The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  ‘ “Your Highness,” I replied, bowing humbly, “what was to blame for all these calamities but the wind – the terrible storm that broke when everything was going so well? Can I command the elements? Didn’t I suffer severe misfortune myself at the time? Didn’t I lose my hat, coat and cloak, like that notary whom I do most humbly beg you not to confuse with the famous French writer Rabelais? Didn’t I –” ’

  ‘Listen,’ Johannes Kreisler interrupted Master Abraham at this point, ‘listen, my friend, although it was some time ago people still speak of the celebrations for the Princess’s name-day, which you arranged, as they would of a dark mystery, and you, in your usual fashion, certainly did many strange things. If you’ve always been taken for some kind of sorcerer, that belief seems to have been much reinforced by those festivities. Tell me exactly how it all went. You know I wasn’t here at the time –’

  ‘That very fact,’ said Master Abraham, interrupting his friend, ‘the fact that you weren’t here but had run off like a madman, driven by Heaven knows what infernal Furies, that very fact was what infuriated me! That was why I invoked the elements to spoil festivities that went to my heart, since you, the real hero of the piece, were not there: festivities that were proceeding poorly and with difficulty, and brought people I love nothing but the torment of terrifying dreams – pain – horror! You must know, Johannes, I have looked deep into your heart and seen the dangerous, threatening secret that dwells there, a seething volcano which might erupt in ruinous flames at any moment, ruthlessly consuming all around it! There are things within our hearts so formed that our most intimate friends should not speak of them. So I carefully concealed from you what I had seen in you, but I hoped to take your whole being by storm with those festivities, whose deeper meaning concerned not the Princess but another beloved person and yourself. I meant your most hidden torments to be brought to life, rending your breast with redoubled violence, like Furies roused from sleep. Medicine drawn from Hades itself, medicine such as no wise doctor must shun when the paroxysm is at its strongest, was to mean death or cure for you, as for a man mortally sick. You must know, Johannes, that the Princess’s name-day is the same as Julia’s; she too was christened Maria.’

  ‘Ha!’ cried Kreisler, leaping up, consuming fire in his eyes. ‘Master, who gave you the power to play this impudent, mocking game with me? Are you Fate itself to seize upon my inmost heart?’

  ‘You wild, headstrong man,’ replied Master Abraham calmly, ‘when will the raging fire in your breast turn at last to the pure naphthalene flame, nourished by the deep feeling for art, for all that is fine and beautiful, dwelling within you? You asked me to describe those fateful festivities; very well then, listen quietly, or if your strength is so utterly crushed that you can’t, then I will leave you.’

  ‘Tell me your tale,’ said Kreisler in a barely audible voice as he sat down again, both hands before his face.

  ‘Well,’ said Master Abraham, suddenly adopting a cheerful tone, ‘I won’t weary you, my dear Johannes, by describing all the ingenious arrangements which for the most part owed their origin to the inventive mind of the Prince himself. Since the festivities were to begin late in the evening, it goes without saying that the whole beautiful park surrounding his castle was illuminated. I had tried to devise some unusual effects in these illuminations, but they were only partially successful, since by express command of the Prince his wife’s monogram, surmounted by the princely crown, was to shine along all the avenues by means of coloured lanterns fixed to large black boards. Since the boards were nailed to tall posts, they rather resembled illuminated warnings to the effect that one must not smoke or avoid paying toll at the turnpike. The central point of the festivities was the theatre fashioned from bushes and artificial ruins in the middle of the park; you know the one I mean. The actors from town were to play some allegorical piece on this stage; it was insipid enough to please everyone mightily even had the Prince himself not written it, so that, to borrow the witty expression of that theatrical director who once put on a prince’s play, it flowed from a pen of serene highness. The path from the castle to the theatre was quite long. In accordance with the Prince’s poetic notion, a Genius hovering in the air was to precede members of the family on their way, bearing two torches, but no other lights were to burn until they and their retinue were seated, when the theatre would be illuminated all of a sudden. Consequently, the aforesaid path was dark. In vain did I represent the difficulty of devising this machinery, on account of the length of the path: the Prince had read about something similar in the Fêtes de Versailles,5 and having then thought up the poetic idea all by himself, he insisted on having it put into practice. To avoid incurring any undeserved reproach, I left the Genius and the torches to the theatrical-effects engineer from town.

