E.T.A. HOFFMANN
THREE WOMEN OLYMPIA Nathanael found an invitation and went to the Professor’s house at the appointed time with a racing pulse, as the carriages rolled up and the lights sparkled in the richly decorated rooms. The assembly was crowded and distinguished. Olympia appeared, sumptuously and tastefully dressed, her shapely face and elegant stature commanding admiration. Nathanael was smitten; he was standing in the farthest row, and was unable to make out Olympia’s features clearly in the dazzling candlelight. Unnoticed, he took Coppola’s spyglass to gaze at the beautiful Olympia. Ah! He saw her looking towards him, her eyes full of longing. “To dance, with her – with her!” That was now the peak of Nathanael’s desire, his dearest wish – but how could he scrape up the courage to ask her, the queen of the evening’s celebrations? Without knowing how it happened, when the dance had already started he was standing close to Olympia, who had not yet been asked to dance, and found himself barely able to stammer a few words – but nevertheless taking her hand. Professor Spalanzani paced slowly through the empty room, his steps echoing hollowly, a grey, ghostly figure casting flickering shadows. “Do you love me? Do you love me, Olympia?
Just one word! Say you love me!” But for all Nathanael’s whispered pleas, Olympia only sighed as she rose to her feet, “Ah, ah!” “Ah, my glorious star of love,” Nathanael breathed, “You have risen for me and will light my innermost being for ever!” “Ah, ah,” Olympia repeated, moving on. His heart af lame with desire, Nathanael decided to beg Olympia the very next day to tell him in plain words what her bold look of love had told him, that she would be his for ever. While still on the stairs and in the hallway, he heard an uproar, apparently coming from Spalanzani’s study, with stamping feet, clattering, thumping, – “damned” dog of a simple-minded clockmaker – get out of here – the devil – stop – dollmaker – fiend! – stop – out of here – let go!” The voices were Spalanzani and the hideous Coppelius, wrangling and raging. Nathanael burst in, seized by a nameless fear. The professor had a female figure by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola had her feet, and they tugged and heaved back and forth, struggling wildly for possession. Filled with terror, Nathanael recoiled when he recognised the figure as Olympia; gripped by a wild rage, he tried to pull his beloved free from the infuriated pair, but at that very moment Coppola wrenched the figure from the professor’s hands with a mighty tug, striking Spalanzani a fear-
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THREE WOMEN
ful blow with the figure that knocked him backwards over a table crowded with phials, retorts, bottles and glass cylinders which toppled, shattering in a thousand fragments. Coppola threw the figure over his shoulder, and laughing demonically ran quickly down the stairs, the figure’s horribly dangling feet thumping and clattering woodenly against the steps. – Nathanael stood motionless – he had seen, all too clearly, that Olympia’s pale, waxen face had no eyes, only black hollows; she was a lifeless doll. from: The Sandman (Night Pieces)
ANTONIA The sound of Antonia’s voice was strange, unique, often echoing the brea- thy tones of the Aeolian harp, or the trilling of the nightingale. The human breast seemed to have no place for such sounds. Glowing with love and joy, Antonia sang and sang all her most beautiful songs, while B... played in between, enraptured, intoxicated with joy. At first, Krespel too was lost in delight, but then he became thoughtful, silent, withdrawn. Finally, he sprang up, pressed Antonia to his bosom and begged, very softly: “don’t sing any more, if you love me – it breaks my heart – the worry – the worry.” The doctor, his face expressive of deep concern from the start of this speech, replied: “enough, Antonia suffers from an organic weakness in her chest that gives her voice its wonderful power and the unusual, I would even say more than human sound to her song. But this will also mean an early
death for her, and if she goes on singing like this, I give her at most six months to live.” These words pierced the councillor to the heart. like a hundred swords. His mind was made up. He told Antonia everything, gave her the choice of following her husband and yielding to his pleas and those of the world, and dying young as a result, or giving her father the peace and joy that had been missing in his old age, and so living for many years. Antonia fell sobbing into her father’s arms. He spoke to the husband, but although the latter assured him that no sound would pass Antonia’s lips, the councillor knew well that even B... would never be able to resist the temptation of hearing Antonia sing. And even if the world, the musical public, was told of Antonia’s illness, it would never cease its demands, as people are egotistical and