The Serapion Brethren, Vol. II

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"The day was breaking when I got to my room, and emptied the money out of all my pockets on to the table. Picture to yourselves the feelings of a mere boy, entirely dependent on his relatives, restricted to a miserable mite of an allowance of weekly pocket-money, who suddenly, as if at the wave of a magic wand, finds himself in possession of a sum which is, at all events, considerable enough to appear, in his eyes, a fortune! But, as I gazed at the heaps of coin, all my mind was suddenly filled with an anxiety, a strange, alarmed uneasiness, which put me into a cold perspiration. The words of the old officer came back to me, as they had not struck me before, in the most terrible significance. I felt as though the coin which was blinking at me there on the table was the earnest money of a bargain whereby I had sold my soul to the powers of darkness, so that there was no escape more for it possible, and it was destroyed for evermore. The blossoms of my life seemed to be gnawed upon by a hidden worm, and I sank into inconsolable despair. The morning dawn was flaming up behind the eastern hills. I lay down in the window-seat. I gazed, with the most intense longing, for the rising of the sun which should drive away the darksome spirits of night; and when the woods and plains shone forth in his golden glory, it was day in my soul once more, and there came to me the most inspiriting sense of a power to resist all temptation, and shield my life from that demoniacal impulse, which was full of the power of--somehow and somewhere--impelling it to utter destruction. I made then a most sacred vow that I would never touch a card again, and that vow I have kept most strictly. And the first use I made of my money was to part from my friend, to his immense surprise, and set out on that excursion to Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, of which I have told you."

"I can well imagine," said Sylvester, "the impression which your unexpected, equivocal, most questionable luck must have made upon you. It was greatly to your credit that you resisted the temptation, and that you recognized how it was that the threatening danger lay in the very luck itself. But, allow me to say, your own tale, the manner in which you have, with such accuracy, characterized the real gambler in it, must make it plain to yourself that you never had within you the true love of gambling, and that, if you had, the courage which you displayed would have been very difficult, perhaps impossible. Vincent, who, I believe, knows a great deal more about such matters than the rest of us, will agree with me here, I think."

"As for me," said Vincent, "I was scarcely attending to Theodore's account of his luck at the faro-table, because my mind was so full of that delicious fellow who walked about the hills in silk stockings, and admired burning buildings as if they were so many pictures, enjoying his wine, his macaroons, and his bouquets all the time. In fact, it was a pleasure and satisfaction to me to see one entertaining character at last emerging out of the dark, dreadful background of the stories of this evening, and I should have liked to have seen him as the hero of some comic drama."

"Ought not the mere suggestion of him to have been enough for us?" said Lothair. "We Serapion Brethren ought always to remember that it is our duty to set up, for each other's entertainment and refreshment, unique characters which we may have come across in life, as a means of refreshing us after the tales which may have strained our attention."

