University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

On the following morning Flemming awoke in a
chamber of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as
the clock in the Dome-church opposite was striking
ten. The window-shutters were closed, and
the room nearly dark. He was lying on his back,
with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his
eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead.
He thought them the white marble canopy of a
tomb, and himself the marble statue, lying beneath.
When the clock ceased striking, the eight and
twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church
of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber,
and arranged themselves along the walls,
which spread into dimly-lighted aisles and arches.
On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, with

its Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of the
ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the German
student, as Saint Vitus; and on a lavatory, or basin
of holy-water, below, sat a cherub, with the form
and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes
began to blow, and he heard the voices of an invisible
choir chanting. And anon the gilded gates
in the bronze screen before the chancel opened,
and a bridal procession passed through. The
bride was clothed in the garb of the Middle Ages;
and held a book in her hand, with velvet covers,
and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She
looked at him as she passed. Her face was pale;
and there were tears in her sweet eyes. Then
the gates closed again; and one of the oaken
poppy-heads over a carved stall, in the shape of
an owl, flapped its broad wings, and hooted, “Towhit!
to-whoo!” Then the whole scene changed;
and he thought himself a monk's-head on a gutterspout;
and it rained dismally; and Berkley was
standing under with an umbrella, laughing!

In other words, Flemming was in a raging

fever, and delirious. He remained in this state for
a week. The first thing he was conscious of was
hearing the doctor say to Berkley;

“The crisis is passed. I now consider him out
of danger.”

He then fell into a sweet sleep; the wild fever
had swept away like an angry, red cloud, and the
refreshing summer rain began to fall like dew upon
the parched earth. Still another week; and
Flemming was, “sitting clothed, and in his right
mind.” Berkley had been reading to him; and
still held the book in his hand, with his fore-finger
between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoffmann's
writings.

“How very strange it is,” said he, “that you
can hardly open the biography of any German author,
but you will find it begin with an account of his
grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable
old man walked up and down the garden among
the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning gown,
which is likewise covered with flowers, and perhaps
wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Or

you will find him sitting by the chimney-corner in
the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe, with
shaggy eyebrows and eyes like birdsnests under
the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg
nutcracker's. The future poet climbs upon
the old man's knees. His genius is not recognised
yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy.
His father is an austere man, or perhaps dead. But
the mother is still there, a sickly, saint-like woman,
with knitting-work, and an elder sister, who
has already been in love, and wears rings on
her fingers;—

“But this is not the case with the life of Hoffmann,
if I recollect right.”

“No, not precisely. Instead of the grandfather
we have the grandmother, a stately dame, who has
long since shaken hands with the vanities of life.
The mother, separated from her husband, is sick in
mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow.

Then there is an affectionate maiden aunt; and an
uncle, a retired judge, the terror of little boys,—
the Giant Despair of this Doubting Castle in Koenigsberg;
and occasionally the benign countenance
of a venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouqué
called a hero of the olden time in morning gown and
slippers, looks in at the door and smiles. In the
upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with
his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe
herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son the Saviour
of the world. Wild fancies, likewise, were to
sweep through the brain of that child. He was to
meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in
after years, though as yet they knew nothing of
each other. This was Werner, who has made
some noise in German literature as the author of
many wild Destiny-Dramas.”

“Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin.”

“Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of
age, and passed the next eight years of his life in
the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where he held some
petty office under government; and took to himself

many bad habits and a Polish wife. After
this he was Music-Director at various German theatres,
and led a wandering, wretched life for ten
years. He then went to Berlin as Clerk of the
Exchange, and there remained till his death, which
took place some seven or eight years afterward.”

“Did you ever see him?”

