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Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts. Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at the door of the wise Castalio.
"Don't you know then?" answered she: "the beautiful Crescentia, the young thing, is just going to be buried; everybody wishes to have one more sight of her; for she has always been counted the sweetest maiden in the whole city. Her parents are heartbroken." The last words she called back to him, from some distance beyond him.
"I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I was never in the city." "Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have to give you." The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent Florentine wine.
"I know you too well," returned the dwarf, and walkt off with the key, casting back another look of something like mischievous delight. Meanwhile a lovely murmur approacht. Pietro went into the entrance-hall, and in glided the pale body of Crescentia, in her robe of death, still holding the crucifix in her folded hands.
The fire on the hearth was gone out, and the lamp now only cast a faint glimmer. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by the window on a low stool. "Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt. "There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time.
Are thy parents perchance in the next room there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will soon drive me mad." The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression, such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his eyes. "Faith, he is drunk already!" howled the old woman.
The music of the mass now gusht and rolled in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with horrour recognized the dead Crescentia.
He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents, or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.
Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia; and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore persuading him anew that this was his lost bride.
"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents' dear child?" "Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life!
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