The Tales of Hoffmann, page 16
‘I am very glad’, Traugott said, after he had read the letter to Christina’s husband, ‘that we settled our affairs today, for tomorrow I am going to Rome, where a beloved bride is longing to see me.’
COUNCILLOR KRESPEL
The man I wish to speak of is none other than Councillor Krespel of H… This Councillor Krespel was one of the most astonishing people I have ever met in my life. When I went to H… the whole town was talking about him, for one of the maddest of all his mad tricks was at just that moment in full flower. Krespel was celebrated as a learned and skilful lawyer and a dextrous diplomat; a German prince – not a particularly significant one – had employed him in the acquisition of a piece of territory and had sought to reward him for his signal success in this transaction; and since Krespel had often complained that he had never been able to find a house comfortable enough for him, this prince had undertaken to meet the cost of one, which Krespel could have constructed entirely as he wished. The prince also wanted to buy for him the land on which the house was to stand, but Krespel preferred to build it in his own garden, which lay outside the town-gate in one of the fairest spots in the region. He purchased all the materials he could possibly need and had them brought out; and he was then to be seen in his peculiar garb (he had made it himself according to principles of his own) busying himself in sifting sand, slaking lime, piling up bricks and so forth. He had as yet not spoken with a builder or drawn up any plan or design. Then, one fine day, he went along to an excellent master-mason in H… and asked him to proceed to his garden the following morning with all his workmen and apprentices, under-workmen and handymen, and to start building his house. The mason naturally asked for the architect’s drawings and was not a little taken aback when Krespel replied that there was no need at all for such things and that all would go just as it ought to without them. When the mason and his men arrived they found in the garden a square trench, and Krespel said: ‘Here is where the foundations of my house are to be laid; when that’s done, I want you to start building the walls and to go on until I say: That’s high enough.’
‘Without doors or windows? Without cross-walls?’ the mason interrupted, as though astounded at Krespel’s madness.
‘Just as I have told you, my good man,’ Krespel replied with composure. ‘We shall then see about all the rest.’
Only the promise of an ample fee could move the mason to undertake the senseless construction; but once it was begun no building work ever went forward more merrily: Krespel provided food and drink in abundance and the workmen never left the site as, to the accompaniment of their ceaseless laughter, the four walls rose into the heights with inconceivable rapidity, until one day Krespel cried: ‘Stop!’ Then trowel and hammer fell silent, the workmen descended from the scaffolding and, as they crowded around Krespel, there spoke from every laughing face the question: ‘What now?’
‘Make way!’ Krespel cried; he ran to one end of his garden and then slowly paced towards his square of walls; when he had reached it, he shook his head in dissatisfaction, ran to the other end of the garden, again paced towards the square and did the same as before. He repeated this performance several times, until finally, with his sharp nose jabbing against the wall, he cried loudly: ‘Come along, come along! Knock it in here, knock a door in here!’ He gave them the height and width to the exact inch, and it took place as he had commanded.
Then he walked inside the walls and smiled complacently when the master-mason remarked that they were exactly the right height for an excellent two-storey house. Krespel paced thoughtfully around, the masons following him with hammer and mattock, and whenever he cried: ‘Here a window, six feet high, four feet wide! There a small window, three feet high, two feet wide!’ the required window-space was at once knocked through the wall.
It was while this operation was in progress that I came to H…, and it was highly amusing to see hundreds of people standing all around the garden and raising a loud cheer every time the bricks flew out and a new window appeared where you would least expect it to. The rest of the house was handled in the same way: Krespel gave the order and the work was done there and then. The comicality of the whole proceeding, the firm conviction that in the end everything would turn out better than could have been expected and, most of all, Krespel’s generosity – which cost him nothing, to be sure – kept everyone in a good mood. The difficulties which this peculiar mode of construction could not fail to produce were thus overcome, and after a short while a completed house stood there: from the outside it possessed the craziest appearance, since none of the windows, for instance, was of the same size or shape as any other, but once inside you were filled with a quite unexampled sense of wellbeing and comfort. I myself experienced this when, after I had got to know him better, Krespel invited me in. For until then I had not so much as spoken to him: the building work kept him so busy he had ceased to come to lunch with Professor M… on Tuesdays, as had hitherto been his wont, saying that until his house was finally dedicated he would take not one step outside it. All his friends and acquaintances were looking forward to a mighty banquet, but Krespel invited only the master-builders, apprentices, workmen and under-workmen who had built the house. The feast was of the finest, and afterwards the wives and daughters came and a grand ball began. Krespel waltzed a little with the wives of the master-builders; then, however, he turned to the town musicians, seized a violin and conducted the music until dawn.
