Delphi Collected Works of E. T. A. Hoffmann (Illustrated), page 263
Golden chains around her throat, rich bracelets upon her wrists, completed her antique costume.
She looked exactly if she were a woman from Miens or Rembrandt walking about. “Giuletta.”
shrieked the girls in astonishment and delight.
Giuletta, who was by far the most beautiful of all the women present, asked in a sweet, pleasant voice, “Good Germans, may I join you? I’ll sit with that gentleman over there. He doesn’t have a girl, and he doesn’t seem to be having a very good time, either.” She turned very graciously to Erasmus, and sat down upon the empty seat beside him-empty because everyone thought Erasmus would bring a girl along, too. The girls whispered to each other, “Isn’t Giuletta beautiful tonight,” and the young men said, “How about Erasmus? Was he joking with us? He’s got the best-looking girl of all!”
As for Erasmus, at the first glance he cast at Giuletta, he was so aroused that he didn’t even know what powerful passions were working in him. As she came close to him, a strange force seized him and crushed his breast so that he couldn’t even breathe. Eyes fixed in a rigid stare at her, mouth agape, he sat there not able to utter a syllable, while all the others were commenting upon Giuletta’s charm and beauty.
Giuletta took a full goblet, and standing up, handed it with a friendly smile to Erasmus. He seized the goblet, touching her soft fingers, and as he drank, fire seemed to stream through his veins. Then Giuletta asked him in a bantering way, “Am I to be your girl friend?” Erasmus threw himself wildly upon the ground in front of her, pressed her hands to his breast, and cried in maudlin tones, “Yes, yes, yes! You goddess! I’ve always been in love with you. I’ve seen you in my dreams, you are my fortune, my happiness, my higher life!”
The others all thought the wine had gone to Erasmus’s head, since they had never seen him like this before; he seemed to be a different man.
“You are my life! I don’t care if I am destroyed, as long as it’s with you,” Erasmus shouted.
“You set me on fire!” But Giuletta just took him gently in her arms. He became quieter again, and took his seat beside her. And once again the gaiety which had been interrupted by Erasmus and Giuletta began with songs and laughter. Giuletta sang, and it was as if the tones of her beautiful voice aroused in everyone sensations of pleasure never felt before but only suspected to exist. Her full but clear voice conveyed a secret ardor which inflamed them all. The young men clasped their mistresses more closely, and passion leaped from eye to eye.
Dawn was breaking with a rosy shimmer when Giuletta said that she had to leave. Erasmus got ready to accompany her home, but she refused but gave him the address at which he could find her in the future. During the chorus which the men sang to end the party, Giuletta disappeared from the grove and was seen walking through a distant allée, preceded by two linkmen. Erasmus did not dare follow her.
The young men left arm in arm with their mistresses, full of high spirits, and Erasmus, greatly disturbed and internally shattered by the torments of love, followed, preceded by his boy with a torch. After leaving his friends, he was passing down the distant street which led to his dwelling, and his servant had just knocked out the torch against the stucco of the house, when a strange figure mysteriously appeared in the spraying sparks in front of Erasmus. It was a tall, thin, dried-out — looking man with a Roman nose that came to a sharp point, glowing eyes, mouth contorted into a sneer, wrapped in a flame-red cloak with brightly polished steel buttons. He laughed and called out in an unpleasant yelping voice, “Ho, ho, you look as if you came out of a picture book with that cloak, slit doublet and plumed hat. You show a real sense of humor, Signor Erasmus Spikher, but aren’t you afraid of being laughed at on the streets? Signor, signor, crawl quietly back into your parchment binding.”
“What the Devil is my clothing to you?” said Erasmus with anger, and shoving the red-clad stranger aside, he was about to pass by when the stranger called after him, “Don’t be in such a hurry. You won’t get to Giuletta that way.”
“What are you saying about Giuletta?” cried Erasmus wildly. He tried to seize the red-clad man by the breast, but he turned and disappeared so rapidly that Erasmus couldn’t even see where he went, and Erasmus was left standing in astonishment, in his hand a steel button that had been ripped from the stranger’s cloak...”That’s the Miracle Doctor Dapertutto. What did he want?” asked Erasmus’s servant. But Erasmus was seized with horror, and without replying, hastened home.
