The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  I was perfectly agreeable, and we immediately struck up that tender duet: ‘At the first glance my heart flew straight to you,’ etc., etc. Kitty began timorously, but she was soon encouraged by my powerful falsetto. Her voice was very sweet, her execution rounded, soft and tender, in short, she proved herself an excellent singer. I was delighted, although I saw that friend Ovid had let me down again. Since Kitty was so good at the cantare, the chordas tangere idea wouldn’t work, and it was no use my even calling for a guitar.

  With rare fluency, uncommon expressiveness and the utmost elegance, Kitty was now singing the famous aria Di tanti palpiti,91 etc., etc. She rose magnificently from the heroic vigour of the recitative to the truly feline sweetness of the andante. The aria might have been written for her, so that my heart too overflowed, and I broke into a loud howl of joy. Ah, how Kitty would surely delight a whole world of sensitive tomcat souls with that aria! Now we struck up another duet, from a brand-new opera, a duet which also went extremely well and could have been written especially for us. The heavenly roulades rose brilliantly from our hearts, since they consisted mostly of chromatic passages. I will take this occasion of pointing out that the voices of our kind are chromatic by nature, and consequently every composer wishing to write for us will be well advised to compose his melodies and all the rest of it chromatically. Unfortunately I have forgotten the name of the excellent master who composed that particular duet, for he is a fine, good man, a composer after my own heart.

  While we were singing a black tomcat had climbed up to the roof and was watching us with burning, flashing eyes. ‘You keep away from here, friend,’ I called to him, ‘or I’ll scratch out your eyes and throw you off the roof-top. However, if you want to join our singing, I’ve no objection to that.’

  I knew this young fellow in black to be a very good bass, and so I decided to sing a work which in fact I don’t particularly care for in the usual way, but which was very appropriate to my forthcoming parting from Kitty. We sang ‘My love, shall I see you no more?’.92 But no sooner were I and the black tomcat assuring Kitty that the gods would look after me than a hefty half-brick shot into our midst, and a furious voice shouted, ‘Can’t those bloody cats pipe down?’

  We scuttled frantically apart and into the attic, driven by mortal fear! Oh, those heartless barbarians who have no feeling for art, who can remain unmoved even by the most touching laments of inexpressible amorous melancholy, who have nothing in mind but vengeance, death and destruction!

  As I was saying, that which was supposed to relieve me of the pangs of love only plunged me deeper into that state. Kitty was so musical that the two of us could sing fantasias together in the most charming manner. Finally she sang my own melodies after me most beautifully, which made me quite besotted. I tormented myself so in my amorous pain that I went all pale, thin and miserable. At long, long last, after pining for a sufficient period, I hit upon the one and only, if desperate, way to cure myself of love. I determined to offer Kitty my heart and paw! She agreed, and as soon as we had become a couple I noticed the pangs of love passing off entirely. My appetite for milk and meat was excellent, I recovered my jovial temper, my whiskers looked fine, and my fur was restored to its former beautiful glossy condition, since I now paid more attention to my toilet than before, whereas my Kitty, on the other hand, no longer cared to wash herself. Despite that, I wrote more verses to Kitty, just as before, verses felt to be all the prettier and more sincere when I exaggerated the expression of my amorous affection until it seemed to me to have reached the ultimate zenith. Finally I dedicated a whole thick book to my darling, and I had then done everything in the literary and aesthetic line that can be required of an honest tomcat who is deeply in love. Meanwhile I and my Kitty were leading a happy, peaceful domestic life on the straw mat outside my master’s door.

  But what happiness can endure long in this vale of woe? I soon noticed that Kitty frequently seemed absent-minded when she was with me, answering distractedly when I spoke to her. Deep sighs escaped her, she would sing nothing but yearning love-songs, and she ended up looking quite tired and ill. If I asked her what the matter was, she certainly patted my cheeks and replied, ‘Oh, nothing at all, my dear good little Daddikins,’ but still I didn’t quite like it. I often waited in vain for her on the straw mat, I sought her in vain in cellar and attic, and when I did find her at last and made tender reproaches, she would excuse herself by saying her health called for long walks, and in fact a medical cat had advised her to visit a spa. I didn’t like that either. She might well notice my concealed annoyance, and make it her business to heap caresses on me, but even in these caresses there was something strange, I hardly know what to call it, something that chilled instead of warming me, and I didn’t like that any more than the rest. Although I did not suspect that there might be some particular reason for this conduct on my Kitty’s part, I realized that the last sparks of love for my darling were gradually being extinguished, and I felt the most mortal boredom in her vicinity. Consequently I went my own way and she hers; if we did chance to meet on the straw mat, however, we reproached each other in the most loving manner, became the tenderest of spouses, and sang the praises of our peaceful domestic life.

