Ludwig Tieck

“ Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips; her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made her ugliness still more disgusting.
— True! she said with a forced laugh, I am not remarkably pretty; I was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about beauty ”

“ Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader dead on the ground.
— I am your captain now! cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely drawing his sword.
— Provided Crescentia is mine! answered a younger robber in a tone of defiance.
Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat. The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle rolled in the darkness from corner to corner. ”

“ In that grotto your father in earlier days sat time after time with his first wife; there at their betrothal he first swore eternal love to her. In those times Roberto doubtless already wore that dagger; but he knew not what an odd use he was to make of it some twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry, right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can say: that's a thing I never will do. ”

“ What shall I tell? said Antonio, with the deepest anguish: do not you seem to know everything, or else to have learnt it by soothsay? Need I tell you that an old servant, Roberto, poisoned her, having been persecuted by her hatred and thus spurred on to revenge himself? that this accursed villain attempted to throw the crime upon my father? He escapes from prison, scales the garden-wall, and in the grotto thrusts his dagger into my father's breast. ”

“ I cannot choose but hate thee mortally for thy jugglings, thy presumption, and for all those senseless hopes which smile upon our youth and go along with us so like friends upon our journey, and, when they have beguiled us into the wilderness, fly away from us and grin and make mows at us. Life! what is this web of folly, this silly dream of a feversick heart? One faint shivering-fit follows another; one crazy phantom drives another out; our wishes caper around in the bald waste, and do not even know themselves again. ”

“ The door opened softly and in came face to face to Antonio a large wild-looking man.
— Ildefonso! screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance recognized the murderer Roberto.
— What is this? said he with a hollow voice. Where got you that key? whither are you going?
— Roberto! cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart. ”

“ There is no next world, you silly ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds, and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his heart lusteth after.
Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply; but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for her mother that his anger was disarmed. ”

“ I am to be made the wife of Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?
— Come, cried Antonio, the door is open; escape with me; the night, the forest will lend us their shelter.
— Only look around you, said the girl; only see how both here and in the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the lock when you entered?
— Then let the old hag fall first, cried Antonio: we'll tear the keys from her——
— What, kill my mother! ”

“ He already hated life less; it seemed to him as though the night itself wisht to comfort him and to soothe his sorrow. Uncertain whether to seek for his fallen horse again, or to hide himself in some hollow from the rain, he lookt once more around, and at length far below him across a valley and at the back of some trees discovered a little dancing light, that like a friendly eye winkt to him through the thick darkness and called him to approach it. ”

“ This, my young lad, is the true glory of mortal life: but more especially, if the two yoke-fellows have of yore gone stark mad with love, if they have done everything, even what is a little bit out of the way, for each other, if they have waded through much of what certain good pious folks would call crimes and sins, merely for the sake of getting at one another, merely for the sake of at last tying the knot, which they now so cordially abhor. ”

“ Faith, I know no such glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and scold and curse each other, and would each give up heart and soul to Satan, only to hurt and pain or to get rid of the other. ”

“ Antonio knew not whether to scold or laugh; however he constrained himself to be calm, and to let the old woman have her chatter; for owing, as it seemed, to her former acquaintance with his family, she possest a strange power over him. But how did he start with amazement when she suddenly cried out:
— Crescentia! ”

“ Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep. Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it, and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door; they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock ”