Hoffmann's Strange Stories/Chapter 10
FASCINATION.
"Dreams resemble the foam on the wave which passes away and vanishes," said old baron H, stretching out his arm to ring for his valet de chambre Kaspar. For the hour for retiring had long since sounded; the autumn wind blew with violence, and Maria, a beautiful young girl, wrapped up in an immense shawl, struggled to keep awake. A little farther on stood Ottmar, the baron's son, a brave student, whose brain philosophized concerning everything,
"Father," said the young man, "how can you think that dreams are not mysterious events which place us in relation with the invisible world?" "My friend," answered the baron, "I am of the opinion of the materialists who see nothing but what is very natural in those pretended mysteries of nature, of which our imagination is the sole cause."
"But," observed Maria, the beautiful girl, "may it not be that dreams, which you speak so slightingly of, are the result of the fermentation which takes place in the brain, and which disengages during the hours of slumber our vital spirits from the prison of the senses, to lead them to soar in regions neither bounded by time nor space?"
"My dear girl," replied the baron, "I think I hear, in listening to you, the emphatic incoherences of our friend Alban. Thou knowest, besides, my incredulity regarding all the systems improvised by the visionaries of the present day.—Dreams are the fruits of the over excitation of our organs, and I see the proof of it in the disagreeable impressions which they give rise to during their existence and after they are over. If dreams produce real relations between us and the invisible world, why should they not be an initiation into the felicities of which religion offers the hope after this earthly existence?"
Ottmar was about to raise an endless discussion on this subject, but the baron did not allow him time. "Let us break off here," said he; "I am not in a humor to begin a controversy. I remember, besides, that this day, the ninth of September, is the anniversary to me of a youthful remembrance, the thought of which awakens painful sensations." "But," interrupted the student, "is it not established that the magnetic influence"
"Oh!" exclaimed the baron, "never pronounce before me that word; the name of magnetism disgusts and wounds me excessively; he who professes this odious art pays sooner or later, by his own ruin, for the guilty curiosity which leads him to raise the veil with which God covers his works. I remember, my children, that at the time I was studying in the military academy in Berlin, there was amongst our professors a man whose features will never leave my thoughts, for I could not look at him without experiencing a secret fear. To a gigantic stature, and the leanness of a skeleton, was added one of those physiognomies which the strangest imagination would hardly dare to dream of. He was endowed with great strength and consummate skill. He related of himself that, being a major in the Danish service, he was obliged to become an exile on account of a duel; but some people supposed that instead of duel it was a murder committed on the person of his general, which had caused his flight. He was a very hard man and practised an unexampled severity towards the pupils of the academy. But there were days in which his character seemed entirely changed. He then appeared the most indulgent and affectionate man you could possibly meet with. During these moments of expansion, if he pressed our hands, the contact caused a singular fluid to run in our veins, which placed us under his influence by an inexplicable sympathy. But these days of calm were rare. He quickly regained his habits of severity, which filled us with fear at the sight of him. Sometimes he became exalted to a kind of delirium; he might be seen, dressed in his old red uniform, traversing the courts of the academy, and fighting the empty air with his long sword, as if he were standing before a furious adversary; then he made motions as if he were trampling a body under his feet, accompanying all these gestures with horrible oaths. Sometimes he climbed the trees with the agility of a wild cat, or he ran like a wild beast, uttering savage cries. These fits often lasted for a whole day. On the morrow he was calm, and without a remembrance of the extravagant behavior of the day before; but his character became more and more intractable and violent. The strangest reports were circulated concerning him in the city and in the academy. It was said that the major had the power to cure all diseases by the touch, or even by a look alone; and this opinion was so strong, that he was obliged one day to drive away the people, who importuned him to try his mysterious power on them, with blows. Some people went so far as to say that he had dealings with the infernal spirits, and that sooner or later his life would end with some catastrophe.—For the rest, and whatever might be his conduct towards others, the major constantly showed himself mild before me, an attachment which drew me powerfully towards him. I will not relate to you all the singular scenes which passed between us, but this is a fact that I have not been able to forget, During the night of the ninth of September 17—, I dreamed that the major had come to my bedside, and fixing upon me a penetrating look, had covered my eyes with his right hand, saying to me:—'Miserable earthly creature, in me behold thy master! I have, like God, the power of reading thy thoughts!' At the same time I felt something sharp and cold like a steel blade penetrate through my forehead to the brain. I uttered a fearful cry which awoke me, I was in a profuse perspiration, and nearly out of my senses. I arose from my bed with difficulty, and opened the window to refresh myself with a little fresh air. But what was again my terror in perceiving, in the moonlight, the fatal major dressed in his red coat, open a gate of the academy which led to the fields, and shut it again forcibly after him! I fell down in a fainting fit. When the morning came I related to our principal what had happened to me. He assured me at first that I had been dreaming; but as the major had not yet appeared, the morning being far advanced, we went to his chamber. The door was barricaded on the inside, and we had to force it open. We found the major lying on the floor, his eyes glaring, his mouth covered with bloody froth; he held his sword in a hand stiffened by death. No efforts could bring him to life."
