The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  Prince Irenaeus thought there could be no more unfortunate interruption of a court ball, although much could be excused because they were in the country.

  Prince Hector himself had carried the unconscious girl to a nearby room and laid her on a sofa, where Madame Benzon rubbed her temples with some kind of strong waters which the court physician had to hand. The physician himself put her fainting fit down to an attack of nerves caused by the heat of the dance, and said it would soon pass.

  The doctor was right; a few seconds later the Princess opened her eyes, with a deep sigh. As soon as he heard that she had recovered, Prince Hector made his way through the circle of ladies crowding round her and knelt down by the sofa, reproaching himself bitterly for being, so he said, solely to blame for the incident, which went to his heart. However, the moment Princess Hedwiga caught sight of him she cried out, with every sign of loathing, ‘Go away, go away!’ and fainted again.

  ‘Come along,’ said Prince Irenaeus, taking Prince Hector’s hand, ‘come along, my dear Prince, you don’t know it, but the Princess often suffers from the strangest fancies. Heaven knows in what strange guise you appeared to her just now! Only think, my dear Prince, even as a child – entre nous soit dit84 – even as a child Princess Hedwiga once took me for the Grand Mogul for a whole day, claiming that I ought to wear velvet slippers when I went out riding, and I finally made up my mind to do so too, although only in the garden.’

  Prince Hector merely laughed in the Prince’s face and called for his carriage.

  At the request of Princess Maria, who was concerned for Hedwiga, Madame Benzon was to stay in the castle with Julia. The Princess knew what a strong psychic force Madame Benzon usually exerted over her daughter, and she knew, too, that attacks of this kind commonly yielded to that force. Sure enough, back in her own chamber Hedwiga soon recovered when Madame Benzon had spoken to her gently and at length. The Princess claimed no less than that Prince Hector had turned into a monster like a dragon as he danced, and had stabbed her to the heart with his sharp, burning tongue.

  ‘Heaven forfend!’ cried Madame Benzon. ‘Why, at this rate Prince Hector will be the mostro turchino85 from Gozzi’s tale! What an idea! But it will all turn out in the end as it did with Kreisler, whom you once took for a dangerous madman!’

  ‘But never again!’ cried the Princess vehemently, and then added, smiling, ‘Truly, I wouldn’t like my dear Kreisler to turn into a mostro turchino as suddenly as Prince Hector!’

  When Madame Benzon, who had been keeping watch beside the Princess, entered Julia’s room early in the morning, her daughter came to meet her, pale and worn from lack of sleep and hanging her head like a sick dove.

  ‘What’s the matter, Julia?’ cried Madame Benzon in alarm, unused to seeing her daughter in such a state.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ said Julia, in very disconsolate tones, ‘oh, Mother, I can never come here any more. My heart trembles to think of last night. There is something terrible about that Prince; I can’t tell you what went on within me when he looked at me. A mortal lightning flash shot from those dark, sinister eyes, a flash that could destroy me, poor creature that I am, if it struck me. Don’t laugh at me, Mother, but it was the look of a murderer who has chosen his victim, a victim doomed to die of the fear of death itself before ever the dagger is drawn! I repeat, a very strange feeling, a feeling I cannot name, trembled convulsively through all my limbs! People speak of basilisks86 whose venomous fiery glance will kill you instantly if you dare look at them. The Prince is like one of those dangerous monsters!’

  ‘Well,’ said Madame Benzon, laughing aloud, ‘well, I suppose I must believe in the mostro turchino, since the Prince, although the most handsome and amiable man in the world, appeared to two girls as a dragon and a basilisk. I can credit the Princess with entertaining the wildest fancies, but to think of my calm, gentle Julia, my sweet child, giving way to foolish dreams!’

