The Sandman (short story)

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"When Nathaniel lay on the stone pavement, with his head shattered, Coppelius had disappeared in the crowd."-- "The Sandman" (1816) by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian, relates that a young maiden, Philemium, the daughter of Philostratus and Charitas, became deeply enamoured of a young man, named Machates, a guest in the house of her father. This did not meet with the approbation of her parents, and they turned Machates away. The young maiden took this so much to heart that she pined away and died. Some time afterwards Machates returned to his old lodgings, when he was visited at night by his beloved, who came from the grave to see him again. The story may be read in Heywood's (Thos.) "Hierarchie of Blessed Angels," Book vii, p. 479 (London, 1637). Goethe has made this story the foundation of his beautiful poem Die Braut von Korinth, with which form of it Hoffmann was most likely familiar."--"The Sandman" (1816) by E. T. A. Hoffmann

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The Sandman (Der Sandmann, 1816) is a short story by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It was the first in a book of stories titled Die Nachtstücke (The Night Pieces).

The story tells of a student who carries from childhood a fear of the terrible Sandman who steals eyes. He has come to associate the Sandman in his mind with the unpleasant Coppelius who became implicated in the death of his father, and later in life he again encounters Coppelius who haunts his thoughts. Despite being engaged, he becomes enamoured of Olympia, a gynoid automaton built by Coppelius and an accomplice, believing her to be real. The discovery of the trick drives him into madness, and he ultimately jumps to his death.

Elements of the story were later adapted (very loosely) as the ballet Coppélia. Subsequently, it was also adapted as Act I of the opera Les contes d'Hoffmann.

"Der Sandmann" is extensively interpreted by Freud in a famous 1919 essay, The Uncanny ("Das Unheimliche").

1 Plot summary
2 Characters in "Der Sandmann"
3 Folklore references
4 Interpretations
5 Full text

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Plot summary

The story is told by a narrator who claims to have known Nathanael. It begins by quoting three letters:

1. A letter from Nathanael to Lothar, brother of his fiancée Clara. Nathanael recalls his childhood terror of the legendary Sandman, who it was said would steal the eyes of children who would't go to bed and feed them to his own children who lived in the moon. Nathanael came to associate the Sandman with a mysterious nightly visitor to his father, and after discovering that the visitor was the obnoxious lawyer Coppelius coming to carry out alchemical experiments he comes to see Coppelius as the Sandman. One of these experiments caused his father's death in the presence of Coppelius, who then vanished without a trace. Nathanael believes that a barometer-seller who arrived recently at his rooms under the name Giuseppe Coppola is none other than the hated Coppelius, and he is determined to seek vengeance.

2. A letter from Clara to Nathanael, explaining that Nathanael had addressed the previous letter to her instead of to Lothar. She was touched at the account of Nathanael's childhood trauma, and discussed it with Lothar, but she is convinced that the terrors are of Nathanael's own imagining and urges him to put Coppelius/Coppola from his mind.

3. A letter from Nathanael to Lothar, in which Nathanael declares that Coppola is not, after all, Coppelius: Coppola is clearly Italian, while Coppelius was German, and Coppola is also vouched for by the new physics professor, Spalanzani, who is also Italian and has known Coppola for years. Nathanael adds that Spalanzani has a daughter, Olimpia, whose briefly glimpsed appearance has made a considerable impression on him.

Shortly after this third letter, Nathanael returns to his home town from his studies to see Clara and Lothar, and in the joy of their reunion Coppelius/Coppola is at first forgotten. Nevertheless, the encounter with Coppola has had a profound effect on Nathanael, driving him toward a gloomy mysticism which bores Clara and leads to a gradual estrangement. Indeed Nathanael's frustration leads him to call her an "inanimate, accursed automaton", which so enrages Lothar that he in turn insults Nathanael, and a duel is only narrowly averted by Clara's intervention. Nathanael pleads for Clara's forgiveness, and declares his true love for her, and a reconciliation is brought about.

Nathanael returns to complete the final year of his studies, after which he intends to return to his home town for ever. He finds his student lodgings destroyed by fire, though his possessions were rescued by his friends and moved to a new house which is opposite that of Spalanzani. His window now looks directly into that of Olimpia, and he is again struck by her beauty. Coppola calls to sell his wares, and offers "pretty eyes, pretty eyes!" which reawakens Nathanael's childish fear of the Sandman. However, it turns out that Coppola has lenses and spectacles to sell, and also small telescopes, and Nathanael buys one of these from him to set matters right after his earlier outburst. As Coppola leaves, Nathanael becomes fixated on watching Olimpia through his telescope, although her fixed gaze and motionless stance disconcert him.

Spalanzani gives a grand party at which it is reported that his daughter will be presented in public for the first time. Nathanael is invited, and becomes enraptured by Olimpia who plays the harpsichord, sings and dances. Her stiffness of movement and coldness of touch appear strange to many of the company. Nathanael dances with her repeatedly, although her timing is not quite right with the music, and eventually tells her of his passion for her, to which Olimpia replies only "Ah, ah!". In the days that follow he visits Olimpia repeatedly, reading her the poems and mysticism that had so bored Clara, and Olimpia listens to it all and replies only "Ah, ah!", which Nathanael interprets as understanding. Most other people consider her dull and stupid, although pretty, and with strangely mechanical actions.

Eventually Nathanael determines to propose to Olimpia, but when he arrives at her rooms he finds an argument in progress between Spalanzani and Coppola, who are fighting over the body of Olimpia and arguing over who made the eyes and who made the clockwork. Coppola, who is now revealed as Coppelius in truth, wins the struggle, and makes off with the lifeless and eyeless body, while the injured Spalanzani urges Nathanael to chase after him and recover the automaton to which he has devoted so many years of his life. The sight of Olimpia's eyes lying on the ground drives Nathanael to madness, however, and he flies at the professor to strangle him. He is pulled away by other people drawn by the noise of the struggle, and in a state of insanity is taken to an asylum.

