Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/447

 robbery committed on his domains. They were set at liberty, and passports were granted to them to continue their journey. As for the old woman in scarlet rags, she had disappeared without disclosing which way she was going. All reflected, and formed a thousand conjectures to explain count Z's conduct. It was said that the Bohemian chief had had a long interview with the count, in which extraordinary revelations were mutually exchanged.

Meanwhile Grabrielle's marriage was about to be solemnized, The evening before the day fixed for the ceremony, Angelika loaded a carriage with all that she possessed, and left the castle, accompanied in her flight by a single woman whom it was said much resembled the old Bohemian. Count Z, to avoid the scandal, tried to give to this action a plausible motive, by making known that his daughter, afflicted by a marriage that excited her jealousy, had solicited from him the donation of a little house situated at W, where she had declared that she wished to retire and end her days in the most complete isolation.

After the espousal, count S went with his young wife to D, in a situation where, during a year, they enjoyed together the most perfect felicity; after which the count's health became suddenly enfeebled from some cause which they were unable to discover; an inward suffering seemed to waste away his existence; he refused all care, and his wife could not obtain from him a confession of the hidden disease with which he was languishing. Finally, after a long resistance, he yielded to the advice of his physician, who prescribed a change of scene. He went to Pisa. Gabrielle, who was near giving birth to a child, could not accompany him on this excursion. A short time after its birth, the little girl that she had brought into the world disappeared mysteriously, and without leaving any trace by which they could discover the author of its abduction. Her desolation was pitiable to behold, when, to increase her pain, a message arrived from her father, count Z, which informed her that count S, who was thought to be at Pisa, had just died at W, in the little house to which Angelika had retired, and that Angelika had become frightfully demented, against which calamity the physicians declared that all science was powerless.

Poor Gabrielle went back to her father. One night as she was sadly reflecting on the double loss of her husband and child, she heard a sound as of some one sobbing. She listened; this feeble noise seemed to proceed from a neighboring apartment; she anxiously arose, took her night lamp, and