Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/251

 Nothing could describe the monstrous smile of the old fellow; he began, by putting on a look of his grey eyes, whilst trying to catch the key-note of his air; then raising himself on his toes, throwing about his puny aims like the wings of an old cock, he burst out into so formidable a bellowing, that the walls of the studio trembled.

Dame Catherine and her daughters ran at the noise, thinking that some misfortune had happened. Judge of their surprise at the sight of the excited, virtuoso, who was not disconcerted by their presence. Salvator had taken up the damaged spinet, and on the case of it he began to paint the scene which he had before his eyes. Capuzzi, Antonio, Catherine and her daughters were perfectly delineated, and doctor Pyramid, although absent, was not forgotten. Meanwhile, the indefatigable Capuzzi, desirous of earning his forty ducats, did not spare the deafened audience a single one of his infernal airs; at the end of two long hours, exhausted, and in a profuse perspiration, his face purple and his veins violet colored, he sank voiceless into a seat.

Salvator placed in front of him his picture, improvised on the spinet case. Capuzzi looked at it long and attentively, rubbing his eyes to assure himself that he was not dreaming. Suddenly crowding his hat upon his wig, he took his cane in one hand, and, with the other, plucking from its hinges Salvator's sketch, he threw himself down the staircase like a chased thief.

Go, then, old madman," exclaimed Salvator, "Count Colonna or my friend Rosi, will pay you dearly for this caprice of my brush!"

When Capuzzi had departed, Salvator and Antonio raised all their batteries with consummate art against this terrible adversary. It was decided that they should attack, the following night, the fortress of Ripetta street. The two friends separated to attend, each one in his way, to the most urgent preparations.

That same evening, at dark, Signor Pasquale shut and