The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  ‘Why,’ replied the huntsman, with a droll look, ‘why, Serene Highness, only that there’s no need at all to summon the forester and his men.’

  ‘Why not?’ inquired the Prince angrily. ‘Why not? I do believe you’re being impertinent enough to contradict me! And the danger is increasing every second! A thousand dev– Lebrecht, mount your horse – the forester – his men – loaded rifles – I want them on the spot this minute!’

  ‘But,’ said the huntsman, ‘but they’re on the spot now, Serene Highness!’

  ‘How – what?’ cried the Prince, keeping his mouth open in order to vent his astonishment.

  ‘I went out to the forester at first light of dawn,’ continued the huntsman. ‘The pavilion’s so well surrounded by now that a cat couldn’t slip out, let alone a man.’

  ‘Lebrecht,’ said the Prince, much moved, ‘Lebrecht, you’re an excellent huntsman and a faithful servant of the princely house. Save me from this danger, and you may count on getting a medal for services rendered! I’ll devise it myself, and have it cast in gold or silver, depending how many people are killed when the pavilion is stormed, a great number or only a few.’

  ‘With respect,’ said the huntsman, ‘with respect, Serene Highness, we’ll set about it straight away. That is, we’ll break down the doors of the pavilion, capture the rabble inside, and then it’ll all be over. Oh yes, I want to lay hands on that fellow who’s escaped me so often, the fellow who’s so curst good at vaulting, that rascal who’s billeted himself in the pavilion uninvited. I want to get hold of the scoundrel who upset Fräulein Julia!’

  ‘What scoundrel?’ inquired Madame Benzon, entering the room. ‘What scoundrel has been upsetting Julia? What are you talking about, my good Lebrecht?’

  The Prince marched solemnly and significantly towards Madame Benzon, like a man to whom something great and monstrous has happened, something he is endeavouring to bear with all his strength of mind. He took her hand, pressed it tenderly, and then said, in a very soft voice: ‘Benzon, even in the loneliest, the most secluded retirement, a princely head is beset by danger! It is the fate of princes that all their leniency, all their goodness of heart will not protect them from that hostile demon which kindles envy and the lust for power in the breast of treacherous vassals! Benzon, the blackest treachery has raised its serpent-haired Medusa head against me. You find me in the most imminent danger. But the moment of catastrophe will soon come. I may shortly owe my life, my throne, to this faithful servant! And if it is not to be so – well, then I am resigned to my fate. I know, Benzon, that you still feel for me as you did, so I can say high-mindedly, like that king in the tragedy by a German poet10 with which Princess Hedwiga recently spoiled my tea, “Nothing is lost, for you remain still mine!” Kiss me, my dear Benzon! Dear Amalie, we are the old folk now! Good God, in my distress of mind I’m rambling! Let us be quite composed, my dear, and when the traitors are caught I’ll annihilate them with a glance! Huntsman, let the attack on the pavilion begin!’

  The huntsman was about to hurry away.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Madame Benzon. ‘What attack? On what pavilion?’

  At the Prince’s orders, the court huntsman had to give another concise account of the whole incident. Madame Benzon seemed to listen with increasing suspense to the huntsman’s narrative. When he had finished, she cried, laughing, ‘Well, this is the most comical misunderstanding that can be! I beg you, Highness, send the forester and his men home again at once! There’s no conspiracy at all, and you’re not in the slightest danger, my dear sir! The unknown lodger in the pavilion is already your prisoner.’

  ‘Who is it?’ asked the Prince, in astonishment. ‘Who, what unhappy man is lodging in the pavilion without my permission?’

  ‘It’s Prince Hector,’ Madame Benzon whispered into the Prince’s ear. ‘Prince Hector is concealing himself in the pavilion!’

