Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

  On the following morning Flemming awoke in a chamber of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as the clock in the Dome-church opposite was striking ten. The window-shutters were closed, and the room nearly dark. He was lying on his back, with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead. He thought them the white marble canopy of a tomb, and himself the marble statue, lying beneath. When the clock ceased striking, the eight and twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber, and arranged themselves along the walls, which spread into dimly-lighted aisles and arches. On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, withits Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of the ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the German student, as Saint Vitus; and on a lavatory, or basin of holy-water, below, sat a cherub, with the form and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes began to blow, and he heard the voices of an invisible choir chanting. And anon the gilded gates in the bronze screen before the chancel opened, and a bridal procession passed through. The bride was clothed in the garb of the Middle Ages; and held a book in her hand, with velvet covers, and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She looked at him as she passed. Her face was pale; and there were tears in her sweet eyes. Then the gates closed again; and one of the oaken poppy-heads over a carved stall, in the shape of an owl, flapped its broad wings, and hooted, “Towhit! to-whoo!” Then the whole scene changed; and he thought himself a monk’s-head on a gutterspout; and it rained dismally; and Berkley was standing under with an umbrella, laughing!

  In other words, Flemming was in a ragingfever, and delirious. He remained in this state for a week. The first thing he was conscious of was hearing the doctor say to Berkley;

  “The crisis is passed. I now consider him out of danger.”

  He then fell into a sweet sleep; the wild fever had swept away like an angry, red cloud, and the refreshing summer rain began to fall like dew upon the parched earth. Still another week; and Flemming was, “sitting clothed, and in his right mind.” Berkley had been reading to him; and still held the book in his hand, with his fore-finger between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoffmann’s writings.

  “How very strange it is,” said he, “that you can hardly open the biography of any German author, but you will find it begin with an account of his grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable old man walked up and down the garden among the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning gown, which is likewise covered with flowers, and perhaps wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Oryou will find him sitting by the chimney-corner in the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe, with shaggy eyebrows and eyes like birdsnests under the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg nutcracker’s. The future poet climbs upon the old man’s knees. His genius is not recognised yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy. His father is an austere man, or perhaps dead. But the mother is still there, a sickly, saint-like woman, with knitting-work, and an elder sister, who has already been in love, and wears rings on her fingers; —

  ‘Death’s heads, and such mementos,

  Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left to her,

  To tell her what her beauty must arrive at.’”

  “But this is not the case with the life of Hoffmann, if I recollect right.”

  “No, not precisely. Instead of the grandfather we have the grandmother, a stately dame, who has long since shaken hands with the vanities of life. The mother, separated from her husband, is sick in mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow. Then there is an affectionate maiden aunt; and an uncle, a retired judge, the terror of little boys, — the Giant Despair of this Doubting Castle in Koenigsberg; and occasionally the benign countenance of a venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouqué called a hero of the olden time in morning gown and slippers, looks in at the door and smiles. In the upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son the Saviour of the world. Wild fancies, likewise, were to sweep through the brain of that child. He was to meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in after years, though as yet they knew nothing of each other. This was Werner, who has made some noise in German literature as the author of many wild Destiny-Dramas.”

  “Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin.”

  “Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of age, and passed the next eight years of his life in the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where he held some petty office under government; and took to himselfmany bad habits and a Polish wife. After this he was Music-Director at various German theatres, and led a wandering, wretched life for ten years. He then went to Berlin as Clerk of the Exchange, and there remained till his death, which took place some seven or eight years afterward.”

  “Did you ever see him?”

  “I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw him frequently. I shall never forget the first time. It was at one of the æsthetic Teas, given by a literary lady Unter den Linden, where the lions were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread and butter, up to oysters and Rhine-wine. During the evening my attention was arrested by the entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and his thin lips closely pressed together with an expression of not unpleasing irony. This strangelooking personage began to bow his way through the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions, much resembling those of a marionette. He had a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that although I understood German well enough for ordinary purposes, I could not understand one half he said. Ere long he had seated himself at the piano-forte, and was improvising such wild, sweet fancies, that the music of one’s dreams is not more sweet and wild. Then suddenly some painful thought seemed to pass over his mind, as if he imagined, that he was there to amuse the company. He rose from the piano-forte, and seated himself in another part of the room; where he began to make grimaces, and talk loud while others were singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin, laughing, ‘Ho! ho! ho!’ I asked a person beside me who this strange being was. ‘That was Hoffmann,’ was the answer. ‘The Devil!’ said I. ‘Yes,’ continued my informant; ‘and if you should follow him now, you would see him plunge into an obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and there, amid boon companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke, and quirks and quibbles, and quaint, witty sayings, turn the dim night into glorious day.’”

