Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/56

52 Those qualities, my dear, are better than other more brilliant ones; and this is why I feel a sympathy for this young man."

Whilst listening to dame Martha speaking thus, Rosa could not restrain the two big tears that had for some moments stood in her eyes. She arose, and turning her back to Martha, went and leaned her elbows on the window sill. "I certainly like Frederick," said she, pouting; "but does Reinhold seem to you so little worthy of being noticed?"

"Ah, truly," exclaimed dame Martha, "I must confess that he is the handsomest of the three. I have never seen such sparkling eyes as he has when he looks at you; but there is in his whole person something strange and affected, that causes me an indescribable uneasiness. I say to myself that such a workman does too much honor to the workshop of master Martin. When he speaks, one would believe that he heard soft music, and every thing that he says carries you out of real life; but if one reflects on what he has said, one is forced to confess immediately that one has understood nothing of it. For my part, I consider him, in spite of myself, a being of a nature entirely different from ours, and made to exist in another state of life. As for the third, the savage Conrad is a mixture of pretension and pride, which disagrees singularly with the leather apron of a simple workman. Each one of his gestures is as imperious as if he had the right to command here; and, in fact, master Martin, since he has been here, has not been able to help yielding to his ascendancy, and to bend before his iron will. However, in spite of this inflexible character, there is not a better or more honest man than Conrad; and I will go so far as to say, that I should prefer this rudeness and this wildness, to the exquisite elegance of the manners of Reinhold. That fellow must have been a soldier, for he knows too well how to handle arms and practise various difficult exercises, to have been until now an obscure workman. But how is this, dear Rosa; you are quite absent, and a hundred leagues off from what I am telling