Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/284

 soon as misfortune had struck him, as soon as the news of the elopement of Marianna was spread far and near, nothing else was thought of but sincere pity for the poor old man. When he was seen mournful and pensive, going about, bowed down by grief, through the most solitary streets in the city, every one felt compassion for so legitimate a grief, and heartily cursed the author of a ravishment which raised indignation in every family.

Never, perhaps, was the saying truer, that misfortunes seldom come single. Capuzzi had to deplore, some days after this fatal event, the loss of his two most intimate acquaintances; the abortion, Pitchinaccio, was the victim of an indigestion, and doctor Splendiano Accoramboni died of a mistake in spelling. Whilst he was so grievously sick, in consequence of the beating he had received from Michael the bravo, he tried to write for himself, through the bed curtains, a prescription for medicine; but his hand trembled so much, that an exaggerated stroke of the pen, lengthening beyond measure the tail of an important letter, raised to a fatal degree a dose of sublimate which helped to make up the remedy. Hardly had the doctor swallowed it, when he uttered piercing cries and writhed in horrible convulsions. He was buried under the pyramid of Cestius, in the midst of the numerous patients who, by his care, had long since preceded him.

It is curious to remark that the severest blame which was attached to the carrying off of Marianna did not fall entirely upon Antonio Scacciati. Everybody knew the active part that Salvator had taken in the success of this unfortunate accident. This accusation rendered him, in the eyes of families, a very dangerous associate, and cut off his access to the best houses in the city. His enemies, and his talents rendered them numerous, did not allow this opportunity of decrying him to escape. They went so far as to impute to him the most odious acts; they pretended that he had escaped from Naples to avoid the just chastisement of the most revolting excesses,