“I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw
him frequently. I shall never forget the first time.
It was at one of the Æsthetic Teas, given by a
literary lady Unter den Linden, where the lions
were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread
and butter, up to oysters and Rhine-wine. During
the evening my attention was arrested by the
entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head
of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and
his thin lips closely pressed together with an expression
of not unpleasing irony. This strange-looking
personage began to bow his way through
the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions,
much resembling those of a marionette. He had
a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that although

I understood German well enough for ordinary
purposes, I could not understand one half
he said. Ere long he had seated himself at the
piano-forte, and was improvising such wild, sweet
fancies, that the music of one's dreams is not more
sweet and wild. Then suddenly some painful
thought seemed to pass over his mind, as if he imagined,
that he was there to amuse the company.
He rose from the piano-forte, and seated himself
in another part of the room; where he began to
make grimaces, and talk loud while others were
singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin,
laughing, `Ho! ho! ho!' I asked a person beside
me who this strange being was. `That was
Hoffmann,' was the answer. `The Devil!' said I.
`Yes,' continued my informant; `and if you should
follow him now, you would see him plunge into an
obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and there,
amid boon companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke,
and quirks and quibbles, and quaint, witty
sayings, turn the dim night into glorious day.' ”

“What a strange being!”

“I once saw him at one of his night-carouses.
He was sitting in his glory, at the head of the table;
not stupidly drunk, but warmed with wine,
which made him madly eloquent, as the Devil's
Elixir did the Monk Medardus. There, in the full
tide of witty discourse, or, if silent, his gray, hawk
eye flashing from beneath his matted hair, and taking
note of all that was grotesque in the company
round him, sat this unfortunate genius, till the day
began to dawn. Then he found his way homeward,
having, like the souls of the envious in Purgatory,
his eyelids sewed together with iron wire;
—though his was from champagne bottles. At
such hours he wrote his wild, fantastic tales. To
his excited fancy everything assumed a spectral
look. The shadows of familiar things about him
stalked like ghosts through the haunted chambers
of his soul; and the old portraits on the walls
winked at him, and seemed stepping down from
their frames; till, aghast at the spectral throng
about him, he would call his wife from her bed, to
sit by him while he wrote.”

“No wonder he died in the prime of life!”

“No. The only wonder is, that he could have
followed this course of life for six years. I am astonished
that it did not kill him sooner.”

“But death came at last in an appalling shape.”

“Yes; his forty-sixth birth day found him sitting
at home in his arm-chair, with his friends
around him. But the rare old wine,—he always
drank the best,—touched not the sick-man's lips
that night. His wonted humor was gone. Of all
his `jibes, his gambols, his songs, his flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar,
not one now, to mock his own grinning!—quite
chap-fallen.'—The conversation was of death and
the grave. And when one of his friends said, that
life was not the highest good, Hoffmann interrupted
him, exclaiming with a startling earnestness;
`No, no! Life, life, only life! on any condition
whatsoever!' Five months after this he had ceased
to suffer, because he had ceased to live. He died
piecemeal. His feet and hands, his legs and
arms, gradually, and in succession, became motionless,

dead. But his spirit was not dead, nor
motionless; and, through the solitary day or sleepless
night, lying in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis
his last stories. Strange stories, indeed,
were they for a dying man to write! Yet such
delight did he take in dictating them, that he said
to his friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was
willing to give up forever the use of his hands, if
he could but preserve the power of writing by dictation.
Such was his love of life,—of what he
called the sweet habitude of being!”

“Was it not he, who in his last hours expressed
such a longing to behold the green fields once
more; and exclaimed; `Heaven! it is already
summer, and I have not yet seen a single green
tree!' ”

“Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards he
died. The closing scene was striking. He gradually
lost all sensation, though his mind remained
vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said to his
physician; `It will soon be over now. I feel no
more pain.' He thought himself well again; but

the physician knew that he was dying, and said;
`Yes, it will soon be over!' The next morning
he called his wife to his bed-side; and begged her
to fold his motionless hands together. Then, as
he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say,
`We must, then, think of God, also!' More sorrowful
words than these have seldom fallen from
the lips of man. Shortly afterwards the flame of
life glared up within him; he said he was well
again; that in the evening he should go on with
the story he was writing; and wished that the
last sentence might be read over to him. Shortly
after this they turned his face to the wall, and he
died.”

