Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/444

 face was nothing but a crape mask, under which appeared, with charming distinctness, the enchanting features of my ideal. Her hands already touched my own, when she fell groaning to the floor, and I heard muttered behind me:—Ho, ho! to bed, to bed, your grace, or look out for the rod! and the gesture following the word, I perceived on turning round the old servant, the man in the coffee colored coat, who was flourishing through the air long birch rods, with which ho commenced switching the poor woman weepingly extended on the floor. I threw myself before him and caught his arm; but he, shaking me off with more strength than I supposed him possessed of, contented himself with saying to me:—"Do you not see that had it not been for my interference, this mad woman would have strangled you? Go! go from here as quickly as you entered!"

At these words, I became dizzy again, and sprang out of the room, seeking for an opening to go out of the fatal house. I heard, when I had succeeded in getting outside, the mad woman's cries mingle with the noise of the blows which the old man unsparingly dealt her. I tried to go back to her assistance, but the ground gave away under my feet, I fell from step to step down a staircase which led to a chamber, the door of which was burst open in my fall. From the disordered bed, the coffee colored coat that hung over a chair, I guessed that it was the den in which the servant, lodged. I had recovered myself, when I heard heavy steps descend the trembling stairs. It was the old man returning from his nocturnal adventure.

"Sir," exclaimed he, throwing himself at my feet, "whoever you may be, keep, I conjure you, an absolute silence concerning all that you have seen here; the least indiscretion would ruin me, a poor old man who would no longer know where to gain a support for his declining years. The mad woman has been well punished, and I have securely tied her to her bed. All is now quiet. Go then yourself, and repose in your own home, my good sir! sleep well, and try to forget this night."

A short time after this occurrence, I met count P in his saloon; he took me aside to tell me that he had discovered a clue to the mysteries of the deserted house. Supper, announced by a servant, did not allow me time to listen to the narration that he was about to favor me with. I offered my hand to a young lady to lead her into the supper room, the customary ceremonial in fashionable society. Judge of my surprise when, on fixing my eyes on her features, I recognized