The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  ‘Johannes,’ began the Privy Councillor. ‘Johannes, in your pleasant mood you won’t be vexed if I touch a string in your heart which may perhaps give you pain. You speak of uncles and aunts, but you say nothing of your father and your mother!’

  ‘Oh, my friend,’ replied Kreisler, with an expression of the deepest emotion, ‘oh, my friend, I was thinking of them only today – but no, no more of my memories and dreams, no more of that moment which today awoke all the pain of my early childhood, felt rather than understood at the time! But then peace stole over my mind, a peace like the expectant silence of the forest when the thunderstorm has passed. Yes, Master, you are right; I was standing under the apple tree listening to the prophetic voice of the thunder as it died away! You will get a clearer idea of the dull stupor in which I lived for a few years after losing Aunt Tootsie when I tell you that the death of my mother,90 which fell within that period, made no special impression on me. However, I needn’t tell you why my father left me or was obliged to leave me entirely to the care of my mother’s brother, since you can read of similar things in many a hackneyed tale of family life or one of Iffland’s91 domestic dramas. Suffice it to say that the state of sad tedium in which I spent my boyhood, and a good part of my youthful years too, may be put down to the absence of my parents. I consider a father, even a bad one, far better than any guardian, even a good one, and I shudder at the idea of thoughtless, unloving parents abandoning their children and consigning them to some educational institution, where the poor creatures are shaped and cut to a certain standard regardless of their individual characters, which only the parents themselves can really understand.

  ‘As for my upbringing, it can be no surprise to anyone on earth if I am ill-bred, for my uncle didn’t bring me up at all, but left me to the mercy of tutors who came to the house, since I didn’t go to school,92 nor was any friendship with a boy of my own age permitted to disturb the solitude of the house where my bachelor uncle lived alone with one gloomy old manservant. I remember only three separate occasions when my uncle, a man calm and indifferent almost to the point of stolidity, made a brief sally into education, by boxing my ears, so that I actually had my ears boxed three times as a boy. Being so inclined to loquacity today, Privy Councillor, I could serve you up the tale of those three occasions as a romantic trio, but I will pick out only the central incident, since I know you want to hear about my musical studies more than anything else, and you will not be indifferent to the story of how I first composed music.

  ‘My uncle had quite an extensive library, where I was allowed to browse and read as I pleased; Rousseau’s Confessions93 in German translation fell into my hands. I devoured that book, which was certainly not intended for a boy of twelve and could have sown the seed of much mischief in my mind. But one incident and only one out of many, some of them very risqué, filled my mind so entirely as to make me forget all else. I was struck, as if I had suffered an electric shock, by the tale of how the boy Rousseau, driven by the mighty spirit of the music within him but otherwise lacking any knowledge of harmony, of counterpoint, of all practical aids, decides to compose an opera, how he draws the curtains of his room, throws himself on his bed and abandons himself entirely to the inspiration of his imaginative powers, how his opera comes to him: it was like a wonderful dream. Day and night I was haunted by the thought of that incident, which seemed to have given me a glimpse of the utmost bliss through the boy Rousseau! I often felt as if I had already shared that bliss, and then it depended only on my firm resolve for me to raise myself to the same paradise, for the spirit of music was just as lively in me. In short, I decided to imitate the example I had been given. So when my uncle, against his usual custom, had left the house one stormy autumn evening, I immediately drew the curtains and threw myself on his bed, with a view to conceiving the idea of an opera, like Rousseau. Excellent as my arrangements were, however, and hard as I tried to lure the poetic spirit to me, it obstinately remained absent! Instead of all the wonderful ideas that were to occur to me, I found I had a wretched old song running through my head, its lamentable text beginning: “I loved none but Ismene, Ismene loved me”,94 and whatever I did it wouldn’t go away. “Now,” I told myself, “now for the sublime chorus of the priests, ‘Upon Olympian Heights’.” But the tune buzzed on and on without stopping – “I loved none but Ismene” – until finally I fell fast asleep.

  ‘I was woken by loud voices, while an intolerable stink met my nostrils and took my breath away! The whole room was full of thick smoke, and in the billowing smoke stood my uncle, tearing down what was left of the blazing curtain in front of the wardrobe and calling, “Water – fetch water!” until the old servant brought plentiful supplies of it, poured the water over the floor and so put out the fire. The smoke drifted slowly through the window. “Where’s that imp of Satan?” asked my uncle, shining a light round the room. I knew only too well what imp he meant and lay in the bed, quiet as a mouse, until my uncle came up to it and with an angry “Get out of there this minute!” helped me to my feet. “So you’d burn the house over my head, you wretch!” continued my uncle. Being further questioned, I told him calmly that I had been composing an opera seria in bed, just like the boy Rousseau, according to the account in his Confessions, and had no idea how the fire had started. “Rousseau? Composing? Opera seria? Blockhead!” stuttered my uncle in his fury, and he gave me a mighty box on the ears, the second I had received, so that I stood there rigid and speechless with fright, and at that moment, like an echo of the blow, I heard quite clearly, “I loved none but Ismene”, etc., etc. From then on I entertained a lively dislike both for that song and for the inspiration of musical composition.’