  One day the black tomcat with the bass voice came to visit me in my master’s lodgings. He spoke in disjointed and mysterious terms, then asked impetuously how I was getting on with my Kitty – in short, I realized that the black cat had something on his mind and wished to disclose it to me. At last it came out. A young fellow who had come back from the wars was living nearby on a small pension of fish-bones and left-overs put out for him by a café proprietor. Since he had a handsome figure and a Herculean build, and in addition wore a fine foreign uniform of black, grey and yellow, with the Order of the Burnt Bacon on his breast (awarded for the courage he had shown when he and a few comrades set about ridding a whole larder of mice), all the queens and young females in the neighbourhood noticed him at once. Every heart beat for him when he appeared, bold as brass, head held high, casting fiery glances around him. And this fellow, so the black cat assured me, had fallen in love with my Kitty, she returned his love, and now it was only too certain that they had secret amorous assignations every night behind the chimney or down in the cellar.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ said the black cat, ‘I really am surprised, my dear friend, that for all your usual sagacity you didn’t notice it long ago, but loving husbands are often blind, and I’m sorry that as your friend I felt obliged to open your eyes, since I know that you are utterly besotted with your lovely wife.’

  ‘Oh, Muzius,’ (for such was the black cat’s name), ‘oh, Muzius,’ cried I, ‘am I a fool, do I love her, the sweet traitress? I adore her, I am hers entirely! No, no, true soul that she is, she couldn’t do such a thing to me! Muzius, you black scandalmonger, here’s the reward for your shameful deed!’

  And I raised my paw with claws unsheathed. Muzius looked at me in a kindly way and said very calmly, ‘Don’t agitate yourself, my dear fellow, you share the fate of many excellent men! Base inconstancy is to be found everywhere, and sad to say, it is most common of all among our own kind.’

  I let my raised paw drop again, leaped up in the air several times in sheer desperation, and then cried furiously: ‘Can it be possible, can it be possible? O Heaven – O Earth! What else? And shall I couple Hell?93 Who has done this to me – that tabby tom? And she, my sweet wife, previously faithful and fair, could she, with infernal deceit, scorn him who often basked blissfully in sweet dreams of love, cradled on her breast? Flow, flow, ye tears, flow for the ungrateful one! Confound it to blazes, this won’t do at all! Devil take that tabby fellow slinking round the chimney!’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Muzius, ‘calm down, do. You abandon yourself too much to the frenzy of sharp pain! Being your true friend, I wouldn’t like to interrupt you any more just now, while you are wallowing agreeably in despair. If you wish to kill yourself in your desperation, I could certainly furnish you with an exc
ellent rat poison, but I don’t want to do that, since you are usually a delightful and charming tomcat, and it would be a shame to lose your young life. So cheer up, let Kitty go: there are plenty more pretty queens in the world. Farewell, old fellow!’ And so saying, Muzius leaped away through the open door.

  As I lay quietly under the stove, meditating further on the revelations the tomcat Muzius had made, I felt something like secret satisfaction stir within me. I now knew where I stood with Kitty, and the torment of uncertainty about her was at an end. But since I had expressed a proper despair for the sake of decorum, I thought that same decorum also required me to attack the tabby.

  I eavesdropped on the lovers by night behind the chimney, and then made furiously for my rival with the words, ‘You infernal, bestial traitor!’ However, he was much my superior in strength, as I unfortunately noticed too late; he seized upon me, boxed my ears soundly, occasioning me the loss of quite a quantity of fur, and then leaped swiftly away. Kitty had fallen down in a faint, but when I approached her she jumped up as nimbly as her lover and raced into the attic after him.

