The Serapion Brethren Author:Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in his harsh rugged tone, ' Splendidly, Professor. You remember my telling you about a magnificent Amati, which I got hold of by a lucky accident a short time ag... more »o ? I cut it open this very morning, and expect that Antonia has finished taking it to pieces by this time.' "' Antonia is a dear, good child,' said the Professor. "' Ay! that she is—that she is!' screamed Krespel, and seizing his hat and stick, was off out of the house like a flash of lightning. " As soon as he was gone, I eagerly begged the Professor to tell me all about those violins, and more especially about Antonia. "' Ah,' said the Professor, ' Krespel is an extraordinary man ; he studies fiddle-making in a peculiar fashion of his own.' "' Fiddle-making ?' cried I in amazement. " ' Yes,' said the Professor; ' connoisseurs consider that Krespel's violin-making is unapproachable at the present day. Formerly, when he turned out any special chef fceutre, he would allow other people to play upon it; but now he lets no one touch them but himself. When he has finished a fiddle, he plays upon it for an hour or two (he plays magnificently, with a power and an amount of feeling and expression which the greatest professional violinists rarely equal, let alone surpass), then he hangs it up on the wall beside the others, and never touches it again, nor lets anyone else lay hands upon it.' "'And Autonia?' I eagerly asked. "' Well, that,' said the Professor, ' is an affair which would make me have a very shady opinion of Krespel, if I didn't know what a thoroughly good fellow he is; so that I feel convinced there is some mystery about it which we don't at present fathom. When he first came here some years ago, he lived like a hermit, with an old housekeeper, in a gloomy houstT in "—— Street. His eccentri...« less