Spalanzani recovers from the encounter, but is forced to leave the university because of the sensational revelation of the trick he had played in trying to pass off an automaton as a living person. Coppelius once more vanishes without trace. The narrator adds that the story of the automaton had a widespread effect on society, with many lovers taking steps to ensure they were not enamoured of puppets but of real flesh and blood.

Nathanael appears to recover from his madness and is reunited with Clara and Lothar. He resolves to marry Clara and move to a pleasant estate near his home town. On the way to visit the place, they pass through the town and climb the high steeple to look out at the view. The madness strikes Nathanael again, and he tries to hurl Clara from the steeple. She is saved by Lothar, but in the crowd that gathers below Coppelius appears, and when Nathanael sees him he cries "pretty eyes, pretty eyes!" and leaps over the railing to his death. Coppelius disappears into the crowd.

Many years afterward, the narrator concludes, it is said that Clara was seen with a kind-looking man sitting before a country house with two lively boys, and thus found the domestic happiness which Nathanael would never have given her.

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Characters in "Der Sandmann"

Nathanael (the gift of God): narcissistic protagonist with a manic sense of mission.
Clara (the clear one): Nathanael's fiancée with a peaceful, judicious, yet fiery temperament.
Lothar: Clara's brother and Nathanael's friend
Nathanael's father: does alchemical experiments with Coppelius during Nathanael's childhood which lead to his death.
Coppelius: Fear-instilling, large and malformed man who spoiled the happiness of Nathanael and his siblings in their childhood and may be implicated in the death of Nathanael's father.
Coppola (ital.: eye cavities): Italian trader in barometers and lenses, in whom Nathanael recognizes Coppelius.
Spalanzani: physics professor with whom Nathanael is studying, and collaborator with Coppelius on building a lifelike automaton.
Olimpia ("she who comes from Olympus"; Classical context): "Daughter" of Nathanael's professor, who later is shown to be an automaton and is a reason for Nathanael's madness.
Siegmund (Protection): Attempts to save his friend Nathanael from unhappiness.

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Folklore references

The story contains an example of a horrific depiction of the folklore character, the Sandman, who is traditionally said to throw sand in the eyes of children to help them fall asleep. The following excerpt is from an English translation of the story:

Most curious to know more of this Sandman and his particular connection with children, I at last asked the old woman who looked after my youngest sister what sort of man he was.

'Eh, Natty,' said she, 'don't you know that yet? He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they won't go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. He puts their eyes in a bag and carries them to the crescent moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up there. They have crooked beaks like owls so that they can pick up the eyes of naughty human children.'

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Interpretations

In the three opening letters which clarify the situation in this book , the characters and the conflict are first defined. Furthermore the psychic conflict of the protagonist,Nathannael, is represented, who is torn between hallucinations and reality. Nathanael struggles his whole life against post traumatic stress which comes from a traumatic episode with the sandman in his childhood experience. Until the end of the book it remains open whether this experience was real, or just a dream of the young Nathanael. The text clearly leaves the decision open in as much as it offers two understandings: that of Nathanael's belief that there is a dark power controlling him, and Clara's postulation (together with Lothar) against this that this is only a psychological element.

The story is partly a subjective description of the proceedings from Nathanael's viewpoint which, due to enormous psychological problems, is hardly likely to be an objective view of reality, or possibly also partially objectively portrayed, in which case the decision is not so easy to reach. Hoffman consciously leaves the reader unsure of this.

In this was the interpretation from an enlightenment perspective makes sense against the Romantic view, whereby Clara represents the enlightenment and Nathanael the Romantics.

Of central importance is the "eyes" theme (interpreted by Freud as fear of castration), the "steps", the robot and laughing. Consider eyes as a window to the soul, why would Nathanael see life in Olimpia’s eyes but not in Clara’s? Which of the women is really the robot? The doll who can integrate herself into high-society or the bourgeois girl with her enlightened scientific views?

Hoffman, well known for not conforming to society, manages to give a satirical critique of society here, which offers a lesson to both Enlightened scientists and Romantic "hoverers and floaters".

Consider the Coppelius / Coppola character not as a real physical character, but as a metaphor, like Nathanael does when he returns home. We can consider him to represent the dark side WITHIN Nathanael. Notice when this character appears during the novella, at what dramatic moments. Are they the same? Note the fight between Spalanzani and one or both of them for the “wooden doll”. We hear Coppelius’ voice but see Coppola.

Consider the motif of fists. Coppelius is always described as having fists, never hands.

"Der Sandmann" is extensively interpreted by Freud in a famous 1919 essay, The Uncanny ("Das Unheimliche").

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Full text

THE SAND-MAN

NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR

I KNOW you are all very uneasy because I have not written for such a long, long time. Mother, to be sure, is angry, and Clara, I dare say, believes I am living here in riot and revelry, and quite forgetting my sweet angel, whose image is so deeply engraved upon my heart and mind. But that is not so; daily and hourly do I think of you all, and my lovely Clara's form comes to gladden me in my dreams, and smiles upon me with her bright eyes, as graciously as she used to do in the days when I went in and out amongst you. Oh! how could I write to you in the distracted state of mind in which I have been, and which, until now, has quite bewildered me! A terrible thing has happened to me. Dark forebodings of some awful fate threatening me are spreading themselves out over my head like black clouds, impenetrable to every friendly ray of sunlight. I must now tell you what has taken place; I must, that I see well enough, but only to think upon it makes the wild laughter burst from my lips. Oh! my dear, dear Lothair, what shall I say to make you feel, if only in an inadequate way, that that which happened to me a few days ago could thus really exercise such a hostile and disturbing influence upon my life? Oh that you were here to see for yourself! but now you will, I suppose, take me for a superstitious ghost-seer. In a word, the terrible thing which I have experienced, the fatal effect of which I in vain exert every effort to shake off, is simply that some days ago, namely, on the 30th October, at twelve o'clock at noon, a dealer in weather-glasses came into my room and wanted to sell me one of his wares. I bought nothing, and threatened to kick him downstairs, whereupon he went away of his own accord.

