Text: Palmer Cobb, “Chapter VII,” The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, 1908, pp. 81-90

CHAPTER VII

HOFFMANN'S Doge and Dogaressa AND POE'S The Assignation

The Assignation derives from Hoffmann's Doge and Dogaressa, and the tableau with the Marchesa is a radiantly poetic variation upon the balcony scene in the earlier tale.

On a bien dit que la chute de la Maison Usher, la scene du balcon clans L’assignation, et le Portrait Ovale devraient beaucoup au Majorat, au Doge et Dogaressa, etc.

Gerade in dem Augenblick, als namlich Marino Falieri(3) den Bucentoro zu besteigen im Begriff stand, und das war am dritten Oktober abends, da schon die Sonne zu sinken begann, lag vor den Saulen der Dogana, auf dem harten Marmorpflaster ausgestreckt, ein armer. unglücklicher Mensch. Einige Lumpen gestreifter Leinwand, deren Farbe nicht mehr kenntlich’ und die sonst einem Schifferkleide, wie das gemeinste Volk der Lasttrager und Ruderknechte es tragt, angehort zu haben schienen, hingen um den abgemagerten Korper. Vom Hemde war nichts mehr zu sehen, als die eigne Haut des Armen, die überall durchblickte, aber so weiss und zart war, dass sie der Edelsten einer ohne Scheu und Scham hatte tragen konnen. So zeigte auch die Magerkeit nur desto besser das reinste Ebenmass der wohlgebauten Glieder und betrachtete man nun vollends die hell kastanienbraunen Locken, die zerzaust und verworren die schonste Stirn umschat-teten, die blauen nur von trostlosem Elend verdüster-ten Augen, die Adlernase, den fein geformten Mund des Unglücklichen, der hochstens zwanzig Jahre zu zahlen schien, so war es gewiss, dass irgend ein feind-seliges Schicksal den Fremdling von guter Geburt in die unterste Klasse des Volks geschleudert haben musste.(4) [page 83:]

Wie ein fröhlicher Liebesbote tanzte der belle Mondesschimmer auf den Wellen vor ihnen her. Sie waren auf hoher See. Da begann es seltsam zu pfeifen und zu sausen in hoher Luft — finstere Schatten kamen gezogen und hingen sich wie dunkle Schleier über das leuch-tende Antlitz des Mondes. Der tanzende Schimmer, der frohliche Liebesbote sank herab in die schwarze Tiefe voll dumpfer Donner. Der Sturm erhob sich und jagte die düstern zusammen geballten Wolken mit zor-nigem Toben vor sich her. Hoch auf und nieder flog die Barke. “O hilt, o Herr des Himmels!” schrie die Alte. Antonio, des Ruders nicht mehr machtig, um-schlang die holde Annunziata, die, von seinen glühenden Küssen erweckt, ihn mit der Inbrunst der seligsten Liebe an ihren Busen drückte. “O mein Antonio!” “O meine Annunziata!” So riefen sie des Sturmes nicht achtend, der immer entsetzlicher tobte und brauste. Da streckte das Meer, die eifersfichtige Witwe des enthaupteten Falieri, die schaumenden Wellen wie Riesenarme empor, erfasste die Liebenden und riss sie samt der Alten hinab in den bodenlosen Abgrund!(5)

Mit diesem Namen war in dem Katalog der Kunst-werke, die die Akademie der Künste zu Berlin im September, 1816, ausstellte, ein Bild bezeichnet, das der wackre tüchtige C. Kolbe, Mitglied der Akademie, gemalt hatte und das mit besonderm Zauber jeden anzog, so dass der Platz davor selten leer blieb. Emu Doge in reichen prachtigen Kleidern schreitet, die ebenso reich gesmückte Dogaressa an der Seite, auf einer Balustrade hervor, er ein Greis mit grauem Bart, sonderbar gemischte Züge, die bald auf Kraft, bald auf Schwache, bald auf Stolz und Ubermut, bald auf Gut-mütigkeit deuteten, im braunroten Gesicht; sie ein junges Weib, sehnsüchtige Trauer, traumerisches Ver-langen im Blick, in der ganzen HaHung.’ Hinter ihnen eine altliche Frau und ein Mann, der einen aufge-spannten Sonnenschirm halt. Seitwarts an der Balustrade stosst ein junger Mensch in ein muschel-formig gewundenes Horn und vor derselben im Meer liegt eine reich verzierte mit der venetianischen Flagge geschmfickte Gondel, auf der zwei Ruderer befindlich. Im Hintergrunde breitet sich das mit hundert und aber hundert Segeln bedeckte Meer aus, und man erblickt die Türme und Palaste des prachtigen Venedig, das aus den Fluten emporsteigt. Links unterscheidet man San Marco, rechts mehr im Vorgrunde San Giorgio Maggiore.(6) [page 86:]

Yet I remember — ah! how should I forget? — the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the Genius of Romance, that stalked up and down the narrow canal.

It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The Square of the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights of the old Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth of the Canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly upon the night in one wild, hysterical and long-continued shriek. ... Like some huge and sabled feathered condor, we were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaux flashing from the windows and down the staircase of the Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid and preternatural day.

A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface the treasure which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite — the adoration of all Venice — the [page 87:] gayest of the gay — the most lovely where all were beautiful — but still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of that fair child, her first and only one, who now, deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.

She stood alone. Her small, bare and silvery feet gleamed in the black marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered amid a shower of diamonds round and round her classical head, in curls like those of the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and gauzelike drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form; but the midsummer and midnight air was hot, sullen and still, and no motion in the statue-like form itself stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapour which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet, strange to say, her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay buried — but riveted in a widely different direction. The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice; but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling her own child? ...

Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the water-gate, stood, in full dress, the satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuye to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of the child ...

All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope [page 88:] for the child (how much less then for the mother!), but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has already been mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak stepped out within reach of the light, and pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As in an instant afterwards he stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp upon the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak heavy with the drenching water became unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the wondering spectators the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.(8)

Why should the lady blush? To this demand there is no answer — except, having left in the eager haste and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own boudoir, she has neglecled to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing? for the glance of those wild appealing eyes? for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom? for the the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand? that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low, the singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast [page 89:] conquered,” she said, or the murmur of the waters deceived me; “thou hast conquered — one hour after sunrise — we shall meet — so let it be.”

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible!) that fitful strain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed downward to a curiously fashioned vase. One small fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth; and scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of most delicately imagined wings.(9)

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase and a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent words, “My mistress! — my mistress — poisoned — poisoned —,” etc.

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid in death. I staggered back towards the table — my hand fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet — and a consciousness of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly upon my soul.(10)