The baron added nothing more to this recital. Ottmar, who had listened to him attentively, was meditating, with his face buried in his hands. Maria was quite tremulous with emotion. At this moment, the painter, Franz Bickert, an old friend of the family, who had noiselessly entered the room during the baron's narration, burst into a loud laugh, and said:—"Those are truly gay stories to relate before young girls before going to bed! As for myself, my friends, I have a system quite the opposite from our dear baron. As I know by experience that dreams are the fruit of sensations felt during the day, I always take care, before going to sleep, to drive away ail painful thoughts, and to amuse my mind by some joyful remembrance of past times. It is an excellent preventive against the nightmare. At most, my friends, these terrifying dreams which sometimes torment us, such as the illusion of falling from a tower, of being beheaded, and a thousand others more or less disagreeable, are the result of physical pain which reacts upon our moral faculties. This reminds me, I remember a dream in which I was present at an orgie. An officer and a student quarrelled, and threw glasses at each other's heads: I tried to separate them, but in the struggle I feel myself badly wounded in the hand, the pain of which awakes me,—my hand was really bleeding, for I had just scratched it with a large pin which was stuck in my coverlid. I have had at other times frightful dreams, and"
"Ah! I beg of you," exclaimed Maria, "spare me the recital of it, for you will torture me all night long"
"No!" said Bickert, "there is no escape. You must know that in a dream I was invited to a brilliant tea party at the house of the princess Almaldasongi. As I reached the middle of the room clothed in my finest dress coat, I set about addressing her in a most flattering manner, when on throwing a complacent look upon my costume, I perceived that I had forgotten my breeches!"
An explosive laugh followed this outbreak of Bickert.—But without leaving his auditory time to recollect themselves, the joyous artist continued:—"Do you wish," said he, "that I should relate you a mishap still more humiliating? I dreamed, another night, that I was only twenty years of age, and that I was about dancing a quadrille with a beautiful lady. I had expended my last crown to improve the appearance of my last coat. I go, I mingle with the crowd, beautifully dressed and sparkling with jewels, that is clustering around the door of the saloon, when an accursed Spaniel dog opened the stove door before me, and said:—'Mr. Beauty, through this hole, if you please, you will take the trouble to pass!'
"Hold! last night, I dreamed that I had become a sheet of paper; an ignoble apprentice poet, armed with a badly mended goose quill, scratched me in all directions whilst writing upon my poor individual self his insipid rhymes blotted with erasures. Another time, I dreamed that a surgeon took off my limbs one at a time, as though I had been a mannikin, and cruelly amused himself with trying the effect produced by planting my feet in the middle of my back, or adapting my right arm to lengthen my left leg—Lastly"
But here the baron and his children were rolling on the sofa, uttering such noisy bursts of laughter, that friend Franz Bickert was obliged to renounce his sallies. Ottmar took up the conversation:—"Our friend," said he, "places himself by his recitals in contradiction with his system; for he tells funny stories, or he has not succeeded in preparing himself for pleasant dreams. However it may be, I am not the less persuaded of the virtue of magnetism"
"Enough," exclaimed the baron, "are you going to begin again on that subject? It would suit me better to have Maria make us a bowl of punch to keep us in a good humor." Bickert loudly applauded this idea; and whilst Maria set herself to work, he busied himself in reanimating the fire smouldering in the chimney corner. When the punch was made, Ottmar filled the glasses, and Bickert said, after emptying his at a single draught:—"I have never found this liquor so delicious as when it is prepared by the hands of our pretty Maria. She communicates to everything that she touches a celestial perfume. The mysterious influence of her beauty produces this charming effect; this is to my senses the most indisputable magnetism"
"Still talking of magnetism!" interrupted the baron.—"For heaven's sake, shall we never have done this evening with the strange and the extravagant? Maria is, indeed, a good and handsome young girl; but thanks to you, I shall begin soon to take her for a being from the other world.—Let us try then, I beg of you, to live peaceably this good common life which is so sweet!"
