The Tales of Hoffmann Part 24

(They disappear together.)

HOFFMAN (coming down).

To sing no more! How obtain from her Such a sacrifice?

ANTONIA (appearing).

Well? What did my father say?

HOFFMAN.

Ask me nothing; Later you'll know all; a new road Opens for us, my Antonia!...

To follow my steps dismiss from your memory These dreams of future success and glory That your heart to mine confided.

ANTONIA.

But yourself!

HOFFMAN.

Love calls to both of us, All that is not you is nothing in my life.

ANTONIA.

Very well! Here is my hand!

HOFFMAN.

Ah dear Antonia, shall I appreciate What you do for me? (He kisses her hands.)

Your father will perhaps return.

I leave you... until to-morrow.

ANTONIA.

Until to-morrow.

(Hoffman goes out.)

ANTONIA (opening one of the doors).

Of my father easily he has become the accomplice, But come, regrets are superfluous, I promised him. I shall sing no more.

(She falls in a chair.)

MIRACLE (appearing suddenly behind her.)

You will sing no more. Do you know what a sacrifice?

He imposes on your youth, and have you measured it?

Grace, beauty, talent, sacred gift; All these blessings that heaven gave for your share, Must they be hid in the shadow of a household?

Have you not heard, in a proud dream, Like unto a forest by the wind moving, Like a soft s.h.i.+ver of the pressing crowd That murmurs your name and follows you with its eyes?

There is the ardent joy and the eternal festival, That the flower of your years is about to abandon, For the middle cla.s.s pleasures where they would enchain you, And the squalling children who will give you less beauty!

ANTONIA (without turning round).

Ah, what is this voice that troubles my spirit?

Is it h.e.l.l that speaks or Heaven that warns me?

No! happiness is not there, oh cursed voice, And against my pride my love has armed me; Glory is not worth the happy shade whence invites me The house of my beloved.

MIRACLE.

What loves can now be yours, Hoffman sacrifices you to his brutality, He only loves in you your beauty, And for him as for the others.

Soon will come the time of infidelity.

(He disappears.)

ANTONIA (rising).

No, do not tempt me! go away, Demon! I will no longer listen.

I have sworn to be his, my beloved awaits me, I'm no longer my own and I can't take myself back; And a few moments since, on his heart adored What eternal love did he not pledge me; Who will save me from the demon, from myself?

My mother, my mother, I love her.

(She falls weeping on the clavichord.)

MIRACLE (re-appears behind Antonia)

Your mother? Dare you invoke her?

Your mother? But is it not she?

Who speaks by my voice ingrate, and recalls to you The splendor of the name that you would abdicate?

(The portrait lights up and becomes animated.)

Listen!