“Berthold’s mad, cruel conduct towards his wife and child excited the attention of the neighbours, who informed the magistrates of the circumstance. They wished to imprison him; but when the police entered his dwelling, he had vanished with his wife and child, without leaving so much as a trace behind. Soon afterwards he appeared at N —— , in Upper Silesia; he had got rid of his wife and child, and cheerfully began to paint the picture which he had vainly attempted at M —— . However he could only finish the Virgin Mary, and the children — Christ and John — for he fell into a dreadful illness, which brought him near the death he desired. Every thing that belonged to him, including the unfinished picture, was sold for his subsistence; and, after he had recovered, in some measure, he departed, a sick, miserable beggar. He afterwards gained a poor livelihood by a few jobs of wall-painting.”

  “There is something terrible in the history of Berthold,” said I to the professor. “Although so much is not plainly expressed, I believe that he was the reckless murderer of his innocent wife and child.”

  “He is a mad fool,” replied the professor, “to whom I do not give credit for enough courage to perform such an act. On this point he never speaks plainly; and the question is, whether it be not a mere fancy that he took any part in the death of his wife and child. He now returns to painting marble; and this very night he will finish the altar. This puts him in a good-humour, and you may learn something about this critical affair from his own mouth.”

  I must confess that the thought of passing midnight in the church alone with Berthold made me shudder a little, now I had read his history. I thought that there might be a little of the devil in him in spite of his good-humour and frank deportment; and I chose rather to be in his company that very noon in the clear sunlight.

  I found him upon the scaffold, reserved and in an ill-humour, painting the veins of marble. Climbing up to him, I reached him the pots, while he stared at me with amazement. “I am your helpmate,” said I softly, and this drew a smile from him. Now I began to talk of his life, so as to let him know that I was acquainted with all; and he seemed to believe that he himself had, on that night, communicated every thing. Very, very gently I came to the frightful catastrophe, and then said suddenly— “Did you actually, in your unholy madness, murder your wife and child?”

  At this he let the paint-pot and the pencil fall; and, staring at me with a hideous countenance, as he raised both his hands, cried out, “No, these hands are unstained by the blood of my wife — of my son! Another such word and I will dash myself down from the scaffolding with you, so that both our heads shall be shattered on the stone floor of the church.”

  At this moment I felt my situation rather odd, and deemed it advisable to change the subject. “Look here, dear Berthold,” said I, as quietly and coolly as possible; “see how that ugly dark yellow is running on the wall.”

  He turned his eyes to the spot, and while he painted out the yellow, I slipped gently down the scaffold, left the church, and went to the professor, to have a hearty laugh at my well-chastised presumption.

  My vehicle was repaired, and I left G —— , after Professor Aloysius Walter had solemnly promised that in case any thing happened to Berthold, he would communicate it in writing immediately.

  About half a year elapsed, when I actually received a letter from the professor. He expressed himself in very prolix terms of praise about our meeting at G —— , and wrote as follows about Berthold:— “Soon after your departure affairs took a singular turn with our whimsical painter. He became suddenly quite cheerful, and finished, in the most splendid style, the great altar-piece, which is now the wonder of every body. He then vanished; and, as he took nothing with him, and a few days afterwards we found a hat and stick lying near the O —— stream, we are all of opinion that he met a voluntary death.”

  J. O.

  1 These “Fantasie-Stücke” are a collection of tales, &c., by Hoffmann, and purport to be leaves from the journal of a travelling enthusiast. J. O.

  A NEW YEAR’S EVE ADVENTURE

  Anonymous translation, 1861

  FOREWORD BY THE EDITOR

  The Travelling Enthusiast, from whose journals we are presenting another “fancy-flight in the manner of Jacques Callot,” has apparently not separated the events of his inner life from those of the outside world; in fact we cannot determine where one ends and the other begins. But even if you cannot see this boundary very clearly, dear reader, the Geisterseher may beckon you to his side, and before you are even aware of it, you will be in a strange magical realm where figures of fantasy step right into your own life, and are as cordial with you as your oldest friends. I beg of you-take them as such, go along with their remarkable doings, yield to the shudders and thrills that they produce, since the more you go along with them, the better they can operate. What more can I do for the Travelling Enthusiast who has encountered so much strangeness and madness, everywhere and at all times, but especially on New Year’s Eve in Berlin?

