Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/401

 ardent love, and separated from her by your Satanic seductions. It was only, alas! at my departure for the army that Angela knew the sympathy which existed between us; I have learned all, it was too late! A hellish inspiration told me that I should succeed in ruining you at play, that is why I gave myself up to it. I followed you to Genoa and I succeeded! Now let us go and look for your wife!"

The chevalier was annihilated. A thousand poignards pierced his heart. This fatal secret was at last revealed to him; he now understood to what excess of suffering poor Angela had been subjected. He mechanically followed the colonel, who walked rapidly on. When they arrived, and as the colonel had already placed his hand on Angela's chamber door, the chevalier drew him back quickly, exclaiming:—"My wife is sleeping, you will only trouble her repose!" "Nonsense," replied the colonel, "do you think that she has ever enjoyed a moment of peaceful slumber since you have devoted her to such miserable anguish?" And the colonel, pushing him firmly aside, was about to enter, when Menars threw himself at his feet, exclaiming in frightful despair:—"For pity's sake! for heaven's sake! after having reduced me to beggary, leave, leave me my wife!"

"It was thus that old Vertua was before you, without being able to soften your stony heart. Suffer then heaven's vengeance!" Saying this, he again approached Angela's chamber. The chevalier sprang with a bound, violently pushed open the door, ran to the bed, crying out:—"Angela! Angela!" He bent over her, took her hand

Then stopping suddenly and trembling convulsively, he stretched himself up to his full height and cried out in a loud voice:—"Look! you have won the body of my wife!"

The colonel shudderingly approached the bed.

Angela lay cold and pale. She was dead! grief had destroyed her. At the sight colonel Duvernet uttered a lamentable cry and ran madly out of this house of mourning.—He was never seen more. 34