  ‘And there’s Hedwiga,’ Julia interrupted Madame Benzon, ‘there’s Hedwiga – I don’t know what evil, hostile power is trying to tear her from my heart, is trying to involve me in the turmoil of a terrible illness raging within her. Yes, I call the Princess’s condition an illness, and the poor creature can do nothing against it. When she suddenly turned away from the Prince yesterday, when she caressed me, put her arms round me, I felt her burning with feverish heat. And then the dancing, that dreadful dancing! Mother, you know how I hate those dances where the men are permitted to embrace us. I feel as if, at that moment, we must give up all that decency and conduct require, and allow men a power over us which at least the considerate among them will find unwelcome. And then there was Hedwiga, unable to stop dancing that southern dance, which seemed to me worse the longer it went on. There was real diabolical malice darting from the Prince’s eyes –’

  ‘You silly girl,’ said Madame Benzon, ‘what ideas you’ve taken into your head! Well, I cannot blame your attitude to all this – hold fast to it – but don’t be unjust to Hedwiga, think no more of what the matter is with her and Prince Hector, put it out of your mind! If you like, I will make sure you needn’t see either Hedwiga or the Prince for a while. Your peace shall not be troubled, my dear good child! Come to my heart!’ And so saying, Madame Benzon embraced Julia with every sign of maternal affection.

  ‘And then,’ continued Julia, pressing her burning face to her mother’s breast, ‘and then the strange dreams that have so distressed me might well have arisen from the dreadful agitation I felt.’

  ‘What did you dream?’ asked Madame Benzon.

  ‘I thought,’ Julia went on, ‘I thought I was walking in a beautiful garden where gillyflowers and roses bloomed entangled together beneath dense, dark bushes, spreading their sweet fragrance through the air. A wonderful shimmering light, like moonshine, rose in music and song, and as it touched the trees and flowers with its golden glow they quivered with delight, the bushes rustled and the springs whispered with quiet, yearning sighs. However, then I realized that I myself was the song echoing through the garden, and as the glory of the notes faded so must I too pass away in painful melancholy! But then a gentle voice said: “No! that sound means bliss, not annihilation. I will hold you fast with strong arms, and my song will rest within you, for it is as eternal as longing!” It was Kreisler who stood there before me, speaking these words. A heavenly feeling of hope and comfort went through my heart, and even I did not know – you see, I am telling you everything, Mother! – even I did not know how I came to sink upon Kreisler’s breast. Then I suddenly felt steely arms clutch me firmly, and a dreadful, scornful voice cried, “Why resist, wretched girl? You have already been killed, and now you must be mine.” It was Prince Hector holding me. I started up from sleep with a great cry of fear, threw on my night-gown, ran to the window and opened it, for the air in the room was sultry and heavy. In the distance I saw a man looking at the castle windows through a telescope, but then he went leaping down the path in a strange, I might almost say a comical way, executing all kinds of entrechats and other dancing steps first from one side, then from another, waving his arms in the air, and I thought I heard him singing out loud as he did so. I recognized Kreisler, and while I couldn’t help laughing heartily at his capers, yet he seemed the benevolent spirit who would protect me from the Prince. Indeed, it was as if only now did I really understand Kreisler’s nature, only now did I see how what appears his eccentric humour, which can often wound others, springs from the truest, finest of minds. I would have liked to run down into the park and tell Kreisler all the terrors of my dreadful dream!’

  ‘Now that,’ said Madame Benzon gravely, ‘that’s a silly dream, and its sequel even sillier! You need peace and quiet, Julia. A little morning rest will do you good. I intend to sleep for a couple of hours myself.’

  So saying, Madame Benzon left the room, and Julia did as she had been told.

  When she woke up, the midday sun was streaming in through the window, and a strong fragrance of gillyflowers and roses filled the r
oom. ‘What’s this?’ cried Julia in amazement. ‘What’s this? My dream!’ But when she looked around she saw a beautiful bunch of those same flowers above her, lying on the back of the sofa where she had been sleeping.

  ‘Kreisler, my dear Kreisler!’ said Julia softly, and she picked up the bouquet and fell into a dreamy reverie.

  Prince Ignatius sent a message asking whether he might see Julia for a little while. She quickly dressed and hurried into the room where Ignatius was already waiting for her with a whole basket full of porcelain cups and Chinese dolls. Julia, good creature that she was, would spend hours playing with the Prince, for whom she felt deep pity. She never said a word to tease him, let alone a word of contempt, as others did from time to time, particularly Princess Hedwiga, and so the Prince liked Julia’s company better than anything, and would often actually call her his little bride-to-be.

  The cups were put out, the dolls arranged in order, and Julia was just making a speech to the Emperor of Japan on behalf of a little Harlequin (the two dolls stood facing each other) when Madame Benzon came in.

