The Best Tales of Hoffmann

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  “Don’t be so crafty with me, Frau Martha,” Rosa replied. “One thing is certain—that I don’t feel at all as you do about Reinhold. It is quite true that he is of quite a different sort from the others. When he talks, it seems as if some beautiful garden opened upon you, full of lovely flowers, blossoms, and fruit, the like of which are not to be found on earth; but it delights me to look into this garden. And many things strike me quite differently since Reinhold has been here. Many things which were dim and formless in my mind have grown so distinct and clear, that I can see them and understand them perfectly.”

  Frau Martha got up, and as she departed, she threatened Rosa with uplifted finger, saying, “Well, Rosa! I suppose Reinhold is to be the one: I never should have dreamed he would have been.”

  “I beg and pray you, Martha dear, neither dream, nor anticipate anything. Leave it all to the future. What the future brings will be the will of Heaven, and to that we must all submit with resignation.”

  Meanwhile things were very lively in Master Martin’s workshop. To execute all his commissions he had taken on fresh hands and a few apprentices, and there was such a banging and hammering going on that it was audible far and wide. Reinhold had made out all the measurements for the Bishop of Bamberg’s great vat, and set it up so cleverly that Master Martin’s heart laughed in his body, and he cried out, over and over again, “that I do call a piece of work! that’s going to be a cask such as I never turned out before—always excepting my own masterpiece.” The three journeymen hooping the cask were hammering till the whole place rang. Old Valentine was shaving away busily with the hollowing-cramp. Frau Martha, with her two youngest children in her lap, was sitting just behind Conrad, while the others were playing and chasing each other about with the hoops. It was such a merry, boisterous affair altogether, that nobody noticed the entrance of old Master Johannes Holzschuer. However, Master Martin went up to him, and asked him courteously what might be his will.

  “Well,” said Master Holzschuer, “I wanted to see my dear Friedrich, who is working away so hard there. But, besides that, Master Martin, I want a fine cask for my cellar, and I was going to ask you to turn me one out. See! there is just the sort of cask I want —that one your men have in hand there, let me have that one. You have but to tell me the price.”

  Reinhold, who, being a little tired, was resting, said on his way on to the scaffold again, “Ah, Herr Holzschuer, you will have to do without this cask; we are making it for the Bishop of Bamberg.”

  Master Martin, folding his arms behind his back, advancing his left foot, and lifting his head proudly, blinked at the cask with his eyes, and said somewhat boastfully, “My dear master, you might know by the choiceness of the timber and the superiority of the workmanship that a masterpiece such as this is a thing for a Prince-Bishop’s cellar alone. My journeyman Reinhold has said well. But when we have got the crop off our hands, I will turn you out a tidy simple little cask, such as will be suitable for your cellar.”

  Old Holzschuer, annoyed with Master Martin’s haughtiness, thought, for his part, that his money was just as good as the Bishop of Bamberg’s, and that he would probably get as good value for it elsewhere; and he said so. Master Martin, overwhelmed with anger, contained himself with difficulty. He scarcely dared to offend old Holzschuer, friend of the Council as he was, highly esteemed by all the town. But just at that moment, Conrad was making such a tremendous hammering with his mallet on the cask that the whole place was ringing and resounding; and Master Martin’s boiling wrath ran over, so that he spluttered out, with a shout, “ Conrad—dunderhead that you are—stop banging that cask like a madman! Do you want to break it?”

  “Ho! ho, you funny little master,” Conrad cried, looking round with an angry face, “why shouldn’t I?” and set to work again, hammering at the cask with such violence that the largest of the hoops burst with a “clirr,” knocking Reinhold off the narrow board of the scaffold, and from the hollow sound which followed, it was evident that one of the staves must have sprung as well. Overcome with rage and fury, Master Martin seized the stave which Valentine was shaving, and with a loud roar of “Damned dog!” dealt Conrad a heavy blow with it across the back.