When, some time later, Erasmus called on Giuletta, she received him in a very gracious and friendly manner, yet to Erasmus’s fiery passion she opposed a mild indifference. Only once in a while did her eyes flash, whereupon Erasmus would feel shudders pass through him, from his innermost being, when she regarded him with an enigmatic stare. She never told him that she loved him, but her whole attitude and behaviour led him to think so, and he found himself more and more deeply entangled with her. He seldom saw his old friends, however, for Giuletta took him into other circles.
Once Erasmus met Friedrich at a time when Erasmus was depressed, thinking about his native land and his home. Friedrich said, “Don’t you know, Spikher, that you are moving in a very dangerous circle of acquaintances? You must realize by now that the beautiful Giuletta is one of the craftiest courtesans on earth. There are all sorts of strange stories going around about her, and they put her in a very peculiar light. I can see from you that she can exercise an irresistible power over men when she wants to. You have changed completely and are totally under her spell. You don’t think of your wife and family any more.”
Erasmus covered his face with his hands and sobbed, crying out his wife’s name. Friedrich saw that a difficult internal battle had begun in Spikher. “Erasmus,” he said, “let us get out of here immediately.”
“Yes, Friedrich,” said Erasmus heavily. “You are right. I don’t know why I am suddenly overcome by such dark horrible foreboding-I must leave right away, today.”
The two friends hastened along the street, but directly across from them came Signor Dapertutto, who laughed in Erasmus’s face, and cried nasally, “Hurry, hurry; a little faster. Giuletta waiting; her heart is full of longing, and her eyes are full of tears. Make haste. Make haste.”
Erasmus stood as if struck by lightning.
“This scoundrel,” said Friedrich, “this charlatan-I cannot stand him. He is always in and out of Giuletta’s, and he sells her his magical potions.”
“What!” cried Erasmus. “That disgusting creature visits Giuletta, Giuletta?”
“Where have you been so long? Everything is waiting for you. Didn’t you think of me at all.”
breathed a soft voice from the balcony. It was Giuletta, in front of whose house the two friends, without noticing it, had stopped. With a leap Erasmus was in the house.
“He is gone, and cannot be saved,” said Friedrich to himself, and walked slowly away.
Never before had Giuletta been more amiable. She wore the same clothing that she had worn when she first met Erasmus, and beauty, charm and youth shone from her. Erasmus completely forgot his conversation with Friedrich, and now more than ever his irresistible passion seized him. This was the first time that Giuletta showed without reservation her deepest love for him.
She seemed to see only him, and to live for him only. At a villa which Giuletta had rented for the summer, a festival was being celebrated, and they went there. Among the company was a young Italian with a brutal ugly face and even worse manners, who kept paying court to Giuletta and arousing Erasmus’s jealousy. Fuming with rage, Erasmus left the company and paced up and down in a side path of the garden. Giuletta came looking for him. “What is wrong with you?”
“Aren’t you mine alone?” she asked. She embraced him and planted a kiss upon his lips. Sparks of passion flew through Erasmus, and in a passion he crushed her to himself, crying, “No, I will not leave you, no matter how low I fall.” Giuletta smiled strangely at these words, and cast at him that peculiar oblique glance which never failed to arouse a chilly feeling in him.
They returned to the company, and the unpleasant young Italian now took over Erasmus’s role.
Obviously enraged with jealousy, he made all sorts of pointed insults against Germans, particularly Spikher. Finally Spikher could bear it no longer, and he strode up to the Italian and said, “That’s enough of your insults, unless you’d like to get thrown into the pond and try your hand at swimming.” In an instant a dagger gleamed in the Italian’s hand, but Erasmus dodged, seized him by the throat, threw him to the ground, and shattered his neck with a kick. The Italian gasped out his life on the spot.
Pandemonium broke loose around Erasmus. He lost consciousness, but felt himself being lifted and carried away. When he awoke later, as if from a deep enchantment, he lay at Giuletta’s feet in a small room, while she, head bowed over him, held him in both her arms.
