Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/116

 knife into your heart, to warm her and color her cheeks with your blood!'

"I had, undoubtedly, in saying these words, so terrible an aspect, that the miserable man rushed down stairs like a madman, and, I have never seen him since."

When the counsellor raised his daughter, she opened her eyes and closed them again immediately. The physician, whom they ran hastily to seek, said that the accident, though serious, would probably have no serious consequences. A few days after, she seemed nearly recovered. Her filial love offered a touching picture; she had devoted herself, with the most amiable resignation, to his mania and his caprices; she assisted him with angelic patience to take to pieces the old violins that he bought, and in making new ones.

"No, dear father," said she to him often with a melancholy smile, "I will sing no more, since it afflicts thee; I will no longer live or breath but for thee!" And Krespel, whilst listening, felt happy.

When he had bought the famous violin that he had placed in Antonia's coffin, the young girl, seeing that he was about to take this one to pieces also, looked at him sadly.

"What! that one also?" said she. Krespel at the same time, felt within himself a voice that urged him to spare, even to try this instrument. Hardly had he preluded, than his daughter exclaimed, clapping her hands,

"Ah! but that is my voice, that is my voice! I still sing!"

And it was true. The pure notes of the marvellous violin seemed to fall from the sky. Krespel was moved: the bow under his hand created prodigies. Sometimes Antonia said to him with a sweet smile,

"Father, I should like to sing." And Krespel took the violin, and always drew from it delicious variations.

A short time before my second journey to H, the counsellor thought that he heard, during a still night, the harpsichord resound in the neighboring room; he thought