  When Conrad felt the blow, he turned quickly round, and stood for a moment as if unconscious, and then his eyes flamed with wild anger; he gnashed his teeth, howled out, “You hit me!” got down, with one spring, from the scaffold, seized the broad-axe which was on the ground, and aimed with it a tremendous stroke at the master, which would have split his skull, had not Friedrich pulled him aside, so that it missed his head; but it fell on his arm, whence the blood at once streamed out. Martin, stout and unwieldy, lost his balance and stumbled over the bench, at which an apprentice was working, and onto the ground. All the rest now threw themselves around Conrad, who was raging, and brandishing the bloody broad-axe in the air, yelling, in a terrible voice.

  “To Hell with him!—to Hell with him!”

  Exerting all his gigantic strength, he sent them flying from him in all directions, and was raising his weapon for a second stroke, which would certainly have given Master Martin his quietus as he lay coughing and groaning on the ground, but Rosa, pale as death, appeared at the door. The moment Conrad saw her, he paused like a stone image, with the uplifted weapon in his hand. Then he threw it away far from him, struck his hands together in front of his breast, cried—in a voice which went to every one’s heart—“ God in Heaven! what have I done?” and darted out of the building. Nobody thought of following him.

  Master Martin was now set on his legs again, by dint of some effort, and it was found that the blade of the broad-axe had struck the fleshy part of his arm without doing very much mischief. Old Master Holzschuer, whom Martin had also dragged over in his fall, was pulled out from amid the timber; and Frau Martha’s children, who were frightened and crying, were pacified. Master Martin was much confounded; but on the whole thought that if that devil of a wicked fellow had only not damaged the beautiful cask, he himself was not much the worse. Carrying chairs were brought for the old gentlemen, for Herr Holzschuer was more or less the worse for his tumble, too, and expressed a very mean opinion of a calling which was carried on where there were so many lethal weapons at hand, advising Friedrich to return to the beautiful metals, and casting, and that the sooner the better.

  When the world was wrapped in twilight, Friedrich, and with him Reinhold, who had been hard hit by the hoop and felt sore in every bone of his body, crept, very unhappy, back to town. At the back of a hedge, they heard a low sobbing and sighing. They stopped; and presently a tall figure rose from the earth, which they at once recognized to be Conrad; and they started back, alarmed. “Ah! don’t be afraid of me, my friends!” Conrad cried. “You think I am a diabolical, murdering dog; but I really am nothing of the kind. Only I couldn’t help myself. I had to kill him. I really should go along with you and do it now, if possible—but no!—no, no! The whole thing is over! you won’t see me any more. Give my deepest homage to beautiful Rosa, whom I love so dearly, so dearly. Tell her I will wear her flowers on my heart as long as I live, and that they shall be on me when I—but perhaps she may hear of me again. Goodbye! goodbye! dear old friends and comrades! ” With which he ran off across the fields without a stop.

  “There’s something very strange about him.” Reinhold said. “We can’t judge what he does by everyday standards. Perhaps the future may unravel this mystery.”

  IX

  Master Martin’s workshop was now as melancholy a place as it had once been merry. Reinhold, unable to work, remained in his room. Master Martin, with his arm in a sling, railed and rated unceasingly on the subject of his late evil, incomprehensible journeyman. Rosa and Frau Martha with her children avoided the scene of the mad attempt, so that Friedrich’s hammer on the wood sounded mournful and hollow as he went on, finishing the job by himself.