"Nevertheless," replied Ottmar, "I have a great desire to relate to friend Bickert a fact confided to me by Alban, which left a deep impression upon my mind. Alban became intimate during his stay at the university, with a young man named Theobald, whose exterior exercised at first a complete seduction over those who saw him. Theobald possessed at the same time a happy disposition and a native goodness.—But gradually, after his acquaintance with Alban, his soul became clouded, his character became sad and uneasy; his imagination, from reflective merged into exaltation. Alban alone had the power to command his irresistible nature, whose energy was wasted in useless straggles against the ills of life.
Theobald, after having taken his departure at the University of J, was to return to his native city, to marry his tutor's daughter, and live quietly on an ample income left him by his parents. Ail his tastes resolved into the study of animal magnetism, the first lessons in which were given to him by his friend Alban. He proposed nothing less than the pursuit of this science to the extremest possible limits; the development of its mysterious operations.
A short time after his return to his home, he wrote a despairing letter to Alban, in which he announced to him that during his absence an officer of a travelling regiment, having lodged on his way at the house of his tutor, had fallen in love with the young girl, and had succeeded in making her share his passion. When this officer was obliged to set out to follow the army to which he belonged, the young girl had felt such grief at the separation, that her reason became disturbed, and they feared for her life. Thus, poor Theobald had to regret the heart, now lost to him, of his betrothed, and also feel the dread of seeing the sole object of his affection perish before his eyes at any moment. Alban immediately replied to him, and told him that his misfortune was not irreparable, and that magnetism could infallibly restore his beloved to him. Theobald profited by this advice, and with the consent of the mother of his betrothed, he went every night and sat near her at the time when, yielding to the influence of slumber, she became subject to painful dreams, in which the officer's name came unceasingly from her lips. He gradually exercised upon the young girl the passes of which Alban had taught him the secret virtue; then after having brought her into a state of somnambulism, he conversed with her, softly recalled to her the remembrance of their childhood and their tender and mutual affection. Gradually the young girl allowed herself to be overcome by the ascendancy of the magic power which surrounded her, and every time that she became subject to the influence of somnambulism, her sensations and the answers to questions addressed to her naturally returned to Theobald and the remembrances of their early days. The ascendancy of Theobald became so complete, that his betrothed lived only by his life and will. It seemed as if the soul of her friend had become a part of her being, or that she herself lived in him."
Ottmar had proceeded thus far in his story, when Maria suddenly changed color, uttered a sharp cry, and would have fallen fainting on the floor, if Bickert had not sprung up in time to receive her into his arms. They tried to restore her, but nothing would bring her back to consciousness. She appeared to be dead.—"Ah! would to God!" exclaimed Ottmar, "that Alban were here, he alone could save her!"
The door opened; Alban himself appeared, approached the young girl slowly, and said to her as if she heard him: "Maria, what is the matter with you?" The sick girl trembled at these words, made several quick movements and murmured:—"Leave me, accursed man, I will at least die without suffering!" Alban smiled and looked around upon those present. "Fear nothing," said he, "it is a little attack of fever; but she will go to sleep, and in six hours, when she will awake, you will give her twelve drops of the liquid contained in this flask." At the same time he put into Ottmar's hands a little silver vessel, bowed, and withdrew as he had entered.
"Well done!" said Bickert: "here is another marvellous doctor! His look inspired, his voice prophetic, the flask of elixir, nothing is wanting!"
"My poor friend Bickert," said the old baron, "our evening has ended very sadly. Ever since the departure of Alban, I have often dreamed that some fatal accident would recall him to us. Pray heaven that my presentiment, has deceived me."
"But," my worthy friend," replied Bickert. "you must, it seems to me, look upon the arrival of Alban as fortunate; for to say the least, he is a skilful physician, and you ought not to forget that formerly our gentle Maria suffered from nervous attacks, against which all remedies were powerless. Alban cured her in a few weeks by means of this magnetism that you abhor. I believe that it is well to avoid too rigorous prejudice against modern sciences; nature hides in her breast thousands of secrets whose discovery will occupy ages perhaps"
"Well! I must say," interrupted the baron, "that I am not any farther behind the times than others, nor more an enemy to the progress of science; but I believe, to tell the truth, that my antipathy to magnetism proceeds in a great measure from the difficulty I experience in defining this Alban in whose favor my son is so infatuated. I try in vain to seize something real in the multiplied characters in which this singular man appears. I know that gratitude is due him for the cure of my daughter; I would willingly have offered him, for this service, the treasures of a king. Well, dear Bickert, picture to yourself that a repugnance that I could not control has always prevented me from cordially showing my gratitude to him; day by day this man becomes more hateful to me, in spite of my efforts to overcome this singularity; when I look at him, it seems to me that I see again before my eyes that diabolical Danish major who had formerly occasioned me such terrible frights."
