The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  (Hinzmann fell silent and passed his right paw over his ears and face again. Then he seemed to sink into deep meditation, closing his eyes tightly. At last, when this had gone on rather too long, our Senior Puff nudged him and said quietly, ‘Hinzmann, I do believe you’ve gone to sleep. Come on, get your sermon over with, we’re all ravenous!’ Hinzmann started, sat up in his elegant oratorical position again, and continued.)

  ‘Dearest brothers: I was hoping to glean a few more lofty thoughts and conclude this speech with a brilliant peroration, but nothing at all occurred to me. I believe the great pain I have taken such trouble to feel has made me a little dull. Let us therefore consider my funeral oration, which you cannot refrain from applauding to the skies, let us consider my funeral oration closed and strike up the usual De or Ex profundis!’74

  Thus did that elegant young tom conclude his eulogy, which seemed to me well composed and effective from the rhetorical point of view, but in which I could detect many faults. For it struck me that Hinzmann had spoken more to display a brilliant talent for eloquence than to honour poor Muzius after his sad demise. Not all that he said really applied to my friend Muzius, who had been a simple, plain, straightforward tomcat and, as I knew from experience, a kind, faithful soul. The praise lavished on him by Hinzmann, moreover, was of an ambiguous nature, so that in retrospect I didn’t really like the oration, and had merely been deceived during its delivery by the speaker’s charm and his admittedly expressive style of declamation. Our Senior Puff seemed to share my opinion; we exchanged glances which showed that we were of one mind over Hinzmann’s eulogy.

  As requested at the end of the oration, we struck up a De profundis which sounded even more miserable and heart-rending, if possible, than our dreadful mourning hymn before the speech. It is no secret that singers of our kind are extremely well able to express the deepest pain, the most doleful lamentation, whether the cause of the complaint be love, either scorned or too ardent, or the death of a beloved comrade. Even cold unfeeling Man is deeply moved by songs of such a kind, and can relieve his troubled breast only by uttering strange oaths. When the De profundis was over, we picked up the body of our late brother and lowered it into a deep grave situated in a corner of the cellar.

  At this moment, however, the must unexpected and at the same time delightfully touching event of the entire funeral occurred. Three young female cats as beautiful as the day came scurrying up, and cast into the open grave potato haulm and parsley which they had picked in the cellar, while a slightly older queen sang a simple, heartfelt song. I was familiar with the melody, and if I am not much mistaken, the original text of the song from which the voice had taken it begins with the words, ‘O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum!’,75 etc. Our Senior Puff whispered into my ear that these were the daughters of the late Muzius, come to take part in their father’s funeral in this manner.

  I could not take my eyes off the singer; she was charming, the tone of her sweet voice, even the moving, deeply felt emotion in the melody of the funeral dirge wholly captivated me. I could not restrain my tears. But the grief she made me feel was of a strange and rare kind, since it aroused the sweetest pleasure in me.

  I might as well say it straight out! My whole heart was drawn to the singer; I felt as if I had never seen a maiden queen of such charm, of such nobility in her bearing and her glance, in short, of such victorious beauty!

  The grave was laboriously filled in by four sturdy toms scratching up as much sand and earth as possible; the funeral was over, and we went to table. Muzius’s sweet, pretty daughters were about to withdraw, but we wouldn’t allow that; rather, they must partake of the funeral feast, and I skilfully arranged it so that I led the loveliest of them all to table and sat down beside her. If her beauty had first dazzled me, her sweet voice enchanted me, now her clear, bright mind, her sincerity, the tenderness of her feelings, the purely feminine devout nature radiating from within her carried me up to the highest Heaven of delight. In her mouth, in her sweet words, everything had a magical charm of its own; her conversation was all a delightful, tender idyll. She spoke to me enthusiastically, for instance, of a dish of porridge made with milk which she had enjoyed with some appetite a few days before her father’s death, and when I said that they made such porridge very well in my master’s household, adding a good knob of butter too, she looked at me with a green glow in her innocent dove-like eyes and asked, in a tone that went right through my heart, ‘Oh, to be sure – to be sure, sir – so you like porridge made with milk too? And with a knob of butter!’ she repeated, as if rapt in ecstatic dreams. Who does not know that nothing suits pretty blooming girls of six to eight months old (such would have been the lovely creature’s age) better than a touch of enthusiasm, and that indeed it often makes them irresistible? Thus it was that I, wholly inflamed by love and ardently pressing the lovely creature’s paw, cried out: ‘Angelic child! Breakfast with me on porridge made with milk, and there will be no other bliss in life for which I would exchange my happiness!’

