Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/417

 "My dear counsellor," said the old lady, "by what singular fancy have you been led to erect this mournful little tent under which, you say, your poor heart must repose some day in this agate covering?"

"Hush!" said the counsellor, pressing his companion's arm; "call my conduct fancy, mania, singularity; but remember that I have suffered much to arrive at the point of only finding repose near this image of death! Even you to whom I speak, oh Julia! Julia, do you not remember that you have caused me a cruel grief at the time when our hearts, both young, might have poured into each other so many flowers of hope, and such sweet fruits of love?"

At these words, the counsellor and the old lady exchanged a look full of emotion.—"It was not I, it was you yourself, Max, that was to blame," replied she. "If you had not remained so obstinately a fatalist, if you had not incessantly sought to create around you a thousand causes of inexpressible torment to heart and spirit, I should not have been forced to entrust my future peace to a man of less brilliancy than yourself, but who was endowed with peaceful qualities. Oh! Max, do not reproach me with not having sufficiently loved you! It was you alone, I repeat, who created your own grievances."

"It is true," said the counsellor, after a momentary silence. "I am forced to confess that my poor heart is incapable of affectionate outpourings; the imagination which controls it has dried up its fibres. No being can love me, for there is no longer anything sweet and sympathizing in me. Devotedness would wreck itself against my existence, as it would exhaust itself against this heart of stone!"

"And why this bitterness which excites you against yourself?" replied the old lady. "You who do good to all around you, and know how to administer consolation to the sufferings of others, how is it that you find no balm for your own afflictions? how is it that you unceasingly distrust your friends?"