You will conclude that it can only be very peculiar relations-- relations intimately intertwined with my life--that can give significance to this event, and that it must be the person of this unfortunate hawker which has had such a very inimical effect upon me. And so it really is. I will summon up all my faculties in order to narrate to you calmly and patiently as much of the early days of my youth as will suffice to put matters before you in such a way that your keen sharp intellect may grasp everything clearly and distinctly, in bright and living pictures. Just as I am beginning, I hear you laugh and Clara say, "What's all this childish nonsense about!" Well, laugh at me, laugh heartily at me, pray do. But, good God! my hair is standing on end, and I seem to be entreating you to laugh at me in the same sort of frantic despair in which Franz Moor entreated Daniel to laugh him to scorn.(2) But to my story.

(2) See Schiller's Räuber, Act V., Scene I. Franz Moor, seeing that the failure of all his villainous schemes is inevitable, and that his own ruin is close upon him, is at length overwhelmed with the madness of despair, and unburdens the terrors of his conscience to the old servant Daniel, bidding him laugh him to scorn.

Except at dinner we, i.e., I and my brothers and sisters, saw but little of our father all day long. His business no doubt took up most of his time. After our evening meal, which, in accordance with an old custom, was served at seven o'clock, we all went, mother with us, into father's room, and took our places around a round table. My father smoked his pipe, drinking a large glass of beer to it. Often he told us many wonderful stories, and got so excited over them that his pipe always went out; I used then to light it for him with a spill, and this formed my chief amusement. Often, again, he would give us picture-books to look at, whilst he sat silent and motionless in his easy-chair, puffing out such dense clouds of smoke that we were all as it were enveloped in mist. On such evenings mother was very sad; and directly it struck nine she said, "Come, children! off to bed! Come! The 'Sand-man' is come I see." And I always did seem to hear something trampling upstairs with slow heavy steps; that must be the Sand-man. Once in particular I was very much frightened at this dull trampling and knocking; as mother was leading us out of the room I asked her, "O mamma! but who is this nasty Sand-man who always sends us away from papa? What does he look like?" Except at dinner we, i.c., I and my brothers and "There is no Sand-man, my dear child," mother answered; "when I say the Sand-man is come, I only mean that you are sleepy and can't keep your eyes open, as if somebody had put sand in them." This answer of mother's did not satisfy me; nay, in my childish mind the thought clearly unfolded itself that mother denied there was a Sand- man only to prevent us being afraid,--why, I always heard him come upstairs. Full of curiosity to learn something more about this Sand- man and what he had to do with us children, I at length asked the old woman who acted as my youngest sister's attendant, what sort of a man he was--the Sand-man? "Why, 'thanael, darling, don't you know?" she replied. "Oh! he's a wicked man, who comes to little children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes, so that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and he puts them into a bag and takes them to the half-moon as food for his little ones; and they sit there in the nest and have hooked beaks like owls, and they pick naughty little boys' and girls' eyes out with them." After this I formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel Sand-man. When anything came blundering upstairs at night I trembled with fear and dismay; and all that my mother could get out of me were the stammered words "The Sandman! the Sand-man!" whilst the tears coursed down my cheeks. Then I ran into my bedroom, and the whole night through tormented myself with the terrible apparition of the Sand-man. I was quite old enough to perceive that the old woman's tale about the Sand- man and his little ones' nest in the half-moon couldn't be altogether true; nevertheless the Sand-man continued to be for me a fearful incubus, and I was always seized with terror--my blood always ran cold, not only when I heard anybody come up the stairs, but when I heard anybody noisily open my father's room door and go in. Often he stayed away for a long season altogether; then he would come several times in close succession.

This went on for years, without my being able to accustom myself to this fearful apparition, without the image of the horrible Sand-man growing any fainter in my imagination. His intercourse with my father began to occupy my fancy ever more and more; I was restrained from asking my father about him by an unconquerable shyness; but as the years went on the desire waxed stronger and stronger within me to fathom the mystery myself and to see the fabulous Sand-man. He had been the means of disclosing to me the path of the wonderful and the adventurous, which so easily find lodgment in the mind of the child. I liked nothing better than to hear or read horrible stories of goblins, witches, Tom Thumbs, and so on; but always at the head of them all stood the Sand-man, whose picture I scribbled in the most extraordinary and repulsive forms with both chalk and coal everywhere, on the tables, and cupboard doors, and walls. When I was ten years old my mother removed me from the nursery into a little chamber off the corridor not far from my father's room. We still had to withdraw hastily whenever, on the stroke of nine, the mysterious unknown was heard in the house. As I lay in my little chamber I could hear him go into father's room, and soon afterwards I fancied there was a fine and peculiar smelling steam spreading itself through the house. As my curiosity waxed stronger, my resolve to make somehow or other the Sand-man's acquaintance took deeper root. Often when my mother had gone past, I slipped quickly out of my room into the corridor, but I could never see anything, for always before I could reach the place where I could get sight of him, the Sand-man was well inside the door. At last, unable to resist the impulse any longer, I determined to conceal myself in father's room and there wait for the Sand-man.

One evening I perceived from my father's silence and mother's sadness that the Sand-man would come; accordingly, pleading that I was excessively tired, I left the room before nine o'clock and concealed myself in a hiding-place close beside the door. The street door creaked, and slow, heavy, echoing steps crossed the passage towards the stairs. Mother hurried past me with my brothers and sisters. Softly--softly--I opened father's room door. He sat as usual, silent and motionless, with his back towards it; he did not hear me; and in a moment I was in and behind a curtain drawn before my father's open wardrobe, which stood just inside the room. Nearer and nearer and nearer came the echoing footsteps. There was a strange coughing and shuffling and mumbling outside. My heart beat with expectation and fear. A quick step now close, close beside the door, a noisy rattle of the handle, and the door flies open with a bang. Recovering my courage with an effort, I take a cautious peep out. In the middle of the room in front of my father stands the Sand-man, the bright light of the lamp falling full upon his face. The Sand-man, the terrible Sand-man, is the old advocate Coppelius who often comes to dine with us.

