Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/12

 he goes, and misery comes back to stand sentinel on the stage of the abandoned theatre. Hoffmann, driven to extremity, sells his last coat to enable him to wait until his friend Hitzig, his second providence, forwards him his commission as leader of the orchestra at Dresden. Now at Dresden, things go on no better than on his arrival at Bamberg; but, to console him, he finds there his faithful friend Hippel, and friendship makes him forget his misfortunes for a time.

We are in 1813; the dogs of war are let loose; Talma is playing French pieces at Dresden, and Hoffmann is working on the opera of Undine, and at the same time making caricatures for the bookseller Baumgartner, getting poorer from day to day. In 1814 his friend Hippel, who has made his way, reappears, and who, faithful to his attachment, does not give himself a moment's rest until he has caused the recall of Hoffmann to Berlin, where he finds Hitzig, and continues his functions of counsellor at the regency.

Here, then, ought to commence for him a new existence. Seven years of calm, are they not sufficient to heal the wounds that fate has cruelly made? Is it not time for Hoffmann to enjoy a little of the comforts of the fireside and the success of public life? Well, no! his destiny must be accomplished, like that which devotes to martyrdom whoever bears upon his forehead the sign of genius. Besides, the misery of the past has undermined his vital strength. To this prostration of the organs is joined attacks of paralysis of the extremities; then the invasion of a frightful malady, the spine disease, comes to render his situation without remedy and without hope of recovery. He vegetated five months in unspeakable suffering, which he bore with the resignation of a stoic. In the last days that preceded his death, the physicians tried to reanimate him by the application of cautery to each side of the back hone. Hitzig having come to visit him a short time after one of these painful operations, Hoffmann asked him "if he had not smelt, on entering, an odor of roast beef:" then he related in detail the proceedings of the doctor, adding,