from Hoffmann's Phantasiestucken than from my Leipzig orchestra
player; and now came the time when I really lived and breathed in
Hoffmann's artistic atmosphere of ghosts and spirits. With my
head quite full of Kreissler, Krespel, and other musical spectres
from my favourite author, I imagined that I had at last found in
real life a creature who resembled them: this ideal musician in
whom for a time I fancied I had discovered a second Kreissler was
a man called Flachs. He was a tall, exceedingly thin man, with a
very narrow head and an extraordinary way of walking, moving, and
speaking, whom I had seen at all those open-air concerts which
formed my principal source of musical education. He was always
with the members of the orchestra, speaking exceedingly quickly,
first to one and then the other; for they all knew him, and
seemed to like him. The fact that they were making fun of him I
only learned, to my great confusion, much later. I remember
having noticed this strange figure from my earliest days in
Dresden, and I gathered from the conversations which I overheard
that he was indeed well known to all Dresden musicians. This
circumstance alone was sufficient to make me take a great
interest in him; but the point about him which attracted me more
than anything was the manner in which he listened to the various
items in the programme: he used to give peculiar, convulsive nods
of his head, and blow out his cheeks as though with sighs. All
this I regarded as a sign of spiritual ecstasy. I noticed,
moreover, that he was quite alone, that he belonged to no party,
and paid no attention to anything in the garden save the music;
whereupon my identification of this curious being with the
conductor Kreissler seemed quite natural. I was determined to
make his acquaintance, and I succeeded in doing so. Who shall
describe my delight when, on going to call on him at his rooms