But the most hideous figure could not have awakened greater trepidation in my heart than this Coppelius did. Picture to yourself a large broad-shouldered man, with an immensely big head, a face the colour of yellow-ochre, grey bushy eyebrows, from beneath which two piercing, greenish, cat-like eyes glittered, and a prominent Roman nose hanging over his upper lip. His distorted mouth was often screwed up into a malicious smile; then two dark-red spots appeared on his cheeks, and a strange hissing noise proceeded from between his tightly clenched teeth. He always wore an ash-grey coat of an old-fashioned cut, a waistcoat of the same, and nether extremities to match, but black stockings and buckles set with stones on his shoes. His little wig scarcely extended beyond the crown of his head, his hair was curled round high up above his big red ears, and plastered to his temples with cosmetic, and a broad closed hair-bag stood out prominently from his neck, so that you could see the silver buckle that fastened his folded neck-cloth. Altogether he was a most disagreeable and horribly ugly figure; but what we children detested most of all was his big coarse hairy hands; we could never fancy anything that he had once touched. This he had noticed; and so, whenever our good mother quietly placed a piece of cake or sweet fruit on our plates, he delighted to touch it under some pretext or other, until the bright tears stood in our eyes, and from disgust and loathing we lost the enjoyment of the tit-bit that was intended to please us. And he did just the same thing when father gave us a glass of sweet wine on holidays. Then he would quickly pass his hand over it, or even sometimes raise the glass to his blue lips, and he laughed quite sardonically when all we dared do was to express our vexation in stifled sobs. He habitually called us the "little brutes;" and when he was present we might not utter a sound; and we cursed the ugly spiteful man who deliberately and intentionally spoilt all our little pleasures. Mother seemed to dislike this hateful Coppelius as much as we did for as soon as he appeared her cheerfulness and bright and natural manner were transformed into sad, gloomy seriousness. Father treated him as if he were a being of some higher race, whose ill- manners were to be tolerated, whilst no efforts ought to be spared to keep him in good-humour. He had only to give a slight hint, and his favourite dishes were cooked for him and rare wine uncorked.

As soon as I saw this Coppelius, therefore, the fearful and hideous thought arose in my mind that he, and he alone, must be the Sand-man; but I no longer conceived of the Sand-man as the bugbear in the old nurse's fable, who fetched children's eyes and took them to the half- moon as food for his little ones--no I but as an ugly spectre-like fiend bringing trouble and misery and ruin, both temporal and everlasting, everywhere wherever he appeared.

I was spell-bound on the spot. At the risk of being discovered, and, as I well enough knew, of being severely punished, I remained as I was, with my head thrust through the curtains listening. My father received Coppelius in a ceremonious manner. "Come, to work!" cried the latter, in a hoarse snarling voice, throwing off his coat. Gloomily and silently my father took off his dressing-gown, and both put on long black smock-frocks. Where they took them from I forgot to notice. Father opened the folding-doors of a cupboard in the wall; but I saw that what I had so long taken to be a cupboard was really a dark recess, in which was a little hearth. Coppelius approached it, and a blue flame crackled upwards from it. Round about were all kinds of strange utensils. Good God! as my old father bent down over the fire how different he looked! His gentle and venerable features seemed to be drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly, repulsive Satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius. Coppelius plied the red-hot tongs and drew bright glowing masses out of the thick smoke and began assiduously to hammer them. I fancied that there were men's faces visible round about, but without eyes, having ghastly deep black holes where the eyes should have been. "Eyes here! Eyes here!" cried Coppelius, in a hollow sepulchral voice. My blood ran cold with horror; I screamed and tumbled out of my hiding-place into the floor. Coppelius immediately seized upon me. "You little brute! You little brute!" he bleated, grinding his teeth. Then, snatching me up, he threw me on the hearth, so that the flames began to singe my hair. "Now we've got eyes--eyes--a beautiful pair of children's eyes," he whispered, and, thrusting his hands into the flames he took out some red-hot grains and was about to strew t-em into my eyes. Then my father clasped his hands and entreated him, saying, "Master, master, let my Nathanael keep his eyes--oh! do let him keep them." Coppelius laughed shrilly and replied, "Well then, the boy may keep his eyes and whine and pule his way through the world; but we will now at any rate observe the mechanism of the hand and the foot." And therewith he roughly laid hold upon me, so that my joints cracked, and twisted my hands and my feet, pulling them now this way, and now that, "That's not quite right altogether! It's better as it was!--the old fellow knew what he was about." Thus lisped and hissed Coppelius; but all around me grew black and dark; a sudden convulsive pain shot through all my nerves and bones I knew nothing more.

I felt a soft warm breath fanning my cheek; I awakened as if out of the sleep of death; my mother was bending over me. "Is the Sand-man still there?" I stammered. "No, my dear child; he's been gone a long, long time; he'll not hurt you." Thus spoke my mother, as she kissed her recovered darling and pressed him to her heart. But why should I tire you, my dear Lothair? why do I dwell at such length on these details, when there's so much remains to be said? Enough--I was detected in my eavesdropping, and roughly handled by Coppelius. Fear and terror had brought on a violent fever, of which I lay ill several weeks. "Is the Sand-man still there?" these were the first words I uttered on coming to myself again, the first sign of my recovery, of my safety. Thus, you see, I have only to relate to you the most terrible moment of my youth for you to thoroughly understand that it must not be ascribed to the weakness of my eyesight if all that I see is colourless, but to the fact that a mysterious destiny has hung a dark veil of clouds about my life, which I shall perhaps only break through when I die.

Coppelius did not show himself again; it was reported he had left the town.

It was about a year later when, in pursuance of the old unchanged custom, we sat around the round table in the evening. Father was in very good spirits, and was telling us amusing tales about his youthful travels. As it was striking nine we all at once heard the street door creak on its hinges, and slow ponderous steps echoed across the passage and up the stairs. "That is Coppelius," said my mother, turning pale. "Yes, it is Coppelius," replied my father in a faint broken voice. The tears started from my mother's eyes. "But, father, father," she cried, "must it be so?" "This is the last time," he replied; "this is the last time he will come to me, I promise you. Go now, go and take the children. Go, go to bed--good-night."