“And thus passed to its account a human soul,
after much self-inflicted suffering. Let us tread
lightly upon the poet's ashes. For my part, I
confess, that I have not the heart to take him from
the general crowd of erring, sinful men, and judge
him harshly. The little I have seen of the world,
and know of the history of mankind, teaches me
to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in

anger. When I take the history of one poor heart
that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself
the struggles and temptations it has passed,—
the brief pulsations of joy,—the feverish inquie-tude
of hope and fear,—the tears of regret,—
the feebleness of purpose,—the pressure of want,
—the desertion of friends,—the scorn of a world
that has little charity,—the desolation of the
soul's sanctuary,—and threatening voices within,
—health gone,—happiness gone,—even hope,
that stays longest with us, gone,—I have little
heart for aught else than thankfulness, that it is
not so with me, and would fain leave the erring
soul of my fellow-man with Him, from whose
hands it came,

“You are right. And it is worth a student's
while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and
midnight did their work like fiends upon the
delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly
upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer,

thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks
wine;—and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight.
He was a man of rare intellect. He was
endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a
glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius
burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame,
upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring
and irregular flame;—for the branches that he fed
it with, were not branches from the Tree of Life,
—but from another tree that grew in Paradise,
—and they were wet with the unhealthy dews
of night, and more unhealthy wine; and thus, amid
smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went
out with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind.”

“This fire within him was a Meleager's fire-brand;
and, when it burned out, he died. And, as
you say, marks of all this are clearly visible in Hoffmann's
writings. Indeed, when I read his strange
fancies, it is with me, as when in the summer
night I hear the rising wind among the trees, and
the branches bow, and beckon with their long
fingers, and voices go gibbering and mocking

through the air. A feeling of awe and mysterious
dread comes over me. I wish to hear the
sound of living voice or footstep near me,—to
see a friendly and familiar face. In truth, if it be
late at night, the reader as well as the writer of
these unearthly fancies, would fain have a patient,
meek-eyed wife, with her knitting-work, at his
elbow.”

Berkley smiled; but Flemming continued without
noticing the smile, though he knew what was
passing in the mind of his friend;

“The life and writings of this singular being
interest me in a high degree. Oftentimes one may
learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues.
Moreover, from the common sympathies of
our nature, souls that have struggled and suffered
are dear to me. Willingly do I recognise their
brotherhood. Scars upon their foreheads do not so
deform them, that they cease to interest. They
are always signs of struggle; though alas! too
often, likewise, of defeat. Seasons of unhealthy,
dreamy, vague delight, are followed by seasons of

weariness and darkness. Where are then the
bright fancies, that, amid the great stillness of the
night, arise like stars in the firmament of our
souls? The morning dawns, the light of common
day shines in upon us, and the heavens are without
a star! From the lives of such men we learn,
that mere pleasant sensations are not happiness;—
that sensual pleasures are to be drunk sparingly,
and, as it were, from the palm of the hand; and
that those who bow down upon their knees to
drink of these bright streams that water life, are
not chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome!”

“I think you are very lenient in your judgment.
This is not the usual defect of critics.
Like Shakspeare's samphire-gatherer, they have a
dreadful trade! and, to make the simile complete,
they ought to hang for it!”

“Methinks it would be hard to hang a man for
the sake of a simile. But which of Hoffmann's
works is it, that you have in your hand?”

“His Phatasy-Pieces in Callot's manner. Who
was this Callot?”

“He was a Lorrain painter of the seventeenth
century, celebrated for his wild and grotesque conceptions.
These sketches of Hoffmann are imitations
of his style. They are full of humor, poetry,
and brilliant imagination.”

“And which of them shall I read to you? The
Ritter Glück; or the Musical Sufferings of John
Kreisler; or that very exquisite story of the
Golden Jar, wherein is depicted the life of Poesy,
in this common-place world of ours?”

“Read the shortest. Read Kreisler. That
will amuse me. It is a picture of his own sufferings
at the Æsthetic Teas in Berlin, supposed
to be written in pencil on the blank leaves of a
music-book.”

Thereupon Berkley leaned back in his easychair,
and read as follows.