Master Johannes Wacht

By E. T. A. Hoffmann and John Thomas Bealby

'Master Martin, The Cooper, and His Journal' (1885) is a 'weird tale' written by the German romantic author E. T. A. Hoffmann, most famous for his novella 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King' (1816) which inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet 'The Nutcracker'.Johannes Wacht is orphaned at an early age and taken in by the town council's master craftsman. But the carpenter's death sends Johannes on a journey to Bamberg and a new life.This classic short story is perfect for fans of horror and fantasy fiction and the authors H. P. Lovecraft and Neil Gaiman.-

• Language: English
• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Release date: Jun 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9788728264249

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E.T.A. Hoffmann

Master Johannes Wacht

SAGA Egmont

Master Johannes Wacht

Translated by J. T. Bealby

Original title: Meister Johannes Wacht

Original language: German

Cover image: Shutterstock

Copyright © 1885, 2022 SAGA Egmont

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9788728264249

1st ebook edition

Format: EPUB 3.0

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This work is republished as a historical document. It contains contemporary use of language.

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Saga is a subsidiary of Egmont. Egmont is Denmark’s largest media company and fully owned by the Egmont Foundation, which donates almost 13,4 million euros annually to children in difficult circumstances.

MASTER JOHANNES WACHT. ¹

At the time when people in the beautiful and pleasant town of Bamberg lived, according to the well-known saying, well, i.e., under the crook, namely in the end of the previous century, there was also one inhabitant, a man belonging to the burgher class, who might be called in every respect both singular and eminent His name was Johannes Wacht, and his trade was that of a carpenter.

Nature, in weighing and definitely determining her children's destinies, pursues her own dark inscrutable path; and all that is claimed by convenience, and by the opinions and considerations which prevail in man's narrow existence, as determining factors in settling the true tendency of every man's self. Nature regards as nothing more than the pert play of deluded children imagining themselves to be wise. But short-sighted man often finds an insuperable irony in the contradiction between the conviction of his own mind and the mysterious ordering of this inscrutable Power, who first nourished and fed him at her maternal bosom and then deserted him; and this irony fills him with terror and awe, since it threatens to annihilate his own self.

The mother of Life does not choose for her favourites either the palaces of the great or the state-apartments of princes. And so she made our Johannes, who, as the kindly reader will soon learn, might be called one of her most richly endowed favourites, first see the light of the world on a wretched heap of straw, in the workshop of an impoverished master turner in Augsburg. His mother died of want and from suffering soon after the child's birth, and his father followed her after the lapse of a few months.

The town government had to take charge of the helpless boy; and when the Council's master carpenter, a well-to-do, respectable man, who found in the child's face, notwithstanding that it was pinched with hunger, certain traits which pleased him,--when he would not suffer the boy to be lodged in a public institution, but took him into his own house, in order to bring him up along with his own children, then there dawned upon Johannes his first genial ray of sunshine, heralding a happier lot in the future.

In an incredibly short space of time the boy's frame developed, so that it was difficult to believe that the little insignificant creature in the cradle had really been the shapeless colourless chrysalis out of which this pretty, living, golden-locked boy had proceeded, like a beautiful butterfly. But--what seemed of more importance--along with this pleasing grace of physical form the boy soon displayed such eminent intellectual faculties as astonished both his foster-father and his teachers. Johannes grew up in a workshop which sent forth some of the best and highest work that mechanical skill was able to produce, since the master carpenter to the Council was constantly engaged upon the most important buildings. No wonder, therefore, that the child's mind, which caught up everything with such keen clear perception, should be excited thereby, and should feel all his heart drawn towards a trade the deeper significance of which, in so far as it was concerned with the material creation of great and bold ideas, he dimly felt deep down in his soul. The joy that this bent of the orphan's mind occasioned his foster-father may well be conceived; and hence he felt persuaded to teach the boy all practical matters himself with great care and attention, and furthermore, when he had grown into a youth, to have him instructed by the cleverest masters in all the higher branches of knowledge connected with the trade, both theoretical and practical, such as, for instance, drawing, architecture, mechanics, &c.

Our Johannes was four and twenty years of age when the old master carpenter died; and even at that time his foster-son was a thoroughly experienced and skilful journeyman in all branches of his craft, whose equal could not be found far and near. At this period Johannes set out, along with his true and faithful comrade Engelbrecht, on the usual journeyman's ² travels.

Herewith you know, indulgent reader, all that it is needful to know about the youth of our worthy Wacht; and it only remains to tell you in a few words how it was that he came to settle in Bamberg and how he became master there.

After being on the travel for a pretty long time he happened to arrive at Bamberg on his way home along with his comrade Engelbrecht; and there they found the Bishop's palace undergoing thorough repair, and particularly on that side of it where the walls rose up to a great height out of a very narrow alley or court. Here an entirely new roof was to be put up, of very great and very heavy beams; and they wanted a machine, which, whilst taking up the least possible room, would possess sufficient concentration of power to raise the heavy weights up to the required height. The Prince-bishop's builder, who knew how to calculate to a nicety how Trajan's Column in Rome had been made to stand, and also knew the hundred or more mistakes that had been made