The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  W.P. – ‘And still,’ replied Madame Benzon, ‘with your fantastical eccentricity, your cutting irony, you will cause nothing but mischief – confusion – total discord in all conventional existing relationships.’

  ‘Oh wonderful Kapellmeister,’ cried Johannes Kreisler, laughing, ‘to be capable of such discord!’

  ‘Now do be serious,’ continued Madame Benzon, ‘do be serious; you won’t escape me by bitter jesting! I have you now, my dear Johannes! Yes, I will call you by the gentle name of Johannes, so that I may at least hope the satyr’s mask hides a gentle, tender disposition after all! And then again, nothing will ever convince me that your bizarre name Kreisler is not to be regarded as an invention, a substitute for some quite different surname!’

  ‘Madam,’ said Kreisler, his whole face quivering in a strange muscular play of a thousand folds and furrows, ‘my dear madam, what do you have against my honest name? Perhaps I did once bear another, but that’s a long time ago, and I feel like the councillor in Tieck’s Bluebeard57 who says: “I once had a most excellent name, but over the course of time I have almost forgotten it, and can recollect it only dimly now.” ’

  ‘Oh, pray reflect, Johannes!’ cried Madame Benzon, her bright eyes fixed upon him. ‘I’m sure that half-forgotten name will come back to your mind.’

  ‘It certainly will not, dear lady,’ replied Kreisler. ‘That’s impossible, and I half suspect that where my name as passport through life for my outer form is concerned, my dim memory of my former self derives from that agreeable time before I was born. Be so good, most honoured lady, as to look at my plain name in the proper light, and you will find it excellent with regard to my appearance, complexion and physiognomy! Furthermore, turn it upside down, dissect it with the anatomical knife of grammar, and its internal content will prove better and better. Dear lady, you cannot possibly see the origin of my name in the word Kraus to describe what is curly or confused, or myself, on the analogy of the word Haarkräusler for a curler of hair, as one who curls and confuses notes or indeed is any kind of a Kräusler at all, for then I would have to spell my name thus. No, there’s no getting away from the word Kreis, meaning a circle, and Heaven send that it immediately puts you in mind of those wonderful circles in which our entire existence moves and from which we cannot escape, do what we may. A Kreisler circulates in these circles, and very likely, weary of the leaps and bounds of the St Vitus’s dance he is obliged to perform, and at odds with the dark, inscrutable power which delineated those circles, he often longs to break out more than a stomach constitutionally weak anyway will allow. And the deep pain of this longing may in its turn be that very irony which you, dear lady, so bitterly deplore, failing to observe that the powerful mother Irony bore a son who stepped into life like a lordly king. I mean Humour, who has nothing in common with his ill-mannered stepbrother Mockery.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Madame Benzon, ‘that same Humour, the changeling child of an extravagant, fanciful imagination without form or colour, so that you hard, masculine souls don’t know yourselves what rank and dignity you should claim for him – you would like to persuade us that this Humour is something great and fine when you seek, with bitter scorn, to annihilate all that is dear and precious to our hearts. Are you aware, Kreisler, that Princess Hedwiga is still dreadfully distressed by your appearance and conduct in the park? Sensitive as she is, every jest in which she senses even the slightest mockery of herself wounds her, but what is more, my dear Johannes, you saw fit to present yourself to her as a complete madman, thus arousing such horror in her that she might well have taken to her sickbed. Can that be forgiven?’

  ‘By no means,’ replied Kreisler, ‘any more than a little princess walking in her good Papa’s open park can be forgiven for trying to impress a respectable stranger with her small person.’

  ‘Well, be that as it may,’ continued Madame Benzon, ‘let it suffice that your eccentric appearance in our park could have had unfortunate consequences. We have to thank my Julia for averting them, and for the Princess’s at least becoming accustomed to the idea of seeing you again. Julia alone takes you under her protection, regarding all you did and said as merely the overflowing of an extravagant mood, such a mood as is often characteristic of a deeply wounded or over-sensitive mind. In short, Julia, who only recently read Shakespeare’s As You Like It, has compared you with the melancholy Jaques, of all people.’

