Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/260

 reputation of this place, was that Nicolo Musso never showed himself anywhere out of his theatre; a very well kept secret concealed him, and no one even knew exactly where this singular manager could be in the habit of going. Such was the theatre where the pretty Marianna wished to go.

"The best plan, then," said Salvator, "is to attack our enemy openly; and I have a scheme in my head, the execution of which must be accomplished during the passage from Ripetta street to the theatre."

This project whispered into Antonio's ear, made him bound with joy and impatience; they were about to separate Marianna from her persecutor, and rudely chastise that doctor Pyramid, who had taken a notion to throw stones into the lover's garden!

When evening came, Salvator and Antonio each took a guitar, and met under the balcony in Ripetta street, to enrage old Capuzzi by giving to his pretty niece a brilliant serenade, which would be heard by the whole neighborhood. Salvator had a very remarkable voice, and Antonio had not made a bad figure in a duet with master Odoardo Ceccarelli. From the prelude of our impromptu troubadours, Signor Pasquale appeared on the terrace, to impose silence on the vagabonds who came to disturb his repose. Rut the neighbors, attracted by the melody of the first accords that they had heard, cried out to him, with much jeering, that jealousy alone excited his anger, and that he might go back into his hole, to sing falsetto there at his ease, and bore the ears of the unfortunate individuals forced to live and suffer under his key. Salvator and his companion thus passed nearly the whole night in singing love songs, which they interrupted from time to time, in order to vary the performance, by satirical songs against ridiculous old men, of whom Capuzzi was the most finished type. Marianna approached the window several times, and, in spite of the discontented signs of her guardian, she exchanged several speaking glances with her beloved Antonio.

The next day was the first day of Carnival. The crowd