  After watching the game for a while, she dropped a kiss on Julia’s forehead and said: ‘You are indeed my dear, good child!’

  It was now deep twilight. Julia, who by her own wish had not been obliged to go down to dinner, was sitting alone in her room waiting for her mother. Quiet footsteps came stealing up to the door, it opened, and Princess Hedwiga came in, pale as death, eyes staring, looking like a ghost in her white dress.

  ‘Julia,’ said she, in soft, hollow tones, ‘Julia, call me foolish, wild – crazy, but don’t withdraw your heart from me! I need your sympathy, your comfort! It was only over-excitement, the dreadful exhaustion of that terrible dance that made me ill, but it’s over, I feel better now! Prince Hector has gone to Sieghartsweiler! I must get out into the air. Let’s go and walk in the park!’

  When the two of them, Julia and the Princess, reached the end of the avenue, they saw a bright light shining from the depths of the thickets and heard sacred music. ‘They’re singing the evening litany in the Lady Chapel,’ cried Julia.

  ‘Oh, let’s go there,’ said the Princess, ‘let’s go there and pray! You must pray for me too, Julia!’

  ‘We will pray,’ replied Julia, feeling the deepest grief for her friend’s condition, ‘we will pray that no evil spirit may ever have power over us, and that our pure, devout minds may not be disturbed by the temptation of the Enemy.’

  As the girls reached the chapel, which stood at the far end of the park, the country folk were just leaving. They had been singing the litany in front of the image of Our Lady, which was decked with flowers and lit by many lamps. The girls knelt down at the prie-dieu. Then the singers in the little choir on one side of the altar began the Ave maris stella87 which Kreisler had composed quite recently.

  Beginning quietly, the song rang out more strongly and forcefully in the dei mater alma until the notes, dying away in the felix coeli porta, vanished on the wings of the evening breeze.

  The girls still remained on their knees, deep in fervent devotions. The priest murmured prayers, and far away in the distance, like a choir of angelic voices from the dark night sky, the hymn O sanctissima88 echoed, struck up by the singers on their way home.

  At last the priest gave them his blessing. They rose, and fell into one another’s arms. A nameless melancholy, woven of pleasure and pain, seemed to be trying to wrench itself violently from their breasts; the hot tears that flowed from their eyes were drops of blood gushing from their wounded hearts.

  ‘It was he,’ whispered the Princess softly.

  ‘He it was indeed,’ replied Julia. They understood one another.

  In expectant silence, the forest was waiting for the disc of the moon to rise, spreading its shimmering gold above the trees. The singers’ hymn, still audible in the silence of the night, seemed to rise to the clouds that began to glow as they brooded over the mountains, marking out the path of the shining heavenly body before which the stars grew pale.

  ‘Ah,’ said Julia, ‘what is it that moves us so, piercing our hearts with a thousand pains? Listen! hear how that distant song echoes back to us with such consolation! We have prayed, and devout spirits from the golden clouds above speak to us of heavenly bliss.’

  ‘Yes, dear Julia,’ replied the Princess in a firm, grave voice, ‘yes, dear Julia, salvation and bliss lie above the clouds, and I wish an angel from Heaven would carry me up to the stars before the Dark Power could seize me. I would be glad to die, but then, I know, they would carry me to the princely vault, and my ancestors buried there wouldn’t believe I was dead; they would wake from the stillness of death to dreadful life and drive me away. And then I would belong neither to the dead nor the living, and would find shelter nowhere.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Hedwiga? In the name of all the saints, what are you talking about?’ cried Julia in alarm.

  ‘I once,’ continued the Princess in the same steady, almost indifferent tone, ‘I once dreamed of such a thing. Or perhaps some ominous ancestor has turned vampire in his grave and is sucking my blood now. That may be why I faint so often.’

  ‘You are ill,’ cried Julia, ‘you are very ill, Hedwiga, and the night air is bad for you. Let us make haste away!’

  So saying, she put her arm round the Princess, who let herself be led away in silence.

  The moon had now risen high above the Geierstein, and the bushes and trees were bathed in magical light, whispering and rustling, making love to the night wind in a thousand delightful strains.

