Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/35

Rh my calling of cooper; and I have even attached to it hopes for the future. But thou, comrade, of what art thou thinking? Thy face is sad, and thy look seems to fear to near the future! Thou wast just singing with a feeling of melancholy, and I believed, under the empire of a singular fascination, that thy soft accents came out of my own breast to pass into thine. It might be said that thy heart opens before me like a book. Give me thy whole confidence; and since we are going, both of us, to fix ourselves at Nuremberg, let us form together, from this moment, a union of solid friendship."

Frederick threw his arms round the neck of his new friend.

"Yes," continued he, "the more I look at thee, the more I feel my sympathy increase. In the depths of my heart vibrates a sweet voice which seems to answer to the sweet call of friendship. Oh! I wish that my soul might mingle with thine; for there is in life things that the heart alone understands—pains which it alone has the means of softening;—listen, then, to the history of the few events that have taken place during my life. From early youth I had dreamed for myself the glory of the artist. I aspired to the happiness of equalling in the art of moulding and chasing metal, master Peter Fischer, or Benvenuto Cellini. I made my first attempts under the instruction of Johannes Holzschuer, the most celebrated worker in silver in my country. This master was frequently visited by master Tobias Martin, the cooper, who brought with him his daughter, the delicious Rosa. I became enamored of this young girl, without being able to explain to myself the mystery of this passion. I quitted my country, and I went to Augsburg, to accelerate the progress of my apprenticeship; but hardly was I separated from her who had taken possession of my heart and all my thoughts, than I had constantly before my eyes the celestial image of Rosa. Labor became painful to me. I no longer had more than one study, that of reaching the felicity that I dreamed of. At last the news having reached me that master Martin had announced that he would only give his daughter to the most