Weird Tales, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

It may readily be conceived in what strained relations the members of Wacht's family now lived. Where was their unconstrained conversation, their bright good spirits, where their cheerfulness? A deadly vexation was slowly gnawing at Wacht's heart, and it stood plainly written upon his countenance.

Meanwhile they received not the least scrap of intelligence from Sebastian Engelbrecht, and so the last feeble ray of hope that Master Wacht had seen glimmering appeared about to fade. Master Wacht's foreman, Andreas by name, was a plain, honest, faithful fellow, who clung to his master with an affection that could not be matched anywhere. "Master," said he one morning as they were measuring beams together--"Master, I can't bear it any longer; it breaks my heart to see you suffer so. Fräulein Nanni--poor Herr Jonathan!" Quickly throwing away the measuring lines, Master Wacht stepped up to him and took him by the breast, saying, "Man, if you are able to tear out of this heart the convictions as to what is true and right which have been engraven upon it by the Eternal Power in letters of fire, then what you are thinking about may come to pass." Andreas, who was not the man to enter upon a dispute with his master upon these sort of terms, scratched himself behind his ear, and replied with an embarrassed smirk, "Then if a certain distinguished gentleman were to pay a morning visit to the workshop, I suppose it would produce no particular effect?" Master Wacht perceived in a moment that a storm was brewing against him, and that it was in all probability being directed by Count von Kösel.

Just as the clock struck nine Nanni appeared in the workshop, followed by old Barbara with the breakfast. The Master was not well pleased to see his daughter, since it was out of rule; and he saw the programme of the concerted attack already peeping out. Nor was it long before the minor canon really made his appearance, as smart and prim and proper as a pet doll. Close at his heels followed Monsieur Pickard Leberfink, decorator and gilder, clad in all sorts of gay colours, so that he looked not unlike a spring-chafer. Wacht pretended to be highly delighted with the visit, the cause of which he at once insinuated to be that the minor canon very likely wanted to see his newest models. The truth is, Master Wacht felt very shy at the possibility of having to listen to the canon's long-winded sermons, which he would deliver himself of uselessly if he attempted to shake his (Wacht's) resolution with respect to Nanni and Jonathan. Accident came to his rescue; for just as the canon, the young lawyer, and the varnisher were standing together, and the first-named was beginning to approach the most intimate relations of life in the most elegantly turned phrases, fat Hans shouted out "Wood here!" and big Peter on the other side pushed the wood across to him so roughly that it caught the canon a violent blow on the shoulder and sent him reeling against Monsieur Pickard; he in his turn stumbled against the young advocate, and in a trice the whole three had disappeared. For just behind them was a huge piled-up heap of chips and saw-dust and so on. The unfortunates were buried under this heap, so that all that could be seen of them were four black legs and two buff-coloured ones; the latter were the gala stockings of Herr Pickard Leberfink, decorator and gilder. It couldn't possibly be helped; the journeymen and apprentices burst out into a ringing peal of laughter, notwithstanding that Master Wacht bade them be still and look grave.

Of them all the canon cut the worst figure, since the saw-dust had got into the folds of his robe and even into the elegant curls which adorned his head. He fled as if upon the wings of the wind, covered with shame, and the young advocate hard after him. Monsieur Pickard Leberfink was the only one who preserved his good humour and took the thing in merry part, notwithstanding that it might be regarded as certain he would never be able to wear the buff-coloured stockings again, since the saw-dust had proved especially injurious to them and had quite destroyed the "clock." Thus the storm which was to have been adventured against Wacht was baffled by a ridiculous incident. But the Master did not dream what terrible thing was to happen to him before the day was over.

Master Wacht had finished dinner and was just going downstairs in order to betake himself to his workyard, when he heard a loud, rough voice shouting in front of the house, "Hi, there! This is where that knavish old rascal, Carpenter Wacht, lives, isn't it?" A voice in the street made answer, "There is no knavish old rascal living here; this is the house of our respected fellow-citizen Herr Johannes Wacht, the carpenter." In the same moment the street-door was forced open with a violent bang, and a big strong fellow of wild appearance stood before the master. His black hair stuck up like bristles through his ragged soldier's cap, and in scores of places his tattered tunic was unable to conceal his loathsome skin, browned with filth and exposure to rough weather. The fellow wore soldier's shoes on his feet, and the blue weals on his ankles showed the traces of the chains he had been fettered with. "Ho, ho!" cried the fellow, "I bet you don't know me. You don't know Sebastian Engelbrecht, whom you've cheated out of his property--not you." With all the imposing dignity of his majestic form, Master Wacht took a step towards the man, mechanically advancing the cane he held in his hand. Then the wild fellow seemed to be almost thunderstruck; he recoiled a few paces, and then raised his doubled fists shouting, "Ho, ho! I know where my property is, and I'll go and help myself to it, in spite of you, you old sinner." And he ran off down the Kaulberg like an arrow from a bow, followed by the crowd.