  ‘Oh, perspicacious, heavenly child!’ cried Kreisler, tears springing to his eyes.

  ‘Moreover,’ continued Madame Benzon, ‘my Julia knew you for a sublime musician and composer when you improvised on the guitar, sometimes singing and talking to the sound, as she tells me. She believes that a unique spirit of music was revealed to her at that moment, so that she was obliged, as if by some invisible power, to sing and play, and succeeded far better than ever before. You must know that Julia could not resign herself to never seeing the strange man again, to his appearing to her only a charmingly strange, musical phantom, while the Princess, on the contrary, claimed with all her usual vehemence that a second visit from the weird madman would be the death of her. Since the girls are usually united heart and soul, and there has never been any disagreement between them, I might well call this a repetition in reverse of that scene from their early childhood when Julia was determined to throw a rather odd-looking Scaramouche58 which had been given to her into the fire, but the Princess took the doll under her wing and made it her favourite.’

  ‘I will let myself,’ said Kreisler, laughing aloud as he interrupted Madame Benzon, ‘I will let myself be thrown into the fire by the Princess, a second Scaramouche, and trust to the fair Julia’s good graces.’

  ‘You must take my memory of the Scaramouche as a humorous fancy,’ continued Madame Benzon, ‘and you cannot misinterpret such a fancy to suit your own theory. As for the rest, you may well imagine that I identified you at once from the description the girls gave me of your appearance and the whole incident in the park, and there was no need for Julia to express a wish to see you again. I would have set all the servants available to searching the entire park and the whole of Sieghartsweiler to find you again anyway, since you had become so dear to me on such short acquaintance. But all my inquiries were in vain, and I thought you lost. I was all the more amazed when you appeared before me this morning. Julia is with the Princess – what a conflict of the most varied emotions there would be if the girls were to learn of your arrival at this moment! As for what brings you here all of a sudden, when I thought you well installed as Kapellmeister at the Grand Duke’s court, I will request enlightenment only if you think it proper and agreeable to tell me anything about it.’

  While Madame Benzon was saying all this, Kreisler had been deep in thought. He gazed at the ground and tapped his forehead like a man trying to remember something he has forgotten.

  ‘Oh,’ he began, when the lady fell silent, ‘oh, it’s a very silly story, scarcely worth the telling. But one thing’s certain: what the little Princess was pleased to take for the ramblings of a madman is founded in truth. In fact, when I had the misfortune to alarm that sensitive little soul in the park, I was on a round of visits, having just come away from a call on none other than his Most Serene Highness the Grand Duke himself, and intending to continue with the most agreeable of calls here in Sieghartsweiler.’

  ‘Ah, Kreisler!’ cried Madame Benzon, smiling slightly, for she never laughed heartily out loud, ‘ah, Kreisler, this must be some other strange fancy to which you allow free rein. If I’m not mistaken, the Grand Duke’s seat is at least thirty hours’ journey from Sieghartsweiler.’

  ‘So it is,’ replied Kreisler; ‘but one can walk there in grounds laid out in what seems to me such grand style that they must amaze even a Le Notre.59 Well, dear lady, if you won’t accept my round of visits, then you may remember that a sensitive Kapellmeister, his voice in his throat and in his breast, his guitar in hand, wandering at leisure through fragrant woods and fresh, green meadows, passing ravi
nes where the rocks tower wildly, crossing narrow bridges beneath which the forest streams rush and foam – you may remember that such a Kapellmeister, raising his solo voice to join the chorus of music everywhere surrounding him, can very easily stray unintentionally, without meaning to, into remote parts of the grounds. And perhaps that is how I got into the princely park of Sieghartshof, which is nothing but rather a small part of the great park laid out by Nature. But no, that’s not so! Only when you spoke just now of a merry band of huntsmen being commanded to catch me like game on the run, only then did I feel a firm inner conviction of the inevitability of my presence here. Even had I wished to continue on my mad career, that inevitability was sure to drive me into the net.

