Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/279

 bearing, his look and his gait: the whole appeared so real, that the true Capuzzi, frozen by fear at this unexpected apparition, allowed Marianna's hand to escape from his grasp, which he had until then kept upon it, and began to feel of himself from head to foot, to see if he was still in the land of the living, and if the personage who was advancing on the stage was a spectre or his ghost.

The false Capuzzi began by kissing Graziano tenderly upon both cheeks, then he asked him how he was. The doctor smiled, and, taking the attitude of a conqueror, answered that his health was perfect, but that his purse was extremely sick; that he had, the night before, purchased for the queen of his thoughts, a magnificent pair of flame-colored stockings, the price of which had ruined him; and that if he did not find, that very day, some Jew who would lend him thirty ducats, his reputation as a man of gallantry would be gone forever, and he should lose his lady.

"Thirty ducats, my dear friend!" exclaimed the unknown, who so well represented the lean figure of Capuzzi, "thirty ducats! is that all? and must you really be troubled about such a trifle as that! Here, my estimable friend, here are fifty, that I beg you will accept out of love for me."

"Pasquale, Pasquale! what art thou doing? thou wilt ruin thyself," murmured in a low voice the veritable Capuzzi, moving uneasily upon his seat.

Master Graziano, the fashionable doctor, drew a parchment from his pocket to write a receipt upon; but the Capuzzi resisted and would not listen to his talk about receipts and interest for a loan which was not worth, as he said, the trouble of thinking about for two minutes.

"Pasquale, my friend, thou art losing thy wits," continued Capuzzi, half aloud. Notwithstanding, doctor Graziano secured the loan, and loaded with caresses, with which he appeared to wish to suffocate the false Capuzzi. Then the clown, approaching him in a very humble manner, and exhausting himself in the most extravagant salutations, held