  ‘But how did the fire begin?’ asked the Privy Councillor.

  ‘To this day,’ replied Kreisler, ‘I still don’t know what chance made the curtain catch fire, carrying a handsome dressing-gown of my uncle’s to its doom, as well as three or four nicely dressed toupets which he used to wear, as partial studies in wig-wearing taken from a full-scale wig. I have always felt as if I received that box on the ears not for the fire, which was no fault of mine, but only for the composition upon which I had ventured. Curiously enough it was music alone which my uncle was sternly determined I should pursue, despite the fact that my tutor, misled by the merely transitory dislike I expressed for it, thought me not at all musical. Incidentally, it was all one to my uncle what I myself wanted or didn’t want to learn. Considering that he sometimes expressed great annoyance at the difficulty of making me apply myself to music, you’d have expected him to be delighted when, a few years later, the musical spirit stirred so powerfully in me as to outdo all else; but again, that was not the case at all. My uncle merely smiled slightly upon noticing that before long I could play several instruments with some virtuosity, and indeed was setting a number of little pieces to the satisfaction of my masters and of musical connoisseurs. Yes, he just smiled slightly and when anyone praised me to him said, with a sly look, “Oh yes, my little neveu is sufficiently foolish.” ’

  ‘But in that case,’ put in the Privy Councillor, ‘in that case I really don’t see why your uncle didn’t give free rein to your inclinations instead of forcing you into another career. For so far as I’m aware, you have not been a Kapellmeister very long.’

  ‘And not very far from here either,’ cried Master Abraham, laughing, and he continued, casting the shadow portrait of a curiously shaped little man on the wall, ‘But here I must stand up for that good uncle, nicknamed Uncle Ow95 by certain disrespectful nephews because his first names were Ottfried Wenzel, and assure the world that if Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler took it into his head to become a Legation Councillor, tormenting himself with matters wholly contrary to his nature, no one was less to blame than Uncle Ow.’

  ‘Oh, hush,’ said Kreisler, ‘hush, Master, and remove my uncle from that wall, for though he may look ridiculous enough I don’t want to laugh at the old fellow today; he’s been lying in his grave a long time now.’r />
  ‘You’re certainly conducting yourself in a very proper and sensitive manner today,’ replied the Master.

  However, Kreisler ignored this and instead, turning to the little Privy Councillor, said, ‘You’ll be sorry you made me chatter away, since I can serve you only ordinary fare such as you’ll find a thousand times over in life, and you may have been expecting something out of the ordinary. However, you can be sure it was no educational compulsion or any particular quirk of fate which set me on a course involuntarily bringing me where I didn’t wish to be – no, it was the most ordinary set of circumstances in the world. Haven’t you noticed that there’s someone in every family who, whether through particular genius or a happy combination of favourable circumstances, has attained a certain elevation and now stands in the midst of his circle like a hero, his dear relations looking humbly up at him, a man whose commanding voice is heard making cogent remarks against which there can be no appeal? Such was the case with my uncle’s younger brother,96 who had fled the musical family nest and was a person of some importance at the princely residence, being a Privy Legation Councillor close to the prince himself. His rise in the world had cast the family into a permanent state of wonder and amazement. The Legation Councillor was spoken of with solemn gravity, and at the words “the Privy Legation Councillor has written”, “the Privy Legation Councillor says this or that”, everyone listened attentively in silent awe. Used as I was from my earliest childhood to regarding my uncle at the residence as a man who had reached the highest peak of all human endeavour, I was naturally bound to feel I had no choice but to follow in his footsteps. The portrait of my distinguished uncle hung in the drawing-room, and my greatest wish was go about clothed like my uncle in the picture, with my hair dressed in just the same way. My guardian granted this wish, and a pretty enough sight I must have been as a boy of ten in a toupet dressed very high, with a round little hair-bag, wearing a coat of siskin green with narrow silver embroidery, silk stockings and a little dagger. My childish ambition went deeper as I grew older, and to make me feel pleasure in the driest branch of knowledge it was sufficient to tell me that I must study it if I were ever to be a Legation Councillor like my uncle. It didn’t occur to me that the art which filled my inmost being ought to be my real endeavour, the one true way my life should go, and all the less so because I was used to hearing people speak of music, painting and poetry merely as very pleasant things which might serve for amusement and entertainment. The speedy progress I made in the career I had to some extent chosen, through the knowledge I had acquired and the patronage of my uncle at the residence, and without ever encountering a single obstacle, left me not a spare moment to look around me and see that I had taken a wrong turning. I had reached my goal and could not now turn back when, at an unexpected moment, the art to which I had been unfaithful avenged itself, the idea of a wholly wasted life seized bleakly and painfully upon me, and I saw myself in chains which seemed unbreakable!’

