The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

  ‘Oh, Johannes,’ said she softly, ‘you good, excellent man, can I not seek the protection you promised me? Can you not speak comfortingly to me yourself, in those heavenly tones that echo in my breast?’

  So saying, Julia opened the pianoforte and began to play and sing those of Kreisler’s compositions she loved best. She did indeed soon feel cheered and comforted; the singing carried her away into another world where there was no Prince, nor any Hedwiga whose morbid fancies might distress her!

  ‘And now my favourite canzonetta!’ said Julia, and began to sing those words set by so many composers, Mi lagnerò tacendo,66 etc. Kreisler had indeed set this song better than anyone. It expressed the sweet pain of the most fervent, amorous longing in a simple melody, with a truth and a strength that could not fail to take hold of every feeling mind. Julia had finished and, entirely absorbed in thoughts of Kreisler, was still striking a few chords which seemed to echo her heartfelt emotions. Then the door opened, she looked up, and before she could rise from where she sat Prince Hector was at her feet, holding her fast and gripping both her hands. She cried out aloud in her sudden alarm, but the Prince begged her, by Our Lady and all the saints, to be quiet, to grant him only two minutes of the heavenly sight and sound of her. In terms such as only the frenzy of the most violent passion can inspire, he then told her that he adored her and none but her, that the idea of marriage to Hedwiga was dreadful, was fatal to him. That, he said, was why he had tried to flee, but soon, driven by the power of a passion which could end only with his death, he had returned only to see Julia, speak to her, tell her that she and she alone was his life, his all!

  ‘Go away,’ cried Julia, in desolate anguish of mind, ‘go away – you are killing me, Prince!’

  ‘Never!’ cried the Prince, pressing Julia’s hands to his lips in the madness of love, ‘never! The moment has come that means life or death to me. Julia! heavenly child! Can you spurn me, spurn one whose whole existence, whose happiness you are? No, you love me, Julia, I know it! Oh, say you love me, and all the heavens of rapturous delight are open to me!’

  With these words the Prince embraced Julia, who was half-fainting with fear and horror, and pressed her violently to his breast.

  ‘Oh, woe is me,’ she cried, her voice half-stifled, ‘woe is me – will no one take pity on me?’

  The windows were illuminated by torchlight; several voices could be heard outside the door. Julia felt an ardent kiss burn her lips, and in a moment the Prince had fled.

  As mentioned above, then – Julia, quite beside herself, ran to meet her mother as she entered, and Madame Benzon was horrified to hear what had happened. She began comforting poor Julia as best she might, assuring her that she would get the Prince out of the place where he must be hiding and put him to shame.

  ‘Oh,’ said Julia, ‘oh, don’t do that, Mother. I would die if Prince Irenaeus, if Hedwiga were to hear –’ Sobbing, she fell on her mother’s breast, hiding her face.

  ‘You are right,’ replied Madame Benzon. ‘You are right, my dear, good child. For the time being no one must know or guess that the Prince is here and has designs on you, my dear, devout Julia! Those who are in the plot must keep silent – for without the slightest doubt there are such people, in league with Prince Hector, since otherwise he couldn’t have remained here in Sieghartshof unremarked, any more than he could have stolen into our own dwelling. I cannot understand how the Prince could get away from this house without meeting me and Friedrich, who was lighting my way. We found old Georg in a deep, unnatural sleep – but where’s Nanni?’

  ‘It was my misfortune,’ whispered Julia, ‘my misfortune that she was ill, and I had to send her away.’

  ‘Then,’ said Madame Benzon, ‘perhaps I can be her doctor.’ And she swiftly pushed open the door to the next room. There stood poor sick Nanni fully dressed; she had been eavesdropping, and now sank at Madame Benzon’s feet in terror and alarm.