  ‘You were good enough to say that my acquaintance had become dear to you: was that not bound to remind me of those dreadful days of confusion and general distress when Fate brought us together? You found me then vacillating, unable to make a decision, my inmost being lacerated. You kindly took me in and while you sought to comfort me, revealing to me the clear, unclouded sky of a calm femininity sufficient unto itself, you both deplored and forgave the mad abandonment of my conduct, which you attributed to bleak despair brought on by the force of circumstances. You removed me from surroundings which I myself could see were equivocal; your house became the peaceful, friendly asylum where, respecting your silent pain, I forgot my own. Your conversation, so cheerful and mild, had the effect of beneficial medicine, even though you did not know my sickness. It was not those ominous events that might ruin my position in life which had so adverse an effect on me. I had long wished to extricate myself from circumstances which irked me and made me anxious, and I could not chide Fate for doing what I myself had lacked the courage and strength to do for so long. Ah, no! When I felt free, I was overcome by that indescribable restlessness which so often, since my earliest youth, has made me a stranger to myself. It is not the longing which, as that profound poet60 so superbly said, has sprung from a higher life and lasts for ever because it is for ever unfulfilled, is neither deceived nor cheated, but merely remains unfulfilled so that it will not die; no – I often feel a wild, crazy longing for something which I seek outside myself in restless activity, although it is hidden within me, a dark mystery, a confused, baffling dream of a paradise of the utmost contentment which even the dream cannot name, can only divine, and this idea plagues me with the torments of Tantalus.61

  ‘Even as a child, I was often overcome by this feeling so suddenly that in the midst of the merriest of games with my friends I would run away, into the forest, up the mountain, to cast myself down on the ground weeping and sobbing inconsolably, although I had just been the merriest and most hilarious of us all. Later, I learned to control myself better, but I cannot find words for the torment I suffer when I have been in a cheerful company of agreeable, well-disposed friends, enjoying some artistic pleasure – even at moments when my vanity is flattered in some way or another – and suddenly everything has seemed wretched, empty, colourless, dead, and I have felt myself transported to a desolate wilderness. There is only one angel of light with power over that evil demon: it is the spirit of music, which often arises from me triumphant, and at whose mighty voice all the pains of earthly tribulations die away.’

  ‘I have always thought,’ said Madame Benzon, ‘that music has too strong an effect upon you, and consequently a harmful one, for all the features of your face would change as your whole being seemed imbued by the performance of some fine work. You turned pale, you were unable to speak, you could utter only sighs and tears, and then, if anyone ventured to say so much as a word about the master’s work, you would round on him with the bitterest mockery, with deeply wounding scorn. Why, when –’

  ‘Oh, dear lady,’ Kreisler interrupted Madame Benzon, and for all the serious depth of emotion with which he had just spoken he suddenly resumed his characteristic tone of irony, ‘oh, dear lady, that’s all changed now. You won’t believe, my dear madam, how docile and well-behaved I’ve been at the Grand Duke’s court. I can beat time to Don Juan and Armida62 with the greatest good nature and equanimity of mind; I can give the prima donna a friendly wave when she goes hopping up and down the scale in astonishing cadenzas; when the Lord Marshal whispers in my ear, at the end of Haydn’s Seasons, “C’étoit bien ennuyant mon cher maître de chapelle”,63 I can nod and smile and take a pinch of snuff with a meaning look; I can even listen patiently when the art-loving Chamberlain who is maître de plaisir explains to me at length that Mozart and Beethoven didn’t know the first thing about singing, that Rossini, Pucitta64 and whatever all those other little fellows are called may have raised themselves à la hauteur of all operatic music. Oh, dear lady, you have no idea how I’ve profited by my appointment as Kapellmeister, and above all I have become wonderfully convinced of the value of artists’ going into service in due form, since otherwise those proud, unruly folk might stand comparison with the Devil and his grandmother. Make the worthy composer Kapellmeister or Music Director, appoint the poet Court Poet, make the painter Court Portraitist, the sculptor Court Sculptor, and you’ll soon have no more useless fantastical fellows in the land, you’ll have nothing but useful citizens of good breeding and mild manners!’

