The Deserted House

The Deserted House by Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
from The Lock and Key Library: German Stories
1909
The Reviews of Reviews Co., New York
Edited by Louis E. Van Norman
THEY were all agreed in the belief that the actual facts of life are often
far more wonderful than the invention of even the liveliest imagination
can be.
"It seems to me," spoke Lelio, "that history gives proof sufficient of
this. And that is why the so-called historical romances seem so
repulsive and tasteless to us, those stories wherein the author mingles
the foolish fancies of his meager brain with the deeds of the great
powers of the universe."
Franz took the word. "It is the deep reality of the inscrutable secrets
surrounding us that oppresses us with a might wherein we recognize
the Spirit that rules, the Spirit out of which our being springs."
"Alas," said Lelio, "it is the most terrible result of the fall of man, that
we have lost the power of recognizing the eternal verities."
"Many are called, but few are chosen," broke in Franz. "Do you not
believe that an understanding of the wonders of our existence is given
to some of us in the form of another sense? But if you would allow me
to drag the conversation up from these dark regions where we are in
danger of losing our path altogether up into the brightness of
light-hearted merriment, I would like to make the scurrilous suggestion
that those mortals to whom this gift of seeing the Unseen has been
given remind me of bats. You know the learned anatomist Spallanzani

has discovered a sixth sense in these little animals which can do not
only the entire work of the other senses, but work of its own besides."
"Oho," laughed Edward, "according to that, the bats would be the only
natural-born clairvoyants. But I know one who possesses that gift of
insight, of which you were speaking, in a remarkable degree. Because
of it he will often follow for days some unknown person who has
happened to attract his attention by an oddity in manner, appearance, or
garb; he will ponder to melancholy over some trifling incident, some
lightly told story; he will combine the antipodes and raise up
relationships in his imagination which are unknown to everyone else."
"Wait a bit," cried Lelio. "It is our Theodore of whom you are speaking
now. And it looks to me as if he were having some weird vision at this
very moment. See how strangely he gazes out into the distance."
Theodore had been sitting in silence up to this moment. Now he spoke:
"If my glances are strange it is because they reflect the strange things
that were called up before my mental vision by your conversation, the
memories of a most remarkable adventure----"
"Oh, tell it to us," interrupted his friends.
"Gladly," continued Theodore. "But first, let me set right a slight
confusion in your ideas on the subject of the mysterious. You appear to
confound what is merely odd and unusual with what is really
mysterious or marvelous, that which surpasses comprehension or belief.
The odd and the unusual, it is true, spring often from the truly
marvelous, and the twigs and flowers hide the parent stem from our
eyes. Both the odd and the unusual and the truly marvelous are mingled
in the adventure which I am about to narrate to you, mingled in a
manner which is striking and even awesome." With these words
Theodore drew from his pocket a notebook in which, as his friends
knew, he had written down the impressions of his late journeyings.
Refreshing his memory by a look at its pages now and then, he narrated
the following story.
You know already that I spent the greater part of last summer in X----.

The many old friends and acquaintances I found there, the free, jovial
life, the manifold artistic and intellectual interests--all these combined
to keep me in that city. I was happy as never before, and found rich
nourishment for my old fondness for wandering alone through the
streets, stopping to enjoy every picture in the shop windows, every
placard on the walls, or watching the passers-by and choosing some
one or the other of them to cast his horoscope secretly to myself.
There is one broad avenue leading to the ---- Gate and lined with
handsome buildings of all descriptions, which is the meeting place of
the rich and fashionable world. The shops which occupy the ground
floor of the tall palaces are devoted to the trade in articles of luxury,
and the apartments above are the dwellings of people of wealth and
position. The aristocratic hotels are to be found in this avenue, the
palaces of the foreign ambassadors are there and