  The Prince recoiled a few paces, as if some invisible hand had suddenly struck him a blow, and then cried, ‘Who? What? Est-il possible? Benzon, am I dreaming? Prince Hector?’ His glance fell on the court huntsman, who was crushing his hat in his hand, wholly at a loss. ‘Huntsman,’ the Prince shouted at him, ‘huntsman, go down there and tell the forester and his men to go away – go back home! Let none of them be seen! Benzon,’ he added, turning to the lady, ‘my dear Benzon, would you believe it? Lebrecht called Prince Hector a fellow, called him a scoundrel! Unhappy man! But it will all remain between us, Benzon, it’s a state secret. Tell me, just explain, how could it be – the Prince makes out he’s going away, but then he hides here as if to embark upon intrigues?’

  Madame Benzon saw herself saved from great embarrassment by the huntsman’s observations. Although she had entirely convinced herself that it would be inadvisable for her to disclose Prince Hector’s presence in Sieghartshof to the Prince, and least of all should she mention his designs on Julia, yet matters could not remain in a state which must become more dangerous with every passing minute for Julia herself and the whole situation she, Madame Benzon, was making every effort to maintain. Now that the court huntsman had discovered Prince Hector’s hiding-place, and Prince Hector risked being discovered in rather an ignominious fashion, she could – indeed she must – give him away without divulging Julia’s involvement. She therefore told Prince Irenaeus that a love quarrel with Princess Hedwiga had probably made the Prince pretend to be going away directly, but that then he hid near his beloved, with his faithful valet. It could not be denied that there was something romantic and fantastical about his actions, she said, but what lover was not so inclined? She added that the Prince’s valet was ardently courting her Nanni, and Nanni had given the secret away.

  ‘Ah!’ cried Prince Irenaeus. ‘Thank Heaven! Then it was the valet, not Prince Hector himself, who stole into your house and jumped out of the window into the flowerpots, like the page Cherubino. I was beginning to entertain all kinds of uncomfortable ideas. A Prince jumping through the window! How in the world could such a thing be?’

  ‘Why,’ replied Madame Benzon, with a roguish smile, ‘I know a princely personage who didn’t scorn to go out through the window when –’

  ‘Now, now,’ the Prince interrupted her, ‘you are vexing me, Benzon, you are vexing me most uncommonly! Let us not discuss the past; instead, let us think what’s to be done about Prince Hector now! Devil a bit of use is any diplomacy, process of state or courtly statute in this curst situation! Should I ignore him? Should I come upon him by chance? Should I – should I what? My head is in a whirl! This is what comes of princes lowering themselves to peculiar romantic pranks!’

  In fact Madame Benzon did not know what direction to give the matter of Prince Hector now. However, this cause of embarrassment too was removed, for before she could reply to Prince Irenaeus the old castellan Rupert entered and handed him a small folded note, assuring him, with a sly smile, that it came from a person of rank whom he had the honour of keeping under lock and key not far away.

  ‘So you knew, Rupert?’ Prince Irenaeus said very graciously to the old man. ‘So you knew about it? Well, I always thought you a faithful, honest servant of my house, and now you have proved yourself one, for you did your duty and obeyed the orders of my noble son-in-law. I’ll consider how to reward you.’

  Rupert thanked Prince Irenaeus in the humblest terms, and left the room.

  It often happens that a man is regarded as particularly honourable and virtuous just when he has done something scoundrelly, and so thought Madame Benzon, being better informed of Prince Hector’s evil designs, and sure that the hypocritical old castellan Rupert was in the nefarious secret.

  Prince Irenaeus opened the note and read:

  ‘Che dolce più, che più giocondo stato

  Saria, di quel d’un amoroso core?

  Che viver più felice e più beato,

  Che ritrovarsi in servitù d’Amore?

  Se non fosse l’huom sempre stimulato

  Da quel sospetto rio, da quel timore,


  Da quel martir, da quella frenesia,

  Da quella rabbia, detta gelosia.11

  In these verses of a great poet, Prince, you will find the cause of my mysterious actions. I thought myself unloved by her whom I adore, who is my life, all my hope and longing, for whom all ardent fires burn in my inflamed breast. Happily for me, I am persuaded it is otherwise! A few hours ago I learned that I am loved, and I now emerge from hiding! May love and happiness be the password to announce me! I will soon greet you, my Prince, with the respect due from a son.