  MY BELOVED

  I had a feeling of death in my heart-ice-cold death-and the sensation branched out like sharp, growing icicles into nerves that were already boiling with heat. I ran like a madman-no hat, no coat-out into the lightless stormy winter night. The weather vanes were grinding and creaking in the wind, as if Time’s eternal gearwork were audibly rotating and the old year were being rolled away like a heavy weight, and ponderously pushed into a gloom-filled abyss.

  You must surely know that on this season, Christmas and New Year’s, even though it’s so fine and pleasant for all of you, I am always driven out of my peaceful cell onto a raging, lashing sea.

  Christmas! Holidays that have a rosy glow for me. I can hardly wait for it, I look forward to it so much. I am a better, finer man than the rest of the year, and there isn’t a single gloomy, misanthropic thought in my mind. Once again I am a boy, shouting with joy. The faces of the angels laugh to me from the gilded fretwork decorations in the shops decorated for Christmas, and the awesome tones of the church organ penetrate the noisy bustle of the streets, as if coming from afar, with “Unto us a child is born.” But after the holidays everything becomes colorless again, and the glow dies away and disappears into drab darkness.

  Every year more and more flowers drop away withered, their buds eternally sealed; there is no spring sun that can bring the warmth of new life into old dried-out branches. I know this well enough, but the Enemy never stops maliciously rubbing it in as the year draws to an end. I hear a mocking whisper: “Look what you have lost this year; so many worthwhile things that you’ll never see again. But all this makes you wiser, less tied to trivial pleasures, more serious and solid-even though you don’t enjoy yourself very much.”

  Every New Year’s Eve the Devil keeps a special treat for me. He knows just the right moment to jam his claw into my heart, keeping up a fine mockery while he licks the blood that wells out.

  And there is always someone around to help him, just as yesterday the Justizrat came to his aid.

  He (the Justizrat) holds a big celebration every New Year’s Eve, and likes to give everyone something special as a New Year’s present. Only he is so clumsy and bumbling about it, for all his pains, that what was meant to give pleasure usually turns into a mess that is half slapstick and half torture.

  I walked into his front hall, and the Justizrat came running to meet me, holding me back for a moment from the Holy of Holies out of which the odors of tea and expensive perfumes were pouring. He looked especially pleased with himself. He smirked at me in a very strange way and said, “My dear friend, there’s something nice waiting for you in the next room. Nothing like it for a New Year’s surprise. But don’t be afraid!”

  I felt that sinking feeling in my heart. Something was wrong, I knew, and I suddenly began to feel depressed and edgy. Then the doors were opened. I took up my courage and stepped forward, marched in, and among the women sitting on the sofa I saw her.

  Yes, it was she. She herself. I hadn’t seen her for years, and yet in one lightning flash the happiest moments of my life came bad to me, and gone was the pain that had resulted from being separated from her.

  What marvellous chance brought her here? What miracle introduced her into the Justizrat’s circle-I didn’t even know that he knew her. But I didn’t think of any of these questions; all I knew was that she was mine again.

  I must have stood there as if halted magically in midmotion. The Justizrat kept nudging me and muttering, “Mmmm? Mmmm? How about it?”

  I started to walk again, mechanically, but I saw only her, and it was all that I could do to force out, “My God, my God, it’s Julia!” I was practically at the tea table before she even noticed me, but then she stood up and said coldly, “I’m so delighted to see you here. You are looking well.”

  And with that she sat down again and asked the woman sitting next to her on the sofa, “Is there going to be anything interesting at the theatre the next few weeks?”