“You bad, bad German,” she finally said, softly and mildly. “If you knew how frightened you’ve made me! You’ve come very close to disaster, but I’ve managed to save you. You are no longer safe in Florence, though, or even Italy. You must leave, and you must leave me, and I love you so much.”
The thought of leaving Giuletta threw Erasmus into pain and sorrow. “Let me stay here,” he cried. “I’m willing to die. Dying is better than living without you.”
But suddenly it seemed to him as if a soft, distant voice was calling his name painfully. It was the voice of his wife at home. Erasmus was stricken dumb. Strangely enough, Giuletta asked him, “Are you thinking of your wife? Ah, Erasmus, you will forget me only too soon!”
“If I could only remain yours forever and ever,” said Erasmus. They were standing directly in front of the beautiful wide mirror, which was set in the wall, and on the sides of it tapers were burning brightly. More firmly, more closely, Giuletta pressed Erasmus to her, while she murmured softly in his ear, “Leave me your reflection, my beloved; it will be mine and will remain with me forever.”
“Giuletta,” cried Erasmus in amazement. “What do you mean? My reflection?” He looked in the mirror, which showed him himself and Giuletta in sweet, close embrace. “How can you keep my reflection? It is part of me. It springs out to meet me from every clear body of water or polished surface.”
“Aren’t you willing to give me even this dream of your ego? Even though you say you want to be mine, body and soul? Won’t you even give me this trivial thing, so that after you leave, it can accompany me in the loveless, pleasureless life that is left to me?”
Hot tears started from Giuletta’s beautiful dark eyes.
At this point Erasmus, mad with pain and passion, cried, “Do I have to leave? If I have to, my reflection will be yours forever and a day. No power-not even the Devil-can take it away from you until you own me, body and soul.”
Giuletta’s kisses burned like fire on his mouth as he said this, and then she released him and stretched out her arms longingly to the mirror. Erasmus saw his image step forward independent of his movements, glide into Giuletta’s arms, and disappear with her in a strange vapor. Then Erasmus heard all sorts of hideous voices bleating and laughing in demoniac scorn, and, seized with a spasm of terror, he sank to the floor. But his horror and fear aroused him, and in thick dense darkness he stumbled out the door and down the steps. In front of the house he was seized and lifted into a carriage, which rolled away with him rapidly.
“Things have changed somewhat, it seems,” said a man in German, who had taken a seat beside him. “Nevertheless, everything will be all right if you give yourself over to me, completely. Dear Giuletta has done her share, and has recommended you to me. You are a fine, pleasant young man and you have a strong inclination to pleasant pranks and jokes-which please Giuletta and me nicely. That was a real nice German kick in the neck. Did you see how Amoroso’s tongue protruded-purple and swollen-it was a fine sight and the strangling noises and groans-ha, ha, ha.” The man’s voice was so repellent in its mockery, his chatter so gruesomely unpleasant, that his words felt like dagger blows in Erasmus’s chest.
“Whoever you are,” he said, “don’t say any more about it. I regret it bitterly.”
“Regret? Regret?” replied the unknown man. “I’ll be bound that you probably regret knowing Giuletta and winning her love.”
“Ah, Giuletta, Giuletta!” sighed Spikher.
“Now,” said the man, “you are being childish. Everything will run smoothly. It is horrible that you have to leave her, I know, but if you were to remain here, I could keep your enemies daggers away from you, and even the authorities.”
The thought of being able to stay with Giuletta appealed strongly to Erasmus. “How, how can that be?”
“I know a magical way to strike your enemies with blindness, in short, that you will always appear to them with a different face, and they will never recognize you again. Since it is getting on toward daylight, perhaps you will be good enough to look long and attentively into any mirror. I shall then perform certain operations upon your reflection, without damaging it in the least, and you will be hidden and can live forever with Giuletta. As happy as can be; no danger at all.”
“Oh, God,” screamed Erasmus.
“Why call upon God, my most worthy friend,” asked the stranger with a sneer.
“I-I have...” began Erasmus.
“Left your reflection behind-with Giuletta-” interrupted the other. “Fine. Bravissimo, my dear sir. And now you course through floods and forests, cities and towns, until you find your wife and little Rasmus, and become a paterfamilias again. No reflection, of course-though this really shouldn’t bother your wife since she has you physically. Even though Giuletta will eternally own your dream-ego.”
