i! _Pink
fecit--male fecit_. Oh! what a state of things! He is riding over
writhing prostrate slaves, who are stretching up their withered arms
to the rearing horse--an ugly sight! What! is it possible? Great
Sobieski--as a Roman with _wonci_[11] has girt a Polish sabre about his
waist, and it is made--of wood--ridiculous!... You ask me, my dear
friend, how I like Warsaw. A motley world! too noisy--too wild--too
harum-scarum--everything topsy-turvey! Where can I find time to write,
to sketch, to compose music? The king ought to give up Lasienki to me;
_there_ one could live nicely, if you like!"[12]

The first few months of his residence in this "new world," as it
appeared to immigrants from the "old land" of Prussia, Hoffmann spent
in familiarising himself with the novelty and strangeness of the place,
in wondering at and admiring the motley scenes which daily met his
view; and doubtless his acute perceptive faculties gleaned a valuable
harvest of notes for use on future occasions, both for his pencil and
his pen. About the end of June he formed the acquaintance of J. E.
Hitzig, who came down to Warsaw with the rank of _assessor_ in the
administrative college in which Hoffmann held that of councillor. The
crust of formal courtesy and commonplaces was broken through by
Hitzig's pithy answer, to a question asking his opinion about some
newly-arrived colleague, that he was "a man in buckram." The borrowed
words of Falstaff banished Hoffmann's reserve, and caused his sombre
face to light up with joy and his tongue to pour out a brilliant gush
of talk. This new-made friend, who had previously (1800, 1801) lived in
Warsaw, where he began his career, introduced Hoffmann into a pleasant
and intellectual set of men, amongst whom was Zacharias Werner, author
of _Soehne des Thales_, _Das Kreuz an der Ostsee_,[13] &c. Hitzig had
spent the interval from 1801 in Berlin, where he had kept fully abreast
of the newest productions in literature and art, whilst Hoffmann had
been living, partly a rude and riotous life, and partly a solitary and
monkish one, at Posen and Plock. Hence the one had plenty to
communicate and the other great eagerness to listen, especially as the
little he had begun to hear roused anew his slumbering better feelings,
and whetted with a keen edge his native desire for self-improvement
through art and literature.

In the following year, 1805, one of the Prussian administrative
officials, an enthusiast in musi