Das Fräulein von Scuderi

Yesterday I started and today I finished a short novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann entitled Das Fräulein von Scuderi. It is about a serial murderer and jewel thief in Paris at the time of Louis XIV, a tormented young man who is privy to his secret, and about the title character, a good, refined, witty and well-respected lady of seventy-three. Mademoiselle de Scuderi is a beloved figure at the court, commanding the attention and affection of Madame de Maintenon and even of the king himself. Initially unknown to her, the young man who first brings her a mysterious box of jewels,then dashes up to her carriage and hands her a note begging her to return the jewels to the goldsmith who made them, is the son of her adopted daughter. When Cardillac, the goldsmith, is killed, this young man is believed to have murdered him. Mademoiselle de Scuderi, interested in the young man for himself and for the young girl whom he wishes to marry, and still more for the sake of his mother, must clear him and save him from torture and execution.

I don't think I've read a historical novel (perhaps other than War and Peace) that drops so quietly and naturally into the past time in question. There is no evident effort at setting a scene, and there are no elaborate anachronisms of speech, manner, and dress in the characters. The nineteenth century shapes the language and narrative and, to a certain extent, the characters, but it does not overwhelm the consciousness that the events take place in 1680. Someone has said about Sir Walter Scott's historical novels that his Middle Ages are a sort of play-Middle Ages, an unserious world primarily of the imagination. In Das Fräulein von Scuderi there is seriousness. Even though the events described have taken place in the past, the author does not distance himself from their horrible nature -- also, they could really have taken place at any time. At the same time I think I would be much more concerned about the violence described in the book if it were set in the present time.

The book is altogether highly readable, and as interesting as, but more healthy than, Die Richterin. The mood is dark and fairly light by turns, the characters are convincing, and altogether I found it hard to tell where historical fact left off and fictional invention began -- though I don't know if anyone would have been quite as good as Mademoiselle de Scuderi was, or if King Louis XIV would really have acted as he did in the end.