The Best Tales of Hoffmann

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  At the bottom of the steps the doctor requested to see Salvator’s box; Signora Caterina showed him one—in which were two or three of her deceased husband’s cloaks now laid aside, and some old worn-out shoes. The doctor smilingly tapped the box, on this side and on that, and remarked in a tone of satisfaction “We shall see! we shall see!” Some hours later he returned with a very beautiful name for his patient’s disease, and brought with him some big bottles of an evil-smelling potion, which he directed to be given to the patient constantly. This was a work of no little trouble, for Salvator resisted as well as he could, and obviously showed the greatest aversion for the stuff, which looked, and smelt, and tasted, as if it had been concocted from Acheron itself.

  Whether the disease, since it had now received a name, and in consequence really signified something, had only just begun to put forth its virulence, or whether Splendiano’s potion made too much of a disturbance inside the patient—it is at any rate certain that the poor painter grew weaker and weaker from day to day, from hour to hour. And notwithstanding Dr. Splendiano Accoramboni’s assurance that after the vital process had reached a state of perfect equilibrium, he would give it a new start like the pendulum of a clock, they were all very doubtful as to Salvator’s recovery, and thought that the doctor had perhaps already given the pendulum such a rough jolt that the mechanism was damaged.

  Now it happened one day that when Salvator seemed scarcely able to move a finger he was suddenly seized with the paroxysm of fever; in a momentary accession of strength he leapt out of bed, seized the full medicine bottles, and hurled them fiercely out of the window. Just at this moment Dr. Splendiano Accoramboni was entering the house, when two or three bottles came bang upon his head, smashing all to pieces, while the brown liquid ran in streams all down his face and wig and ruff. Hastily rushing into the house, he screamed like a madman, “Signor Salvator has gone out of his mind, he’s delirious; no skill can save him now, he’ll be dead in ten minutes. Give me the picture, Signora Caterina, give me the picture —it’s mine, the scanty reward of all my trouble. Give me the picture, I say.”

  But when Signora Caterina opened the box, and Dr. Splendiano saw nothing but the old cloaks and torn shoes, his eyes spun round in his head like a pair of fire-wheels; he gnashed his teeth; he stamped; he consigned poor Salvator, the widow, and all the family to the devil; then he rushed out of the house like an arrow from a bow, or as if he had been shot from a cannon.

  After the violence of the paroxysm had spent itself, Salvator again relapsed into a deathlike condition. Signora Caterina was fully persuaded that his end was really come, and away she sped as fast as she could to the monastery, to fetch Father Boniface to administer the sacrament to the dying man. Father Boniface came and looked at the sick man; he said he was well acquainted with the peculiar signs which approaching death stamps on the human face, but that for the present there were no indications of them on the face of the insensible Salvator. Something might still be done, and he would procure help at once, only Dr. Splendiano Accoramboni with his Greek names and infernal medicines was not to be allowed to cross the threshold again. The good Father set out at once, and we shall see later that he kept his word about sending the promised help.

  Salvator recovered consciousness again; he fancied he was lying in a beautiful flower-scented arbour, for green boughs and leaves were interlacing above his head. He felt a salutary warmth glowing in his veins, but it seemed to him as if somehow his left arm was bound fast.

  “Where am I?” he asked in a faint voice. Then a handsome young man, who had stood at his bedside, but whom he had not noticed until just now, threw himself upon his knees, and grasping Salvator’s right hand, kissed it and bathed it with tears, as he cried again and again, “Oh! Signor! my noble master! now it’s all right; you are saved, you’ll get better.”

  “Tell me—” began Salvator, when the young man begged him not to exert himself, for he was too weak to talk; he would tell him all that had happened. “You see, my esteemed and excellent sir,” began the young man, “you were very ill when you came from Naples, but your condition was not really dangerous; a few simple remedies would soon have set you, with your strong constitution, on your legs again, if you hadn’t, through Carlos’s well-intentioned blunder in running off for the nearest physician, fallen into the hands of the Pyramid Doctor, who did his best to put you in your grave.”