  ‘Well, as soon as the princely pair followed by their retinue stepped out of the salon doors, a chubby-cheeked little manikin clad in the colours of the Prince’s house and carrying two burning torches was let down from the castle roof. However, the dummy was too heavy, and the machinery came to a halt barely twenty paces away, so that the shining guardian spirit of the princely house stopped, and when the workmen pulled harder it turned head over heels. Burning drops from the lighted wax candles, now upside down, fell to the ground. The first of these drops struck the Prince himself, but he bit back the pain with stoical calm, although the dignity of his pace abated and he hurried on at a faster speed. The Genius was now moving away over the group consisting of the Lord Marshal and the gentlemen of the bedchamber, together with other officers of court. Its feet were up and its head down, so that the burning rain from the torches fell upon the head or nose of now one and now another of these courtiers. It would have been disrespectful to express pain, thus disturbing the joyful festivities, and it was a pretty sight to see those unhappy fellows, a whole cohort of stoical Scaevolas,6 walking on their way in silence, scarcely uttering a sigh, their faces horribly contorted, yet fighting down their torment and even forcing smiles which seemed to come from Hades. Meanwhile drums rolled and trumpets brayed, while a hundred voices cried, “Long live our noble Princess! Long live our noble Prince!” so that the tragical emotion engendered by the curious contrast between those Laocoön countenances7 and all the merry-making lent the entire scene a majesty you can hardly imagine.

  ‘At last the stout old Lord Marshal could bear it no longer. When a burning drop fell right on his cheek, he flinched aside in the grim fury of despair, but he became entangled in the ropes of the flying machine, which ran just above the ground on that side of the path, and fell to the earth with a loud exclamation of “Devil take it!”. The airborne page had concluded his part in the show at the same moment. The great weight of the Lord Marshal dragged him down, and he fell into the middle of the retinue, whose members scattered, with loud shrieks. The torches went out, and everyone was left in pitch darkness. All this happened quite close to the theatre. I took care not to strike the tinder which would set all the lights and shallow lamps in the place ablaze at once, but waited a few minutes, giving the company time to become well and truly entangled in the trees and bushes. “Give me some light!” cried the Prince, like the King in Hamlet.8 “Lights, lights!” cried a number of hoarse voices in confusion. When the place was lit up, the scattered company looked like a defeated army laboriously regrouping. The Lord Chamberlain proved himself a man of much presence of mind, the most skilful tactician of his time, for thanks to his efforts order was restored within a few minutes. The Prince, with his immediate entourage, stepped up to a kind of raised throne of flowers erected in the middle of the auditorium area. As soon as the princely couple took their seats a quantity of flowers fell upon them, thanks to a very ingenious device of the theatrical engineer I mentioned. However, as ill luck would have it, a large orange lily hit the Prince on the nose, dusting his entire face with bright red pollen and giving him an uncommonly majestic appearance, worthy of the solemnity of the occasion.’

  ‘Oh, that’s too b
ad – too bad!’ cried Kreisler, breaking into such a peal of laughter that the walls echoed.

  ‘Don’t laugh so convulsively,’ said Master Abraham, ‘although I myself laughed more immoderately that night than ever before. I felt inclined to all kinds of mad mischief, and like the hobgoblin Puck9 would happily have added to the disarray, making confusion worse confounded, but the arrows I had aimed at others pierced my own breast the more deeply for that. Well, I mention it only in passing! I had chosen the moment of that silly pelting of the Prince with flowers to tie the invisible thread which was now to run through all the festivities and, like an electrical conductor, thrill through the hearts of those persons whom I must think I had placed en rapport with myself, using that mysterious mental device of mine into which the thread ran. Don’t interrupt, Johannes – keep quiet and hear me out. Julia was sitting with Princess Hedwiga behind and to one side of Princess Maria; I had them both in view. As soon as the drums and trumpets fell silent, a rosebud just unfurling, hidden among fragrant damask violets, fell into Julia’s lap, and like the wafting breath of the night breeze the notes of your song, piercing the heart to the quick, drifted through the air: Milagnerò tacendo della mia sorte amara.10 Julia was alarmed, but when the song began – and lest you be in any uneasiness or doubt concerning the nature of its performance, I will tell you that I caused our four excellent basset-horn instrumentalists to play it some way off – when it began a soft “Ah!” escaped her lips, she pressed the posy to her breast, and I clearly heard her say to Princess Hedwiga, “He must be back again!” The young Princess embraced Julia with vehemence and cried out, “No, no – oh, never!” so loud that the Prince turned his fiery countenance and shot her an angry exclamation of “Silence!”. I suppose his Highness didn’t mean to be very angry with his dear daughter, of all people, but I will mention here that his remarkable make-up (and no tiranno ingrato of opera could have painted his face more appropriately) really did give him a look of fixed and ineradicable rage, so that the most moving of speeches, the tenderest of situations allegorically representing all the domestic bliss upon the throne, seemed utterly lost on him, and this caused actors and audience no little embarrassment. Why, even when the Prince kissed the Princess’s hand at those places which he had marked in red for that purpose in the copy of the text he was holding, and wiped a tear from his eye with his handkerchief, it seemed to be done with grim wrathfulness, so that the chamberlains on duty standing by him whispered to one another, “Oh Lord, what’s the matter with his Highness?”

