Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/321

 compassion on me, lady! Do me this one favor, and accept of the jewels. You have yet no idea how deep is the veneration which I entertain for your virtue and talents. Take, I implore of you, my trifling present, only as an humble token of my sincere respect and devotion!"

As de Scuderi would on no account touch the box, de Maintenon at last took it out of Cardillac's hands. "Nay, Mademoiselle," said she "you speak always of your advanced age; but what have you and I to do with years, if our shoulders are yet unbent by their load? Are you not now rather acting like a young coquette, who would willingly, if she durst, seize on the forbidden fruit, provided it could be done without hands and fingers? Do not refuse to accept from good Master Rene, as a free gift, that which others would gladly possess, and yet cannot obtain, even by the highest offers in money, as well as earnest prayers and entreaties." De Maintenon had, with these words, forced the casket on de Scuderi, and now Cardillac again fell on his knees, kissed her hands, the hem of her garment, sighed, groaned, wept, sobbed,—started up, and finally overturned chairs and tables, so that glasses and china were broken into shivers, he ran headlong out of the house.

De Scuderi was now quite terrified. "For the love of heaven," said she, "what is the matter with the man?" "Tell me then," said de Maintenon, "for whom was it that you made up in a very lively humor, approaching to a vein of irony, which her character seldom exhibited. She laughed aloud, and said, "Now we have it, Mademoiselle! Master Rene Cardillac has fallen desperately in love with you, and, according to established form and usage, begins his attack upon your heart with a storm of rich presents." De Maintenon persisted in her raillery, till at length the gravity of her guest was overcome. She admonished de Scuderi not to be too cruel to her despairing lover; and the poetess, giving the reins to her native humor, was at length led into the same strain of badinage. She allowed, that if the siege were really 27*