  “What do you say?” exclaimed Salvator, laughing heartily, notwithstanding the feeble state he was in. “What do you say?—the Pyramid Doctor? Yes, although I was very ill, I saw that the little fellow in damask patchwork, who condemned me to drink his vile devil’s brew, wore on his head the obelisk from the Piazza San Pietro—and so that’s why you call him the Pyramid Doctor?”

  “Why,” said the young man, likewise laughing, “Dr. Splendiano Accoramboni must have come to see you in his mysterious conical nightcap; and, do you know, you can see it flashing every morning from his window like some bad omen in the sky. But it’s not for this cap that he’s called the Pyramid Doctor; for that there’s a very different reason. Dr. Splendiano is a great lover of pictures and has quite a choice collection, which he has gained in a peculiar way. He keeps a close eye on painters and their illnesses. He’s particularly eager to get at artists who are strangers in Rome. If they eat an ounce or two too much macaroni, or drink a glass more Syracuse than is altogether good for them, he will afflict them with first one and then the other disease, designating it by a formidable name, and proceeding at once to cure them of it. He generally bargains for a picture as the price of his attendance; and as only specially obstinate constitutions can withstand his remedies, it generally happens that he gets his picture out of the chattels left by the poor foreigner, who meanwhile has been carried to the Pyramid of Cestius, and buried there. It hardly need be said that Signor Splendiano always picks out the best of the pictures the painter has finished, and also does not forget to bid the men take several others along with it. The cemetery near the Pyramid of Cestius is Dr. Splendiano Accoramboni’s cornfield, which he diligently cultivates, and for that reason he is called the Pyramid Doctor. Dame Caterina took great pains, of course with the best intentions, to make the doctor believe that you had brought a fine picture with you; you may imagine with what eagerness he concocted his medicines for you. It was fortunate that you threw the doctor’s bottles at his head, it was also fortunate that he left you in anger, and no less fortunate that Signora Caterina, who believed you were in the agonies of death, fetched Father Boniface to administer to you the sacrament. Father Boniface understands something of the art of healing; he formed a correct diagnosis of your condition and sent for me.”

  “Then you also are a doctor?” asked Salvator in a faint voice.

  “No,” replied the young man, a deep blush mantling his cheeks, “no, my estimable and worthy sir, I am not in the least a doctor like Signor Splendiano Accoramboni; I am a barber-surgeon. I felt that I would sink into the earth with fear—with joy—when Father Boniface came and told me that Salvator Rosa was almost at the point of death in the Via Bergognona, and required my help. I came as fast as I could, opened a vein in your left arm, and you were saved. Then we brought you up into this cool airy room that you once occupied. Look, there’s the easel which you left behind you; there are a few sketches which Signora Caterina has treasured as if they were relics. You’ve passed the crisis of your illness; simple remedies such as Father Boniface can prepare are all that you want, except good nursing, to bring back your strength again. And now permit me once more to kiss this hand—this creative hand that charms her deepest secrets from Nature and clothes them in living form. Permit poor Antonio Scacciati to pour out all the gratitude and immeasurable joy of his heart that Heaven has granted him to save the life of our great and noble painter, Salvator Rosa.” Thereupon the young barber-surgeon threw himself on his knees again, and, seizing Salvator’s hand, kissed it and bathed it in tears as before.

  “I don’t understand,” sai
d the artist, raising himself up a little, though with considerable difficulty, “ I don’t understand, my dear Antonio, what makes you show me all this respect. You are, you say, a barber-surgeon, and we don’t in a general way find this trade going hand in hand with art—”

  “As soon,” replied the young man, casting down his eyes, “as you have picked up your strength again, my dear sir, I have a good deal to tell you that now lies heavy on my heart.”

  “Do so,” said Salvator; “you may have every confidence in me—that you may, for I don’t know that any man’s face has made a more direct appeal to my heart than yours. The more I look at you the more plainly I seem to trace in your features a resemblance to that incomparable young painter—I mean Sanzio Raphael.”