  Soon his heart was filled with the deepest sorrow. For he fancied he now saw very clearly that what he had long dreaded was
the truth. He was sure that Rosa loved Reinhold. It was not only that all her real friendliness, besides many a sweet word, had all along been given to him; but it was sufficient proof, now that Reinhold was unable to come to the workshop, that she never thought of leaving the house either—doubtless to nurse and take care of her lover. On Sunday, when everybody went out to make holiday and Master Martin—now nearly well—asked him to go with Rosa and him to the meadow, he declined, and went off alone to the village on the height, overpowered with grief and love anxiety. There, where he had first met Reinhold, he laid himself down on the flowery turf, and, as he thought how the beautiful Star of Hope, which had shone before him on all his journey home, had now—at the goat—vanished suddenly into the deepest night—how all his undertaking was now like the vain effort of a dreamer who stretches his longing arms to embrace empty images of air—the tears came to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks onto the grass, and the flowers, which hung their little heads as if in sorrow for his bitter fortune. He scarce knew how it came that the sighs which heaved his distracted breast took the form of words and music. But he sang the following song:—

  My star of hope! ah! whither has thou fled?

  Alas! for me, slid down beneath the marge,

  To rise, in splendour, upon happier hearts.

  Thou trembling night wind! smite upon this breast,

  And waken there the bliss which bringeth death,

  That so my heart, surcharged with tears of blood,

  May break, in longing ne’er to be assuaged.

  Dark trees! oh, tell me what mysterious words

  Ye whisper thus, in loving confidence.

  And ye, gold hems of heaven’s wide-spread robe,

  Why shine ye down on me benignantly?

  Show me my grave! there is my hope’s fair haven!

  There, and there only shall I rest in peace.

  It sometimes happens that the deepest sorrow, if it can find tears and words, dissolves into a mild melancholy, so that perhaps even a gentle shimmer of hope begins to beam faintly through the heart. And so it was that Friedrich felt wondrously consoled and strengthened after he had sung this song. The evening wind, and the dark trees which he had invoked, rustled and whispered as if with voices of comfort. Golden streaks appeared in the dark sky like sweet dreams of coming glory and happiness still afar off. He rose, and walked down to the village. There he felt as if Reinhold was walking by his side as he had been when he first met him. All that Reinhold had said came back upon his mind. When he remembered Reinhold’s story of the two painters who had tried for the prize, scales seemed to fall from his eyes. It was quite clear that Reinhold must, before then, have seen and loved the fair Rosa. Nothing but this love had taken him to Master Martin’s house in Nuremberg, and by the painter’s contest he had meant nothing but his own and Friedrich’s rivalry as regarded Rosa. Friedrich listened once more to what Reinhold had then said, that “to strive towards the same goal, bravely and openly, was true friendship, and must truly in the depths of their hearts rather unite than separate real friends; for nobleness or littleness never can find place in hearts which are true.”

  “Yes, friend of my heart!” Friedrich cried aloud, “to you I will turn without reserve. You yourself shall tell me if all hope is over for me.”

  It was broad day when Friedrich knocked at Reinhold’s door. As all was silent within, he opened it—it was not fastened, as it generally was—and entered. When he did so, he stood transfixed like a statue; for there, on an easel before him, stood a full-length portrait of Rosa, in all the pride of her beauty, lighted up by the rays of the rising sun. The maulstick on the table, where it had been thrown down—the colours still wet—showed that the portrait had just been worked upon.

  “Rosa! Rosa! oh, Father of Heaven! ” Friedrich cried. Reinhold tapped him on the shoulder, and asked him, with a smile, what he thought of the picture. Friedrich pressed him to his heart saying:

  “Ah, glorious fellow! mighty artist!—it is all clear to me now. You have gained the prize for which I—wretch that I am!—was bold enough to try. What am I, compared to you; what is my art, to yours? Alas! I had great ideas in my mind, too! Don’t laugh me altogether to scorn, dear Reinhold. I thought what a glorious thing it would be to make a mould model of Rosa’s beautiful form in the finest silver. But that, of course, would be mere child’s play. But as for you!—how she smiles in all the pride of her loveliness!—Ah! Reinhold! happiest of men! what you said long ago has now come true. We have striven for the prize. You have won it. You could not but win. But I am still yours, with all my soul! I must get away; I could not bear to stay here. I should die if I saw Rosa again. Forgive me this, my dear, dear, glorious friend! This very day—this very moment—I must go into the wide world, wherever my sorrow—my inconsolable misery—may drive me.” With which he would have left the room; but Reinhold held him fast, saying gently:

