Collected Works of A. I. Herzen, Volume 4

that Hoffmann’s chaotic fantasy could not be satisfied by the German disease—literature. He needed living activity, activity in reality; and you can read in his journal from that time how passionately he was in love with his pupil—"he, a married man!" (as if every possibility of love were cut off from married men!)

From 1814 begins the last epoch of Hoffmann’s life, abundant in works and foolishness. He settled in Berlin, in this first city of the Brandenburg Electorate, which became the first city of Germany, sauf le respect que je dois saving the respect I owe to Vienna with its aristocratic smile, Gothic mores, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Berlin is not Bamberg; Berlin lives a life that is, if not full, then fresh and youthful; it captivated, whirled Hoffmann, and Hoffmann ended up in an aristocratic circle, in a black tailcoat, in shoes, reading articles, listening to singing, accompanying. But aristocrats are boring; at first, their tone, their splendor, their illuminated halls please; but everything sooner or later becomes intolerable. Hoffmann abandoned the aristocrats and, from the parquet, from the stuffy halls, he fled down, down, and stopped in a tavern. "From eight to ten," he writes, "I sit with good people and drink tea with rum; from ten to twelve, also with good people, and I drink rum with tea." But this is not yet the end; after twelve, he heads to the wine cellar, maintaining in his drinking a crescendo a gradual increase in intensity as well. It was here that strange, ugly, gloomy, comical, terrible shadows filled Hoffmann, and he, in a state of the strongest agitation, would seize his pen and write his convulsive, insane novellas. During this time, he composed an awful lot and finally solemnly concluded his career with the autobiography of Kater Murr. In Murr and Kreisler, Hoffmann was describing himself; but, in fact, he did indeed have a cat, whom they called Murr, and in whom he had some kind of mystical belief. It is strange that Hoffmann, while completely healthy, used to say that he would not outlive Murr, and indeed he died shortly after the cat’s death. Suffering from a painful illness (tabes dorsalis wasting disease of the spinal cord), he was still the same; his fantasy had not cooled. Having lost the use of his legs and hands, he found this to be a beautiful condition; they would seat him facing a corner window, and he would sit for several hours looking at the market and imagining why everyone was walking original: "Meines Betters Eckfenster", referring to his piece "My Cousin's Corner Window.", and when they cauterized his back with a red-hot iron, he imagined himself as merchandise being branded by order of a customs officer! Now, having brought his life to his funeral, let us turn to his works.