in a closet; one among them bore conspicuously all the marks of great antiquity (a carved lion’s head, and so on), and, hung up higher than the rest and surmounted by a crown of flowers, it seemed to exercise a queenly supremacy over them.

  “This violin,” said Krespel, on my making some inquiry relative to it, “this violin is a very remarkable and curious specimen of the work of some unknown master, probably of Tartini’s time. I am perfectly convinced that there is something especially exceptional in its inner construction, and that, if I took it to pieces, a secret would be revealed to me which I have long been seeking to discover, but—laugh at me if you like—this senseless thing which only gives signs of life and sound as I make it, often speaks to me in a strange way of itself. The first time I played upon it I somehow fancied that I was only the magnetizer who has the power of moving his subject to reveal of his own accord in words the visions of his inner nature. Don’t go away with the belief that I am such a fool as to attach even the slightest importance to such fantastic notions, and yet it’s certainly strange that I could never prevail upon myself to cut open that dumb lifeless thing there. I am very pleased now that I have not cut it open, for since Antonia has been with me I sometimes play to her upon this violin. For Antonia is fond of it—very fond of it.”