Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/345

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from the table, and impelled as it were, by instinct, run into Adela's bed-chamber.

But her bed was empty, and without the least traces of any person's having lain on it. I composed myself a little, and returned softly and slowly to the drawing-room, put the candle from where I took it, replaced the hat, and waited a little longer. Hearing a rustling as if somebody approached, I hid myself in a corner of the room behind a large sereen, and pierced in haste the canvas with the bayonet of my gun, that I might be the better able to observe all that was to go forward in the place.

Immediately after Don Bernardos entered, hand in hand with the marchioness, whom he led to the sopha, removed the table that stood before it, and sat himself down by her side. Had I had the least belief in enchantments and metamorphoses, I would have taken this for some fairy scene. Both of them were amazingly altered.

Adela was all life and fire. Her fair face had never expressed such vivacity. My blood boiled, yet I could not help gazing on this