As for me, I felt as if I were converted into cold, heavy stone; I could not get my breath. As I stood there immovable my mother seized me by the arm. "Come, Nathanael! do come along!" I suffered myself to be led away; I went into my room. "Be a good boy and keep quiet," mother called after me; "get into bed and go to sleep." But, tortured by indescribable fear and uneasiness, I could not close my eyes. That hateful, hideous Coppelius stood before me with his glittering eyes, smiling maliciously down upon me; in vain did I strive to banish the image. Somewhere about midnight there was a terrific crack, as if a cannon were being fired off. The whole house shook; something went rustling and clattering past my door; the house door was pulled to with a bang. "That is Coppelius," I cried, terror-struck, and leapt out of bed. Then I heard a wild heartrending scream; I rushed into my father's room; the door stood open, and clouds of suffocating smoke came rolling towards me. The servant-maid shouted, "Oh! my master! my master! On the floor in front of the smoking hearth lay my father, dead, his face burned black and fearfully distorted, my sisters weeping and moaning around him, and my mother lying near them in a swoon. "Coppelius, you atrocious fiend, you've killed my father," I shouted. My senses left me. Two days later, when my father was placed in his coffin; his features were mild and gentle again as they had been when he was alive. I found great consolation in the thought that his association with the diabolical Coppelius could not have ended in his everlasting ruin.

Our neighbours had been awakened by the explosion; the affair got talked about, and came before the magisterial authorities, who wished to cite Coppelius to clear himself. But he had disappeared from the place, leaving no traces behind him.

Now when I tell you, my dear friend, that the weather-glass hawker I spoke of was the villain Coppelius, you will not blame me for seeing impending mischief in his inauspicious reappearance. He was differently dressed; but Coppelius's figure and features are too deeply impressed upon my mind for me to be capable of making a mistake in the matter. Moreover, he has not even changed his name. He proclaims himself here, I learn, to be a Piedmontese mechanician, and styles himself Giuseppe Coppola.

I am resolved to enter the lists against him and revenge my father's death, let the consequences be what they may.

Don't say a word to mother about the reappearance of this odious monster. Give my love to my darling Clara; I will write to her when I am in a somewhat calmer frame of mind. Adieu.

CLARA TO NATHANAEL

You are right, you have not written to me for a very long time, but nevertheless I believe that I still retain a place in your mind and thoughts. It is a proof that you were thinking a good deal about me when you were sending off your last letter to brother Lothair, for instead of directing it to him you directed it to me. With joy I tore open the envelope, and did not perceive the mistake until I read the words, "Oh! my dear, dear Lothair." Now I know I ought not to have read any more of the letter, but ought to have given it to my brother. But as you have so often in innocent raillery made it a sort of reproach against me that I possessed such a calm, and, for a woman, cool-headed temperament that I should be like the woman we read of--if the house was threatening to tumble down, I should, before hastily fleeing, stop to smooth down a crumple in the window-curtains--I need hardly tell you that the beginning of your letter quite upset me. I could scarcely breathe; there was a bright mist before my eyes. Oh! my darling Nathanael! what could this terrible thing be that had happened? Separation from you--never to see you again, the thought was like a sharp knife in my heart. I read on and on. Your description of that horrid Coppelius made my flesh creep. I now learnt for the first time what a terrible and violent death your good old father died. Brother Lothair, to whom I handed over his property, sought to comfort me, but with little success. That horrid weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola followed me everywhere; and I am almost ashamed to confess it, but he was able to disturb my sound and in general calm sleep with all sorts of wonderful dream-shapes. But soon--the next day--I saw everything in a different light. Oh! do not be angry with me, my best- beloved, if, despite your strange presentiment that Coppelius will do you some mischief, Lothair tells you I am in quite as good spirits, and just the same as ever.

I will frankly confess, it seems to me that all that was fearsome and terrible of which you speak, existed only in your own self, and that the real true outer world had but little to do with it. I can quite admit that old Coppelius may have been highly obnoxious to you children, but your real detestation of him arose from the fact that he hated children.

Naturally enough the gruesome Sand-man of the old nurse's story was associated in your childish mind with old Coppelius, who, even though you had not believed in the Sand-man, would have been to you a ghostly bugbear, especially dangerous to children. His mysterious labours along with your father at night-time were, I daresay, nothing more than secret experiments in alchemy, with which your mother could not be over well pleased, owing to the large sums of money that most likely were thrown away upon them; and besides, your father, his mind full of the deceptive striving after higher knowledge, may probably have become rather indifferent to his family, as so often happens in the case of such experimentalists. So also it is equally probable that your father brought about his death by his own imprudence, and that Coppelius is not to blame for it. I must tell you that yesterday I asked our experienced neighbour, the chemist, whether in experiments of this kind an explosion could take place which would have a momentarily fatal effect. He said, "Oh, certainly!" and described to me in his prolix and circumstantial way how it could be occasioned, mentioning at the same time so many strange and funny words that I could not remember them at all. Now I know you will be angry at your Clara, and will say, "Of the Mysterious which often clasps man in its invisible arms there's not a ray can find its way into this cold heart. She sees only the varied surface of the things of the world, and, like the little child, is pleased with the golden glittering fruit, at the kernel of which lies the fatal poison."

Oh! my beloved Nathanael, do you believe then that the intuitive prescience of a dark power working within us to our own ruin cannot exist also in minds which are cheerful, natural, free from care? But please forgive me that I, a simple girl, presume in my way to indicate to you what I really think of such an inward strife. After all, I should not find the proper words, and you would only laugh at me, not because my thoughts were stupid, but because I was so foolish as to attempt to tell them to you.