On the Tuesday following the festival I was delighted finally to encounter him at the home of Professor M… Krespel’s demeanour was stranger than anything that could be invented. Stiff and awkward of movement, he gave the impression that at any moment he was going to bump against or damage something; but nothing of the sort happened, and you soon realized that nothing of the sort was going to happen, for the lady of the house maintained a perfect composure as he stumbled and stamped around the crockery-laden table, manoeuvered himself towards the floor-length mirror and even took up a painted porcelain flower-vase and waved it about in the air as if to watch the play of its colours. Before lunch he conducted a minute inspection of the professor’s room and even took down a picture from the wall, examined it and put it back; he talked vehemently all the time as he did so, leaping from one subject to another or (this was especially noticeable at table) getting stuck on a single idea, returning to it again and again and in the end becoming utterly entangled in it – a predicament which continued until a new idea seized hold of him. The tone of his voice was sometimes rough and shrill, sometimes gentle and melodious, but whichever it was it was never appropriate to what he was saying: if music was the subject under discussion and someone praised a new composer, Krespel smiled and said in a gentle and melodious voice: ‘I wish black Satan would hurl the infamous perverter of sounds ten thousand million fathoms into the abyss of Hell!’ Or he would roar at the top of his voice: ‘she is an angel of Heaven, pure God-hallowed sound and music! The light and constellation of all song!’ – and tears stood in his eyes, and you had to remember that a celebrated singer had been spoken of an hour previously. We consumed a roast hare; I noticed how Krespel carefully cleaned all the meat from the bones, assembled them on his plate, and asked after the hare’s feet, which the professor’s five-year-old daughter brought him with a friendly smile. The children had been watching the councillor in the friendliest fashion throughout the meal; now they rose from the table and approached him – though they took care not to get closer than three paces away.
‘What is this supposed to mean?’ I asked myself.
Dessert was brought in; the councillor then fetched from his pocket a little chest in which there was a tiny lathe; he screwed this firmly to the table, took the hare’s bones and, with incredible speed and dexterity, fashioned from them all kinds of diminutive boxes and pots and balls, which the children received with cries of joy.
Just as the meal had ended and we were leaving the table, the professor’s niece asked: ‘What is our Antonia doing now, dear councillor?’ Krespel made a face – the kind of face a person might make if he had just bitten into a sour orange and was trying to appear to be enjoying it; but this face of his was suddenly distorted into an ugly mask from which angry and, as it seemed to me, really devilish mocking laughter proceeded.
‘Our? Our dear Antonia?’ he asked, in a long drawn-out, unpleasantly singing tone. The professor came up quickly; in the reproving glance he threw at his niece I read that she had touched a chord which was bound to set up dissonant vibrations in Krespel.
‘How are things going with the violins?’ the professor asked in a cheerful tone as he took Krespel by the hands. The latter’s face brightened considerably and he replied: ‘Excellently, professor; only today I received the splendid violin of Amati – I told you the other day what a piece of luck I had to get hold of it – only today I cut it open. I hope Antonia will have taken the rest of it to pieces carefully.’
‘Antonia is a good child,’ the professor said.
‘Yes, truly, she is so!’ the councillor cried, turned quickly and, seizing his hat and stick, leaped all at once through the door. In the mirror I saw that bright tears were standing in his eyes.
As soon as the councillor had gone, I urged the professor to explain to me what the talk about the violins, and especially about Antonia, had all meant.