  ‘This earth,’ said Julia, ‘this earth is oh! so lovely. Does not Nature offer us her most beautiful marvels, like a good mother with her dear children?’

  ‘Do you think so?’ replied the Princess, and after a while she went on, ‘I wouldn’t like it if you had understood me entirely just now. I will ask you to think of all that as just the overflowing of a bad temper. You don’t yet know how destructive the pain of life can be. Nature is cruel, she cares only for her healthy children and abandons the sick, she even turns deadly weapons on them. Ah, you know that once Nature was nothing to me but a picture gallery set up to exercise the powers of mind and hand, but then she changed, so that now I feel and guess at nothing but her horrors. I’d rather be in brightly lit halls, with a motley company, than walking alone with you this moonlit night.’

  Julia was not a little alarmed. She saw Hedwiga becoming ever weaker and wearier, and the poor girl had to exert all her slight strength to keep her friend upright as she walked.

  At last they had reached the castle. Not far away, on the stone bench that stood under an elder bush,89 sat a dark, veiled figure. As soon as Hedwiga set eyes on this figure she cried joyfully, ‘Thanks be to Our Lady and all the saints, there she is!’ And suddenly invigorated, drawing away from Julia, she approached the figure, who rose and said in a low voice, ‘Hedwiga, my poor child!’

  Julia saw that this figure was a woman cloaked from head to foot in brown robes. The deep shadows did not allow her to make out the features of the woman’s face. She stood still, trembling with inner terrors.

  Both the woman and the Princess sat down on the bench. The woman gently smoothed Hedwiga’s hair back from her brow, then laid her hands on it and spoke slowly and quietly in a language Julia could not remember ever having heard before. After this had gone on for a few minutes, the woman said to Julia, ‘Make haste to the castle, girl, call the waiting women and see that they get the Princess indoors. She has fallen into a quiet sleep, and will wake from it healthy and happy.’

  Without giving way to her amazement for so much as an instant, Julia quickly did as she was bidden.

  When she came back with the waiting women, they found the Princess carefully wrapped in her shawl and sleeping quietly, just as she had been told. The woman had disappeared.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Julia next morning, when Princess Hedwiga had woken up entirely cured, and with no trace of the inner turmoil Julia had feared, ‘tel
l me, for heaven’s sake, who was that strange woman?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied the Princess. ‘I have only seen her once before in my life. You’ll remember how once, as a child, I fell mortally ill and the doctors gave me up for lost. One night she suddenly appeared sitting at my bedside, lulling me into a sweet sleep, just as she did on this occasion, a sleep from which I awoke cured. Her image came before my mind’s eye again last night, for the first time since then; I felt as if she must surely appear to save me once more, and so indeed she did. Do something for my sake: say nothing at all about the apparition, don’t show by any word or sign that anything strange happened to us. Remember Hamlet and be my dear Horatio!90 There must certainly be some mystery about this woman, but let it remain hidden from you and me: I feel that any further inquiries would be dangerous. Isn’t it enough that I am well and happy, and free of all the ghosts that were haunting me?’

  Everyone was amazed by the Princess’s sudden return to health. The court physician claimed it was her nocturnal walk to the Lady Chapel which had taken such drastic effect by shaking up her nervous system, and it was merely an oversight that he had not expressly prescribed it.

  But Madame Benzon said to herself: ‘Hm – so the old woman has been with her. Well, let it pass this time!’

  It is now high time for that fateful question on the biographer’s part: ‘You–

  M. cont. – love me, then, fair Kitty? Oh, say so again, tell me a thousand times over, so that I may fall into a state of even greater ecstasy and talk all the nonsense befitting a romantic hero created by the best novelists! But my love, you have already noticed my remarkable liking for singing and my skill in that art: would you be so kind, dearest, as to sing me a little song yourself?’

  ‘Oh,’ replied Kitty, ‘oh, dear Murr, it is true that I’m not inexperienced in the art of song, but you know how a girl feels when she is to sing for the first time before masters and connoisseurs! Fear and confusion constrict her throat, and the most exquisite of notes, trills and mordents stick there like fish-bones, in the most fatal manner. At such times it is perfectly impossible to sing an aria, which is why one usually begins with a duet. Why don’t we try a little duet, my dear, if you are agreeable?’