  You see a miraculously beautiful flower, glowing with beauty, filling the air with scent, hinting at even more hidden beauty. You hurry over to it, but the moment that you bend down to look into its chalice, the glistening petals are pushed aside and out pops a smooth, cold, slimy, little lizard that tries to cut you down with its glare.

  That’s just what happened to me. Like a perfect oaf I made a bow to the ladies, and since spite and idiocy often go together, as I stepped back I knocked a cup of hot tea out of the Justizrat’s hand-he was standing right behind me-and all over his beautifully pleated jacket. The company roared at the Justizrat’s mishap, and even more at me. In short, everything was going along smoothly enough for a madhouse, but I just gave up.

  Julia, however, hadn’t laughed, and as I looked at her again I thought for a moment that a gleam of our wonderful past came through to me, a fragment of our former life of love and poetry. At this point someone in the next room began to improvise on the piano, and the company began to show signs of life. I heard that this was someone I did not know, a great pianist named Berger, who played divinely, and that you had to listen to him.

  “Will you stop making that noise with the teaspoons, Minchen,” bawled the Justizrat, and with a coyly contorted hand and a languorous “Eh bien!” he beckoned the ladies to the door, to approach the virtuoso. Julia arose too and walked slowly into the next room.

  There was something strange about her whole figure, I thought. Somehow she seemed larger, more developed, almost lush. Her blouse was cut low, only half covering her breasts, shoulders and neck; her sleeves were puffed, and reached only to her elbows; and her hair was parted at the forehead and pulled back into plaits-all of which gave her an antique look, much like one of the young women in Mieris’s paintings. Somehow it seemed to me as if I had seen her like this before. She had taken off her gloves, and ornate bracelets on her wrist helped carry through the complete identity of her dress with the past and awaken more vividly dark memories.

  She turned toward me before she went into the music room, and for an instant her angel-like, normally pleasant face seemed strained into a sneer. An uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling arose in me, like a cramp running through my nervous system.

  “Oh, he plays divinely,” lisped a girl, apparently inspired by the sweet tea, and I don’t know how it happened, but Julia’s arm was in mine, and I led her, or rather she led me, into the next room. Berger was raising the wildest hurricanes, and like a roaring surf his mighty chords rose and fell. It did me good.

  Then Julia was standing beside me, and said more softly and more sweetly than before, “I wish you were sitting at the piano, singing softly about pleasures and hopes that have been lost.” The Enemy had left me, and in just the name, “Julia!” I wanted to proclaim the bliss that filled me.

  But the crowd pushed between us and we were separated. Now she was obviously avoiding me, but I was lucky enough to touch her clothing and close enough to breathe in her perfume, and the springtime of the past arose in a hundred shining colors.

  Berger let the hurricane blow itself out, the skies became clear, and pretty little melodies, like the golden clouds of dawn, hovered in pianissimo. Well-earned applause broke out when he finished, and the guests began to move around the room. It came about that I found myself facing Julia again. The spirit rose more mightily in me. I wanted to seize her and embrace her, but a bustling servant crowded between us with a platter of drinks, calling in a very offensive way, “Help yourself, please, help yourself.”

  The tray was filled with cups of steaming punch, but in the very middle was a huge cut-crystal goblet, also apparently filled with punch. How did that get there, among all the ordinary punch cups? He knows-the Enemy that I’m gradually coming to understand. Like Clemens in Tieck’s “Oktavian” he walks about making a pleasant squiggle with one foot, and is very fond of red capes and feathers. Julia picked up this sparkling, beautifully cui goblet and offered it to me, saying, “Are you still willing to take a glass from my hand?” “Julia, Julia,” I sighed.