  A few questions from Madame Benzon were sufficient to show that Prince Hector, making use of the old castellan who was thought to be so faithful, had –

  M. cont. – news I heard! My faithful friend Muzius, my dear brother, had perished as a consequence of the severe injury to his hind leg. I was hit very hard by receiving the notice of his death. Only now did I realize what Muzius had been to me! The funeral, Puff told me, was to be held tonight in the cellar of the building where my master lived, and where the corpse had been taken. I promised not only to attend at the time appointed but also to provide food and drink, so that we could hold a wake after the noble old fashion. And I did provide for it, by carrying my lavish supplies of fish, chicken-bones and vegetables down to the cellar bit by bit during the day. For readers who like to have everything explained in the most precise detail, and will want to know how I managed to get the drink downstairs too, let me say that a friendly housemaid lent me a hand, so there was no trouble at all. This housemaid, whom I often encountered in the cellar and whose kitchen I also used to visit, seemed to like my kind very much and me in particular, so that we never met without playing an agreeable game together. She gave me many titbits which were actually worse fare than I got from my master, but which I consumed, pretending to think them delicious, for reasons of pure chivalry. Such things touch a housemaid’s heart, and then she would do what I really wanted: that is, I jumped on her lap and she petted my head and ears until I was in an ecstasy of bliss, and I became well accustomed to the hand that wields the broom of a weekday and caresses you best of a Sunday!67

  I resorted to this friendly person just as she was about to carry a large pan full of fresh milk up from the cellar where I happened to be, and expressed a lively wish, in a manner she understood, to have the milk for myself. ‘You silly Murr,’ said the girl, who knew my name, as did everyone else in the house and indeed the entire neighbourhood, ‘you silly Murr, I’m sure you don’t want the milk just for yourself, I expect you want to treat your friends to a drink! Well, keep the milk, my little grey friend! I have other people to look after upstairs!’ With which she put the pan of milk down on the floor, stroked me a little more – meanwhile I was arching my back very prettily to express my delight and thanks – and then climbed up the cellar stairs. By this you may note, O youthful torn, that the acquaintance of a friendly cook, and indeed a certain sentimentally amiable relationship with her, is as agreeable as it is profitable for young fellows of our own rank and kind.

  Around the hour of midnight I went down to the cellar. What a sad, heart-rending sight! There lay the corpse of our dearly beloved friend in the middle of the cellar, on a catafalque which, in accordance with that simplicity of mind ever displayed by the dear departed, consisted of nothing but a bundle of straw. All the other toms had already assembled; we shook paws, unable to utter a word, sat in a circle around the catafalque with hot tears in our eyes, and struck up a lament whose notes, going straight to the heart, echoed most frightfully through the cellar vaults. It was the most desolate, dreadful mourning that ever was heard; and no human organ is capable of producing it.

  After the song was over a very handsome young fellow suitably clad in black and white stepped out of the circle, stationed himself at the head of the corpse, and made the following funeral oration, a copy of which he gave me in writing although he delivered it extempore.

  FUNERAL ORATION

  at the grave of Muzius the Cat, untimely deceased,

  a zealous student of Hist, and Phil.

  delivered by his faithful friend and brother

  Hinzmann68 accomplished in the study of Lit. and Eloq.

  ‘Dearly beloved brethren, gathered here to mourn!

  Bold, brave-hearted fraternity members!

  ‘What is Cat? A frail, perishable thing, like all born here on earth! If it be true, as the most famous doctors and physiologists claim, that death, to which all creatures are subject, consists chiefly in the entire cessation of all breath, why then, our honest friend, our brave brother, that bold, true comrade in joy and sorro
w, why then our noble Muzius is dead indeed! See, there lies our noble friend on the cold straw, all his four paws outstretched! Not the faintest breath steals through those lips, for ever closed! Those glowing, gold-green eyes that would sometimes radiate the gentle fire of love, sometimes flash annihilating anger, are now dulled! The pallor of death lies upon his countenance, his ears are limp, his tail hangs down! Ah, brother Muzius, where be now your merry gambols,69 your flashes of merriment, your good humour, your clear, cheerful “Miaow!” that rejoiced all hearts, your courage, your steadfastness, your cleverness, your wit? All, all has been stolen away by cruel Death, and now perhaps you do not even know for sure if you ever lived. Yet you were health and strength in person, armed against all bodily ills as if you would live for ever! Not one of the little wheels in the clockwork of your internal mechanism was so much as faulty, nor had the Angel of Death swung his sword above your head because that clockwork had run down and couldn’t be wound up again. No! a hostile principle interfered violently with your organism, wantonly destroying what might yet have continued in existence much longer. Yea, those eyes would have beamed a friendly light many times more, amusing notions and merry songs would often have escaped these lips and this breast now stilled; full oft would that tail, proclaiming the inner power of a cheerful mind, have waved and coiled, full oft would those paws have displayed their strength and skill in the mightiest and most daring of jumps – and now – ah, can Nature permit that which she constructed laboriously over a long period to be destroyed before its time, or is there in truth a dark spirit named Chance that can intervene, with wanton despotism, in those cycles that seem to rule all Being in accordance with the eternal natural principle? Oh, dead friend, if only you could give an answer to the company here assembled, sad but still alive!

