Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/330

 having chosen him, notwithstanding his poverty, for his son-in-law, and having proved that his cleverness as an artist, was only to be excelled by his steadiness, and excellent disposition. Every word uttered by Madelon seemed to bear the stamp of truth, and to be spoken from the heart. She concluded by declaring that if she had even beheld Olivier, in her own presence, inflict the death-wound on her father, she would rather have held this for a delusion of the devil, than have believed that her lover could have been guilty of such a horrible crime.

De Scuderi, deeply moved by the sufferings of Madelon, and now fully disposed to look on her lover as innocent, made farther inquiries, and found every thing confirmed that the poor girl had said, as to the domestic circumstances of the master and his journeyman. The people of the house, and in the neighborhood, universally praised Olivier as a model of regularity, devotion and industry. No one among them knew any evil action of which he had ever been guilty, and yet, when conversation turned on the murder, all shrugged their shoulders,—thought there was something here quite inconceivable and mysterious, so that it was impossible to say what conclusion should be drawn. Meanwhile, Olivier, when brought before the judges of the Chambre Ardente, denied, as Scuderi was informed, all participation in the deed. In this he persisted with the utmost constancy, and without any symptoms of embarrassment, affirming that his master had, in his presence, been attacked and knocked down, after which he had brought him home, where, being severely wounded, he had shortly afterwards expired. All this accorded precisely with the narrative of Madelon.

De Scuderi left no method untried, to obtain the most correct information. She inquired minutely whether there had lately been a quarrel between the master and his journeyman;—whether Olivier, though generally good-tempered, had not been subject to fits of passion,—that often mislead people into crimes, from which they would otherwise have recoiled with horror? But there was so much of the heartfelt inspi-