The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  ‘Lovely one,’ I began softly, ‘be mine!’75

  ‘Bold tomcat,’ she replied in confusion, ‘bold tomcat, who are you? Do you know me? If you are an honest cat, as I am an honest cat myself, and if you will be true, then tell me, then swear to me that you really love me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I cried fervently, ‘yes, by the terrors of the world below, by the holy moon, by all the other stars and planets which will shine this coming night if the sky is clear, I swear that I love you!’

  ‘I love you too,’ whispered the little creature, inclining her head to me in sweet bashfulness. I was about to fling my paws around her, full of ardour, but then two gigantic tomcats jumped on me, growling like the Devil, bit and scratched me dreadfully, and then, to cap it all, rolled me into the gutter, where waves of dirty water closed over my head. I only just managed to escape the claws of those murderous beasts, who paid no heed to my rank, and with a great cry of alarm I raced upstairs.

  When my master saw me he laughed out loud and cried, ‘Murr, Murr, what on earth do you look like? Aha! I know what’s happened. You were planning to get up to the tricks of a cavalier stumbling through the maze of love,76 but you were out of luck!’ And with these words my master roared with laughter again, not a little to my annoyance. He had a bucket filled with lukewarm water, and without more ado dipped me into it several times, so that I couldn’t see or hear for sneezing and spluttering. Then he wrapped me well in a piece of flannel and put me in my basket. I was almost fainting with rage and pain, unable to move a limb. At last the warmth had a beneficial effect on me, and I felt my thoughts ordering themselves.

  ‘Alas,’ I lamented, ‘yet another of life’s bitter disappointments! So that’s the love I have hymned so sublimely, the love held to be the most elevated of all emotions, to fill us with ineffable joy, to raise us to Heaven! Yes, well, it threw me into the gutter! I’ll have no truck with an emotion that’s brought me nothing but bites, a horrible bath, and a shameful swaddling in nasty flannel!’

  But no sooner was I free and feeling better than Kitty would keep coming before my mind’s eye again, and although mindful of the disgrace inflicted on me I realized, to my horror, that I was still in love. I forcibly pulled myself together, and being a sensible and educated cat I turned to Ovid, since I recollected coming upon remedies for love in his Ars amandi.

  I there read the lines:

  Venus otia amat. Qui finem quaeris amoris

  Cedit amor rebus, res age, tutus eris!77

  In accordance with this precept, I tried immersing myself in my studies with fresh zeal, but Kitty kept cavorting on every page before my eyes, I thought Kitty – I read Kitty – I wrote Kitty! The poet must mean some different kind of business, thought I, and as I had heard from other tomcats that hunting mice was an uncommonly distracting amusement, mouse-hunting might perhaps be included in the category of rebus. Consequently, I went down to the cellar as soon as it was dark and stalked along its dark corridors, singing, ‘I prowled the forest, quiet and wild, my firearm at the ready –’78

  Ah! – instead of the game I meant to hunt I saw her lovely image. It really stood out against the dark background, and the bitter pain of love cut me to my heart, all too vulnerable as it was. I said: ‘Turn on me those lovely glances, fair and virgin light of day! Murr and Kitty, bride and bridegroom, soon will homeward wend their way!’ Thus spake I, a bold tom hoping for the prize of victory. But alas! with downcast eyes my timid lady ran away!

  And thus, pitiable creature that I was, I fell deeper and deeper in the love that a hostile star seemed to have kindled in my breast to destroy me. Raging, rebelling against my fate, I went back to Ovid again and read the lines:

  Exige, quod cantet, si qua est sine voce puella,

  Non didicit chordas tangere, posce lyram.79

  ‘Ha!’ I cried. ‘Up to her on the roof! Aha, I will find the sweet creature once again where I first set eyes on her, but she shall sing, aye, sing, and if she sings just one note out of tune then it’s over, I am cured, I’m saved.’ The sky was clear, and the moon, by whose light I had sworn love to the fair Kitty, really did seem to be awaiting her as I climbed to the roof. I didn’t give her long before my sighs became loud amorous laments.