  Hector.’

  The gentle reader may not find it entirely unwelcome if the biographer lets his story pause here for a couple of seconds, and inserts his own attempt at a translation of these lines of Italian verse. They run something like this:

  What sweeter, gladder, state could be possest

  Than falls to the enamoured bosom’s share?

  What happier mode of life, what lot more blest,

  Than evermore the chains of love to wear?

  Were not the lover, ’mid his joys, distrest

  By that suspicious fear, that cruel care,

  That martyrdom, which racks the suffering sprite,

  That phrenzied rage, which jealousy is hight.

  The Prince read this note two or three times very attentively, and the more often he read it the darker did the frown on his brow become. ‘Benzon,’ said he at last, ‘Benzon, what’s the matter with Prince Hector? Lines of Italian verse to a princely head, a crowned father-in-law, instead of a clear, sensible explanation? What can it mean? There’s no sense in it! The Prince seems to be in a most indecorously extravagant state of mind. The lines speak of the happiness of love and the torments of jealousy: I understand that much. What does the Prince mean about jealousy? For heaven’s sake, whom could he be jealous of here? Tell me, my dear Benzon, do you detect so much as a spark of sound human reason in this note from the Prince?’

  Madame Benzon was alarmed by the deeper meaning of Prince Hector’s words, which she could easily divine after what had occurred in her house the previous day. At the same time, she had to admire the subtle means he had devised of coming out of hiding without giving further offence. Far from her mind as it was to say anything at all about that to Prince Irenaeus, she tried to derive as much advantage from the present situation as possible. Kreisler and Master Abraham were the persons who, she feared, might confound her secret plans, and she thought she must employ every weapon that chance put into her hands against them. She reminded Prince Irenaeus of what she had told him about the passion kindled in Princess Hedwiga’s breast. The Princess’s state of mind, she added, could hardly have escaped her father’s keen glance, and Kreisler’s strange, extravagant behaviour must have given him reason to suspect some mad connection between the two of them. This was sufficient explanation for Prince Hector’s grim pursuit of Kreisler, and for his avoiding an encounter with the Princess’s grief and despair when he thought he had killed him, whereas upon learning that Kreisler was alive he had returned, impelled by love and longing, to watch over the Princess in secret. Consequently, she pointed out, the jealousy of which the Prince’s verses spoke could refer to none but Kreisler, which made it all the wiser and more necessary not to admit him to Sieghartshof any more, since he seemed to be hatching plots with Master Abraham against the court in general.

  ‘Benzon,’ said Prince Irenaeus, very gravely, ‘Benzon, I have been thinking of what you told me about the Princess’s unworthy weakness, and I don’t believe a word of it. Princely blood flows in her veins!’

  ‘Do you believe,’ cried Madame Benzon with vehemence, blushing hotly, ‘do you believe, Highness, that a woman of princely blood can command the beating of her heart, the main artery of life itself, better than another?’

  ‘Benzon,’ said the Prince crossly, ‘Benzon, you are in a very strange mood today! I repeat, if any kind of passion in such poor taste arose in the Princess’s heart, it was only a morbid coincidence – a convulsion, so to speak – she does suffer from spasms, after all – something from which she would very soon have recovered. And as for Kreisler, he’s a very amusing man who lacks only the proper refined breeding. I cannot believe him capable of such impertinent audacity as wishing to approach the Princess. Audacious he is, but in quite a different way. You may believe me, Benzon, when I say that in view of his eccentric manners a Princess is the very last person who would win his heart, should it be conceivable for a lady of such rank to condescend to fall in love with him. For – and entre nous soit dit, Benzon – he doesn’t think much of persons of rank like ourselves, and it is that same ridiculous, tasteless folly which makes him unsuitable for long residence at court. So let him keep away; but if he does come back he’ll be heartily welcome to me. For as if it weren’t enough that, as Master Abraham told me – oh yes, and you may leave Master Abraham out of it, Benzon; any plots he hatches have always been for the good of the princely house! As I was about to say – yes! As if it weren’t enough that, as Master Abraham told me, the Kapellmeister had to flee in an unseemly fashion, although I had received him with kindness, he was and is a very clever man who amuses me, despite his extravagant nature, and cela suffit!’

