Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

“ Fear nothing for your safety; I am sure that the whole audience, after having heard your admirable music, will lead you back in triumph to your house; I myself, with my faithful comrades,—I will escort you with torches, and the malignant devils who dare to make us draw our rapiers had better beware!"
"Truly, truly will you do this?" murmured the happy Capuzzi, ready to burst with pride; "and I shall hear Formica who has such a fine voice, sing my best pieces? Well, master Nicolo, I promise you to go to your theatre to-morrow." ”

“ On arriving at Nuremberg, the first object that struck my sight was Rosa; and I thought that I saw the beautiful Madonna of Albert Dürer. An immense love burst out in my soul like a conflagration. The rest of the world was effaced from my thoughts, and Art, which until then had so exclusively occupied me, seemed to have no other mission for me than to produce numberless sketches of the features of the divine object of my passion. I sought means to introduce myself into master Martin's house; but nothing was more difficult. The ordinary tricks employed by lovers became impracticable. ”

“ The young bridegroom, who had not left Antonia in this hour of tribulation, was present on the arrival of the father.
One evening when they were together, and Krespel was thinking of the departed, Antonia placed herself at the harpsichord, and sang a mournful air; it would have been said, on hearing her, that the soul of her mother trembled in her voice. Krespel could not bear it; sobs stifled his voice; he arose, clasped the young girl in his arms, and pressed her closely.
"Oh! no," exclaimed he, "if thou lovest me, sing no more! It breaks my heart to hear thee! ”

“ And tell me, then, if you dare, why you dress up your miserable dwarf in a duenna's robe? What do you do with this Cerebus, who is not worth a kick? Look here, my poor signor, in the state which I find you, listen for once seriously to my representations, for fear that it should cost you dearer soon. When any one has, like yourself, so gentle a dove in a cage, it is not kind to treat it like an owl. If your heart was not dried up and your mind was not crippled, would you not be, all day long, studying to guess and anticipate the least caprices of Marianna? ”

“ Now, I know you will be angry with your Clara; you will say that her cold disposition is impenetrable to every ray of the mysterious, which often embraces man with invisible arms, that she only sees the variegated surface of the world, and has the delight of a silly child, at some gold-glittering fruit, which contains within it a deadly poison.
Ah! my dear Nathaniel! Do you not then believe that even in free, cheerful, careless minds, there may dwell the suspicion of some dread power, which endeavors to destroy us in our own selves? ”

“ De Scuderi, not without great effort, regaining self-possession, and endeavoring to give her voice as much gravity and calmness as possible, answered, "Go, go! Console yourself as well as you can for the fate of the murderer, whom a just punishment now awaits for the deeds of which he has been convicted.—God grant that the guilt of some such assassination may not also weigh on your conscience!" "Oh, heaven have mercy;" cried Madelon—"all now is lost!" and with a piercing shriek, she fell fainting on the ground. De Scuderi gave her in charge to la Martiniere, and retired into another room. ”

“ Instead of which, in our handiwork we lodge the most generous, the noblest of creatures. Long live wine and casks; I see nothing beyond them!"
"Approved!" said Spangenberg, finishing his glass;—"but all the good and fine things that you have just said do not demonstrate that I am so much in the wrong, nor that you are wholly in the right. I suppose now that a man of illustrious race and princely nobility comes to ask your daughter. There are times in this life, master Martin, when the most stubborn minds reflect many times before letting certain opportunities escape which are not lavished." ”

“ But, yet, dear Antonio, I should still hesitate, in your place, between the lancet and the pencil. Art, do you see, becomes every day more ungrateful, and the devil is making war upon us! If you have not the resolution to submit to all kinds of affronts, injustice, and disgust,—for the more talent you have, the more envious and false friends you will have,—if you have not the strength of the martyrs, believe me, you had better give up the art. ”

“ His hand is practised enough, his imagination ardent enough, to make the study of the great models of art profitable to him. Dresden has been the cradle of the painter; it is time that Home should be the school where his young inspirations shall be purified; he must go and live the free life of the artist, in the bosom of the country in which all the conceptions of the genius of man flourish. The classic soil of the great masters is necessary to the painter, as the influence of the warm sun is necessary to the shrub to develope its foliage and gild its ripe fruits. ”