"Ah!" exclaimed Bickert, "that then, without proceeding any farther, is the secret of this inexplicable aversion! It is not Alban, it is the Danish major who besieges your imagination with the unfortunate resemblance. This worthy doctor Alban bears the burden on account of his hooked nose and penetrating black eyes. And even should he be something of a visionary, let us excuse this, since he wills and practices well; let us throw aside his human frailties, and let us render homage to the great skill of the physician."
"What you say now, Franz," interrupted the baron, rising, "is not the impression of your thoughts; you seek to palliate my apprehensions; but your efforts are useless; I see under the human form of this Alban an infernal being, from whom there is every thing to be feared! Listen, Franz, watch with me over this man, for there is in him, I repeat to you, something formidable and malicious,"
The two old friends took each other by the hand before separating. The night was silent and dark. Maria reposed in a deep slumber. She awoke at the expiration of six hours, and doctor Alban's prescription was followed. A few moment's after, she appeared in a more flourishing state of health than ever, and had no remembrance of her accident the night before. Alban that day did not appear at the family meals, and sent word that a long correspondence would occupy all his time.
Maria to Adelgunde.
Dear friend of my childhood, with what joy your letter has filled me! my feelings overpowered me at the sight of your handwriting. With what happiness I found in it good news concerning your brother Hippolyt, my cherished affianced husband! Your poor friend, dear Adelgunde, has been fearfully sick. I cannot explain to you the kind of pain that I endured. Every thing appeared to me the opposite of what it really was; the least noise pierced my head like the sound of a cannon; I had the most singular waking dreams; an unaccountable uneasiness consumed my strength; I felt death coming upon me with all his terrors, and yet I was impatient to live. All my physicians wasted their time in examinations and consultations, when one day my brother Ottmar brought one of his friends to the house, who cured me in a most surprising manner.
There appeared to me in nearly all my dreams a grave and handsome man, who, in spite of his youthful appearance, inspired me with deep respect. This strange personage drew me towards him by the magnet of a mysterious tenderness.—Judge, my dear Adelgunde, judge of my surprise when I recognized in form and feature the man of my dreams in the friend that my brother introduced to us. Alban, that is his name, subjects me, in spite of myself, to the power of his look; but instead of the nervous convulsions which agitated me, I felt a drowsy calmness pervade all my senses; my dreams vanished, my slumber became profound, and the feverish vivacity of my spirits was quieted. Only that it happened to me sometimes, whilst sleeping, to believe myself endowed with a new sense. A mysterious communication established itself between Alban and myself; he interrogates me, and. I tell him what is passing in my mind, as if I were reading from a book. At another time Alban himself occupies my mind; it seems to me that I find his thoughts within me, that he lights up by his will a flame in my soul which shines or is extinguished as this will attracts or repulses me; it is a state of transubstantiation in which I find a happiness superior to all that life can offer. You will laugh at me perhaps, dear Adelgunde; you will think me mad or very ill. But whatever it may be, think and be assured that I have never loved Hippolyt more, or desired his return with greater earnestness. Since Alban has subjected me to this power, which he calls, I believe, magnetism, it seems to me that it is through him I love Hippolyt with deeper tenderness. Alban, this sublime and beneficent spirit will protect both of us until after our union.
Sometimes, however, I am afraid of him. Strange suspicions tear away the veil of enthusiasm in which I have wrapped the figure of Alban in the depths of my soul. I have hours of fascination, during which I imagine that I see him in the midst of all the attributes that serve, as is said, to accomplish guilty sorceries. His noble features vanish, and I see a hideous skeleton, whose bones rattle in the folds of slimy reptiles that encompass it. For the rest, Alban, who possesses my confidence, and to whom I innocently relate all my sensations, all my doubts concerning him, never fails to show himself unmoved by my scrutiny. He is always the same mild and affectionate man. This majestic calmness makes me ashamed of my foolish idea.
