Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) (9 page)

‘Will you look at that strange little grey bush that seems to be slowly drawing near?’ asked Clara.

Nathaniel mechanically reached into his coat pocket; he found Coppola’s looking-glass and turned it sideways. There was Clara standing in the eye of the lens. A spasmodic quiver started up in his veins and arteries – turning deathly pale, he peered at Clara, but soon sparks of fire flashed from his rolling eyes; he let out a horrible cry like a hunted animal, jumped high in the air and with a curious cackle proceeded to scream out shrilly: ‘Turn, little wooden doll, turn!’ – and with a great burst of strength he grabbed hold of Clara and tried to hurl her off the balcony, but Clara clung for dear life to the metal railing.

Hearing the madman raving and Clara’s terrified screams, and gripped by a terrible foreboding, Lothar clambered up the stairs, but the door to the second flight of steps was locked. Clara’s piteous screams sounded louder and louder. Consumed with anger and fear, Lothar hurled himself against the door, which finally gave way.

Clara’s cries grew fainter and fainter: ‘Help! Save me! Save me!’ till her voice went silent.

‘She’s done for – murdered by that madman,’ Lothar screamed.
The door to the lookout gallery was also locked. Desperation turned him into a lion; he broke down the door. God in heaven! Clara dangled in Nathaniel’s mad grip over the edge of the railing, only holding on to the cast-iron railing by one hand. Quick as lightning, Lothar grabbed his sister, pulled her to safety and at the very same moment heaved a balled fist into the madman’s face so that he tumbled backwards and let go of his prey.

Lothar raced back down the steps, his unconscious sister in his arms. She was saved. Meanwhile, Nathaniel kept flailing about on the lookout gallery and jumped high in the air and cried: ‘Ring of fire, turn! Ring of fire, turn!’

Aroused by the screams, a throng gathered below, including the lawyer Coppelius, who had just come to town and made straight for the market place. Some people wanted to climb the tower to capture the madman, whereupon Coppelius laughed and said: ‘Ha ha, just be patient, he’ll be down shortly on his own initiative!’ and looked on as the others raced up the steps.

Nathaniel suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He leant down, spotted Coppelius below and with a shrill shriek – ‘Ha! Eyes a pretty! Eyes a pretty!’ – he leapt over the parapet. As Nathaniel landed, his skull smashed on the cobblestones, while Coppelius disappeared in the crowd.

Some years later Clara was said to have been spotted in some distant town seated, hand in hand with a friendly man on a bench before the door of a lovely little country house, two bouncing boys playing at her feet. It might, therefore, be fair to suppose that Clara finally found the quiet domestic bliss that suited her cheerful, life-loving spirit and that Nathaniel in his torn and troubled state could never have given her.

1804

Ludwig Tieck

A young hunter sat lost in thought before a bird trap in a remote mountain hollow, listening to the rush of water and the rustle of the forest in the solitude of the wild. He pondered his fate, having at an early age forsaken his father and mother, the cosy comforts of home and all the friends from his village to seek out strange surroundings in which to escape the ever-reoccurring cycle of the ordinary; and he looked around him now somewhat surprised to find himself in this valley, yet again engaged in the same pursuit. Fat clouds floated through the sky, disappearing behind the mountains, birds sang in the bushes and an echo replied. Slowly he climbed down the mountain and sat himself on the bank of a brook that bubbled, foaming, over the protruding rock. He listened to the ever-changing melody of the water, and it seemed to him as though the rippling current whispered in an unintelligible tongue a thousand things he absolutely needed to know, and he felt a deep sadness at his failure to understand. Then he looked around again and this time he felt a sudden burst of joy; whereupon he took heart and sang out loud a hunting song:

Gay and giddy, midst stones walking

Goes the youth in hot pursuit,

Ever watchful, his prey stalking

Slinking, thinking, never talking

Till the hunt bears fruit.

Heed the bark of faithful hounds

In the blessed solitude.

Answer with the horn’s sweet sound,

Hear the heart so quickly pound,

Hunting is beatitude!

Home is in the chasm hollow,

Every tree a friendly face,

Heavens, let the wild winds bellow,

Bringing buck and roe to follow,

After hoof let swift foot race.