"A good idea," said Vincent, "and I thoroughly agree with it. Rough sketches of that description ought to serve as studies for more finished pictures, which whoever chooses may elaborate after his liking. Also, they may be considered as being charitable contributions to the general fund of Serapionish fantasy. And to show that I am in earnest, I shall at once proceed to describe to you a very great 'Curio' of a man whom I came across in the south of Germany. One day, in B----, I chanced to be walking in a wood near the town, when I came upon a number of countrymen hard at work in cutting down a quantity of thick underwood, and snipping off the branches from the trees on either side of it. I do not know what made me inquire of them if they were making a new road, or what. They laughed, and told me that, if I went on my way, I should find, outside the trees, upon a little rising ground, a little gentleman who would answer my questions, and, accordingly, I came there upon a little elderly gentleman, of pale complexion, in a great-coat, and with a travelling-cap on his head and a game-bag at his back, who was gazing fixedly through a telescope in the direction of the men who were cutting down the trees. When he saw me he shut up his telescope in a hurry, and said, eagerly, 'You have come through the wood, sir? Have you observed how the work is getting on?' I told him what I had seen. 'That's right, that's right,' he said; 'I've been here ever since three in the morning, and I was beginning to be afraid that those asses (and I pay them well, too) were leaving me in the lurch. But I have some hopes, now, that the view will come into sight at the expected time.' He drew out his telescope again, and gazed through it towards the wood. After a few minutes, some large branches came rustling down, and, as at the stroke of a magic wand, there opened up a prospect of distant mountains, a beautiful prospect, with the ruins of an old castle glowing in the beams of the setting sun. The gentleman gave expression to his extreme delight and gratification in one or two detached broken phrases; but when he had enjoyed the prospect for a good quarter of an hour, he put away his telescope and set off as fast as he could, without bidding me goodbye or taking the slightest notice of me. I afterwards heard that he was the Baron von B----, one of the most extraordinary fellows in existence, who, like the well-known Baron Grotthus, has been on a continual walking tour for several years, and has a mania for hunting after beautiful views. When he arrives at a place where, to get at a view, he thinks it is necessary to have trees cut down, or openings made in woodlands, he spares no cost to arrange matters with the proprietors, or to employ labourers. In fact, it is said that he once tried his utmost to have a set of farm buildings burned down, because he thought they interfered with the beauty of a prospect, and interrupted the view of the distance. He did not succeed in this particular undertaking. But whenever he did attain his object, he would gaze at his newly-arranged view for half an hour or so, at the outside, and then set off at such a pace that nothing could stop him, never coming back to the place again."

The friends were of one mind in the opinion that there is no possibility of imagining anything more marvellous or out of the common than that which comes before us in actual life, of its own accord.

"I am wonderfully delighted," said Cyprian, "that it chances to be in my power to add to your two oddities a third character, of whom I was told a short time ago by a well-known violinist, whom we all of us know very well. This third character of mine is none other than the Baron von B----, a man who lived in Berlin about the years 1789 and 1790, and was acknowledged to be one of the most extraordinary phenomenons ever met with in the world of music. For the sake of greater vividness, I will tell you the tale in the first person, as if I were the violinist concerned in it, and I hope my worthy Serapion brother Theodore won't take it amiss that I encroach, on this occasion, into his peculiar province.

"At the time when the Baron was living in Berlin," the violinist said, "I was a very young fellow, scarcely sixteen, and absorbed in the most zealous study of my instrument, to which I was devoted with all the powers and faculties of my body and soul. My worthy master, Concert-Meister Haak, who was excessively strict with me, was much content with my progress. He lauded the finish of my bowing, the correctness of my intonation, and he allowed me to play in the orchestra of the opera, and even in the King's chamber-concerts. On those occasions I often heard Haak talking with young Duport, with Ritter, and other great artists belonging to the orchestra, about the musical evenings which Baron von B---- was in the habit of having in his house. Such was the research and the taste connected with those evenings that the King himself often deigned to take part in them. Mention was made of magnificent works of the old, nearly forgotten masters, which were nowhere else to be heard than at the Baron's, who, as regarded music for stringed instruments, possessed, probably, the most complete collection from the most ancient times down to the present day, in existence. Then they spoke of the marvellous hospitality which the Baron extended to artists, and they were all unanimous in concluding that he was the most bright and shining star which had ever risen in the musical horizon of Berlin.

"All this excited my curiosity, and made my teeth water; and all the more that, during these conversations, the artists drew their heads nearer together, and I gathered, from mysterious whispers and detached words and phrases, that there was talk of tuition in music, of giving of lessons. I fancied that, on Duport's face especially, there appeared a sarcastic smile, and that they all attacked Concert-Meister Haak with some piece of chaff, and that he, for his part, only feebly defending himself, could scarcely suppress a smile, until at last, turning quickly away, and taking up his violin to tune, he cried out, 'All the same, he is a first-rate fellow!'

"All this was more than I could withstand, and although I was told, in a pretty decided manner, to mind my own business, I begged Haak to allow me, if in any manner possible, to go with him to the Baron's and play in his concerts.