  At last I struck up a little song in the most melancholy tone, roughly as follows:

  ‘Ah, rustling forests, whispering rivers

  In whose deep waters sweet feeling yet quivers,

  Share my lament!

  Say where she went!

  Lovely sweet Kitty, Kitty so cheerful!

  When did the ardent young Murr with aplomb

  Embrace his beloved, though never so fearful?

  Ah, comfort the tearful,

  Comfort the lovelorn, enamoured poor tom!

  Moonshine, oh moonshine,

  Where is that love of mine?

  Beautiful one, to my doom I am lured,

  Pain such as mine is can never be cured!

  Classic adviser of lovers, come from

  Dark Hades to see him,

  From love’s chains to free him,

  Help him, oh help that despairing young tom!’

  As you see, gentle reader, a good poet doesn’t actually have to be in a rustling forest, or beside a whispering river: deep waters quivering with sweet feeling will still flow his way, and he will see what he likes in those waters and can sing about it as he likes. Should anyone be lost in wonder and admiration at the sublime merit of the above lines, let me modestly point out that I was in a state of ecstasy, in amorous frenzy, and everyone knows that a person in the feverish grip of passion, even if he could scarcely rhyme moon with June and dove with love in the usual way, if, as I say, he normally just couldn’t hit upon these not entirely uncommon rhymes however hard he tried, yet in the grip of passion poetry will suddenly come over him and he is bound to spout the most excellent of lines, like a person who has caught a cold and can’t help succumbing to terrible fits of sneezing. We owe much great poetry to this onset of ecstasy in prosaic natures, and it has often won human Kittys of no particular beauty great fame for a while, which is a very fine thing. For if they do these things in a dry tree, what shall be done in the green? I mean, if the most hopelessly prosaic can be made into poets by love alone, what effect must this period of life have on genuine poets? Well then, I wasn’t sitting in a rustling forest or beside a whispering river, I was up on a high, bare roof-top, the little bit of moonlight hardly counted for anything, and yet in those masterly lines I begged forests and rivers and deep waters and finally my friend Ovid to come to my aid and stand by me in my lovelorn hour of need. It was a little difficult finding rhymes for a cat of my own sex, and even in my inspiration I didn’t manage to fit in maelstrom, to fit my state of mind, but the fact that I actually did find those rhymes showed me yet again how superior is my own kind to Homo sapiens, for whom it is not at all easy to find a rhyme, and consequently some witty playwright or other80 has said that there is no rhyme or reason in Homo sapiens. Both, however, exist in me.

  Not in vain had I struck the notes of painful yearning, not in vain had I invoked forests, rivers and the moon, entreating them to bring me the lady of my heart, for the lovely creature came tripping out from behind the chimney with light and graceful steps.

  ‘Is that you singing so beautifully, dear Murr?’ Thus did Kitty address me.

  ‘What,’ I replied in joyful amazement, ‘what, do you know me, sweet creature?’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said she, ‘well, I liked you at first sight, and it really upset me when my two horrid cousins threw you so mercilessly into the gutter and –’

  ‘Let us not,’ I interrupted her, ‘let us not mention the gutter, dearest child – ah, tell me, tell me if you love me?’

  ‘I have made inquiries,’ continued Kitty, ‘into your circumstances, and learnt that you were called Murr and that as you lived with a very kindly man, you enjoyed not only an extremely handsome competence but every other comfort of life, comforts you could well sh
are with a pretty wife. Oh yes, I love you very much, dear Murr!’

  ‘Heavens!’ cried I, in the utmost delight, ‘heavens, is it possible? Do I wake or dream? Stand fast – stand fast, reason, do not run mad! Ah! am I still upon this earth? Am I still sitting on the roof? Am I not floating in the clouds? Am I still Murr the cat and not the man in the moon? Come to my breast, beloved! But first, loveliest of creatures, tell me your name.’

  ‘I am called Kitty,’ replied the little creature, sweetly lisping her name in pure bashfulness, and she settled comfortably down beside me. How beautiful she was! Her white fur shone like silver in the moonlight, her green eyes sparkled with soft, languishing fire.