  Antonio’s eyes were lit up with a proud, radiant light—he vainly struggled for words with which to express his feelings.

  At this moment Signora Caterina appeared, followed by Father Boniface, who brought Salvator a medicine which he had mixed and which the patient swallowed with more relish and felt to have a more beneficial effect upon him than the Acheronian waters of the Pyramid Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni.

  II

  And Antonio’s words proved true. The simple remedies of Father Boniface, the careful nursing of good Signora Caterina and her daughters, the warmer weather which now came—all cooperated so well together with Salvator’s naturally robust constitution that he soon felt sufficiently well to think about work again; first of all he made a few sketches which he thought of working out afterwards.

  Antonio scarcely ever left Salvator’s room; he was all eyes when the painter drew out his sketches; while his judgment on many points showed that he must have been initiated into the secrets of art.

  “See here Antonio,” said Salvator to him one day, “you understand art matters so well that I believe you have not merely cultivated your critical judgment, but must have wielded the brush as well.”

  “You may remember,” rejoined Antonio, “when you were just about coming to yourself again after your long unconsciousness, that I had several things to tell you which lay heavy on my mind. Now is the time for me to unfold all my heart to you. You must know then, that though I am called Antonio Scacciati the barber-surgeon, who opened the vein in your arm for you, I really belong to art—to the art to which, after bidding farewell to my hateful trade, I intend to devote myself for once and for all.”

  “Ho! ho!” exclaimed Salvator, “Ho! ho! Antonio, weigh well what you are about to do. You are a clever surgeon, and perhaps will never be anything more than a bungling painter all your life long; for, with your permission, as young as you are, you are decidedly too old to begin to use the charcoal now. Believe me, a man’s whole lifetime is scarce long enough to acquire a knowledge of the True—still less the practical ability to represent it.”

  “Ah! but, my dear sir,” replied Antonio, smiling blandly, “don’t imagine that I should now have come to entertain the foolish idea of taking up the difficult art of painting if I hadn’t practiced it on every possible occasion from my childhood. In spite of the fact that my father obstinately kept me away from everything connected with art, Heaven was graciously pleased to throw me in the way of some celebrated artists. I must tell you that the great Annibal Caracci interested himself in the orphan boy, and also that I may with justice call myself Guido Reni’s pupil.”

  “Well then,” said Salvator somewhat sharply, a way of speaking he sometimes had, “my good Antonio, you have indeed had great masters, and so without detriment to your surgical practice, you must have been a great pupil. Only I don’t understand how you, a faithful disciple of the gentle, elegant Guido, whom you perhaps outdo in elegance in your own pictures—for pupils do this in their enthusiasm—can find any pleasure in my productions, and can really regard me as a master in the Art.”

  At these words, which indeed sounded a good deal like derisive mockery, the hot blood rushed into the young man’s face.

  “Let me be frank and lay bare the thoughts I have in my mind. I tell you, Salvator, I have never honoured any master from the depths of my soul as I do you. What I am amazed at in your works is the sublime grandeur of conception which is often revealed. You grasp the deepest secrets of Nature: you understand the mysterious hieroglyphics of her rocks, trees, and waterfalls; you hear her sacred voice, you understand her language, and possess the power to write down what she has said to you. Yes, I can call your bold free style of painting nothing else than writing down. Man and his doings do not satisfy you; you see him only as a part of Nature, and as his essential character is conditioned by natural phenomena; and in these facts I see why you are truly great only in your landscapes with their wonderful figures. Historical painting confines you to limits which clog your genius for reproducing your higher intuitions of Nature.”