If there is a dark and hostile power which traitorously fixes a thread in our hearts in order that, laying hold of it and drawing us by means of it along a dangerous road to ruin, which otherwise we should not have trod--if, I say, there is such a power, it must assume within us a form like ourselves, nay, it must be ourselves; for only in that way can we believe in it, and only so understood do we yield to it so far that it is able to accomplish its secret purpose. So long as we have sufficient firmness, fortified by cheerfulness, to always acknowledge foreign hostile influences for what they really are, whilst we quietly pursue the path pointed out to us by both inclination and calling, then this mysterious power perishes in its futile struggles to attain the form which is to be the reflected image of ourselves. It is also certain, Lothair adds, that if we have once voluntarily given ourselves up to this dark physical power, it often reproduces within us the strange forms which the outer world throws in our way, so that thus it is we ourselves who engender within ourselves the spirit which by some remarkable delusion we imagine to speak in that outer form. It is the phantom of our own self whose intimate relationship with, and whose powerful influence upon our soul either plunges us into hell or elevates us to heaven. Thus you will see, my beloved Nathanael, that I and brother Lothair have well talked over the subject of dark powers and forces; and now, after I have with some difficulty written down the principal results of our discussion, they seem to me to contain many really profound thoughts. Lothair's last words, however, I don't quite understand altogether; I only dimly guess what he means; and yet I cannot help thinking it is all very true. I beg you, dear, strive to forget the ugly advocate Coppelius as well as the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola. Try and convince yourself that these foreign influences can have no power over you, that it is only the belief in their hostile power which can in reality make them dangerous to you. If every line of your letter did not betray the violent excitement of your mind, and if I did not sympathise with your condition from the bottom of my heart, I could in truth jest about the advocate Sand-man and weather-glass hawker Coppelius. Pluck up your spirits! Be cheerful! I have resolved to appear to you as your guardian-angel if that ugly man Coppola should dare take it into his head to bother you in your dreams, and drive him away with a good hearty laugh. I'm not afraid of him and his nasty hands, not the least little bit; I won't let him either as advocate spoil any dainty tit-bit I've taken, or as Sand-man rob me of my eyes.

My darling, darling Nathanael.

Eternally your, c. c.

NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR.

I am very sorry that Clara opened and read my last letter to you; of course the mistake is to be attributed to my own absence of mind. She has written me a very deep philosophical letter, proving conclusively that Coppelius and Coppola only exist in my own mind and are phantoms of my own self, which will at once be dissipated, as soon as I look upon them in that light. In very truth one can hardly believe that the mind which so often sparkles in those bright, beautifully smiling, childlike eyes of hers like a sweet lovely dream could draw such subtle and scholastic distinctions. She also mentions your name. You have been talking about me. I suppose you have been giving her lectures, since she sifts and refines everything so acutely. But enough of this! I must now tell you it is most certain that the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola is not the advocate Coppelius. I am attending the lectures of our recently appointed Professor of Physics, who, like the distinguished naturalist,(3) is called Spalanzani, and is of Italian origin. He has known Coppola for many years; and it is also easy to tell from his accent that he really is a Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, though no honest German, I fancy. Nevertheless I am not quite satisfied. You and Clara will perhaps take me for a gloomy dreamer, but nohow can I get rid of the impression which Coppelius's cursed face made upon me. I am glad to learn from Spalanzani that he has left the town. This Professor Spalanzani is a very queer fish. He is a little fat man, with prominent cheek-bones, thin nose, projecting lips, and small piercing eyes. You cannot get a better picture of him than by turning over one of the Berlin pocket- almanacs(4) and looking at Cagliostro's(5) portrait engraved by Chodowiecki;(6) Spalanzani looks just like him.

(3) Lazaro Spallanzani, a celebrated anatomist and naturalist (1729- 1799), filled for several years the chair of Natural History at Pavia, and travelled extensively for scientific purposes in Italy, Turkey, Sicily, Switzerland, c.

(4) Or Almanacs of the Muses, as they were also sometimes called, were periodical, mostly yearly publications, containing all kinds of literary effusions; mostly, however, lyrical. They originated in the eighteenth century. Schiller, A. W. and F. Schlegel, Tieck, and Chamisso, amongst others, conducted undertakings of this nature.

(5) Joseph Balsamo, a Sicilian by birth, calling himself count Cagliostro, one of the greatest impostors of modern times, lived during the latter part of the eighteenth century. See Carlyle's "Miscellanies" for an account of his life and character.

(6) Daniel Nikolas Chodowiecki, painter and engraver, of Polish descent, was born at Dantzic in 1726. For some years he was so popular an artist that few books were published in Prussia without plates or vignettes by him. The catalogue of his works is said to include 3000 items.

Once lately, as I went up the steps to his house, I perceived that beside the curtain which generally covered a glass door there was a small chink. What it was that excited my curiosity I cannot explain; but I looked through. In the room I saw a female, tall, very slender, but of perfect proportions, and splendidly dressed, sitting at a little table, on which she had placed both her arms, her hands being folded together. She sat opposite the door, so that I could easily see her angelically beautiful face. She did not appear to notice me, and there was moreover a strangely fixed look about her eyes, I might almost say they appeared as if they had no power of vision; I thought she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt quite uncomfortable, and so I slipped away quietly into the Professor's lecture-room, which was close at hand. Afterwards I learnt that the figure which I had seen was Spalanzani's daughter, Olimpia, whom he keeps locked in a most wicked and unaccountable way, and no man is ever allowed to come near her. Perhaps, however, there is after all something peculiar about her; perhaps she's an idiot or something of that sort. But why am I telling you all this? I could have told you it all better and more in detail when I see you. For in a fortnight I shall be amongst you. I must see my dear sweet angel, my Clara, again. Then the little bit of ill-temper, which, I must confess, took possession of me after her fearfully sensible letter, will be blown away. And that is the reason why I am not writing to her as well to-day. With all best wishes, c.