  ‘Then,’ said the Privy Councillor, ‘the catastrophe which freed you from those fetters was fortunate and salutary!’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ replied Kreisler. ‘My liberation came too late. I am like that prisoner who, when freed at last, was so unused to the bustle of the world and even the light of day that he couldn’t enjoy his golden freedom and wished himself back in his dungeon.’

  ‘Now that,’ put in Master Abraham, ‘is just one of the muddled notions with which you plague yourself and others, Johannes! Come, come! Fate has always meant well by you, and the fact that you can’t be content with an ordinary jog-trot, but keep leaping off the path to right and left, is nobody’s fault but your own. However, you are right to think that in your boyhood years your stars exerted a peculiar influence, and…’

  PART II

  MY YOUTHFUL EXPERIENCES

  I Too was in Arcadia1

  M. cont. ‘It would be a funny thing, and uncommonly remarkable too,’ said my master to himself one day, ‘if the little grey fellow under the stove there really did have the qualities the Professor claims for him! Hm… I’d suppose, in that case, he could make me richer than my Invisible Girl did. If I shut him up in a cage he’d have to do his clever tricks for the public, who would happily pay good money to see him. An academically educated tomcat must be worth more than a precocious boy who’s had his exercises drilled into him. Moreover, I could save myself the expense of a clerk! I must look into this more closely!’

  When I heard my master’s disquieting remarks, I remembered the warnings of my never-to-be-forgotten mother Mina, and taking great care not to betray even by the slightest sign that I had understood Master Abraham, I firmly resolved to take the utmost pains to conceal my education. In consequence, I read and wrote only by night, and as I did so I thankfully acknowledged the goodness of Providence in providing my despised race with many advantages over those two-legged creatures who call themselves lords of creation, God knows why. For I can assure you that I needed the services of neither candle-maker nor oil merchant in the pursuit of my studies, since the phosphorus of my eyes shines brightly in the darkest night. No doubt that is also why my works are beyond the criticism made of some writer or other of old, whose intellectual creations were said to smell of the lamp.

  But fervently convinced as I am of the great excellence of the gifts Nature has bestowed on me, I must admit that all things here below contain certain imperfections which, in turn, betray a certain relationship of dependency. I will not speak of those physical matters which the doctors say are not natural, although they seem perfectly natural to me, but will merely remark of the psychic organism that the same interdependency is manifest there. Is it not ever true that our flights are often impeded by leaden weights, and we know not what they are, where they come from, or who has burdened us with them?

  But it will be better, and more correct, if I say that all evil derives from bad example, and the weakness of our nature lies merely in our being obliged to follow that bad example. Furthermore, I am persuaded that the human race is positively destined to set it.

  My dear young tomcat, you who read these words, have you never once in your life found yourself in a state of mind which, although you cannot account for it, brought down upon you the bitterest of reproaches from all sides – and perhaps some nasty bites from your cronies? You were lazy, quarrelsome, ill-behaved, greedy, couldn’t be pleased with anything, you were always in the wrong place, a nuisance to one and all, and in short you were a perfectly intolerable fellow! Be comforted, young tomcat! This bleak period of your life did not arise from your true, deeper nature; no, it was the debt you paid to the principle ruling us all in following the bad example of mankind, who first introduced this transient condition. Be comforted, young tomcat, for even I fared no better!

  In the midst of my lucubrations I was overcome by an aversion – an aversion, as it were, to a surfeit of indigestible things, so that without more ado I curled up on the very book I was reading, on the very manuscript I had been writing, and fell asleep. My lethargy increased more and more, until at last I could no longer write, I couldn’t read or run or jump, and I no longer felt any inclination to converse with my friends in the cellar or on the roof-top. Instead, I felt an irresistible urge to do all the things that could never please my master or my friends, everything that would be sure to make me a nuisance to them. For some time my master contented himself with chasing me away when I kept choosing to lie down in places where he absolutely did not want me to be, until finally he was obliged to hit me. Jumping up on my master’s desk again and again, I had been waving my tail to and fro until its tip got into his big ink-well, and I then painted beautiful pictures with it on the floor and the sofa. This infuriated my master, who didn’t appreciate such works of art. I fled into the yard, but I was almost worse off there. A large tomcat of awe-inspiring appearance had been expressing his disapproval of my conduct for some time; now, as I tried (foolishly, I will admit) to snatch a nice morsel he was about to eat from in front of his
nose, he boxed my ears on both sides without more ado, so many times that I was quite deafened and both my ears were bleeding. Unless I am much mistaken, that dignified gentleman was my uncle, for Mina’s features shone from his countenance, and there was an unmistakable family likeness about his whiskers. In short, I will confess that I wore myself out playing naughty pranks at this period, so that my master said, ‘Murr, I really don’t know what’s come over you! I’m inclined to think you’ve reached the awkward age!’