Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/443

 care, told him that during the crisis he had seen the image of a woman whom he had known at Pisa, and that this woman had a look which pierced him to the heart, like the burning of a hot iron; he only escaped from this singular pain to fall into a kind of lethargy, following which he felt the most intolerable headache, and a complete prostration of strength.—For the rest, he would never tell what had formerly passed between himself and the woman of Pisa. The order having been given to his regiment to march, he had his breakfast served whilst his baggage was being packed. But he had hardly carried his last glass of Madeira to his lips, when he fell down dead, uttering a stifled shriek. The physician thought that he had been struck with apoplexy. Two or three weeks after this accident, I received a letter addressed to the colonel. I opened it, in the hope of finding some information concerning the family of my guest: the letter came from Pisa, and only contained these words, without signature:—"Poor friend, to-day, 7 J, at noon, Antonia died, thinking that she was in your embrace!"

This was exactly the day and the hour of the colonel's death. Try and explain this to me. I cannot, dear reader, describe to you the fear that seized me on suddenly recognizing the analogy which existed between my own internal sensations and those experienced by the colonel. A cloud passed over my eyes; a ringing in my ears, as mournful as a funeral bell, prevented me from hearing the end of the recital; and, my imagination becoming suddenly exalted to delirium, I ran out of the room, to go to the deserted house. It seemed to me, from a distance, that I saw a light playing behind the closed blinds: but when I was quite near, it no longer appeared.—My hallucination increasing, I threw myself against the door; it yielded, and I entered the vestibule, where I was suddenly choked by a warm and pungent vapor. Suddenly I heard a cry from a woman not two paces from me, and, I knew not how, I found myself in a saloon resplendent with light, and luxuriously decorated in the taste of the middle ages. Burning aromatics in censers embalmed the air with divine odors, which floated towards the vaulted ceiling in azure clouds.

"Oh welcome, my betrothed! for this is the hour of love!" said aloud the voice that I had already heard, and I then perceived for the first time a young woman in a bridal dress, who came towards me with open arms; but when she came nearer, I saw that she had a face, yellow and frightfully wrinkled by madness. I started back in affright, but the woman continued to approach, and I thought that I then discovered that this ugly