Nothing more strange and extraordinary can be imagined, gracious reader, than what happened to my poor friend, the young student Nathanael, and which I have undertaken to relate to you. Have you ever lived to experience anything that completely took possession of your heart and mind and thoughts to the utter exclusion of everything else? All was seething and boiling within you; your blood, heated to fever pitch, leapt through your veins and inflamed your cheeks. Your gaze was so peculiar, as if seeking to grasp in empty space forms not seen of any other eye, and all your words ended in sighs betokening some mystery. Then your friends asked you, "What is the matter with you, my dear friend? What do you see?" And, wishing to describe the inner pictures in all their vivid colours, with their lights and their shades, you in vain struggled to find words with which to express yourself. But you felt as if you must gather up all the events that had happened, wonderful, splendid, terrible, jocose, and awful, in the very first word, so that the whole might be revealed by a single electric discharge, so to speak. Yet every word and all that partook of the nature of communication by intelligible sounds seemed to be colourless, cold, and dead. Then you try and try again, and stutter and stammer, whilst your friends' prosy questions strike like icy winds upon your heart's hot fire until they extinguish it. But if, like a bold painter, you had first sketched in a few audacious strokes the outline of the picture you had in your soul, you would then easily have been able to deepen and intensify the colours one after the other, until the varied throng of living figures carried your friends away, and they, like you, saw themselves in the midst of the scene that had proceeded out of your own soul.

Strictly speaking, indulgent reader, I must indeed confess to you, nobody has asked me for the history of young Nathanael; but you are very well aware that I belong to that remarkable class of authors who, when they are bearing anything about in their minds in the manner I have just described, feel as if everybody who comes near them, and also the whole world to boot, were asking, "Oh! what is it? Oh! do tell us, my good sir?" Hence I was most powerfully impelled to narrate to you Nathanael's ominous life. My soul was full of the elements of wonder and extraordinary peculiarity in it; but, for this very reason, and because it was necessary in the very beginning to dispose you, indulgent reader, to bear with what is fantastic--and that is not a little thing I racked my brain to find a way of commencing the story in a significant and original manner, calculated to arrest your attention. To begin with "Once upon a time," the best beginning for a story, seemed to me too tame; with "In the small country town S-- lived," rather better, at any rate allowing plenty of room to work up to the climax; or to plunge at once in medias res, "'Go to the devil!' cried the student Nathanael, his eyes blazing wildly with rage and fear, when the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola"--well, that is what I really had written, when I thought I detected something of the ridiculous in Nathanael's wild glance; and the history is anything but laughable. I could not find any words which seemed fitted to reflect in even the feeblest degree the brightness of the colours of my mental vision. I determined not to begin at all. So I pray you, gracious reader, accept the three letters which my friend Lothair has been so kind as to communicate to me as the outline of the picture, into which I will endeavour to introduce more and more colour as I proceed with my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in depicting more than one figure in such wise that you will recognise it as a good likeness without being acquainted with the original, and feel as if you had very often seen the original with your own bodily eyes. Perhaps, too, you will then believe that nothing is more wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all that a writer can do is to present it as a dark reflection from a dim cut mirror.

In order to make the very commencement more intelligible, it is necessary to add to the letters that, soon after the death of Nathanael's father, Clara and Lothair, the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died, leaving them orphans, were taken by Nathanael's mother into her own house. Clara and Nathanael conceived a warm affection for each other, against which not the slightest objection in the world could be urged. When therefore Nathanael left home to prosecute his studies in G--, they were betrothed. It is from G---that his last letter is written, where he is attending the lectures of Spalanzani, the distinguished Professor of Physics.

I might now proceed comfortably with my narration, did not at this moment Clara's image rise up so vividly before my eyes that I cannot turn them away from it, just as I never could when she looked upon me and smiled so sweetly. Nowhere would she have passed for beautiful that was the unanimous opinion of all who professed to have any technical knowledge of beauty. But whilst architects praised the pure proportions of her figure and form, painters averred that her neck, shoulders, and bosom were almost too chastely modelled, and yet, on the other hand, one and all were in love with her glorious Magdalene hair, and talked a good deal of nonsense about Battoni-like(7) colouring. One of them, a veritable romanticist, strangely enough likened her eyes to a lake by Ruisdael,(8) in which is reflected the pure azure of the cloudless sky, the beauty of woods and flowers, and all the bright and varied life of a living landscape. Poets and musicians went still further and said, "What's all this talk about seas and reflections? How can we look upon the girl without feeling that wonderful heavenly songs and melodies beam upon us from her eyes, penetrating deep down into our hearts, till all becomes awake and throbbing with emotion? And if we cannot sing anything at all passable then, why, we are not worth much; and this we can also plainly read in the rare smile which flits around her lips when we have the hardihood to squeak out something in her presence which we pretend to call singing, in spite of the fact that it is nothing more than a few single notes confusedly linked together." And it really was so. Clara had the powerful fancy of a bright, innocent, unaffected child, a woman's deep and sympathetic heart, and an understanding clear, sharp, and discriminating. Dreamers and visionaries had but a bad time of it with her; for without saying very much--she was not by nature of a talkative disposition--she plainly asked, by her calm steady look, and rare ironical smile, "How can you imagine, my dear friends, that I can take these fleeting shadowy images for true living and breathing forms?" For this reason many found fault with her as being cold, prosaic, and devoid of feeling; others, however, who had reached a clearer and deeper conception of life, were extremely fond of the intelligent, childlike, large-hearted girl. But none had such an affection for her as Nathanael, who was a zealous and cheerful cultivator of the fields of science and art. Clara clung to her lover with all her heart; the first clouds she encountered in life were when he had to separate from her. With what delight did she fly into his arms when, as he had promised in his last letter to Lothair, he really came back to his native town and entered his mother's room! And as Nathanael had foreseen, the moment he saw Clara again he no longer thought about either the advocate Coppelius or her sensible letter; his ill-humour had quite disappeared.

(7) Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, an Italian painter of the eighteenth century, whose works were at one time greatly over-estimated.

(8) Jakob Ruysdael (c. 1625-1682), a painter of Haarlem, in Holland. His favourite subjects were remote farms, lonely stagnant water, deep- haded woods with marshy paths, the sea-coast--subjects of a dark melancholy kind. His sea-pieces are greatly admired.