cruel where their pleasures are involved. The councillor disappeared with Antonia. She clung to Krespel with a deep, childlike love. “I’ll never sing again, I’ll live for you instead,” she often told her father, smiling, if someone had asked her to sing and she had refused. The councillor tried to shield her from such moments as far as possible, so that he become less and less willing to take her into society, and carefully avoided all music. One night, the councillor thought he heard someone playing his piano in the next room. He tried to get up, but it was as if he was pinned, bound by iron bars, unable to move. Antonia began in soft, breathy notes which gradually swelled into a shattering fortissimo, and then the wonderful sounds became the deeply moving song which B... had once composed for her in the pious style of the old masters. Krespel
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ROTRAUD A. PERNER
ON EX PRESSING EMOTIONS As long as we exist in our bodies and our senses cannot separate from our spirit, we should not brush away passing fancies, they are what hue is to a painting, they uplift every idea that occupies our soul; with every thought of happiness, they fill us with a beneficial sense of gentle delight. E.T.A. Hoffmann on 12 January 1795 to Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel
When at the end of Offenbach’s “narrative” opera, intoxicated by an excess of punch Hoffmann is no longer responsive, his muse comforts him:
“It is I, your Muse, your faithful friend,who wiped dry your tears and strewed roses along your path, who stilled earthly passions with a tender hand, who healed your wounds, who felt your suffering. Hoffmann, be mine!”
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ON EXPRESSING EMOTIONS
THE MUSE – A MOTHER FIGURE? Yet does this Muse not seem to be a substitute mother, who like many real mothers tolerates “no other goddesses before me” and therefore instils the masochistic tendency absolutely not to love any other woman who might make everyday life pleasant? One who also invades the love idyll, disguised in the demonic/caring guise of Dr Miracle: “...all these endowments in which heaven has allowed you a share / must they be hidden / in the shadow of domesticity?” Or is she perhaps a mother who has recognised early on her son’s aptitude for “higher things” and wants to protect him from misunderstandings, disappointments and exploitation? In Joy from Suffering (1940), psychoanalyst Theodor Reik (1888-1969) identifies an unconscious need for punishment for immoral instinctual impulses as a factor in failed relationship ideals. However, the first instance of punishment is the mother ... and the cause is usually a violation of her concept of discipline and purity. Discipline is what the automaton Olympia represents: with no independent existence, she has exactly what passionate Hoffmann is lacking. This is a case of choice of partner familiar to couple therapists that is based on the principle of complements (which if there is no mutual development later leads to reproaches: “why aren’t you like me?” and separation). The fact that Olympia has only “fathers” and no mother also removes the element of competition. In this stage of his development, Hoffmann is still focused on appearances; he is not yet searching for inner values.
Feeling one’s own subjectivity on the other hand makes one vulnerable and fearful: one worries about the loved person. This concern is directed towards Antonia. Antonia too has no mother. This offers Hoffmann the opportunity to approach her with the traditional intention of entering a liaison. And once again he does not reckon on his intentions being foiled by a demonic father figure. As naive as he is, he once again does not suspect that on this, his first attempt to get close to an experienced woman as as purposeful man and not just as a dreamer, he is bound to encounter such demons in the Venetian red light district and furthermore as professionals. With Reik, one might detect subtle masochism: “Everyone knows people who as it were flaunt their suffering. In masochism, suffering has an extremely clear exterior donned for your surroundings, a façade specifically for the people around you. If the people around you pay you no attention, the suffering loses much of its enjoyable nature.” As if involuntarily, the character Hoffmann switches from the song about Kleinzach to a declaration of his new love, entirely in keeping with “what’s in one’s heart is on one’s lips”; it is as if he gave himself the cue for sympathy and approval, in short to command the energy that derives from attention.
THE MYTH OF THE SUFFERING ARTIST For religious purposes, in Civilization and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud traced the derivation of this to “the infant’s helplessness and the longing for the father aroused by it”, which “is
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