The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I.

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"'See how pleased he is that somebody else is going to follow his own absurd example,' said Severin. 'As far as I'm concerned, the idea of marriage fills me with absolute horror. However, I should like to tell you the adventure I had with Pauline; it will amuse you.'

"'Well, what had you to do with Pauline?' asked Alexander, in an irritable tone, 'We must hear that.'

"'It didn't amount to very much,' said Severin, 'compared to Marzell's long tale, with all its psychological remarks and illustrations. Mine is a very commonplace piece of fun. You know that, about this time two years ago, I was in a very strange condition altogether. Probably it was the state of my health, which was very queer at that time, which had converted me into a terribly sensitive, overstrung, fanciful spirit-seer. I was always floating on a boundless ocean of dreams and presentiments. I thought I understood the language of birds, like a Persian Mage. I heard voices in the rustling of the trees, sometimes of warning, sometimes of consolation. I saw my own image wandering in the clouds of the sky. Very well! It happened one day, when I was sitting in a lonely part of the Thiergarten on a bank of grass, that I got into a condition which I can only compare to that species of delirium which one often feels just when one is falling asleep. I seemed to be suddenly surrounded with the scent of a most delicious rose, but at the same time I became aware that this rose odour really was a beautiful being, whom I had long, though unconsciously, loved with the deepest and most passionate devotion. I strove to see her with my corporeal eyes; but it seemed to me that a great, dark-red carnation was laid on my brow, and the scent of this carnation burned away the rose perfume, as with a scorching ray, benumbing my senses so that a bitter sense of pain took possession of me, which strove to find expression in accents of wild anguish. Through the trees came sighing a sound like that when the evening wind touches the Æolian Harp with a gentle waft of its pinions, and breaks the spell which holds the music prisoned and sleeping within the strings. But this was not my sound. It was that of the beautiful being who was stricken to death (as I was also) by the hostile contact of the carnation. If I may put this vision of mine into the form of an Indian myth, I might say that the rose and the carnation represented, for me, life and death; and all the absurdities which I said and perpetrated this day two years ago were chiefly due to the circumstance that in that beautiful creature, who was sitting in that chair there, and who has since assumed the corporeal form of Pauline Asling, I fancied I recognized her whose love had disclosed itself to me in the form of the rose perfume. You remember that I got away from you as soon as I could, leaving you in the Thiergarten. A sure presentiment told me that if I made an effort, and got quickly through the Leipzig gate, and then to Unter den Linden, I should meet the family, at the slow rate they were walking at, somewhere near the castle; so I ran as hard as I could; and I did meet them, very near the place where I had thought I should. I followed them at a little distance, and found out, that same evening, where the beautiful creature lived. You will probably laugh when I tell you that I thought I could scent a mysterious perfume of rose and carnation, actually in Green Street itself. For the rest, I conducted myself like some boy in a state of calf-love, who destroys the finest trees, contrary to the forest regulations, by carving interlaced initials on them, and carries about a withered petal, which the beloved has dropped, next his heart, wrapped in seven pieces of paper. That is, I used to pass under her window twelve, fifteen, or twenty times a-day; and if I saw her at it, I would stare at her, without any salutation, in a way which must have been funny enough. Heaven only knows how I arrived at the conviction that she understood me, and was fully conscious of the psychical influence which she had exerted on me in that flower-vision, and recognized in me him over whom the hostile carnation had cast a dark pall as he was striving to clasp her, who had thus risen as a planet of love in the depths of his being. That very day I sat down and wrote to her. I told her my vision; how I had then seen her at the Webersche Zelt, and known her as the being of my dream. I said I knew she fancied she loved another, and that in this connection something disastrous had come into her life. There could be no doubt, I said, that she, like me, had become aware of our intimate psychic relation, and our mutual devotion, in some dream-consciousness such as my own; though perhaps it was but now that my vision had clearly revealed to her all that had been slumbering in the depths of her nature; but, in order that this might come, joyfully and gladsomely, into actual life, so that I might approach her with a heart at rest, I implored her to be at the window the next day, at twelve o'clock, and, as an unmistakeable symbol of our happy love, to wear fresh-blown roses on her breast. Should she, however, be irresistibly drawn away from her rapport with me, through hostile deception, by some other--if she rejected me without remead--I asked her to wear carnations instead of roses. The letter was probably a mad and senseless affair. That I am prepared to admit now. I sent it by such a trusty messenger that I knew it would reach the proper hands. Full of inward anxiety, and with a heavy heart, I went the next day at twelve o'clock to Green Street. I neared the house. I saw a white form at the window. My heart throbbed so that it almost burst my bosom. I came in front of the house. The old gentleman--he was the white figure--opened the window. He had a great white nightcap on, with a large bunch of carnations stuck in front of it. He nodded in a friendly way, so that the flowers waved and quivered; he wafted kisses of his hand at me, with the sweetest smiles. Just then I caught sight of Pauline, as well, peeping out from behind the curtains. She was laughing! I had been standing motionless, like a man under a spell; but when I saw her, I rushed away like a mad creature. There! you can understand, if you had any doubt about it before, that this cured me completely; but the shame of it would not let me rest. As Marzell did later, I went off at once to join the troops on active service, and nothing but the adversity of fate prevented us from meeting again.'

"Alexander laughed immoderately over the humorous old gentleman.

"'Then this,' said Marzell, 'was what he was after that time when I found him with the nightcap; and of course it was your letter that he was reading to the girls.'

"'Of course,' said Severin; 'and although I can see the absurdity of the thing now, and think the old gentleman was perfectly right, and feel really obliged to him for the drasticity and appropriateness of the dose of medicine he made me swallow, still that adventure of mine causes me the most intense annoyance, and, to this hour, I can't endure the sight of a carnation.'

"'Well,' said Marzell, 'we've both been pretty severely punished for our folly. Alexander, who doesn't seem to have fallen in love with Pauline till we had gone through with our share of the business, turns out to have been the wisest of the three: and, for that reason, he has kept clear of further absurdities, and has none to tell us about.'

"'But, at all events,' said Severin, 'he can tell us how he came by his wife.'

"Really, my dear old fellow,' said Alexander, 'there's very little to tell; except that I saw her, fell in love with her, and married her. But there's one thing connected with it which may interest you, because my aunt has to do with it.'

"'Well! well! tell us!' they both cried.