Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/185

 thyself to drawing faces, until thou hast acquired assurance enough to seize the features at once. Thou wilt pass from that more easily to the reproduction of other objects, and difficulties which afflict thee now, will vanish imperceptibly."

Berthold profited by the advice of his new friend, and was not long in finding himself better for it. But the ardor with which he labored brought on a nervous enthusiasm, during which he could only produce faces strangely and infinitely varied; the type which was in his thought, manifested itself on the canvas by a kind of moving profile, whose features he could not succeed in fixing. In despair at this excess of activity, which made his hands operate in spite of his will he threw aside both pencil and brush, and returned to his wandering life.

Not far from the city of Naples arose the country house of a rich lord, who declared himself the patron of foreign painters, and above all of landscape painters. Berthold had been several times to visit this fine domain, from which might be seen the magnificent panorama of the sea and Mount Vesuvius. One day that, leaning on the marble balustrade overlooking the park, he was yielding up his thoughts in vain aspirations for fame, he heard a light foot rustling amongst the foliage, and nearly at the same time a woman of admirable beauty appeared before him as if by enchantment.

A shudder pervaded the veins of Berthold before this apparition, which realized for him the ideal of beauty that his dreams had until then vainly pursued. He fell on his knees, with his hands extended towards this supernatural being who had come to smile upon him; a cloud passed before his eyes When he recovered his senses, the apparition, angel, woman or demon, had vanished. But in its place, Berthold perceived Florentin.

"Oh, my friend!" exclaimed he, "I have found her at last, I have seen, and nearly touched, the heavenly unknown who made my thoughts delirious!"

At these words, he escaped, before Florentin had been able 16