‘Ah,’ the professor said, ‘the councillor is an altogether strange man, and he makes violins in a way all his own.’
‘Makes violins?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘Yes,’ the professor went on. ‘According to those who know about such things, Krespel makes the most splendid violins that can be obtained anywhere nowadays. When one of them turned out particularly well, he used to let other people play upon it, but he hasn’t done that for some time now. When Krespel has made a violin he plays it himself for an hour or two and does so with all his energy and with ravishing expression, but then he hangs it up beside the others and never touches it again or lets anyone else touch it. If a violin by one of the great instrument-makers of the past comes on to the market, the councillor will buy it at any price you may ask. But again he plays it only once, then takes it apart to investigate its inner structure; if he fails to find within it what he imagines he is looking for, he throws the pieces into a great chest that is already filled with the wreckage of smashed violins.’
‘But what about Antonia?’ I asked.
‘That is something’, the professor went on, ‘that would turn me against the councillor in revulsion, if I were not convinced that he is at bottom good-natured to the point of gentleness, and that in this matter there must therefore lie some special secret I am not aware of. When he first came to H… many years ago, the councillor lived like a hermit with an aged housekeeper in a gloomy house in… Street. The strangeness of his behaviour soon aroused the curiosity of the neighbours, and as soon as he noticed this, he sought and found acquaintances. Just as in my own house, people soon got so used to him he became indispensable. Notwithstanding his rough exterior, he was loved even by the children, and they never gave him trouble, for they felt a certain shy respect for him which protected him against any importunities. We all believed him to be a bachelor, and he did not contradict it.
‘After he had been living here for some time, he travelled away, none knew whither, and after a few months returned. The evening after he had come back his windows were unusually bright – this alone attracted the attention of the neighbours – and soon there was heard the quite marvellous voice of a woman, accompanied by a pianoforte. Then the sounds of a violin arose and engaged in fierce contest with the voice. You could tell at once it was the councillor who was playing.
‘I myself mingled with the large crowd which had gathered in front of his house to hear the concert, and I have to admit to you that, compared with the unknown voice I then heard, that of the most celebrated singers seemed to me dull and expressionless. I had never before imagined the possibility of such long-held notes, such nightingale trilling, such rising and falling, now as loud as an organ, now declining to the softest breath. There was not one who was not entranced by this sweet magic, and when the singer fell silent the stillness was broken only by gentle sighs. It would already have been about midnight when the councillor could be heard speaking very violently; another male voice was, to judge from its tone, offering him reproaches, and in the midst of it a girl was wailing in disjointed phrases. The councillor screamed more and more violently, until he fell into that long drawn-out singing tone which you know. He was interrupted by a loud scream from the girl, then it became deathly still; suddenly there was a clattering down the steps and a young man rushed out of the house sobbing, threw himself into a post-chaise standing nearby and drove rapidly away. On the following day the councillor seemed very cheerful, and no one had the courage to ask him what had been taking place the previous night. But when they asked the house-keeper, she said the councillor had brought with him a lovely young girl, whom he called Antonia, and that it was she who had been singing so beautifully. A young man had also come with them, who had acted very affectionately towards Antonia and who must be her fiancé. But the councillor had insisted that he leave immediately, and he had therefore done so.
‘What the relationship is between Antonia and the councillor is still a mystery, but this much is certain, that he tyrannizes over the poor girl in the most odious fashion. He watches over her like Doctor Bartolo in the Barber of Seville; she hardly dares let herself be seen at the window. Whenever he accedes to pleas to take her into society, he follows her every move with the eyes of Argus and will not permit any music to be heard, much less that Antonia should sing, which she is in any case no longer allowed to do in his house. So it is that the singing of Antonia on that single night has become among the people of the town a fantasy and legend of a glorious miracle, and even those who have never heard her often say, when a singer ventures to perform here, “What is that commonplace squawking? The only one who can sing is Antonia.”’