This, dear Adelgunde, is the history of my interior life.—My heart is lighter now that I have no secrets from thee. Farewell until we meet again.
Alban to Theobald.
Existence is the reward of a struggle; it is a struggle itself. The victory is to the strongest, for strength is the natural law of all things; the being subjected adds its own strength to that which his conqueror already possessed.
The strength of intelligence has its combats and its victories, as well as physical strength. A medium power of intelligence often subjects and governs an immense physical force; it is in us like a reflection from the Deity, by whom empire is given us over all creation.
We are ignorant of the mysteries of the union of soul and body; the discovery of this science would endow us with the power of God himself. All that we can do this side of that point, is to exercise for the advantage of our desires, in the circle that is traced out for us, the amount of strength that is communicated to us for the purpose of enjoying the creation.
I have met on my way a young girl, the sight of whom has made the sympathetic chords vibrate within me. I felt that all power belonged to me to attach her life to my own; but it was necessary to struggle against an adverse power that controlled her. This young girl is beloved, and she loves.—I concentrated upon a single point the whole force of my will. Woman has received from nature a passive organization; it is in the sacrifice that she voluntarily makes of her individuality to pour out her soul into the bosom of the being who subjects her by his superiority, that the happiness occasioned by love resides.
The sojourn of a week near the beautiful Maria was sufficient for my observing penetration to gain a complete knowledge of her. I applied to the exquisite delicacy of her organization the occult action of magnetism, the science which is laughed at by the vulgar. I established between her and myself sympathetic feelings of which neither absence nor separation can break the chain. She fell under my spiritual domination in attacks of hallucinations which her father and brother took for the effects of a nervous malady. Friend to the brother, who admired without understanding, certain experiments which I amused myself in exhibiting to him, I was called to the young girl in the capacity of a physician. She recognized me by a mysterious convulsion which was the assurance of my empire; for my look and secret will were sufficient to plunge her into a state of somnambulism, that is to say, to attract her soul towards my own. Since I have lived near her, the image of Hippolyt is being gradually effaced from her memory; the last obstacles will soon fall.
This Hippolyt is a colonel; he is at this moment following the fortunes of war far away from here. I do not wish him to be killed; I should even like to have him come back, for his presence would add another charm to victory of which I shall soon taste the delicious fruits. Farewell until I see thee again, my dear disciple.
The country, strewed with dead leaves, was in mourning, Leaden clouds moved in the sky, chased by the cold autumn wind. In haste to arrive at a lodging place, for night was approaching, I discovered at a turn in the road the village of , hidden in its solitary valley like a bird's nest in a farrow. The church bell was uttering its funeral note, and grave diggers were waiting in the cemetery the last prayer of the old pastor to lower the coffin into the earth. I joined several men on the road who were coming slowly back from the procession, and I walked behind and listened to their conversation.—"Our old friend Franz sleeps the sleep of the just," said one of them. "May God allow us to do so likewise," added another. I learned from these worthy people that the dead man's name was Franz Bickert, an old painter who had finished his career alone, in a little gothic manor house in ruins, which was pointed out to me on the summit of a neighboring hill. The pastor took me to visit this little castle, which the worthy Bickert had given to the village to become, after his death, an open asylum to several poor and infirm inhabitants. The walls on the ground floor were covered with fresco paintings, reproducing in various ways a demon watching a young girl asleep. We found in the corner of a chest covered with mould, several sheets of paper which appeared to have been taken from a manuscript and scattered by chance. I picked them up mechanically; they contained short notes, phrases without beginning or end, out of which I succeeded in decyphering the end of Maria's story.
On a certain night, old baron H was going to his chamber leaning on the arm of his old friend Franz Bickert. Near the middle of the gallery, they perceived a white figure carrying a night lamp, which appeared to come out of Maria's apartment. The baron frightened, exclaimed:—"That is the major! Franz, that is the Danish major!"
The figure had vanished, no sound had been heard. The baron uneasily entered his daughter's room; she was beautifully and calmly reposing like an angel from heaven; a sweet smile was upon her lips. Hippolyt had returned from the wars. The marriage was to take place on the morrow, and near the beautiful girl who slept, the wedding garments already prepared were lying upon the sofa.
On the morrow the bride and bridegroom went to the church; but at the moment of kneeling at the foot of the altar, Maria fell—She was dead!—The magnetizer had devoured her soul.
All those who had loved her soon followed her into the tomb.
Nothing was known of what became of doctor Alban.