  ‘But you worthy folk present, bold brothers all, let us not linger too long over such profound considerations, but turn wholly to mourning for our late friend Muzius, untimely taken from us. It is usual for the orator at a funeral to give the mourners the entire life history of the dead person, with additions and asides in his praise, and a very good custom it is, for such a recital must arouse the revulsion born of boredom in even the most sorrowful listener, and according to the experience and pronouncements of expert psychologists, such revulsion is the best way of curing any sadness, so that the orator thus performs two duties at once: he shows proper honour to the dear departed, and he comforts the bereaved. We have examples, and they are very natural, of the most afflicted of mourners going away perfectly cheerful and happy after such an oration; he has got over the loss of the deceased in his delight at being released from the torment of the eulogy.

  ‘Dear brothers here assembled, how happily would I myself follow that praiseworthy and hallowed custom, how gladly would I recite to you at length the complete life story of our late friend and brother, turning you from sad to happy toms, but it will not do, indeed it will not do! You will understand why not, my dear beloved brethren, when I tell you that I know almost nothing at all about our late friend’s real life as regards his birth, upbringing and subsequent career, so that I would have to lay pure fiction before you, and our situation here by the corpse of our late friend is far too grave for that, our mood much too solemn. Do not take it ill, comrades, if instead of preaching you a boring sermon I simply describe, in a few plain words, the shameful end suffered by the poor devil lying cold and dead here before us, and tell you what a bold, fine fellow he was in life! But heavens! I am deviating from the proper eloquent tone, despite the fact that I have graduated in eloquence, and, Fate willing, I hope to become Professor poeseos et eloquentiae!’70

  (Hinzmann paused, washed his ears, forehead, nose and whiskers with his right paw, bent his intent gaze on the corpse for some time, cleared his throat, passed his paw over his face again, and then continued, in a louder voice.)

  ‘O bitter Fate! – o cruel Death! did you have to bear our late young friend away so cruelly in his prime? Brothers! an orator may repeat what the hearer has already heard even to excess, so I tell you what you all know, to wit, that our late brother fell victim to the ravening hatred of the Philistine Poms. He meant to steal up to that roof where once we amused ourselves in peace and joy, where happy songs resounded, where we were one heart, one soul, paw in paw and breast to breast, aye, he meant to steal up there for a quiet, secluded celebration with our Senior Puff of the memory of those fine days, true days in Aranjuez71 which now are over. But the Philistine Poms, desirous of thwarting every new meeting of our happy feline fraternity in any way they could, had set fox-traps in the dark corners of the attic, the unfortunate Muzius fell into one of those traps, crushed his hind leg – and was doomed to die! Painful and dangerous are the wounds dealt by Philistines, for they always make use of blunt, jagged weapons, yet being strong and powerful by nature, our late friend might have recovered despite the severity of his injury, but the grief, the deep grief of seeing himself cut down in the prime of his brilliant career, laid low by base Poms, the constant thought of the shame we had all suffered, was what gnawed his life away. He would suffer no proper dressing of the wound, he took no medicine – they say he wished to die!’72

  (I could not – none of us could but feel severe pain at these last words from Hinzmann; we all broke into such a pitiful weeping and wailing as might have melted a rock. When we had calmed down sufficiently to hear him, Hinzmann continued, with much pathos.)