  She seemed confused and cast her eyes down, blushing, but she left her paw in mine, which aroused the most delightful hopes in me. For once, at my master’s, I had heard an old gentleman, who, if I am not mistaken, was a lawyer, say it was very dangerous for a young girl to leave her hand long in the hand of a man, who might reasonably take the action as a traditio brevi manu76 of her whole person, and base upon it all manner of claims which it could then be difficult to reject. Well, I felt a great desire to make such claims now, and was about to begin on them when the conversation was interrupted by a libation in honour of the dead.

  Meanwhile the late Muzius’s three younger daughters had fallen into a happy mood of roguish naïvety which delighted all the tomcats. They were already feeling their pain and grief much alleviated by food and drink, and the company now became increasingly lively and cheerful. We laughed, we joked, and when we rose from table it was our grave Senior Puff himself who suggested a little dance. Everything was quickly cleared away, three tomcats tuned up their throats, and soon Muzius’s lively daughters were twirling and leaping boldly around with the young fellows.

  I did not move from my beauty’s side but asked her to dance, she gave me her paw, and we flew up and down the set. Ah, how her breath played on my cheek, how my breast trembled against hers, how I held her sweet body embraced in my paws! Oh, what a blissful, celestially blissful moment!

  When we had danced two or maybe three écossaises, I led my beauty over to a corner of the cellar and followed the gallant custom by serving her a few refreshments, such as might be found, since the wake had not really been intended as a ball. I now gave free rein to my heartfelt emotion. Again and again I pressed her paw to my lips, assuring her that I would be the happiest of mortal cats if she would but love me a little.

  ’Unhappy cat!’ said a sudden voice right behind me, ‘unhappy cat, what are you about? This is your daughter Mina!’

  I trembled, for well I knew that voice! It was Kitty! How capriciously did chance toy with me: just as I thought I had quite forgotten Kitty, I must learn what I could never have guessed, that I had fallen in love with my own child!

  Kitty was in deep mourning, and I didn’t know what to make of that. ‘Kitty,’ said I, softly, ‘Kitty, what brings you here, why the mourning, and – o God! – those girls – Mina’s sisters?’

  I learned the strangest thing! My hateful rival the tabby had parted from Kitty directly after falling victim to my chivalrous courage in that fierce duel, and when his wounds were healed he had gone away, no one knew where. Muzius then asked for her paw, which she willingly gave him, and the fact that he had entirely concealed the connection from me did him honour and showed his delicacy of feeling. So those merry, innocent kittens were only my Mina’s stepsisters!

  ’Oh, Murr,’ said Kitty tenderly, when she had told me all about it, ‘oh, Murr! Your noble mind erred only in the feeling that overwhelmed it. It was the love of the most affectionate of fathers, not of an ardent lover, that awoke
in your breast when you saw our Mina. Our Mina! Oh, how sweet a word! Murr! can you remain insensible, can all love be extinguished in your breast for one who so fervently loved you – o Heaven, still loves you so fervently, who would have remained true to you till death had not another come between us, tempting her with vile seductive arts? Frailty, thy name is Cat!77 I know that’s what you are thinking, but is it not virtue in the torn to forgive the weaker queen? Murr! You see me bowed down and desolate at the loss of my third loving husband, but in that desolation I feel the love that was once my happiness, my pride, my life rekindled! Murr, hear my confession! I love you still, and I was thinking we might get mar—’ Tears choked her voice!