  “What a strange being!”

  “I once saw him at one of his night-carouses. He was sitting in his glory, at the head of the table; not stupidly drunk, but warmed with wine, which made him madly eloquent, as the Devil’s Elixir did the Monk Medardus. There, in the full tide of witty discourse, or, if silent, his gray, hawk eye flashing from beneath his matted hair, and taking note of all that was grotesque in the company round him, sat this unfortunate genius, till the day began to dawn. Then he found his way homeward, having, like the souls of the envious in Purgatory, his eyelids sewed together with iron wire; — though his was from champagne bottles. At such hours he wrote his wild, fantastic tales. To his excited fancy everything assumed a spectral look. The shadows of familiar things about him stalked like ghosts through the haunted chambers of his soul; and the old portraits on the walls winked at him, and seemed stepping down from their frames; till, aghast at the spectral throng about him, he would call his wife from her bed, to sit by him while he wrote.”

  “No wonder he died in the prime of life!”

  “No. The only wonder is, that he could have followed this course of life for six years. I am astonished that it did not kill him sooner.”

  “But death came at last in an appalling shape.”

  “Yes; his forty-sixth birth day found him sitting at home in his arm-chair, with his friends around him. But the rare old wine, — he always drank the best, — touched not the sick-man’s lips that night. His wonted humor was gone. Of all his ‘jibes, his gambols, his songs, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set th
e table on a roar, not one now, to mock his own grinning! — quite chap-fallen.’ — The conversation was of death and the grave. And when one of his friends said, that life was not the highest good, Hoffmann interrupted him, exclaiming with a startling earnestness; ‘No, no! Life, life, only life! on any condition whatsoever!’ Five months after this he had ceased to suffer, because he had ceased to live. He died piecemeal. His feet and hands, his legs and arms, gradually, and in succession, became motionless, dead. But his spirit was not dead, nor motionless; and, through the solitary day or sleepless night, lying in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis his last stories. Strange stories, indeed, were they for a dying man to write! Yet such delight did he take in dictating them, that he said to his friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was willing to give up forever the use of his hands, if he could but preserve the power of writing by dictation. Such was his love of life, — of what he called the sweet habitude of being!”

  “Was it not he, who in his last hours expressed such a longing to behold the green fields once more; and exclaimed; ‘Heaven! it is already summer, and I have not yet seen a single green tree!’”

  “Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards he died. The closing scene was striking. He gradually lost all sensation, though his mind remained vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said to his physician; ‘It will soon be over now. I feel no more pain.’ He thought himself well again; but the physician knew that he was dying, and said; ‘Yes, it will soon be over!’ The next morning he called his wife to his bed-side; and begged her to fold his motionless hands together. Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say, ‘We must, then, think of God, also!’ More sorrowful words than these have seldom fallen from the lips of man. Shortly afterwards the flame of life glared up within him; he said he was well again; that in the evening he should go on with the story he was writing; and wished that the last sentence might be read over to him. Shortly after this they turned his face to the wall, and he died.”

  “And thus passed to its account a human soul, after much self-inflicted suffering. Let us tread lightly upon the poet’s ashes. For my part, I confess, that I have not the heart to take him from the general crowd of erring, sinful men, and judge him harshly. The little I have seen of the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not inanger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed, — the brief pulsations of joy, — the feverish inquie-tude of hope and fear, — the tears of regret, — the feebleness of purpose, — the pressure of want, — the desertion of friends, — the scorn of a world that has little charity, — the desolation of the soul’s sanctuary, — and threatening voices within, — health gone, — happiness gone, — even hope, that stays longest with us, gone, — I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness, that it is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him, from whose hands it came,

  ‘even as a little child,

  Weeping and laughing in its childish sport.’”

  “You are right. And it is worth a student’s while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work like fiends upon the delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer, thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks wine; — and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight. He was a man of rare intellect. He was endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring and irregular flame; — for the branches that he fed it with, were not branches from the Tree of Life, — but from another tree that grew in Paradise, — and they were wet with the unhealthy dews of night, and more unhealthy wine; and thus, amid smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went out with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind.”

