Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/105

 in several drawing rooms. He made himself agreeable; he was liked; he was thought to be a bachelor; he never spoke of his family. At the end of a certain time he was absent for several months. The evening of the day that he came back here, it was remarked that his apartment was illuminated; then a ravishing woman's voice accorded with a harpsichord, accompanied by a violin, powerfully animated under the bow. The passers-by stopped in the street, and the neighbors listened at their windows in a charmed silence. Towards midnight the singing stopped; the counsellor's voice was raised in a hard and threatening manner; another man's voice seemed to reproach him, and, from time to time, the complaints of a young girl interrupted the dispute. Suddenly, a piercing cry, uttered by the young girl, ended the crisis; then a singular noise, like that of people struggling together, is heard in the stairway. A young man comes out of the house weeping, throws himself into a travelling carriage that was waiting for him a few steps off, and all becomes mournfully silent again. Each one asked himself the secret of this drama. On the morrow, Krespel appeared as calm and serene as usual, and no one dared to question him. But the old housekeeper could not resist the temptation of whispering, to whoever would listen to her, that the counsellor had brought with him a beautiful young girl whom he called Antonia; that a young man, madly in love with Antonia, had followed them, and nothing but the anger of the counsellor would have driven him from the house. As to the relation that existed between the counsellor and Antonia, it was a secret to which the old housekeeper had not the solution. She only said that master Krespel odiously confined her, hardly ever taking his eyes from her, and not even allowing her to sing, to amuse herself, whilst playing the harpsichord. Thus Antonia's song, which had only once been heard, became the marvellous legend of neighborhood; and no singer could succeed in gaining applause in the city: "There is no one," said they, "but Antonia who knows how to sing." All that the professor had told me 9*