“ Louis arose, and came to her with joy unaffectedly gleaming in his eyes, "I congratulate you, Mademoiselle," said he, "your protegé, Olivier Brusson, is free!" De Scuderi, who was too much affected to utter a word, would have thrown herself at his feet in her gratitude,—but Louis prevented her. "No, no! my lady," said he, "I have not deserved such homage, for it is to your exertions that this result is owing. You should, in truth, be my advocate in the chamber of peers, and carry on all my pleas, for there is no resisting your eloquence. ”

“ Antonio had the greatest difficulty in overcoming her hesitation; every minute lost might forever separate them. Marianna understood this as well as he did himself. She wept in silence; a convulsive trembling agitated her limbs; a cloud passed over her eyes; the artist felt her falling; immediately profiting by the tumult and confusion which filled the place, he carried the young girl off in his arms, covering her with tears and kisses. A carriage which was waiting a short distance from Nicolo's theatre, received the lovers, and carried them off with lightning speed, on the road to Florence. ”

“ The hideous Pitchinaccio, shuddering with fear, had hidden his head under his master's cloak, and clung to his doublet with all the tenacity of a drowning man. The beautiful Marianna had fainted,—"Come back to thyself, my cherished one, my sweet dove," said Capuzzi to her after the doctor had been carried off; "alas, the devil is carrying my illustrious friend Splendiano under the Pyramid of Cestius! May saint Bernard, who was so great a physician of souls, have pity on his, and defend it against the enemies which it will find in the other world! ”

“ Olivier here broke off abruptly, and burst into tears. He threw himself at de Scuderi's feet, and implored her compassion. "You are convinced of my innocence," said he; "I know it must be so! Have pity, then, on my sufferings, and tell me how is Madelon!" De Scuderi made no answer, but rang for Martiniere, and in the next moment, Madelon was in her lover's arms. "Now, all is well again," she exclaimed, "for you are here! I was, indeed, sure that this noble minded lady would find means to set you at liberty! ”

“ We soon found ourselves again on the road, already nearly impassable and covered with snow. The north wind made the waters of the lake moan and the branches of the pines crack with ominous sound; and in the midst of a kind of white sea was traced in black the profile of the manor, whose portcullis was down. A silence of death reigned in it; not a light escaped from its lattice-like loopholes.
"Hallo! Franz, Franz!" cried my great uncle, "Hallo! get up! The snow freezes in falling from the sky, and a fire even from hell would do us a great deal of good!" ”

“ The neat house could not have more elegance than a cask made as a masterpiece by a master workman; the perfumed waves are the generous wines with which is filled the masterpiece of the cooper; and when the wine sparkles and ferments, the bubbles that rise from the bottom, do they not seem to you like little angels with enameled wings? That is really, I assure you, the sense of the mysterious words muttered by the old woman; and as this explanation suits me, I have decided that Rosa should marry no one but a cooper. ”

“ At last the news having reached me that master Martin had announced that he would only give his daughter to the most skilful cooper in the city, I renounced my vocation of artist, to become a workman. I have now come back to Nuremberg to beg master Martin to accept me as one of his journeymen. But the nearer I approach to the fulfilment of my wishes, and the more I think of Rosa, who must be much improved by this time, timidity and the fear of being refused, struggle in my soul; for I know not if I am loved, or if I can ever hope to be. ”

“ Pasquale Capuzzi! old amorous devil, accursed fool! We are thy companions from hell, we are the devils of ugly lovers, and we are about to transport thee to our furnace, with that little monster Pitchinaccio!"
And in the midst of these bowlings, which made the echoes tremble, the four demoniacs threw themselves upon Capuzzi and Pitichinaccio, and gave them such a frightful fall, that the unfortunate Argus of the beautiful Marianna began to bray like a beaten donkey. ”

“ Listen to the melancholy echo of Antonia's Song, immediately you are bursting with laughter at the relation of the Lost Reflection;—then a delicious curiosity drags you on to the last page of the Walled-up Door; farther on, all the spirit, all the elegance of the age of Louis XIV. shines in the description of manners which serves as a frame to Cardillac the Jeweller;—do you wish for comedy in real life, read the Agate Heart:—do you wish for the strange in its highest perfection, take Coppelius or Berthold the Madman. ”