Master Wacht stood in the passage like a statue for several seconds. But when Nanni cried in alarm, "Good heavens! father, that was Sebastian," he went into the room, more reeling than walking, and sank down exhausted in an arm-chair; then, holding both hands before his face, he cried in a heart-rending voice, "By the eternal mercy of God, that is Sebastian Engelbrecht."

There arose a tumult in the street, the crowd poured down the Kaulberg, and voices in the far distance could be heard shouting "Murder! murder!" A prey to the most terrible apprehensions, the Master, ran down to Jonathan's dwelling, situated immediately at the foot of the Kaulberg. A dense mass of people were pushing and crowding together in front of him; in their midst he perceived Sebastian struggling like a wild animal against the watch, who had just thrown him upon the ground, where they overpowered him and bound him hand and foot, and led him away. "O God! O God! Sebastian has slain his brother," lamented the people, who came crowding out of the house. Master Wacht forced his way through and found poor Jonathan in the hands of the doctors, who were exerting themselves to call him back to life. As he had received three powerful blows upon the head, dealt with all the strength of a strong man, the worst was to be feared.

As generally happens under such circumstances, Nanni learnt immediately the whole history of the affair from her kind-hearted friends, and at once rushed off to her lover's dwelling, where she arrived just as the young lawyer, thanks to the lavish use of naphtha, opened his eyes again, and the doctors were talking about trepanning. What further took place may be conceived. Nanni was inconsolable; Rettel, notwithstanding her betrothal, was sunk in grief; and Monsieur Pickard Leberfink exclaimed, whilst tears of sorrow ran down his cheeks, "God be merciful to the man upon whose pate a carpenter's fist falls." The loss of young Herr Jonathan would be irreparable. At any rate the varnish on his coffin should be of unsurpassed brightness and blackness; and the silvering of the skulls and other nice ornaments should baffle all comparison.

It appeared that Sebastian had escaped out of the hands of a troop of Bavarian soldiers, whilst they were conducting a band of vagabonds through the district of Bamberg, and he had found his way into the town in order to carry out a mad project which he had for a long time been brooding over in his mind. His career was not that of an abandoned, vicious criminal; it afforded rather an example of those supremely frivolous-minded men, who, despite the very admirable qualities with which Nature has endowed them, give way to every temptation to evil, and finally sinking to the lowest depths of vice, perish in shame and misery. In Saxony he had fallen into the hands of a petti-fogging lawyer, who had made him believe that Master Wacht, when sending him his patrimonial inheritance, had paid him very much short, and kept back the remainder for the benefit of his brother Jonathan, to whom he had promised to give his favourite daughter Nanni to wife. Very likely the old deceiver had concocted this story out of various utterances of Sebastian himself. The kindly reader already knows by what violent means Sebastian set to work to secure his own rights. Immediately after leaving Master Wacht he had burst into Jonathan's room, where the latter happened to be sitting at his study table, ordering some accounts and counting the piles of money which lay heaped up before him. His clerk sat in the other corner of the room. "Ah! you villain!" screamed Sebastian in a fury, "there you are sitting over your mammon. Are you counting what you have robbed me of? Give me here what yon old rascal has stolen from me and bestowed upon you. You poor, weak thing! You greedy clutching devil--you!" And when Sebastian strode close up to him, Jonathan instinctively stretched out both hands to ward him off, crying aloud, "Brother! for God's sake, brother!" But Sebastian replied by dealing him several stunning blows on the head with his double fist, so that Jonathan sank down fainting. Sebastian hastily seized upon some of the rolls of gold and was making off with them--in which naturally enough he did not succeed.

Fortunately it turned out that none of Jonathan's wounds, which outwardly wore the appearance of large bumps, had occasioned any serious concussion of the brain, and hence none of them could be esteemed as likely to prove dangerous. After a lapse of two months, when Sebastian was taken away to the convict prison, where he was to atone for his attempt at murder by a heavy punishment, the young lawyer felt himself quite well again.