  ‘Do you –

  W.P. – might indeed have told you about this a little earlier, gentle reader, but Heaven forbid that I should go careering across country even faster than before. Very well: as I was saying, just the same thing had happened to Prince Hector’s father as to Prince Irenaeus: he had lost his little country out of his pocket, even he knew not how. Prince Hector, who liked nothing less than a quiet, peaceful life, and wished to stand on his own two feet even though the princely throne had been kicked away from under him, decided that if he couldn’t be a ruler he would at least be a commander and so took service in the French army, where he was uncommonly brave; but one day, when a zither-playing girl warbled to him, ‘Knowst thou the land where lemon trees do glow?’81 he went straight off to the land where lemon trees of the kind do indeed glow, that is, to Naples, and put on a Neapolitan instead of a French uniform. He then became a general as speedily as only a prince can.

  When Prince Hector’s father died, Prince Irenaeus opened the big book where he personally had listed all the princely heads of Europe, and made a note of the recent death of his princely friend and companion in misfortune. Once this was done, he stared at Prince Hector’s name for a long time, then said ‘Prince Hector!’ in a very loud voice, and slammed the folio volume shut so violently that the Lord Marshal recoiled three paces in alarm. The Prince now rose, walked slowly up and down the room, and took as much Spanish snuff as he required to put a whole world of ideas in order. The Lord Marshal spoke at length about the late gentleman, who had a good heart as well as great riches, and about young Prince Hector, idolized in Naples by the monarch and the nation, etc. Prince Irenaeus did not seem to notice any of this, but he suddenly stopped right in front of the Lord Marshal, fixed him with that terrible Frederick the Great gaze of his, said very forcefully, ‘Peut-être’, and vanished into the cabinet next door.

  ‘By God,’ said the Lord Marshal, ‘his Highness the Prince certainly has some very weighty matters on his mind. He may even be making plans.’

  Such was indeed the case: Prince Irenaeus was thinking of Prince Hector’s wealth and his connections with powerful sovereigns, he called to mind his conviction that the Prince was sure to exchange the sword for the sceptre, and it struck him that the marriage of Prince Hector to Princess Hedwiga might have the most beneficial of consequences. In the utmost secrecy, the chamberlain who was instantly dispatched to take Prince Hector heartfelt condolences on the death of his father was also to slip a miniature of Princess Hedwiga into his pocket: an excellent likeness, even to the colour of her complexion. It should be mentioned here that the Princess could have been described as an outright beauty had her complexion been a little less on the sallow side. In consequence, candlelight was kind to her.

  The chamberlain carried out the secret errand of Prince Irenaeus – who had confided not the least of his intentions to anyone, even his wife Princess Maria – and did it very skilfully. When Prince Hector saw the miniature he fell into much the same ecstasy as his princely colleague in The Magic Flute. Like Tamino, he might almost have exclaimed, if not sung, ‘This portrait is divinely fair!’ continuing, ‘Can it be love that now I feel? Ah yes, ‘tis love, ‘tis love alone!’82 In the usual way it is not love alone that causes princes to pay their addresses to a beauty, but Prince Hector had nothing else in mind when he sat down and wrote a letter to Prince Irenaeus, asking permission to seek the heart and hand of Princess Hedwiga.

  Prince Irenaeus replied, saying that as he would happily agree to a marriage he desired from the bottom of his heart, if only for the sake of his late princely friend, there was no real need for any further courtship. However, he added, as the formalities must be observed, Prince Hector might like to send a civil man of suitable rank to Sieghartsweiler, a man whom he could also provide with full authority to go through the ceremony of marriage by proxy, and carry out the good old tradition of jumping into bed with the bride booted and spurred.83

  ‘I am coming myself, your Highness!’ Prince Hector wrote back.

  Prince Irenaeus did not care for this idea: he thought a marriage by proxy with an authorized person would be better, more distinguished, more princely; he had been heartily looking forward to the festivities, and soothed himself only by recollecting that a great bestowal of decorations could be celebrated before the consummation of the marriage. For he intended to hang the Grand Cross of an order of his house most solemnly around Prince Hector’s neck, an order instituted by his father and no longer worn (nor might it be worn) by any knight.