  “That’s talk you’ve picked up from envious historical painters,” said Salvator, interrupting his young companion; “like them, Antonio, you throw me the bone of landscape painting that I may gnaw away at it, and so spare their own good flesh. Don’t I understand the human figure and all that is dependent upon it? But this silly criticism, repeated from others–”

  “Don’t be angry,” interrupted Antonio, “don’t be angry, my good sir; I am not blindly repeating anybody’s words, and I should not for a moment think of trusting to the judgment of our painters here in Rome. Who can help admiring the bold draughtmanship, the powerful expression, but above all the living movement of your figures? It’s plain to see that you don’t work from a stiff, inflexible model, or even from a lifeless manikin; it is evident that you yourself are your own breathing, living model, and that when you sketch or paint, you have the figure you want to put on your canvas reflected in a great mirror opposite to you.”

  “The devil! Antonio,” exclaimed Salvator, laughing, “I believe you must have been peeping into my studio when I was not aware of it, since you have such an accurate knowledge of what goes on in it.”

  “Perhaps I may,” replied Antonio; “but let me go on. I am not so anxious to classify the pictures which your powerful mind suggests to you as are your pedantic critics. In fact, I think that the word ‘landscape,’ as generally employed, has an indifferent application to your productions; I should prefer to call them historical representations in the highest sense of the word. If we fancy that this or that rock or this or that tree is gazing at us like a gigantic being with thoughtful earnest eyes, so again, on the other hand, this or that group of fantastically attired men resembles some remarkable stone which has been endowed with life; all Nature, breathing and moving in harmonious unity, lends accents to the sublime thought which leapt into existence in your mind. This is the spirit in which I have studied your pictures, and so in this way it is, my grand and noble master, that I owe to you my truer perceptions in matters of art. But don’t imagine that I have fallen into childish imitation. However much I would like to have your free bold pencil, I do not attempt to conceal the fact that Nature’s colours appear to me different from what I see in your pictures. It is useful, I think, for the sake of acquiring technique, for the pupil to imitate the style of this or that master, but as soon as he comes to stand in any sense on his own feet, he ought to aim at representing Nature as he himself sees her. Nothing but this true method of perception, this unity with oneself, can give rise to character and truth. Guido shared these sentiments; and that fiery man Preti, who, as you are aware, is called Il Calabrese—a painter who certainly, more than any other man, has reflected upon his art—also warned me against all imitation. Now you know, Salvator, why I admire you beyond all other painters, but do not imitate you.”

  While the young man had been speaking, Salvator had kept his eyes fixed unchangeably upon him; he now clasped him tumultuously to his heart.

  “Antonio,” he then said, “what you have just now said are wise and thoughtful words. Young as you are, you are nevertheless, as far as the true perception of art is concerned, a long way ahead of many of our old and muc
h vaunted masters, who have a good deal of stupid foolish twaddle about their painting, but never get at the true root of the matter. Body alive, man! When you were talking about my pictures, I began to understand myself for the first time, I believe; and because you do not imitate my style—do not, like a good many others, take a tube of black paint in your hand, or dab on a few glaring colours, or even make two or three crippled figures with repulsive faces look up from the midst of filth and dirt, and then say, ‘There’s a Salvator for you!’—just for these very reasons I think a good deal of you. I tell you, my lad, you’ll not find a more faithful friend than I am—that I can promise you with all my heart and soul.”

  Antonio was beside himself with joy at the kind way in which the great painter thus testified to his interest in him. Salvator expressed an earnest desire to see his pictures. Antonio took him immediately to his studio.

  Salvator had really expected to find something fairly good from the young man who spoke so intelligently about art, and who, it appeared, had a good deal in him; but nevertheless he was greatly surprised at the sight of Antonio’s fine pictures. Everywhere he found boldness in conception, and correctness in drawing; and the freshness of the colouring, the good taste in the arrangement of the drapery, the uncommon delicacy of the extremities, the exquisite grace of the heads, were all so many evidences that Antonio was no unworthy pupil of the great Reni. But Antonio had avoided this master’s besetting sin of trying, all too obviously, to sacrifice expression to beauty. It was plain that Antonio was aiming to reach Annibal’s strength, without having as yet succeeded.