The Devil's Elixirs (Horror Classic). ÐрнÑÑ‚ Гофман
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The eventful holiday soon arrived. The church was unusually crowded, and it was not without considerable trepidation that I mounted the pulpit. At the commencement, I remained timidly faithful to my manuscript; and Leonardus told me that I had spoken with a faltering voice, which, however, exactly corresponded with certain plaintive and pathetic considerations with which I had begun my discourse, and which, therefore, was interpreted by most of my auditors into a very skilful example of rhetorical tact.
Soon afterwards, however, it seemed as if my inward mind were gradually lighted up by the glowing fire of supernatural inspiration. I thought no more of the manuscript, but gave myself up to the influence of the moment. I felt how every nerve and fibre was attuned and energized. I heard my own voice thunder through the vaulted roof. I beheld, as if by miracle, the halo of divine light shed around my own elevated head and outstretched arms. By what means I was enabled to preserve connection in my periods, or to deliver my conceptions with any degree of logical precision, I know not, for I was carried out of myself. I could not afterwards have declared whether my discourse had been short or long—the time past like a dream! With a grand euphonical sentence, in which I concentrated, as if into one focus, all the blessed doctrines that I had been announcing, I concluded my sermon; of which the effect was such as had been in the convent wholly unexampled.
Long after I had ceased to speak, there were heard through the church the sounds of passionate weeping, exclamations of heartfelt rapture, and audible prayers. The brethren paid me their tribute of the highest approbation. Leonardus embraced me, and named me the pride of their institution!
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With unexampled rapidity my renown was spread abroad; and henceforward, on every Sunday or holiday, crowds of the most respectable inhabitants of the town used to be assembled, even before the doors were opened, while the church, after all, was found insufficient to hold them. By this homage, my zeal was proportionably increased. I endeavoured more and more to give to my periods the proper rounding, and to adorn my discourses throughout, with all the flowers of eloquence. I succeeded always more and more in fettering the attention of my audience, until my fame became such, that the attention paid to me was more like the homage and veneration due to a saint, than approbation bestowed on any ordinary mortal. A kind of religious delirium now prevailed through the town. Even on ordinary week days, and on half-holidays, the inhabitants came in crowds, merely to see Brother Medardus, and to hear him speak, though but a few words.
Thus vanity gradually, by imperceptible, but sure approaches, took possession of my heart. Almost unconsciously, I began to look upon myself as the one elect,—the pre-eminently chosen of Heaven. Then the miraculous circumstances attending my birth at the Lime-Tree; my father's forgiveness of a mortal crime; the visionary adventures of my childhood;—all seemed to indicate that my lofty spirit, in immediate commerce with supernatural beings, belonged not properly to earth, but to Heaven, and was but suffered, for a space, to wander here, for the benefit and consolation of mortals! It became, according to my own judgment, quite certain, that the venerable old Pilgrim, together with the wonderful boy that he had brought with him, had been supernatural visitants,—that they had descended on earth, for the express purpose of greeting me as the chosen saint, who was destined for the instruction of mankind, to sojourn transiently among them.
But the more vividly all these ideas came before me, the more did my present situation become oppressive and disagreeable. That unaffected cheerfulness and inward serenity which had formerly brightened my existence, was completely banished from my soul. Even all the good-hearted expressions of the Prior, and friendly behaviour of the monks, awoke within me only discontent and resentment. By their mode of conduct, my vanity was bitterly mortified. In me they ought clearly to have recognised the chosen saint who was above them so highly elevated. Nay, they should even have prostrated themselves in the dust, and implored my intercession before the throne of Heaven!
I considered them, therefore, as beings influenced by the most deplorable obduracy and refractoriness of spirit. Even in my discourses I contrived to interweave certain mysterious allusions. I ventured to assert, that now a wholly new and mighty revolution had begun, as with the roseate light of morning, to dawn upon the earth, announcing to pious believers, that one of the specially elect of Heaven had been sent for a space to wander in sublunary regions. My supposed mission I continued to clothe in mysterious and obscure imagery, which, indeed, the less it was understood, seemed the more to work like a charm among the people.
Leonardus now became visibly colder in his manner, avoiding to speak with me, unless before witnesses. At last, one day, when we were left alone in the great allée of the convent garden, he broke out—"Brother Medardus, I can no longer conceal from you, that for some time past your whole behaviour has been such as to excite in me the greatest displeasure. There has arisen in your mind some adverse and hostile principle, by which you have become wholly alienated from a life of pious simplicity. In your discourses, there prevails a dangerous obscurity; and from this darkness many things appear ready, if you dared utter them, to start forward, which if plainly spoken, would effectually separate you and me for ever. To be candid—at this moment you bear about with you, and betray that unalterable curse of our sinful origin, by which even every powerful struggle of our spiritual energies is rendered a means of opening to us the realms of destruction, whereinto we thoughtless mortals are, alas! too apt to go astray!
"The approbation, nay, the idolatrous admiration, which has been paid to you by the capricious multitude, who are always in search of novelty, has dazzled you, and you behold yourself in an artificial character, which is not your own, but a deceitful phantom, which will entice you rapidly into the gulf of perdition. Return, then, into yourself, Medardus—renounce the delusion which thus besets and overpowers you! I believe that I thoroughly understand this delusion,—at least, I am well aware of its effects. Already have you lost utterly that calmness and complacence of spirit, without which there is, on this earth, no hope of real improvement. Take warning, then, in time! Resist the fiend who besets you! Be once more that good-humoured and open-hearted youth whom with my whole soul I loved!"
Tears involuntarily flowed from the eyes of the good Prior while he spoke thus. He had taken my hand, but now letting it fall, he departed quickly without waiting for any answer.
His words had indeed penetrated my heart; but, alas! the impressions that they had left were only those of anger, distrust, and resentment. He had spoken of the approbation, nay, the admiration and respect, which I had obtained by my wonderful talents; and it became but too obvious that only pitiful envy had been the real source of that displeasure, which he so candidly expressed towards me.
Silent, and wrapt up within myself, I remained at the next meeting of the brethren, a prey to devouring indignation. Still buoyed up and excited by the wild inspirations which had risen up within me, I continued through whole days and long sleepless nights my laborious contrivances how I might best commit to paper (without a too candid avowal of my self-idolatry) the glorious ideas that crowded on my mind.
Meanwhile, the more that I became estranged from Leonardus and the monks, the better I succeeded in attracting the homage of the people; and my discourses never failed to rivet their attention.
On St Anthony's day this year, it happened that the church was more than ever thronged—in such manner, that the vestry-men were obliged to keep the doors open, in order that those who could not get in might at least hear me from without. Never had I spoken more ardently, more impressively,—in a word, with more onction. I had related, as usual, many wonderful anecdotes from the lives of the saints, and had demonstrated in what degree their examples, though not imitable in their fullest extent, might yet be advantageously applied in real life. I spoke, too, of the manifold arts of the Devil, to whom the fall of our first parents had given the power of seducing mankind; and involuntarily, before I was aware, the stream of eloquence led me away into the legend of the Elixir, which I wished to represent as an ingenious allegory.
Then suddenly, my looks, in wandering through the church, fell upon a tall haggard figure, who had mounted upon a bench, and stood in a direction nearly opposite to me, leaning against a pillar. He was in a strange foreign garb, with a dark violet-coloured mantle, of which the folds were twined round his crossed