  Madame Benzon froze with secret rage to hear herself snubbed so coldly. She had come upon an unsuspected rock hidden in the water as she blithely thought to swim downstream.

  Now there was a great noise in the castle courtyard. A long line of carriages came rattling up, escorted by a strong troop of grand-ducal hussars, and the Lord Marshal, the President, Prince Irenaeus’s councillors and several members of the high society of Sieghartsweiler got out. News had arrived there of revolution breaking out at Sieghartshof, threatening the Prince’s life, and now his faithful followers and other supporters of the court had come to surround the person of the Prince, bringing with them the defenders of the country, whose assistance they had earnestly requested of the governor.

  What with the assurances of the assembled company that they were ready to sacrifice life and limb for their noble lord, Prince Irenaeus couldn’t get a word in edgeways. He was just about to begin speaking at last when the officer commanding the troops came in and asked him about the plan of operations.

  When the danger that has inspired fear in us turns to a vain, empty bogeyman before our very eyes, it is only human to feel extreme vexation. The thought of having escaped real danger gladdens us; the idea that there was never any danger at all does not. So it was that Prince Irenaeus could scarcely hide his displeasure and annoyance at all the unnecessary uproar.

  Should he, could he say that the whole storm had blown up over an assignation between a valet and a lady’s maid, over the romantic jealousy of a Prince in love? He thought it over this way and that, while the expectant silence in the hall, interrupted only by the whinnying of the hussars’ horses outside promising a valiant victory, weighed down on him like lead.

  At last he cleared his throat, and began with much feeling: ‘Gentlemen! The wonderful disposition of Heaven – yes, what do you want, mon ami?’

  Prince Irenaeus interrupted himself with this question to the Lord Marshal. The Lord Marshal had indeed bowed several times, conveying by means of glances that he had something important to say. It turned out that Prince Hector had just been announced.

  The Prince’s countenance cleared; he saw that he could deal very briefly with the presumed danger threatening his throne, and as if by waving a magic wand could turn this distinguished assembly into a courtly ceremony of welcome, which he duly did!

  It was not long before Prince Hector entered, magnificently clad in his gala uniform: handsome, strong and proud they saw the god-like youth appear! Prince Irenaeus took a step or so towards him, but then instantly recoiled as if struck by lightning. Close behind Prince Hector, Prince Ignatius came running into the hall. Sad to say, that princely gentleman was becoming more foolish and inane with every day that passed. He must have been very much taken with the hussars in the castle courtyard, for he had made
one of them give him his sword, pouch and shako, and had decked himself out in these splendours. Thus attired, he cavorted about the hall in little leaps as if he were on horseback, the bright blade of the drawn sword in his hand, letting its iron sheath clang mightily on the floor, and laughing and giggling in an uncommonly pretty fashion all the while.

  ‘Partez – décampez! Allez-vous-en – tout de suite,’ cried Prince Irenaeus in a voice of thunder, eyes blazing. The startled Ignatius swiftly made off. None of those present was so tactless as to take any notice of Prince Ignatius or the entire scene.

  Prince Irenaeus, restored to the full, sunny brilliance of his mild and friendly disposition, now said a few words to Prince Hector, and then they both went the rounds of the assembly, saying a few words to this or that person. The court ceremony was over, that is, the profound and witty remarks usually made upon such occasions had been duly uttered, and Prince Irenaeus repaired with Prince Hector to his wife’s apartments. As Prince Hector insisted on surprising his beloved bride to be, they then went on to Princess Hedwiga’s room. They found Julia with her.