  Worn out, my ears bleeding, I slunk down to my master, cursing my notion of trying to preserve my honour, and thinking it no shame at all to yield Kitty entirely to that tabby tom.

  ‘How sad is my fate!’ I thought. ‘First I get thrown into the gutter for the sake of heavenly, romantic love, and then all domestic bliss brings me is a cruel thrashing!’

  I was not a little surprised next day when, coming out of my master’s room, I found Kitty on the straw mat. ‘Dear Murr,’ said she gently and calmly, ‘I believe I feel I don’t love you so much any more, which hurts me a great deal.’

  ‘Oh, my dear Kitty,’ I replied tenderly, ‘it cuts me to the heart, but I must admit that ever since certain things happened I have viewed you with indifference myself.’

  ‘Don’t take it ill,’ continued Kitty, ‘pray don’t take it ill, my sweet friend, but I somehow feel as if I hadn’t been able to stand the sight of you quite for some time.’

  ‘Mighty Heaven!’ cried I enthusiastically. ‘What harmony of souls is here! I feel exactly the same about you.’

  Having agreed in this manner that we had become wholly intolerable to each other, and must inevitably part for ever, we put our paws round one another in the most affectionate manner, shedding hot tears of joy and delight!

  Then we parted, each convinced henceforth of the other’s magnanimity, and extolling it to anyone who would listen.

  ‘I too was in Arcadia!’ I cried, and turned to the fine arts and sciences more eagerly than ever.

  W.P. – ‘I tell you,’ said Kreisler, ‘yes, I tell you from my heart, I think this calm more menacing than the fiercest tempest. This is that dull, heavy, sultry period before the destructive storm breaks, the storm which now involves all at the court brought into being by Prince Irenaeus, in duodecimo format with gilt-edged pages like an almanac. In vain does his Highness, a second Franklin,94 keep mounting brilliant festivities to act as lightning conductors: the lightning will still strike, and may singe his own robes of state. It is true that Princess Hedwiga’s whole nature now resembles a melody running bright and clear, instead of the former wild, restless chords that broke out confusedly from her wounded breast, but – Well! so Hedwiga now walks in transfigured, amiable pride on the bold Neapolitan’s arm, and Julia smiles at him in her own sweet way and tolerates those gallantries which Prince Hector, without for a moment taking his eye off his intended bride, contrives to turn her way so skilfully that they must strike a young and inexperienced mind like ricochets, and harder than if the threatening firearm had been aimed directly at her! And yet, as Madame Benzon tells me, first Hedwiga felt oppressed by the mostro turchino, and then the handsome military commander appeared to that heavenly child the calm, gentle Julia as a vile basilisk! Oh, you prophetic souls, you were right! What the Devil – haven’t I read, in Baumgarten’s History of the World,95 that the snake who cheated us of Paradise strutted about in a glistening, golden, scaly doublet? That’s what I think of when I see Hector in his gold lace. By the way, I once had a very good bulldog called Hector, who showed me extraordinary love and faithfulness. I wish he were here now, so that I could set him on the coat-tails of his princely namesake when he swaggers between that lovely pair of sisters! Or tell me, Master, since you know so many artifices, tell me how I can change myself into a wasp at some convenient opportunity, and sting the princely hand so hard that he drops his accursed plans!’

  ‘Very well,’ said Master Abraham, ‘I’ve let you have your say, Kreisler, and now I ask whether you will listen quietly if I tell you certain things that justify your forebodings?’

  ‘Am I not,’ replied Kreisler, ‘am I not a sedate, well set-up Kapellmeister? I don’t mean in the philosophical sense of setting up my Self as Kapellmeister;96 I refer solely to my intellectual ability to remain calm in honest society when a flea bites me.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ continued Master Abraham. ‘You must know, Kreisler, that a curious coincidence has given me deep insights into Prince Hector’s life. You are right to compare him to the serpent in Paradise. Underneath the fair exterior which you will not deny him, there lies hidden venomous corruption – I might rather say infamy. He means evil – he has, as I know from much that has occurred, he has designs on the lovely Julia.’

