Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/132

 I approached towards it immediately; but hardly had I taken off the cover of the harpsichord, when several strings broke with violence; those which remained were of such bad quality that their sounds produced a discord sufficient to annoy the strongest ears.

"It is without doubt that the organist wishes to try again," exclaimed Miss Adelheid, with a joyous burst of laughter. But Seraphine was no longer disposed to be gay.

"Fatality!" said she in a low voice: "I can never have any pleasure here."

On examining the box of the harpsichord, I luckily found in it another sett of strings. "We are saved!" exclaimed I immediately. "Patience and courage aid me! the damage will soon be repaired." The baroness took hold and helped me with her pretty fingers, whilst Adelheid unrolled the strings, as I called them by the numbers on the key-board.

After twenty unsuccessful trials, our perseverance was crowned with a full success; harmony is established again, as if by enchantment. A little more labor, and the instrument is in tune! This zeal, this love of art that we had exercised in common, had made the distance that existed between us disappear. The beautiful baroness shared innocently with me the happiness of a success which promised to her pleasant distractions. The harpsichord had become a kind of electric bond between us; my timidity, my awkwardness disappeared; nothing remained but love, love which swallowed up my whole existence. I preluded on this dear instrument those tender symphonies, which paint with so much poetry the passions of the meridian countries. Seraphine, standing before me, listened to me with her whole soul; I saw her eyes sparkle, I breathed the shudderings which agitated her bosom; I felt her breath flying around me like the kiss of an angel, and my whole soul flew towards the skies! Suddenly her physiognomy appeared to become inflamed, her lips murmured, in cadence, sounds long since lost to her memory; a few escaped notes placed my fingers, without study or effort, on a known