  “This fire within him was a Meleager’s fire-brand; and, when it burned out, he died. And, as you say, marks of all this are clearly visible in Hoffmann’s writings. Indeed, when I read his strange fancies, it is with me, as when in the summer night I hear the rising wind among the trees, and the branches bow, and beckon with their long fingers, and voices go gibbering and mockingthrough the air. A feeling of awe and mysterious dread comes over me. I wish to hear the sound of living voice or footstep near me, — to see a friendly and familiar face. In truth, if it be late at night, the reader as well as the writer of these unearthly fancies, would fain have a patient, meek-eyed wife, with her knitting-work, at his elbow.”

  Berkley smiled; but Flemming continued without noticing the smile, though he knew what was passing in the mind of his friend;

  “The life and writings of this singular being interest me in a high degree. Oftentimes one may learn more from a man’s errors, than from his virtues. Moreover, from the common sympathies of our nature, souls that have struggled and suffered are dear to me. Willingly do I recognise their brotherhood. Scars upon their foreheads do not so deform them, that they cease to interest. They are always signs of struggle; though alas! too often, likewise, of defeat. Seasons of unhealthy, dreamy, vague delight, are followed by seasons ofweariness and darkness. Where are then the bright fancies, that, amid the great stillness of the night, arise like stars in the firmament of our souls? The morning dawns, the light of common day shines in upon us, and the heavens are without a star! From the lives of such men we learn, that mere pleasant sensations are not happiness; — that sensual pleasures are to be drunk sparingly, and, as it were, from the palm of the hand; and that those who bow down upon their knees to drink of these bright streams that water life, are not chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome!”

  “I think you are very lenient in your judgment. This is not the usual defect of critics. Like Shakspeare’s samphire-gatherer, they have a dreadful trade! and, to make the simile complete, they ought to hang for it!”

  “Methinks it would be hard to hang a man for the sake of a simile. But which of Hoffmann’s works is it, that you have in your hand?”

  “His Phatasy-Pieces in Callot’s manner. Who was this Callot?”

  “He was a Lorrain painter of the seventeenth century, celebrated for his wild and grotesque conceptions. These sketches of Hoffmann are imitations of his style. They are full of humor, poetry, and brilliant imagination.”

  “And which of them shall I read to you? The Ritter Glück; or the Musical Sufferings of John Kreisler; or that very exquisite story of the Golden Jar, wherein is depicted the life of Poesy, in this common-place world of ours?”

  “Read the shortest. Read Kreisler. That will amuse me. It is a picture of his own sufferings at the æsthetic Teas in Berlin, supposed to be written in pencil on the blank leaves of a music-book.”

  Thereupon Berkley leaned back in his easychair, and read as follows.

  CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.

  “They are all gone! I might have known it by the whispering, shuffling, coughing, buzzing through all the notes of the gamut. It was a true swarm of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has lighted fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle of Burgundy on the piano-forte. I can play no more, I am perfectly exhausted. My glorious old friend here on the music-stand is to blame for that. Again he has borne me away through the air, as Mephistopheles did Faust, and so high, that I took not the slightest notice of the little men under me, though I dare say they made noise enough. A rascally, worthless, wasted evening! But now I am well and merry! However, while I was playing, I took out my pencil, and on pagesixty-three, under the last system, noted down a couple of good flourishes in cipher with my right hand, while the left was struggling away in the torrent of sweet sounds. Upon the blank page at the end I go on writing. I leave all ciphers and sweet tones, and with true delight, like a sick man restored to health, who can never stop relating what he has suffered, I note down here circumstantially the dire agonies of this evening’s tea-p
arty. And not for myself alone, but likewise for all those who from time to time may amuse and edify themselves with my copy of John Sebastian Bach’s Variations for the Piano-forte, published by Nägeli in Zürich, and who find my marks at the end of the thirtieth variation, and, led on by the great Latin Verte, (I will write it down the moment I get through this doleful statement of grievances,) turn over the leaf and read.

  “They will at once see the connexion. They know, that the Geheimerath Rödelein’s house is a charming house to visit in, and that he has two daughters, of whom the whole fashionable world proclaims with enthusiasm, that they dance like goddesses, speak French like angels, and play and sing and draw like the Muses. The Geheimerath Rödelein is a rich man. At his quarterly dinners he brings on the most delicious wines and richest dishes. All is established on a footing of the greatest elegance; and whoever at his tea-parties does not amuse himself heavenly, has no ton, no esprit, and particularly no taste for the fine arts. It is with an eye to these, that, with the tea, punch, wine, ice-creams, etc., a little music is always served up, which, like the other refreshments, is very quietly swallowed by the fashionable world.