On the following morning Flemming awoke in a chamber¹ of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as the clock in the Dome-church opposite was striking ten. The window-shutters were closed, and the room nearly dark. He was lying on his back, with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead. He thought them the white marble canopy³ of a tomb, and himself the marble statue, lying beneath. When the clock ceased striking, the eight and twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber, and arranged themselves along the walls, which spread into dimly-lighted aisles⁴ and arches. On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, withits Franciscan cloister⁵, and the Square Tower of the ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the German student, as Saint Vitus; and on a lavatory⁶, or basin of holy-water, below, sat a cherub⁷, with the form and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes began to blow, and he heard the voices of an invisible choir⁸ chanting. And anon the gilded⁹ gates in the bronze screen before the chancel opened, and a bridal procession passed through. The bride was clothed in the garb¹⁰ of the Middle Ages; and held a book in her hand, with velvet¹¹ covers, and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She looked at him as she passed. Her face was pale; and there were tears in her sweet eyes. Then the gates closed again; and one of the oaken poppy-heads over a carved stall, in the shape of an owl¹², flapped its broad wings, and hooted¹³, "Towhit! to-whoo!" Then the whole scene changed; and he thought himself a monk¹⁴'s-head on a gutterspout; and it rained dismally¹⁵; and Berkley was standing¹⁶ under with an umbrella, laughing!  
In other words, Flemming was in a ragingfever, and delirious¹⁷. He remained in this state for a week. The first thing he was conscious of was hearing the doctor say to Berkley;
 
"The crisis is passed. I now consider him out of danger."
 
He then fell into a sweet sleep; the wild fever had swept away like an angry, red cloud, and the refreshing¹⁸ summer rain began to fall like dew upon the parched¹⁹ earth. Still another week; and Flemming was, "sitting clothed, and in his right mind." Berkley had been reading to him; and still held the book in his hand, with his fore-finger between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoffmann's writings.
 
"How very strange it is," said he, "that you can hardly open the biography of any German author, but you will find it begin with an account of his grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable old man walked up and down the garden among the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning gown, which is likewise covered with flowers, and perhaps wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Oryou will find him sitting by the chimney-corner in the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe, with shaggy eyebrows²⁰ and eyes like birdsnests under the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg nutcracker's. The future poet climbs upon the old man's knees. His genius is not recognised yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy. His father is an austere²¹ man, or perhaps dead. But the mother is still there, a sickly, saint-like woman, with knitting-work, and an elder sister, who has already been in love, and wears rings on her fingers;--
 
'Death's heads, and such mementos²²,
 
Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left to her,
 
To tell her what her beauty must arrive at.' "
 
"But this is not the case with the life of Hoffmann, if I recollect²³ right."
 
"No, not precisely²⁴. Instead of the grandfather we have the grandmother, a stately dame²⁵, who has long since shaken hands with the vanities of life. The mother, separated from her husband, is sick in mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow. Then there is an affectionate maiden²⁶ aunt; and an uncle, a retired²⁷ judge, the terror of little boys,--the Giant Despair of this Doubting Castle in Koenigsberg; and occasionally the benign²⁸ countenance²⁹ of a venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouqué called a hero of the olden time in morning gown and slippers³⁰, looks in at the door and smiles. In the upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe herself to be the Virgin³¹ Mary, and her son the Saviour³² of the world. Wild fancies, likewise, were to sweep through the brain of that child. He was to meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in after years, though as yet they knew nothing of each other. This was Werner, who has made some noise in German literature as the author of many wild Destiny-Dramas."
 
"Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin."
 
"Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of age, and passed the next eight years of his life in the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where he held some petty office under government; and took to himselfmany bad habits and a Polish wife. After this he was Music-Director at various German theatres, and led a wandering, wretched life for ten years. He then went to Berlin as Clerk of the Exchange, and there remained till his death, which took place some seven or eight years afterward³³."
 
"Did you ever see him?"
 
"I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw him frequently. I shall never forget the first time. It was at one of the æsthetic Teas, given by a literary lady Unter den² Linden, where the lions were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread and butter, up to oysters³⁴ and Rhine-wine. During the evening my attention was arrested by the entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and his thin lips closely pressed together with an expression of not unpleasing irony³⁵. This strangelooking personage began to bow his way through the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions, much resembling those of a marionette³⁶. He had a hoarse³⁷ voice, and such a rapid utterance³⁸, that although I understood German well enough for ordinary purposes, I could not understand one half he said. Ere long he had seated himself at the piano-forte, and was improvising³⁹ such wild, sweet fancies, that the music of one's dreams is not more sweet and wild. Then suddenly some painful thought seemed to pass over his mind, as if he imagined, that he was there to amuse the company. He rose from the piano-forte, and seated himself in another part of the room; where he began to make grimaces⁴⁰, and talk loud while others were singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin, laughing, 'Ho! ho! ho!' I asked a person beside me who this strange being was. 'That was Hoffmann,' was the answer. 'The Devil!' said I. 'Yes,' continued my informant; 'and if you should follow him now, you would see him plunge⁴¹ into an obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and there, amid boon⁴² companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke, and quirks⁴³ and quibbles, and quaint⁴⁴, witty⁴⁵ sayings, turn the dim night into glorious day.' "
 
"What a strange being!"
 
"I once saw him at one of his night-carouses. He was sitting in his glory, at the head of the table; not stupidly drunk, but warmed with wine, which made him madly eloquent⁴⁶, as the Devil's Elixir⁴⁷ did the Monk Medardus. There, in the full tide of witty discourse⁴⁸, or, if silent, his gray, hawk⁴⁹ eye flashing from beneath his matted hair, and taking note of all that was grotesque⁵⁰ in the company round him, sat this unfortunate genius, till the day began to dawn. Then he found his way homeward, having, like the souls of the envious51

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