  ‘I will just tell you, Johannes, that while the actors were strutting in their silly play upon the stage, I myself, using magic mirrors and other devices, staged a phantom show in the air beyond in honour of that heavenly child, the lovely Julia, causing melody after melody to ring out, music you had composed at the height of inspiration, so that the name of Julia resounded like a fearful, ghostly cry of foreboding, now far away, now closer to hand. But you were not there – you were not there, my dear Johannes! And though I might sing the praises of my Ariel at the end of the play, as Shakespeare’s Prospero praises his,11 though I was obliged to say, moreover, that he had done it all very well, yet what I thought I had devised with deep meaning seemed flat and insipid. Julia, with fine delicacy, had understood everything, yet she seemed stirred only as if by a delightful dream, to which no particular influence is allowed in waking life. Princess Hedwiga, on the other hand, was deeply absorbed in her thoughts. Arm in arm with Julia, she walked along the illumianted avenues of the park, while the court took refreshments in a pavilion. I had prepared my masterstroke for that moment, but you were not there – you were not there, my dear Johannes! Full of anger and vexation, I hurried about seeing that all the arrangements for the great firework display which was to conclude the festivities were in proper order. And then, looking up to the heavens, I espied a little red-tinged cloud above the distant Geierstein in the lustrous night sky: that little cloud which always signifies a storm coming quietly up, to break over us here with a terrible explosion. As you know, I can work out from the position of the cloud the time when that explosion will come, to the very second. There couldn’t be more than an hour to pass, so I decided to make haste with the fireworks. At that moment I perceived that my Ariel had embarked upon that phantasmagoria which was to decide everything, everything, for I heard the choir singing your Ave maris stella12 at the far end of the park, in the little Lady Chapel. I made haste thither. Julia and Princess Hedwiga were kneeling at the prie-dieu which stands in the open air outside the chapel. No sooner had I arrived than – but you were not there – you were not there, my dear Johannes! As for what happened next, let me keep silent. Alas, what I had taken for a masterpiece of my art was of no avail, and I learned what I had never guessed, fool that I am.’

  ‘Come along, out with it!’ cried Kreisler. ‘Tell me everything, Master, everything, just as it happened.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Master Abraham. ‘It would do you no good, Johannes, and it pierces my heart to tell you how my own spirits inspired me with horror and alarm. That cloud! Happy notion! “Very well,” cried I, wildly, “let it all end in mad confusion!” And I made haste to the place appointed for the firework display. The Prince sent word that when everything was ready I should give the signal. Never taking my eye off the cloud as it came up from the Geierstein, rising higher and higher, I waited until I thought it high enough and then had the cannon fired. Soon the court, the whole company, had assembled at the scene. After the usual display of Catherine wheels, rockets, flares and other such common devices, the Princess’s monogram finally went up in a brilliant display of Chinese lights, yet high above it, up in the air, the name of Julia floated, swimming in milky white light. The time had come. I lit the girandole,13 and as the rockets shot into the air, hissing and spluttering, the storm broke with fiery red lightning flashes, and cracks of thunder that made the forest and the castle ring. The hurricane roared into the park, setting a thousand voices wailing and lamenting in the depths of the undergrowth. I snatched his instrument from the hand of a fleeing trumpeter and blew it with gleeful merriment, while salvoes of artillery from the fire-pots, the cannon and the guns for the salutes boldly crashed out in answer to the rolling thunder.’

