Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/359

 wall into the street. There is, besides, a concealed passage running through the wall, by which one may come to the statue, without entering the court; and these inventions were probably the work of the crafty Carthusian monks, of whose convent, in ancient times, this house formed a part. That which looks like a large stone is only a piece of wood, covered on the outside with rough paint, and properly colored to look like stone, into which there is fixed?. statue, which is also of wood prepared in the same manner, and the whole turns together by means of concealed mechanism.

'Dark forebodings, or, I should rather say, brilliant: rose on my mind when I beheld these contrivances. It seemed as if they were exactly made for the fulfilment of deeds which were to myself yet a mystery, for I had never cherished any regular plan for street-robbery and assassination. My business was at this time rapidly increasing, and as I had just then delivered up to one of the court lords a rich ornament, which I knew was designed for a present to an opera-dancer, I was again assailed, but in a tenfold degree, by the same intolerable delusion which I had before experienced.—The ghost was inseparable wherever I went, and the diabolical voice was always whispering in my oars. At length I took possession of the house; and, on the first night, after I had gone to bed, it was impossible for me to obtain a moment's repose. I tossed and tumbled on my restless conch, and, in my mind's eye, beheld this man gliding through the streets with my box of jewels in his hand, to the opera-dancer's lodgings. My rage at this sight became so ungovernable, that, about midnight, I stalled up, threw my mantle about my shoulders, went down by the secret staircase, and away through the wall into the Rue de la Nicaise. From thence I proceeded to the street in which the actress lived, where, as if sent by the devil, the man to whom I had sold the necklace soon afterwards fell in my way, and I directly attacked him. At first, he uttered a loud cry, but grasping him firmly by the throat, I struck the dagger right into his heart, so that he fell without another word, and the jewels were mine!