  I felt most uncomfortable throughout this whole scene. There sat Mina, pale and lovely as the first snow that sometimes kisses the last flowers of autumn and will soon melt into bitter water–

  [Editor’s note: Oh, Murr, Murr, yet another plagiarism! The hero of the wondrous tale of Peter Schlemihl78 describes his beloved, also called Mina, in those very words.]

  I looked at them both in silence, mother and daughter, yet I liked the latter very much the better, and since among our kind, relationships between very close family members are no canonical bar to marriage – Perhaps my expression gave me away, for Kitty seemed to read my most private thoughts.

  ‘Barbarian!’ she cried, as she quickly ran to Mina and, embracing her vehemently, clutched her to her breast. ‘Barbarian! What have you in mind? Can you scorn this heart that loves you, and heap crime upon crime?’

  Although I had no idea what kind of claims Kitty could have on me, or what crimes she could blame me for, I felt it advisable to put a brave face on all this so as not to disturb the party into which the wake had turned. I therefore assured Kitty, who was in a perfectly frantic state, that only Mina’s extraordinary likeness to herself had led me astray, making me believe my heart was inflamed by the same feeling I cherished for her, the still lovely Kitty. Kitty instantly dried her tears, sat down beside me and began as familiar a conversation as if there had never been any discord between us. And since young Hinzmann had asked the lovely Mina to dance, you may imagine in what a painful and uncomfortable position I found myself!

  It was a good thing for me that our Senior Puff finally asked Kitty for the last dance, for she might otherwise have made me all kinds of strange propositions. I stole quietly out of the cellar and upstairs, thinking: Time will bring counsel!

  I see this wake as a turning point, as the moment when my apprentice months came to an end and I entered into another phase of life.

  W.P. – caused Kreisler to visit the Abbot’s apartments very early. He found that reverend gentleman with hatchet and chisel in his hands, busy opening up a large crate which, judging by its shape, must contain a painting.

  ‘Ah!’ cried the Abbot, as Kreisler came in, ‘I’m glad to see you, Kapellmeister. You can lend me a hand with a difficult, tedious task. This crate has a thousand nails hammered into it, as if to keep it closed for all eternity. It comes straight from Naples, and there is a painting in it that I want to hang in my cabinet for the time being, without showing it to the brothers. So I am not calling any of them to my aid – but now you can help me, Kapellmeister.’

  Kreisler set to work, and it was not long before the large, handsome painting in its magnificent gilded frame was brought out of its crate and into the light of day. Kreisler was not a little surprised when he saw that the place above the small altar in the Abbot’s cabinet, where a delightful picture of the Holy Family by Leonardo da Vinci used to hang, was now empty. The Abbot had considered that painting one of the best in the Abbey’s collection, which was rich in old originals, yet this masterpiece was to make way for a painting whose decided modernity, as well as its great beauty, Kreisler could see at first glance.

  Both the Abbot and Kreisler had worked hard, fixing the painting to the wall with masonry screws, and now the Abbot stood in the right light and contemplated the picture with such heartfelt satisfaction, such obvious pleasure, that it seemed as if there were some interest involved here besides the painting itself, worthy of admiration as it certainly was.

  The subject of the painting was a miracle. It showed the Virgin Mary surrounded by the radiant glory of Heaven. She held a branch of lilies in her left hand, but with the two middle fingers of her right hand she touched a youth’s naked breast, and thick blood could be seen oozing from an open wound beneath her fingers. The youth was half rising from the couch where he lay outstretched, and seemed to be waking from the sleep of death. He had not yet opened his eyes, but the transfigured smile spreading over his handsome countenance showed that he saw the Mother of God in his blissful dream, that the pain of his wound was gone, and death had no more dominion over him.

  Any connoisseur of art must feel much admiration for the good draughtsmanship, the clever arrangement of the group, the judicious distribution of light and shade, the stately design of the garments, the great charm of the figure of Mary, and in particular the vivid colouring, something which most modern artists have not mastered. However, what chiefly showed the artist’s true genius, and in the nature of the thing did so in the most striking way, was the extraordinary expression of the faces. The Virgin was the loveliest and most charming woman imaginable, yet the commanding majesty of Heaven lay on that high brow, and supernatural bliss shone in the mild brilliance of those dark eyes. Similarly, the heavenly delight of the youth awakening into life was caught by the artist and depicted with rare force by his creative mind. In fact Kreisler knew not a single painting of recent times that he could have set beside this magnificent picture, and he said so to the Abbot, dilating at length on all the individual beauties of the work, and adding that scarcely anything more successful had been produced of late.