  As I took the glass, my fingers brushed against hers, and electric sensations ran through me. I drank and drank, and it seemed to me that little flickering blue flames licked around the goblet and my lip. Then the goblet was empty, and I really don’t know myself how it happened, but I was now sitting on an ottoman in a small room lit only by an alabaster lamp, and Julia was sitting beside me, demure and innocent-looking as ever. Berger had started to play again, the andante from Mozart’s sublime E-flat Symphony, and on the swan’s wings of song my sunlike love soared high. Yes, it was Julia, Julia herself, as pretty as an angel and as demure; our talk a longing lament of love, more looks than words, her hand resting in mine.

  “I will never let you go,” I was saying. “Your love is the spark that glows in me, kindling a higher life in art and poetry. Without you, without your love, everything is dead and lifeless. Didn’t you come here so that you could be mine forever?”

  At this very moment there tottered into the room a spindle-shanked cretin, eyes a-pop like a frog’s, who said, in a mixture of croak and cackle, “Where the Devil is my wife?”

  Julia stood up and said to me in a distant, cold voice, “Shall we go back to the party? My husband is looking for me. You’ve been very amusing again, darling, as overemotional as ever; but you should watch how much you drink.”

  The spindle-legged monkey reached for her hand and she followed him into the living room with a laugh.

  “Lost forever,” I screamed aloud...”Oh, yes; codille, darling,” bleated an animal playing ombre.

  I ran out into the stormy night.

  IN THE BEER CELLAR Promenading up and down under the linden trees can be a fine thing, but not on a New Year’s Eve when it is bitter cold and snow is falling. Bareheaded and without a coat I finally felt the cold when icy shivers began to interrupt my feverishness. I trudged over the Opern Bridge, past the Castle, over the Schleusen Bridge, past the Mint. I was on Jaegerstrasse close to Thiermann’s shop. Friendly lights were burning inside. I was about to go in, since I was freezing and I needed a good drink of something strong, when a merry group came bursting out, babbling loudly about fine oysters and good Eilfer wine. One of them-I could see by the lantern light that he was a very impressive-looking officer in the uhlans-was shouting, “You know, he was right, that fellow who cursed them out in Mainz last year for not bringing out the Eilfer, he was right!”

  They all laughed uproariously.

  Without thinking, I continued a little farther, then stopped in front of a beer cellar out of which a single light was shining. Wasn’t it Shakespeare’s Henry V who once felt so tired and discouraged that he “remembered the poor creature, small beer?” Indeed, the same thing was happening to me. My tongue was practically cracking with thirst for a bottle of good English beer. I hastened down into the cellar.

  “Yes, sir?” said the owner of the beer cellar, touching his cap amiably as he came toward me.

  I asked for a bottle of good English beer and a pipe of good tobacco, and soon found myself sublimely immersed in fleshly comforts which even the Devil had to respect enough to leave me alone. Ah, Justizrat! If you had seen me descend from your bright living room to a gloomy beer cellar, you would have turned away from me in contempt and muttered, “It’s not surprising that a fellow like that can ruin a first-class jacket.”

  I must have looked very odd to the others in the beer cellar, since I had no hat or coat. The waiter was just about to say something about it when there was a bang on the window, and a voice shouted down, “Open up! Open up! It’s me!”

  The tavern keeper went outside and came right back carrying two torches high; following him came a very tall, slender stranger who forgot to lower his head as he came through the low doorway and received a good knock. A black beretlike cap, though, kept him from serious injury.

  The stranger sidled along the wall in a very peculiar manner, and sat down opposite me, while lights were placed upon the table. You could characterize him briefly as pleasant but unhappy.

  He called for beer and a pipe somewhat grumpily, and then with a few puffs, created such a fog bank that we seemed to be swimming in a cloud. His face had something so individual and attractive about it that I liked him despite his dark moroseness. He had a full head of black hair, parted in the middle and hanging down in small locks on both sides of his head, so that he looked like someone out of a Rubens picture. When he threw off his heavy cloak, I could see that he was wearing a black tunic with lots of lacing, and it struck me as very odd that he had slippers pulled on over his boots. I became aware of this when he knocked out his pipe on his foot after about five minutes of smoking.

 

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