  So Prince Hector came to Sieghartsweiler to carry Princess Hedwiga home and receive the Grand Cross of a defunct order. He thought it was a good thing that Prince Irenaeus had kept his intentions secret, and asked him to maintain his silence, particularly towards Hedwiga, since he said he must be sure of her whole heart before he could come out with his courtship.

  Prince Irenaeus did not quite know what Prince Hector meant by that, and said that so far as he knew or could recollect such a formality – i.e., assurances of love before consummation of the marriage – had never been usual in princely houses. However, if all Prince Hector meant was the expression of a certain attachement, that could hardly occur during the betrothal period, but as the flighty young are inclined to disregard all the demands of etiquette, it might be briefly agreed upon three minutes before rings were exchanged. It would certainly be a fine, distinguished thing if the princely couple were to show a certain dislike of each other at that point, but unfortunately, said Prince Irenaeus, these rules of the highest decorum were nothing but an empty dream today.

  When the Prince first set eyes on Hedwiga, he whispered to his adjutant, in the Neapolitan dialect that no one else could understand: ‘By all the saints, she’s beautiful, but born not far from Vesuvius, and its fire flashes from her eyes.’

  Prince Ignatius had already asked very earnestly whether there were pretty cups in Naples, and how many Prince Hector had, so that the latter, having run through the whole gamut of greetings, was about to turn back to Hedwiga when the doors opened, and Prince Irenaeus invited the Prince to the scene of splendour he had prepared in the hall of state, by dint of assembling all those persons who had any eligibility whatsoever for reception at court in them or about them. This time he had been less strict in his choice than usual, since the court society of Sieghartshof might really be regarded as a country house-party. Madame Benzon was present, with Julia.

  Princess Hedwiga was quiet, deep in thought, listless, and seemed to take no more notice of the handsome southern stranger than of any other new arrival at court. She rather crossly asked her lady-in-waiting, red-cheeked Nannette, whether she had lost her wits when Nannette would keep whispering in her ear, to the effect that the foreign Prince was just too attractive, and she had never in her life seen a finer uniform!

  Prince Hector now spread the magnificent, brightly-coloured peacock tail of his gallantry for Princess Hedwiga, while she, almost offended by the vehemence of his honeyed raptures, asked him questions about Italy and Naples. The Prince described a paradise with herself walking there, its presiding goddess. He proved himself a master of the art of addressing a lady in such a fashion that anything and everything becomes a hymn to her beauty and charm. In the middle of this hymn, however, the Princess jumped up and ran to Julia, seeing her n
earby. She clasped her to her breast, called her a thousand loving names, and was exclaiming, ‘This is my dear, dear sister, my sweet, lovely Julia!’ when the Prince, rather surprised by Hedwiga’s flight, joined them.

  The Prince fixed Julia with a long, strange gaze, so that she blushed rosily, cast down her eyes, and turned shyly to her mother, who was standing behind her. But the Princess embraced her again, crying: ‘My dear, dear Julia!’ while tears came into her eyes.

  ‘Princess,’ said Madame Benzon quietly, ‘Princess, why this feverish conduct?’

  Ignoring Madame Benzon, the Princess turned to Prince Hector, whose flow of conversation had actually dried up in the face of all this, and whereas she had previously been quiet, grave and out of spirits, she was now in an almost extravagant mood of strange, fevered merriment. At last the strings stretched too taut relaxed, and the melodies that now came from within her were softer, milder, more virginally tender. She was more engaging than ever, and Prince Hector seemed wholly enchanted. Finally the dancing began. After several dances had succeeded each other the Prince offered to lead the company in a Neapolitan national dance, and he soon succeeded in conveying the idea of it to the dancers so well that everything fitted nicely together, and even the passionately tender character of the dance came out.

  No one, however, had understood that character so entirely as Hedwiga, who was dancing with Prince Hector. She demanded an encore, and when the dance had finished for the second time she insisted on going through the steps yet again, saying she could do it really well now and ignoring a warning from Madame Benzon, who could already see a suspect pallor in her cheeks. Prince Hector was delighted. He danced away with Hedwiga, whose every movement seemed grace itself. In one of the many entwinements required by the dance, the Prince pressed his lovely partner passionately to his breast, and at that very moment Hedwiga fainted away in his arms.