  ‘There is good reason for that,’ said the Abbot, smiling, ‘as you shall now learn, Kapellmeister! It is a curious thing about our young artists: they study and study, devise ideas, draw, produce powerful cartoons, yet all is dead and stiff in the end, and cannot get to the heart of life because their work is not itself alive. Instead of carefully copying whatever great old master they have chosen as pattern and example, and thus fathoming his unique mind, they wish to be masters themselves at once, and paint similia,79 but that leads them into imitating things of minor importance, so that they appear as childish and ridiculous as he who, wishing to resemble a certain great man, took pains to cough and grunt and walk with a slight stoop just as he did. Our young painters lack the true inspiration that calls forth a picture from the mind, in all the glory of the most perfect life, and sets it before their eyes. We see this or that artist toiling vainly to attain, at last, that elevated frame of mind without which no work of art is created. But what the poor creatures take to be true inspiration, inspiration as it exalted the cheerful, peaceful minds of the old masters, is only a curious feeling compounded of proud admiration for their own ideas and anxious, painstaking endeavours to imitate the smallest detail of their old examples in the execution. Consequently the figure that should step into bright, welcoming life, looking alive itself, is often a terrible distortion. Our young painters do not achieve a clear view of that figure as conceived in the mind – and may that not be just because, though they succeed quite well in everything else, they lack a sense of colour?

  ‘In a word, at best they can draw, but they can’t paint. For it isn’t true that the understanding of colour and how to handle it has been lost, or that young painters lack industry. As for the first point, it can’t be true, since the art of painting in the Christian era, when it first became a real art, has never ceased developing: masters and pupils form an uninterrupted, continuous line, and those changes which did gradually cause deviations from reality could not have influenced the transference of mechanical skills. And as for the artists’ industry, they may be accused of having too much rather than too little of it. I know a young artist who will overpaint and overpaint a promising picture until everything is bathed in a dull, l
eaden tone, and perhaps does resemble its conception, whose forms could never come fully, vividly alive. You see here, Kapellmeister, a picture which breathes true, magnificent life, and the reason is that true, devout inspiration created it! The miracle will be clear to you. The youth raising himself from his couch there was attacked by murderers while he lay helpless, and killed. Although he had hitherto been a godless unbeliever who, in his infernal delusion, despised the Church’s commandments, he cried out to Our Lady for aid, and it pleased the heavenly Mother of God to awaken him from death to life again, to see the error of his ways and dedicate himself with pious devotion to the Church and her service. The youth to whom God’s envoy showed such favour is also the painter of the picture.’

  Kreisler expressed considerable surprise at what the Abbot told him, and said he supposed that in that case the miracle must have occurred quite recently.

  ‘So you too,’ said the Abbot in a mild and gentle tone, ‘you too, my dear Johannes, are of the foolish opinion that the gate of Heaven’s grace is closed today, and will no longer afford passage to mercy and pity in the shape of the saint to whom a man oppressed has prayed fervently in mortal fear of ruin, a saint appearing in person to one in distress, bringing him peace and comfort? Believe me, Johannes, miracles have never ceased, but the human eye is dimmed by sin and crime, it cannot bear the supernatural brightness of Heaven, and so cannot recognize the grace of the Eternal Power when it announces itself in visible form. Yet, my dear Johannes, the most wonderful divine miracles occur in the mind of man himself, and he must proclaim these miracles aloud as best he may, in words, musical notes or colours. Thus the monk who painted that picture proclaimed the miracle of his conversion in a wonderful way, and thus – Johannes, I must speak of you, my heart is overflowing – and thus do you proclaim from deep within you, in mighty music, the wonderful miracle of the perception of clear eternal light. And is not your ability to do so another gracious miracle permitted by the Eternal Power for your salvation?’