Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/408

 imagination, from reflective merged into exaltation. Alban alone had the power to command his irresistible nature, whose energy was wasted in useless straggles against the ills of life.

Theobald, after having taken his departure at the University of J, was to return to his native city, to marry his tutor's daughter, and live quietly on an ample income left him by his parents. Ail his tastes resolved into the study of animal magnetism, the first lessons in which were given to him by his friend Alban. He proposed nothing less than the pursuit of this science to the extremest possible limits; the development of its mysterious operations.

A short time after his return to his home, he wrote a despairing letter to Alban, in which he announced to him that during his absence an officer of a travelling regiment, having lodged on his way at the house of his tutor, had fallen in love with the young girl, and had succeeded in making her share his passion. When this officer was obliged to set out to follow the army to which he belonged, the young girl had felt such grief at the separation, that her reason became disturbed, and they feared for her life. Thus, poor Theobald had to regret the heart, now lost to him, of his betrothed, and also feel the dread of seeing the sole object of his affection perish before his eyes at any moment. Alban immediately replied to him, and told him that his misfortune was not irreparable, and that magnetism could infallibly restore his beloved to him. Theobald profited by this advice, and with the consent of the mother of his betrothed, he went every night and sat near her at the time when, yielding to the influence of slumber, she became subject to painful dreams, in which the officer's name came unceasingly from her lips. He gradually exercised upon the young girl the passes of which Alban had taught him the secret virtue; then after having brought her into a state of somnambulism, he conversed with her, softly recalled to her the remembrance of their childhood and their tender and mutual affection. Gradually the young girl allowed herself to be overcome by the ascendancy of the