  ‘Hush, hush,’ cried Madame Benzon, vexed. ‘Stop, Kreisler, your hobby-horse is beginning to run away with you as usual. What’s more, I smell a rat, and I really would very much like to know what unfortunate incident obliged you to flee the ducal seat in such a hurry – for all the circumstances of your appearance in the park here indicate such a flight.’

  ‘And I,’ said Kreisler calmly, his glance fixed on Madame Benzon, ‘and I can assure you that the unfortunate incident which drove me from the ducal seat was independent of all external factors, residing only in myself.

  ‘That same restlessness of which I spoke just now, perhaps at greater length and more earnestly than was really necessary, came over me more forcibly than ever, and I couldn’t remain any longer. You know how glad I was to be appointed Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke. Foolishly, I believed that, living for art, I would be entirely contented by my appointment and the demon within me would be conquered. But you will gather from what little I have just told you about my training at the Grand Duke’s court, dear lady, how much I was mistaken. Spare me the account of how the vapid trifling with sacred art to which I was obliged to turn my hand, how the absurdities of soulless dabblers and tasteless dilettantes, how all the frenzied activity of a world full of artificial puppets increasingly brought me to recognize the pitiful worthlessness of my existence. One morning I had to go and see the Grand Duke, to learn what part I was to take in the festivities due to be held in a few days’ time. The maître de plaisir was present, of course, and bombarded me with all kinds of pointless, tasteless requirements with which I was to comply. In particular, he himself had written a prologue which he wanted me to set to music, as the climax of the theatrical festivities. And as we were not concerned, this time, with learned German music but tasteful Italian song – said he to the prince, casting a keen sidelong glance at me – he had sketched out several tender melodies which I, dutifully, was to insert. Not only did the Grand Duke give permission for all this, he also took the opportunity of indicating that he hoped and expected I would further my education by diligent study of the more recent Italian composers. What a pitiful figure I cut! I felt deeply ashamed of myself. All these humiliations struck me as well-deserved punishment for my infantile, stupid forbearance. I left the castle, never to return. I intended to hand in my resignation that same evening, but even this decision could not reconcile me to myself, for I saw that I had already been banished in a secret process of ostracism.65 I had brought my guitar with me for other purposes; I took it from the carriage, which I dismissed once I was outside the gates, and I went on through the open country, on and on, unable to halt! The sun was already sinking, the shadows of the mountains and the forest were growing wider and wider, darker and darker. The thought of returning to the d
ucal seat was unbearable, indeed devastating. “What power forces me to go back?” I cried out loud. I knew I was on the road to Sieghartsweiler, I thought of my old friend Master Abraham from whom I had received a letter the day before, a letter in which, guessing at my situation at the Grand Duke’s seat, he wished I were not there and invited me to stay with him.’

  ‘What?’ Madame Benzon interrupted the Kapellmeister. ‘Do you know that strange old man?’

  ‘Master Abraham,’ Kreisler continued, ‘was my father’s closest friend, my teacher, and in some sort my tutor. Well, dear lady, you now know exactly how I came to be in good Prince Irenaeus’s park, and you will no longer doubt that I can tell a tale calmly when I must, with all the requisite historical exactitude, and with such ease as horrifies myself! Anyway, the whole story of my flight from the ducal seat seems to me, as I said, so foolish and of such soul-destroying vapidity that I cannot speak of it myself without falling into a pronounced state of languor. However, dear lady, you might supply the alarmed Princess with this trivial event as a soothing draught to calm her mind, and reflect that an honest German musician, put to flight by Rossini and Pucitta and Pavesi and Fioravanti66 and God knows what other inis and ittas, just as he had drawn on his silk stockings and was bearing himself very correctly in a nice carriage, can hardly behave very sensibly. I’ll hope that I may hope for pardon! As a poetical repercussion of this tedious adventure, however, dear Madame Benzon, you must know that just as I was about to run away, scourged by my demon, the sweetest of magic held me spellbound. The demon, with malicious glee, was seeking to violate the deepest secret of my heart when the mighty spirit of music spread its wings, and at that melodious rustling sound comfort awoke, hope and even yearning, which is imperishable love itself and the enchantment of eternal youth – for Julia sang!’