Leave the farmer to his tilling,

Let the sailor keep his tides,

No one greets dawn with such feeling,

No one sees Diana kneeling

In the dew drops where she hides.

Only he who hunting goes

Ever saw the goddess smile

With a face that makes his heart glow,

Never more will he such love know,

Longing for her in the wild.

As he sang, the sun went down and long shadows fell over the narrow valley. A cooling darkness spilt over the ground, and only the tops of the trees and the rounded mountain peaks were still illumined by the glow of night.

Christian’s mood grew ever sadder; he had no desire to return to his bird traps, yet neither did he wish to remain where he was; he felt so lonely and longed for human company. Now he hankered after his father’s old books, which he had always refused to read every time his father urged him to do so; scenes from childhood sprang to mind, the games he played with little friends, the schoolhouse that had felt so oppressive to him, and he longed to be back in all those places he had wilfully left behind to find his fortune in unknown climes, in mountains and among strange people, to seek out a new pursuit.

As it grew darker, and the brook bubbled louder, and the birds of night took flight to begin their mad wanderings, he still
stayed seated at the same spot, feeling despondent, all his thoughts turning inward; he wanted to cry and he hadn’t the vaguest idea of what to do or what task to take up next. He thoughtlessly plucked a protruding root from the ground, and was suddenly startled to hear a dim whimper that swelled in the earth down below him into a mournful wail, and only faded sadly in the distance. The sound swept through his heart of hearts, it gripped him as though he had unsuspectingly touched the wound through which the dying body of nature painfully sought to give up the ghost. He jumped up and wanted to run away, for he had already heard of the curious root of the mandrake which, when torn out, gives off such heart-rending sounds that a man can go mad listening to its whine. As he made ready to leave, a stranger came up from behind, smiled at him in a friendly manner and asked where he wanted to go. Christian had longed for human company, and yet he once again shrank back with fear at this friendly presence.

‘Where are you rushing off to?’ the stranger asked again.

The young hunter tried to pull himself together and told him how, suddenly overwhelmed by loneliness, he wanted to run away, as the evening had grown so dark, the green shadows of the trees so sad, the brook bubbled so balefully and the passing clouds drew his longings to the far side of the mountains.

‘You’re still young,’ the stranger said, ‘and can’t yet abide the rigours of solitude. I’d best keep you company for a while, since you won’t find a house or a village within a mile of here. We might as well chat along the way and tell each other stories, it’ll chase away your dark thoughts; in an hour’s time the moon will rise from behind the mountain, its light will lighten up your soul.’

They set out together, and soon the stranger seemed to the young man like an old acquaintance. ‘What brought you to these mountains?’ the stranger asked. ‘Judging from the way you speak, you’re not from hereabouts.’

‘There’s more than a mouthful I could tell you,’ said the young man, ‘but it’s hardly worth relating, not the stuff of a story. Drawn, as if by some strange force, away from the circle of my parents and relations, my spirit wanted to escape; like a
bird caught in a net trying in vain to break free, my soul was consumed by all sorts of odd fantasies and desires. We lived far from here on a plain with no mountains for miles about and hardly a hill in sight; few trees graced the green plain, but meadows, fertile fields of grain and gardens stretched as far as the eye could see, and a great river glimmered like a mighty spirit rushing past the meadows and fields. My father was a gardener in the castle and intended to train me to take up the same pursuit; he loved plants and flowers more than anything else and could spend days on end tirelessly tending to their care and cultivation. Indeed, he went so far as to maintain that he could almost talk to them: he learnt their language from their growth and blossoming as well as from the different forms and colours of their leaves. I found the work in the garden loathsome, all the more so as my father tried to talk me into it and even to force me with threats. I wanted to become a fisherman and tried it out, but the solitary life on the water didn’t suit me either; I was then apprenticed to a shopkeeper in town, but soon returned to my father’s house. Then one day I heard my father talk about the mountains he had visited in his youth, of the underground mines and the miners, of the hunters and their life, and suddenly this pressing drive stirred in me, this feeling that I had found the life that best suited me.

