Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/94

 his fist he knocked him into the corner of the carriage, opened the door, sprang at a bound into the street, calling loudly to Frederick and his countrymen, for it was they who had just passed so near to him.

At the news of the pursuit that threatened Erasmus, Frederick returned hastily to the city with him, in order to consult on the means of avoiding it. On the morrow Erasmus started on horseback on the road to Germany.

Towards the middle of his journey, he arrived in a large city, and stopped at the hotel, worn out by fatigue and dying of hunger. He took a place at the table, but the servant perceiving in a large mirror that the chair occupied by Erasmus was reflected in it without the reflection of the traveller, remarked it by a whisper in the ear of his neighbor; the latter communicated it to another, and in the twinkling of an eye all at the table were emulating each other in talking about this wonder. Erasmus, while eating and drinking enough for four, was entirely unconscious that he had become the object of general curiosity; when an aged man came up to him, took him by the hand, led him before the glass, and said to him—"Sir, you have no reflection; you are the devil or one of his people!"

Erasmus, furious and confused, ran and shut himself up in his chamber, where the police soon came to signify that he was ordered to appear before the magistrates, provided with his reflection, under penalty of being driven out of the city.

Erasmus judged it most prudent to make his escape; but his story was already known all over the city, and the people gathered in a crowd before the hotel, and pursued him, throwing stones and mud, and crying out—"There goes the accursed man who has sold his reflection to the devil!"

Since that accident, everywhere he stopped he had all the mirrors veiled on arriving; and it was for that he was called derisively Gen. Suvarow, because this personage had this habit.

On arriving home, poor Spicker found near his wife a most