“ As soon as this resolution was taken, Salvator rose in the midst of the assembly:
"Well, gentlemen," exclaimed he, "console yourselves; the glorious prize with which you were about to honor the ashes of a dead man, you can give into the hands of a living one. Know that the Magdalen at the Saviour's feet, this painting that you have praised above all the productions of our time, is not the work of a Neapolitan painter who died in poverty and obscurity; its author is by your side, he is in Home; he is Antonio Scacciati, the surgeon!" ”

“ A thousand kisses from the pretty Marianna immediately sealed this happy compact of a forgetfulness of the past.
Salvator Rosa, in a melancholy attitude, seemed to reflect whilst contemplating his work. God alone knows the mysterious thought which clouded for a moment the features of the great artist.
Capuzzi was joyful, when Antonio undertook to arrange his venerable moustache in the most tasteful manner; but he would never set foot again in his house in Ripetta street. ”

“ With these words Frederick was about to depart, when Reinhold stopped him. "Thou shalt not leave us," said he, with affectionate entreaty; "for all may turn otherwise than thou thinkest here, and I will no longer hide from thee the secret of my life. Thou hast already seen that I was not born to follow the trade of a cooper, and the sight of this picture may prove to thee that I am not in the last rank among painters. In my tenderest youth, I travelled through Italy to study the masterpieces of the great masters. My talents, developed by a natural inclination, made rapid progress. ”

“ Berthold made me pass in review all his colors, which I handed to him one after another,—a tiresome labor, which would not have preserved me from the desire to sleep, if the artist had not sweetened the toil with one of the most original dissertations, and which he alone bore the burden of, on the subject of all kinds of questions, which he destroyed by a running fire of paradoxes, each more strange than the other. When his arm was fatigued more than his tongue, he descended from his scaffolding. The dawn of day began to pierce the shadows, and the light of the wax candles began to grow pale. ”

“ Clara had overheard the violent dispute, and seeing the fencing-master bring the rapiers at dawn, guessed what was to occur. Having reached the place of combat, Lothaire and Nathaniel had, in gloomy silence, flung off their coats, and with the fierce desire of fighting in their flaming eyes, were about to fall upon one another, when Clara rushed through the garden door. Sobbing, she cried aloud, "Ye wild cruel men! Strike me down before you attack each other, for how shall I live longer in the world if my lover murders my brother, or my brother murders my lover." ”

“ De Scuderi was now quite terrified. "For the love of heaven," said she, "what is the matter with the man?" "Tell me then," said de Maintenon, "for whom was it that you made up in a very lively humor, approaching to a vein of irony, which her character seldom exhibited. She laughed aloud, and said, "Now we have it, Mademoiselle! Master Rene Cardillac has fallen desperately in love with you, and, according to established form and usage, begins his attack upon your heart with a storm of rich presents." De Maintenon persisted in her raillery, till at length the gravity of her guest was overcome. ”

“ It was in those reunions that Hoffmann liked to exhaust his strangest inspirations.
Pour him out some prince's wine, let a flow of Johannisberg tint his glass with golden reflections, and the poet's imagination sets off at a gallop, like the courser who carried Burger's Leonora;—then springs forth all the train of strange beings, children of his wandering thoughts, that appear when he calls them, come, grow and range themselves before him. It is a drama that he raises between heaven and earth;—it is his world, peopled with personages whose secret he alone possesses. ”

“ Max, do not reproach me with not having sufficiently loved you! It was you alone, I repeat, who created your own grievances."
"It is true," said the counsellor, after a momentary silence. "I am forced to confess that my poor heart is incapable of affectionate outpourings; the imagination which controls it has dried up its fibres. No being can love me, for there is no longer anything sweet and sympathizing in me. Devotedness would wreck itself against my existence, as it would exhaust itself against this heart of stone!" ”

“ He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they will not go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. These eyes he puts in a bag and carries them to the half-moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up yonder, and have crooked beaks like owls, with which they may pick up the eyes of the naughty human children."
A most frightful image of the cruel Sandman was horribly depicted in my mind, and when in the evening I heard the noise on the stairs, I trembled with agony and alarm. ”