Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/114

 his daughter marry an artist who had no rival on the violin; and he expected to hear from day to day the news of the marriage, when a letter sealed with black, and directed in an unknown hand, came to announce to him that Angela had just died of pleurisy, the night before the wedding of Antonia was to take place; the last prayer of the songstress was to Krespel to come and take charge of the orphan: he set off without losing a minute.

The young bridegroom, who had not left Antonia in this hour of tribulation, was present on the arrival of the father.

One evening when they were together, and Krespel was thinking of the departed, Antonia placed herself at the harpsichord, and sang a mournful air; it would have been said, on hearing her, that the soul of her mother trembled in her voice. Krespel could not bear it; sobs stifled his voice; he arose, clasped the young girl in his arms, and pressed her closely.

"Oh! no," exclaimed he, "if thou lovest me, sing no more! It breaks my heart to hear thee! Never sing more."

Antonia threw upon her father a long gaze; and in this look there were tears for a dream of happiness just ready to vanish. Her black hair fell in ebony folds, on her snowy shoulders:—her form bowed like a broken stalk:—Krespel wept at seeing her so beautiful: for a fatal instinct had revealed the future to him. Antonia became paler, and in her face the counsellor had discovered a sign of death. He contemplated with fear, this germ, which every hour would develope.

"No, no, my friend," said the counsellor afterwards to doctor R, a famous physician, "no, those brilliant red spots which color, when she sings, her cheeks, do not proceed from animation! No, that is what I fear."

"Well, then," replied the doctor, "I shall not be under the necessity of dissimulating with you my own uneasiness, either that this young girl has made premature efforts to sing, or that nature has left in so fine a work an organic defect. I