Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/434

 take possession of this habitation. Chance, besides, was again to throw me in the way of conjecture.

Several days after meeting with count P, passing at midday before the deserted house, I saw a green taffety cutain, which covered the window nearest the confectioner's shop, move softly. A white and delicately formed hand, the prettiest finger of which bore a superb diamond ring, stole gently behind the curtain: I then saw an alabaster arm, ornamented with a golden bracelet, follow it. The hand placed a crystal flask on the window sill, and was withdrawn.

I remained there with my eyes fixed, my nose in the air, and my feet glued to the pavement, making, you can believe, such a funny figure, that in less than ten minutes a crowd of idlers, of the upper class, closed round me, stretching open their eyes to look the same way; but there was no longer a rosy hand, or alabaster arm; the curious people got nothing by their impertinence, and I said to myself, whilst making my escape, that city people resemble, from little to great, the simpletons of a certain town who gathered one morning before a house, crying out a miracle, because a cotton night cap had fallen from the sixth story without breaking a single stitch. There was a thousand chances that the rosy hand and the alabaster arm legitimately belonged to the wife, the sister or the daughter of the confectioner, and that the crystal flask prosaically contained a measure of gooseberry syrup. But see how a restless mind, well balanced, knows how to arrive at its object by the shortest way! The idea came into my head to go into the confectioner's shop to adroitly draw some information from him. So that, whilst taking a chocolate sherbet:—"Sir," said I to him, "you have chosen a fine place for your establishment, and I find it very handy for you to have the neighboring house in which you have placed your manufactory."—At these words the honest tradesman looked at me in surprise.

"Who in the devil's name could have told you," exclaimed he, "that the neighboring house was at my service? I should