  “You shall not go, because things may possibly turn out far otherwise than you suppose. It is time now that I should tell you what I have kept silence about hitherto. That I am not a cooper at all, but a painter, you probably now have gathered; and I hope the portrait has proved to you that I am not one of the worst. When I was very young, I went to Italy, the land of art; and there it chanced that some great masters took an interest in me, and fanned the sparks which smouldered within me into living fire. Thus I soon rose to some eminence, and my pictures became celebrated all over Italy. The Grand Duke of Florence took me to his court. At that time I did not care to know anything of the German school of art, and, without having seen any German pictures, I talked largely of the woodenness, the bad drawing, and the hardness of your Dürer and your Cranach. However, one day, a dealer brought a small Madonna of old Albrecht’s into the Duke’s gallery, which went to my heart in a wonderful manner; so that I completely turned away from the luxury of the Italian school, and at that hour determined to see for myself, in my native Germany, those masterpieces on which my thoughts were now bent. I came to Nuremberg here; and when I saw Rosa, it seemed to me as though that Madonna which beamed so brightly in my heart were walking the earth. In my case, just as in yours, dear Friedrich, all my being flamed up in a blaze of affection. I saw and thought of nothing but Rosa. Even art was only precious in my sight because I could go on drawing and painting Rosa hundreds of times, over and over again. In the unceremonious Italian fashion, I thought I should have no difficulty in approaching her, but all my efforts in this direction were vain. There was no way of getting introduced, in honour, to Master Martin’s house. At last I thought of going and straightforwardly announcing myself as one of her wooers, but then I heard of Master Martin’s determination to give her to nobody but a real master cooper. On this, I came to the rather quixotic resolve that I would go and learn coopering at Strassburg, and then betake myself to Master Martin’s workshop. The rest I left to Heaven’s will. How I carried out my resolution, you know; but you have still to learn that a few days ago Master Martin told me I should make a first-rate cooper, and should be very acceptable to him as a son-in-law; for he saw well enough that I was trying to gain Rosa’s favour, and that she liked me.”

  “How could it be otherwise?” Friedrich cried. “Yes, yes; she will be yours. How could I, most wretched of creatures, ever hope for such bliss! ”

  “My brother!” said Reinhold, “you forget that Rosa has by no means yet confirmed what wily Master Martin fancies he sees. It is true she has always been very charming and kindly with me; but that is not exactly how a loving heart displays itself. Promise me, my brother, to keep quiet for three days more, and work in the shop as usual. I might go back again there now, too; but since I have been busy at this picture, that miserable handicraft sickens me inexpressibly. I cannot take a hammer in my hand again, come what will! On the third day I will tell you distinctly how matters stand between me and Rosa. If I should really be the fortunate man to whom she has given her heart, you may depart; and you will learn that time heals the very deepest wounds.�
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  Friedrich promised to abide his destiny.

  On the third day (Friedrich had carefully shunned the sight of Rosa) his heart trembled with fear and anxious expectation. He crept about the workshop like one in a dream, and his awkwardness was such as to give Master Martin occasion to scold angrily, in a way unusual with him. Taking things all round, something seemed to have come to the master which had taken away all satisfaction from him. He talked much of wicked artfulness and ingratitude, without further explaining what he was driving at. When evening at length came and Friedrich was going back to town, near the city gate he saw a man on horseback, whom he at once knew to be Reinhold. As soon as this latter caught sight of him he cried out: “Ha, ha! here you are!—just as I wished!” He got off his horse, threw the reins on his arm, and took his friend by the hand: “Let us stroll along together for a while,” he said; “I can tell you now how my love affair has turned out.”