‘Day and night I mused and pictured high mountain peaks, deep chasms and evergreen forests; my imagination fashioned colossal cliffs, I heard in my fantasies the hubbub of the hunt, the blast of hunting horns and the yapping of dogs and game; I dreamt of nothing else, and the constant thought of it robbed me of peace and rest. The flat plain, the castle, my father’s little walled garden with its well-ordered flower beds, the cramped house, the sky that stretched so sadly all around, and not a groundswell, not a proper promontory for miles about – all this became more and more depressing and hateful. It seemed to me as if all the people around me lived in pitiful ignorance, and that all of them would think and feel as I did if only for a fleeting instant they were struck by an awareness of their misery.

‘Consumed by such thoughts, I brooded until one fine morning I resolved to leave my parents’ house for ever. I had read in
a book of the nearest big mountain, saw illustrations of some of its corners and planned my way accordingly. It was in early spring and I felt altogether happy and light-hearted.

‘I hurried along in order to leave the plain behind me as soon as possible, and one evening I saw the dark outlines of the mountains rearing in the distance before me. I could hardly sleep at the inn where I was staying, so impatient was I to reach the region I thought to be my true homeland; I startled awake early and was once again on my way. By afternoon I had already reached my beloved mountains and, reeling like a drunk, just stood still for a while, peered behind me and let myself get giddy at the sight of all the strange, and yet oh so familiar, surroundings.

‘Soon the plain disappeared from view and the forest streams came surging towards me. Beech and oak trees shook their shaggy manes over steep precipices; my path led me past dizzying abysses, blue peaks loomed tall and proud in the background. A new world revealed itself to me, and I did not grow tired of its charms. So after a few days’ walking, during which I traversed much of the craggy terrain, I met up with an old woodsman who, heeding my urgent pleas, took me under his wing and taught me the art of hunting. I spent three months in his service. I took possession of this rugged country in which I roamed as if it were my kingdom; I got to know every cliff and every ravine; I was happy in my element when early in the morning we set out for the forest, when we chopped down trees, when I trained my eye and my musket on a fleeting target, and when I helped train our trusted comrades, the dogs, to track down game. I’ve been seated for some eight days now setting bird traps up here on the loneliest ledge, and this evening I felt sadder than I ever had in my life, I felt so lost, so completely forlorn, and I still can’t get over the feeling.’

The stranger had listened attentively as both wandered along a dark path in the forest. Now they came out into a clearing, and the crescent moon that hung over the mountain top greeted them with a friendly burst of light. The cleft rock reared before them, with all its strange forms and various and sundry masses mysteriously melded in the pale glimmer of light, a steep peak
looming in the distance atop which ancient crumbling ruins gave off an eerie aura. ‘Our ways part here,’ said the stranger, ‘I’m heading down there, my house is in the hollow; the ore in the rock is my neighbour, the mountain streams tell me wondrous things at night; that’s not where you’re going. But look at yon Rune Mountain with its steep cliffs, how lovely and invitingly it gazes down at us! Have you never been there?’

‘Never,’ said young Christian, ‘though I once heard the old woodsman tell wondrous things about that mountain, which, foolishly enough, I promptly forgot; but I do recall that on that evening I was filled with dread. I would like to climb it once, for the light is loveliest up there, the grass must be greener than green, and the world around it different from anywhere else; and it may well be that up there you can still find miracles of old.’

‘You’re almost certain to succeed,’ the stranger replied, ‘if you know how to look; he whose heart is deeply drawn to it will find old friends there and abundant beauty, all that you could possibly wish for.’ With these words, the stranger swiftly set out on his descent without bidding his companion farewell. He soon disappeared in the thicket, and shortly thereafter even the sound of his footsteps passed out of earshot.

The young hunter was not surprised; he just redoubled his steps to Rune Mountain. Everything drew him there, the stars seemed to shimmer in that direction, the moon seemed to light the way up to the ruins, light clouds wafted upwards and the rivers and rustling forests below emboldened him in his resolve. His steps seemed to fly, his heart beat fast, he felt such a burst of joy that it soon welled up into a tumult of disquiet. He came to parts he’d never been to; the cliffs grew steeper, the verdure vanished, the bare walls of rock beckoned, calling out to him with raging voices, and a lonesome wailing wind whipped him ever onwards.