Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/318

 and all his imps torment you with a thousand pairs of red-hot pincers, and hang three hundred weight on your necklace, so that your bride may be strangled!" With these, or such like words, Cardillac slams the ornament into the breast pocket of his customer, seizes him by the arms, and turns him out of doors with such violence, that he falls headlong down the staircase. The goldsmith then runs to the window, and laughs like a demon, when he sees how the poor devil of a lover limps, with a bloody nose, and quite confounded, away from the house.

Such conduct, indeed, durst not be repeated often; but adventures had several times occurred precisely such as we have here described. It was, moreover, quite extraordinary and inexplicable, how Cardillac, after he had undertaken a work with enthusiasm, would, all of a sudden, change his mind, and in the greatest agitation, and with moving entreaties, even sobs and tears, conjure his employer for the love of the blessed Virgin, and all the saints, that he might be released from the fulfilment of his task.

Notwithstanding the readiness with which he generally took orders, there were several persons of the highest respectability, both at Court and in the city, who had in vain offered Cardillac large sums, in order to procure from him the smallest piece of workmanship. As to the King, the goldsmith threw himself at his Majesty's feet, and implored the favor that he might be excused from working for him. In like manner, he refused every commission from the Marchioness de Maintenon; nay, with an expression of aversion and horror, rejected an order that she gave him, to make up a small ring, with emblematic ornaments, which she wished to have given as a present to Racine.

"I would lay any bet," said the Marchioness to de Scuderi, "that if I should send for Cardillac, to learn for whom he made these ornaments, he would refuse to come, fearing that I want to give him a commission, for he is firmly determined never to make anything for me;—and yet it has been