Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/428

 by joyful living beings, who will not allow you to quit this world without the sound of drums and trumpet."

"No," said Reutlinger, groaning, "no, my friend, I do not deceive myself concerning my position. I am sure that I am nearing my end, and that my days will terminate with some frightful misfortune."

"But," exclaimed general Rixendorf, pressing his hand, "what has happened? from whence come these terrors which nothing can justify?"

"Listen," answered the counsellor, wiping his pale forehead, which was bathed in a cold perspiration. "I was passing along just now towards the bower of weeping willows; it seemed to me, on approaching it, that a plaintive voice struck upon my ear. I advanced with emotion, and what did I perceive? I shudder with horror at the remembrance of it, I found myself before another myself! Yes, myself, as I appeared thirty years ago, clothed in the same dress that I wore on that day; that when I was about to end my desperate life by suicide, I saw my beloved Julia appear in all the brilliancy of a heavenly beauty. Well, a short time ago this scene was offered vividly to my eyes. An unnatural coldness pervaded my veins, and I fell to the earth insensible."

"What ghost story are you telling us?" exclaimed Rixendorf. "It must be, my poor friend, that your brain is very sick, to entertain such visions: try to vanquish these hallucinations, and amuse yourself; your soul is pegged into your body, and you are likely, in spite of your fits of hypochondria, to bury us all. Besides, I will explain to you in a moment the little reality there is in the dream which has so strongly moved you." Saying these words, the general went out of the room as fast as his old legs would allow. The Turkish ambassador approached Reutlinger and said:—"The dear old general does not believe in the power of the magnetic fluid; he is an obstinate materialist; but we know, you and I, what to think on the subject of apparitions."

Counsellor Foerd's wife soon came in, escorted by her hus-