  ‘O Muzius! oh, look down! See the tears we shed for you, hear the desolate laments we utter for you, oh deceased tom! Aye, look down on us, or maybe up at us, whichever you can do just now, be among us in spirit if you still have such a thing, and if what dwells within you hasn’t been otherwise exhausted. Brethren! as I was saying, I will keep quiet about our late friend’s life because I don’t know anything about it, but the excellent qualities of the dear departed come to my mind all the more vividly, and it is those I will place before you, my dearest, most beloved friends, that you may feel to the full the terrible loss you have suffered by the death of that fine tomcat! Hear this, young toms who are minded never to deviate from the path of virtue, hear and mark this!

  ‘Muzius was a worthy member of feline society, as few alive are: a good, faithful husband, an excellent loving father, an ardent champion of truth and justice, tireless in doing good, a prop and stay of the poor, a true friend in time of trouble! A worthy member of feline society? Aye, for he always expressed the most laudable attitudes, and was even ready to make some sacrifices to get what he wanted; he was hostile only, and exclusively, towards those who crossed him and wouldn’t do as he wished. A good, faithful husband? Aye – for he chased other little ladies only when they were younger and prettier than his wife, and irresistible desire drove him to it. An excellent, loving father? Aye, for no one ever heard of his eating one of the kittens he had sired when a special appetite73 came over him, as rough, unloving fathers of our kind are wont to do; instead, he preferred their mother to take them all away, so that he had no idea where they were at present. An ardent champion of truth and justice? Aye, for he would have laid down his life for them, and consequently, since we have only one life, he didn’t bother much about either, which is not to be held against him. Tireless in doing good, a prop and stay of the poor? Aye, for year in, year out, on New Year’s Day he would take a little herring tail or a few tiny bones down to the yard for those poor brethren in need of feeding, and when thus doing his duty as a lover of his fellow cat, he would growl angrily at those needy toms who wanted even more from him. A true friend in time of trouble? Aye, for if he fell into trouble himself he would not refrain from applying for help even from those friends whom he had previously neglected and forgotten entirely.

  ‘Dear departed Muzius, what more can I say of your heroic courage, your elevated, refined sense of all that is beautiful and noble, your learning, your artistic culture, all the thousand virtues united in you? What, I say, what am I to say of that without greatly increasing our already well-fou
nded grief at your sad demise? Friends, brethren, moved as ye are – for indeed I observe from certain unambiguous gestures, not a little to my satisfaction, that I have succeeded in moving you – well then, brethren, moved as ye are, let us follow the example of our late friend, let us do all we can to tread in his worthy pawsteps, let us be everything our late brother was, and we too will enjoy in death the peace of the truly wise tomcat, refined by virtues of every kind and nature, like our late friend here! See for yourselves how still he lies, not a paw moving, how all my praise of his excellence has not won even a faint smile of pleasure from him! Do you believe, sad mourners, that the bitterest blame, the coarsest, most injurious insults would have made any more of an impression on our late friend? Do you believe that even that infernal Philistine Pom, were he to step inside this circle, that Pom whose two eyes our friend would once have scratched out incontinent, could now vex him in the very least, or disturb his sweet, gentle peace?

  ‘Our excellent Muzius is now above praise and blame, above all hostilities, all chaffing, all malicious scorn and mockery, all the tangled vicissitudes of life; he has no more charming smiles, ardent embraces or honest pawshakes for a friend, but no claws or teeth for an enemy either! His virtues have brought him to that repose for which he vainly strove in life! In fact I can almost imagine that all of us sitting here, mourning our friend, will attain that repose without being quite such paragons of all the virtues as he, and there must be some other motive for virtuous conduct than a longing for this peace, but this is only an idea I put to you for further consideration. I was about to urge you to employ the chief part of your whole lives in learning to die as well as friend Muzius, but I will refrain, since you could produce many serious arguments against me. I mean, you could say the departed should also have learnt to be cautious and avoid fox-traps so as not to die before his time. And then I recollect how a very young tomcat whose teacher had adjured him along the same lines, saying that a cat should spend his whole life learning how to die, answered pertly that dying couldn’t be so very difficult, since everyone succeeded at the first attempt! Let us now, afflicted youths, devote ourselves to silent thought for a few moments!’