Now, you know that I am quite mad about fantastic things like this, and you may well believe how much I wanted to make Antonia’s acquaintance. I had often heard these public observations about her singing, but I had not realized until then that the lovely girl was still in town and living under the tyrannical spell of the insane Krespel. It was only natural that I should that very night have heard Antonia singing wonderfully: when, in a glorious adagio, which, laughably enough, I imagined I had composed myself, she begged me in the most moving way to rescue her from the tyrant, I instantly resolved to get into Krespel’s house like a knight storming a magic castle and liberate this queen of song from the shameful thrall in which she was held.
But everything worked out quite differently from how I had supposed it would: for hardly had I come to know the councillor and seen him two or three times and talked with him enthusiastically about the construction of violins than he himself invited me to visit him. I did so, and he showed me his treasury of violins. There must have been about thirty of them, hanging in a cabinet; and one of them, obviously of extreme antiquity – it had a carved lion’s head and so forth – was suspended higher than the rest and hung with a wreath of flowers.
‘This violin’, said Krespel, when I asked him about it, ‘is a very remarkable instrument by an unknown master, probably of the time of Tartini. I am convinced there is something special about the way it is constructed and that if I took it to pieces I should learn a secret I have long sought to discover, but – laugh at me if you will – this dead thing, upon which only I can bestow life and voice, often speaks to me of itself in the strangest fashion, and when I first played it, it seemed as though this instrument was a somnambulist and I only the mesmerizer who persuades her into speech. Do not think I am so foolish as to set any store by such fantasies; yet it is a strange fact that I have never been able to bring myself to dismember that foolish, lifeless object. I am now glad I didn’t do so, for since Antonia has been here I have played to her sometimes on this violin. Antonia loves to hear it, she loves to hear it very much.’
The councillor spoke these words with obvious emotion, and that encouraged me to ask: ‘Oh, my dear Herr Councillor, won’t you do that while I am here?’
But Krespel pulled a wry face at this question and, employing his long-drawn-out, singing tone of voice, replied: ‘No, my dear Herr Studiosus!’
And that was that. I had to view numerous rarities he had collected, some of them quite childish, and finally he reached into a little chest and fetched out a folded piece of paper, which he pressed into my hand and said very solemnly: ‘You are a friend of art; accept this gift as a dear memento. You must always value it more highly than anything else you possess.’ He thereupon seized me by the shoulders and gently propelled me to the door, where he embraced me: symbolically he had thrown me out of the house.
When I opened the piece of paper I found a length of an E-string of a violin and an inscription: ‘Part of the E-string of the violin on which the late Stamitz played his last concert.’
The snub I had received when I had mentioned Antonia convinced me I should never get to see her; but not so: when I visited the councillor a second time I discovered her with him, assisting him to put a violin together. Her appearance produced at first no very marked impression, but you were soon in thrall to her blue eyes and her rose-red lips; her face was very pale, but when something witty or funny was said she smiled sweetly and her cheeks were suffused with a fiery red, though they quickly grew pale again. I talked with Antonia quite unrestrainedly and noticed nothing of the Argus-eyes the professor had imputed to Krespel; on the contrary, he continued to behave with perfect normality and seemed indeed to approve my conversing with her. Thus it happened that I continued to visit the councillor, and as we grew accustomed to one another the three of us began to feel a sense of wonderful contentment in each other’s company. I still found the councillor’s strange scurrilities highly amusing, yet it was no doubt the irresistible charm of Antonia which drew me there and made me endure much that, as I was then constituted, I would otherwise have fled from. For the councillor’s strange and singular observations were all too often interlarded with tastelessness and tedium, and what I found especially annoying was that, whenever I led the conversation in the direction of music, and in that of singing in particular, he would interpose something quite different, and as often as not something coarse, and would do so with a diabolical expression on his face and in that repulsive lilting tone. From the profound distress which then spoke out of Antonia’s eyes, I realized well enough that he had done this only so as to cut short any suggestion I might have been about to make that she should sing something. But I did not desist. The obstacles the councillor placed in my way only increased my determination to overcome them: I had to hear Antonia sing in reality, so as not to dissolve a way in my dreams of it.