  As Master Abraham told his tale Kreisler jumped to his feet, strode up and down the room in agitation, waving his arms in the air, and finally cried with great enthusiasm, ‘Splendid, excellent! I recognize the work of my friend Master Abraham, with whom I am united heart and soul!’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Master Abraham, ‘I know you like everything that is wildest and most terrible, and yet I was forgetting the touch that would have given you over entirely to the weird powers of the spirit realm. I had caused the weather harp14 to be strung – the harp which, as you know, has its strings stretched across the great basin – and the storm, that fine exponent of harmony, was playing boldly on it. Amidst the howling and roaring of the hurricane and the crash of the thunder, the chords of the huge organ rang out awesomely. Faster and faster came those mighty tones, and you might have thought it a ballet of the Furies in uncommonly grand style, such as you will hardly hear within the canvas walls of the theatre! Well, in half an hour it was all over. The moon came out from behind the clouds. The night wind rustled soothingly through the terrified forest, drying the tears of the dark bushes. Now and then the weather harp still sounded, like the distant, faint ringing of bells. I was in a strange state of mind. You, my dear Johannes, occupied my thoughts so entirely that I believed you might appear before me directly, rising from the grave of abandoned hopes and unfulfilled dreams, and fall upon my breast. And now, in the silence of the night, I thought of the kind of game I had engaged in: how I had tried to rend apart by force the knot dark doom had tied, had stepped outside myself in strange and alien form, and as cold shudders ran through me it was I myself of whom I was afraid.

  ‘A great many will o’ the wisps were dancing and scurrying all around the park; in fact they were
the servants with lanterns, gathering up the hats, wigs, bag-wigs, daggers, shoes and shawls lost in the haste of flight. I walked away. I stopped in the middle of the great bridge outside our town and looked back once more at the park, now bathed in the magical light of the moon like an enchanted garden where nimble elves had begun their merry game. Then I heard a tiny squeaking, a cry almost like that of a new-born baby. Suspecting some dreadful deed, I leaned far out over the balustrade, and in the bright moonlight I saw a kitten clinging desperately to a post to escape death. No doubt someone had been drowning a litter, and this little creature had clambered out again. Well, thought I, it may not be a baby but it’s still a poor creature crying out to be rescued, and rescue it you must.’

  ‘You sentimental Just!’15 cried Kreisler, laughing. ‘So where’s your Tellheim, then?’

  ‘With respect,’ continued Master Abraham, ‘with respect, my dear Johannes, you can scarcely compare me to Just. I have out-Justed Just. He rescued a poodle, an animal everyone likes to have around, a creature who can even be expected to perform useful services in the way of retrieving, fetching gloves, tobacco-pouches, pipes, etc., but I rescued a tomcat, an animal regarded by many with horror, generally condemned as perfidious, not of a gentle or benevolent disposition, never entirely relinquishing its hostility towards mankind – yes, I rescued a tomcat from motives of pure, unselfish philanthropy. I climbed over the balustrade, reached down, not without some danger, got hold of the whimpering kitten, picked him up and put him in my pocket. Once home, I quickly undressed and fell on my bed, tired and exhausted as I was. However, I had scarcely fallen asleep when I was woken by a pitiful squealing and crying. It seemed to be coming from my wardrobe. I had forgotten the kitten, and had left him in my coat pocket. I released the animal from his prison, and in return he scratched me hard enough to draw blood from all five fingers. I was about to fling the torn kitten out of the window, but recollected myself and was ashamed of my petty foolishness, my vengefulness, unfitting to be shown even towards humans, let alone the unreasoning brute creation. In short, I reared the tomcat with loving care. He is the cleverest, best, and indeed the wittiest creature of his kind ever beheld, lacking only the higher culture which you, my dear Johannes, will easily impart to him, which is why I intend to consign Murr the cat, as I have called him, to your future care. Although Murr is not yet homo sui juris,16 as the lawyers put it, I have asked him whether he is willing to enter your service, and he is perfectly happy to do so.’