Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/87

 my eyes, if the history of my nocturnal apparitions was not a nightmare, when the servant of the hotel coming in with my chocolate, informed me that the stranger who had shared my room and bed went away at daybreak, begging him to give me his compliments. Here is what this singular person had written and left, unintentionally perhaps, on the table.

It happened one day that Erasmus Spicker found himself at the height of joy; for the first time in his life he was allowed to travel. He filled with gold pieces a leather belt, and mounted into a travelling carriage to visit poetic Italy. His dear wife took a weeping farewell of him, and held little 'Rasmus up to the carriage window twenty times for his father to give him a kiss at parting. Then she charged her dear husband, above all things, not to lose the travelling cap that she herself had knit for him of fine wool.

Erasmus arrived at Florence, where he found several of his countrymen giving themselves up, without reserve, to all the pleasures of life. He set himself bravely to partake of their orgies, and was with them in all their adventures. Now it happened that all the joyous companions had one night appointed a meeting at a country seat in the suburbs, to have a full feast. All of them, except Erasmus, had taken their mistresses. The men wore then national costume of old Germany; the women were dressed in the holiday dresses of their country. They ate, they drank, they sang the most delicious romances of Italy. The orange trees in bloom shed their perfume on the air; the evening breeze carried through the distant space bursts of voluptuous harmony; the joy of the guests rose even to the limits of delirium.

Suddenly Frederick, the freest liver of the troupe, rose. With one arm he supported the waist of his mistress, and with the other he raised above his head his glass filled to the brim with golden, wine.