A torch procession of singers drew near at this moment, and the light the torches cast into the carriage revealed to Erasmus the sneering visage of Dr. Dapertutto. Erasmus leaped out of the carriage and ran toward the procession, for he had recognized Friedrich’s resounding bass voice among the singers. It was his friends returning from a party in the countryside. Erasmus breathlessly told Friedrich everything that had happened, only withholding mention of the loss of his reflection. Friedrich hurried with him into the city, and arrangements were made so rapidly that when dawn broke, Erasmus, mounted on a fast horse, had already left Florence far behind.
Spikher set down in his manuscript the many adventures that befell him upon his journey.
Among the most remarkable is the incident which first caused him to appreciate the loss of his reflection. He had stopped over in a large town, since his tired horse needed a rest, and he had sat down without thinking at a well-filled inn table, not noticing that a fine clear mirror hung before him. A devil of a waiter, who stood behind his chair, noticed that the chair seemed to be empty in the reflection and did not show the person who was sitting in it. He shared his observation with Erasmus’s neighbor, who in turn called it to the attention of his. A murmuring and whispering thereupon ran all around the table, and the guests first stared at Erasmus, then at the mirror.
Erasmus, however, was unaware that the disturbance concerned him, until a grave gentleman stood up, took Erasmus to the mirror, looked in, and then turning to the company, cried out loudly, “‘Struth. He’s not there. He doesn’t reflect.”
“What? No reflection? He’s not in the mirror?” everyone cried in confusion. “He’s a mauvais sujet, a homo nefas. Kick him out the door!”
Raging and filled with shame, Erasmus fled to his room, but he had hardly gotten there when he was informed by the police that he must either appear with full, complete, impeccably accurate reflection before the magistrate within one hour or leave the town. He rushed away, followed by the idle mob, tormented by street urchins, who called after him, “There he goes. He sold his reflection to the Devil. There he goes!” Finally he escaped. And from then on, under the pretext of having a phobia against mirrors, he insisted on having them covered. For this reason he was nicknamed General Suvarov, since Suvarov acted the same way.
When he finally reached his home city and his house, his wife and child received him with joy, and he began to think that calm, peaceful domesticity would heal the pain of his lost reflection.
One day, however, it happened that Spikher, who had now put Giuletta completely out of his mind, was playing with little Rasmus. Rasmus’s little hands were covered with soot from the stove, and he dragged his fingers across his father’s face. “Daddy! I’ve turned you black. Look, look!” cried the child, and before Spikher could prevent it or avoid it, the little boy held a mirror in front of him, looking into it at the same time. The child dropped the mirror with a scream of terror and ran away to his room.
Spikher’s wife soon came to him, astonishment and terror plainly on her face. “What has Rasmus told me-” she began. “Perhaps that I don’t have a reflection, dear,” interrupted Spikher with a forced smile, and he feverishly tried to prove that the story was too foolish to believe, that one could not lose a reflection, but if one did, since a mirror image was only an illusion, it didn’t matter much, that staring into a mirror led to vanity, and pseudo-philosophical nonsense about the reflection dividing the ego into truth and dream. While he was declaiming, his wife removed the covering from a mirror that hung in the room and looked into it. She fell to the floor as if struck by lightning. Spikher lifted her up, but when she regained consciousness, she pushed him away with horror. “Leave me, get away from me, you demon! You are not my husband. No! You are a demon from Hell, who wants to destroy my chance of heaven, who wants to corrupt me. Away! Leave me alone! You have no power over me, damned spirit!”
Her voice screamed through the room, through the halls; the domestics fled the house in terror, and in rage and despair Erasmus rushed out of the house. Madly he ran through the empty walks of the town park. Giuletta’s form seemed to arise in front of him, angelic in beauty, and he cried aloud, “Is this your revenge, Giuletta, because I abandoned you and left you nothing but my reflection in a mirror? Giuletta, I will be yours, body and soul. I sacrificed you for her, Giuletta, and now she has rejected me. Giuletta, let me be yours-body, life, and soul!”
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