  ‘Oho,’ shouted Kreisler, pacing about the room, ‘oho, fair bird, is that your sweet song? By God, this Prince is a fine fellow, digging the claws of both feet at once into fruits permitted and forbidden! Ho there, my sweet Neapolitan, little do you know that Julia has at her side a bold Kapellmeister with a sufficiency of music in him, a Kapellmeister who, as soon as you approach her, will take you for a damnable chord of fourths and fifths that needs to be resolved! And the Kapellmeister will do as his profession requires, which means he will resolve you by putting a bullet through your brain, or running this blade through you!’ So saying, Kreisler drew the blade from his sword-stick, assumed the posture of a fencer, and asked Master Abraham whether he was sufficiently well-bred to spit a dog of a prince on his sword.

  ‘Do keep calm,’ replied Master Abraham, ‘now do keep calm, Kreisler; there’s no need for such heroics to spoil the Prince’s game. Other weapons can be used against him, and I will provide you with them. I was in the fisherman’s cottage when Prince Hector and his adjutant passed by. They did not notice me. “The Princess is beautiful,” said Prince Hector, “but that little Benzon girl is divine! All my blood rose up, seething, when I set eyes on her – ah, she must be mine before I give the Princess my hand. Do you think she’ll prove implacable?” “What woman ever withstood you, Highness?” replied the adjutant. “But devil take it,” continued the Prince, “she seems to be a devout child.” “An innocent one too,” the adjutant put in, laughing, “and devout, innocent children are the very sort to submit patiently to the onslaughts of a man accustomed to victory and take it all for the providence of God, perhaps even falling deeply in love with the victor, which is what may happen in your own case, Highness.” “That would be a fine thing,” said the Prince. “If I could only see her alone – how is it to be contrived?” “Nothing easier,” replied the adjutant. “I have noticed that the little creature often walks alone in the park for pleasure. Now if –” And at this point the voices died away in the distance and I could hear no more! Some diabolical plan is probably to be carried out today, and it must be foiled. I could do it myself, but there are reasons why I would rather not let Prince Hector see me just now, so you, Kreisler, must go straight to Sieghartshof and keep watch in case Julia happens to walk down to the lake to feed the tame swan, as is her wont. That Italian rascal has probably overheard something about this walk of hers. There, take this weapon, Kreisler, and the very necessary instructions, so that you may prove a good general in battle against the dangerous Prince!’

  Yet again, the biographer is appalled at the totally disjointed nature of the information from which he must cobble
together the present history. Would it not have been a good idea to insert something here saying what instructions Master Abraham gave the Kapellmeister? For if the weapon itself should feature later, dear reader, you won’t be able to see what is going on. However, just now the unfortunate biographer doesn’t know a word of those instructions whereby (and this much seems certain) a very singular secret was revealed to our friend Kreisler.

  Yet be patient a little longer, gentle reader; the aforesaid biographer pledges his writing hand that this mystery too shall be revealed before the end of the book.

  It must now be related that, as soon as the sun began to sink, Julia walked through the park to the lake, singing, with a little basket of white bread on her arm, and stopped in the middle of the bridge not far from the fisherman’s cottage. But Kreisler was lying in wait among the bushes, with a good Dollond telescope to his eye, giving him a clear view through the shrubs that concealed him. The swan came splashing up, and Julia threw it bits of bread, which it ate greedily. Julia continued singing aloud, and so it was that she did not notice Prince Hector striding up to her. When he suddenly appeared at her side, she jumped as if in violent alarm. The Prince took her hand, pressed it to his breast, his lips, and then leaned over the balustrade of the bridge beside her. As the Prince ardently addressed her, Julia fed the swan, looking down at the lake.

  ‘Don’t make those infernally sweet faces, you potentate! Can’t you see me sitting right before you on the balustrade, close enough to box your ears soundly? Oh God, you lovely child of Heaven, why do your cheeks blush an ever deeper crimson? Why are you looking at the evil man so strangely now? You smile? Yes, it is the burning, poisonous breath before which your breast must open, as the bud among the fairest leaves unfolds before the blazing rays of the sun, to die all the more quickly!’ So said Kreisler, watching the couple brought so close to him by his good telescope.