Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/143

 with this idea, and will end by attaching no farther importance to it. You understand me well, do you not? I count on your exactness."

On finishing this species of instruction, the baron left me. I remained confounded to myself, judged as a being of so little consequence, that I was not even capable of awaking the jealousy of a man by my attentions to the most beautiful woman that it was possible to imagine. Now my heroic dream was broken, I fell to the level of the child who takes seriously in his amusements his gilt paper crown for real.

My great uncle, persuaded that I had been playing some trick, awaited my return with anxiety.

"From whence comest thou?" cried he, as I came in sight.

"I have just had," said I, quite disconcerted, "an interview with the baron."

"Alas!" said the worthy justice; "when I told thee that sooner or later it would end badly"

The burst of laughter with which my great uncle accompanied this sally, proved clearly to me that on all sides I was turned into ridicule. I suffered violently, but I took good care not to allow it to be perceived; had I not the future open to revenge myself for the little that was granted to me? The baroness appeared at dinner, dressed in white, which color accorded with the paleness of her cheeks; her physiognomy breathed a melancholy milder than ever; I felt, at the sight of her, my heart melt in my breast; and besides, I felt against Seraphine herself, in despite of her divine beauty, something of the anger with which the baron had inspired me; it seemed to me that these two beings united together to mystify me; I thought I read, I know not what of ironical in the half veiled look of Seraphine, and all the graciousness of her former reception wounded me like an odious lie. I sought with extreme care to keep myself as far from her as possible, and I took my place between two soldiers, with whom I drank full glasses, and time after time. Towards the end of the meal, a servant presented me with a plate filled with sugar plums, and