Nevertheless Nathanael was right when he told his friend Lothair that the repulsive vendor of weather-glasses, Coppola, had exercised a fatal and disturbing influence upon his life. It was quite patent to all; for even during the first Few days he showed that he was completely and entirely changed. He gave himself up to gloomy reveries, and moreover acted so strangely; they had never observed anything at all like it in him before. Everything, even his own life, was to him but dreams and presentiments. His constant theme was that every man who delusively imagined himself to be free was merely the plaything of the cruel sport of mysterious powers, and it was vain for man to resist them; he must humbly submit to whatever destiny had decreed for him. He went so far as to maintain that it was foolish to believe that a man could do anything in art or science of his own accord; for the inspiration in which alone any true artistic work could be done did not proceed from the spirit within outwards, but was the result of the operation directed inwards of some Higher Principle existing without and beyond ourselves.

This mystic extravagance was in the highest degree repugnant to Clara's clear intelligent mind, but it seemed vain to enter upon any attempt at refutation. Yet when Nathanael went on to prove that Coppelius was the Evil Principle which had entered into him and taken possession of him at the time he was listening behind the curtain, and that this hateful demon would in some terrible way ruin their happiness, then Clara grew grave and said, "Yes, Nathanael. You are right; Coppelius is an Evil Principle; he can do dreadful things, as bad as could a Satanic power which should assume a living physical form, but only--only if you do not banish him from your mind and thoughts. So long as you believe in him he exists and is at work; your belief in him is his only power." Whereupon Nathanael, quite angry because Clara would only grant the existence of the demon in his own mind, began to dilate at large upon the whole mystic doctrine of devils and awful powers, but Clara abruptly broke off the theme by making, to Nathanael's very great disgust, some quite commonplace remark. Such deep mysteries are sealed books to cold, unsusceptible characters, he thought, without being clearly conscious to himself that he counted Clara amongst these inferior natures, and accordingly he did not remit his efforts to initiate her into these mysteries. In the morning, when she was helping to prepare breakfast, he would take his stand beside her, and read all sorts of mystic books to her, until she begged him--"But, my dear Nathanael, I shall have to scold you as the Evil Principle which exercises a fatal influence upon my coffee. For if I do as you wish, and let things go their own way, and look into your eyes whilst you read, the coffee will all boil over into the fire, and you will none of you get any breakfast." Then Nathanael hastily banged the book to and ran away in great displeasure to his own room.

Formerly he had possessed a peculiar talent for writing pleasing, sparkling tales, which Clara took the greatest delight in listening to; but now his productions were gloomy, unintelligible, and wanting in form, so that, although Clara out of forbearance towards him did not say so, he nevertheless felt how very little interest she took in them. There was nothing that Clara disliked so much as what was tedious; at such times her intellectual sleepiness was not to be overcome; it was betrayed both in her glances and in her words. Nathanael's effusions were, in truth, exceedingly tedious. His ill- humour at Clara's cold prosaic temperament continued to increase; Clara could not conceal her distaste of his dark, gloomy, wearying mysticism; and thus both began to be more and more estranged from each other without exactly being aware of it themselves. The image of the ugly Coppelius had, as Nathanael was obliged to confess to himself, faded considerably in his fancy, and it often cost him great pains to present him in vivid colours in his literary efforts, in which he played the part of the ghoul of Destiny. At length it entered into his head to make his dismal presentiment that Coppelius would ruin his happiness the subject of a poem. He made himself and Clara, united by true love, the central figures, but represented a black hand as being from time to time thrust into their life and plucking out a joy that had blossomed for them. At length, as they were standing at the altar, the terrible Coppelius appeared and touched Clara's lovely eyes, which leapt into Nathanael's own bosom, burning and hissing like bloody sparks. Then Coppelius laid hold upon him, and hurled him into a blazing circle of fire, which spun round with the speed of a whirlwind, and, storming and blustering, dashed away with him. The fearful noise it made was like a furious hurricane lashing the foaming sea-waves until they rise up like black, white-headed giants in the midst of the raging struggle. But through the midst of the savage fury of the tempest he heard Clara's voice calling, "Can you not see me, dear? Coppelius has deceived you; they were not my eyes which burned so in your bosom; they were fiery drops of your own heart's blood. Look at me, I have got my own eyes still." Nathanael thought, "Yes, that is Clara, and I am hers for ever." Then this thought laid a powerful grasp upon the fiery circle so that it stood still, and the riotous turmoil died away rumbling down a dark abyss. Nathanael looked into Clara's eyes; but it was death whose gaze rested so kindly upon him.

Whilst Nathanael was writing this work he was very quiet and sober- minded; he filed and polished every line, and as he had chosen to submit himself to the limitations of metre, he did not rest until all was pure and musical. When, however, he had at length finished it and read it aloud to himself he was seized with horror and awful dread, and he screamed, "Whose hideous voice is this?" But he soon came to see in it again nothing beyond a very successful poem, and he confidently believed it would enkindle Clara's cold temperament, though to what end she should be thus aroused was not quite clear to his own mind, nor yet what would be the real purpose served by tormenting her with these dreadful pictures, which prophesied a terrible and ruinous end to her affection.

Nathanael and Clara sat in his mother's little garden. Clara was bright and cheerful, since for three entire days her lover, who had been busy writing his poem, had not teased her with his dreams or forebodings Nathanael, too, spoke in a gay and vivacious way of things of merry import, as he formerly used to do, so that Clara said, "Ah! now I have you again. We have driven away that ugly Coppelius, you see." Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had got the poem in his pocket which he wished to read to her. He at once took out the manuscript and began to read. Clara, anticipating something tedious as usual, prepared to submit to the infliction, and calmly resumed her knitting. But as the sombre clouds rose up darker and darker she let her knitting fall on her lap and sat with her eyes fixed in a set stare upon Nathanael's face.

He was quite carried away by his own work, the fire of enthusiasm coloured his cheeks a deep red, and tears started from his eyes. At length he concluded, groaning and showing great lassitude; grasping Clara's hand, he sighed as if he were being utterly melted in inconsolable grief, "Oh! Clara! Clara!" She drew him softly to her heart and said in a low but very grave and impressive tone, "Nathanael, my darling Nathanael, throw that foolish, senseless, stupid thing into the fire." Then Nathanael leapt indignantly to his feet, crying, as he pushed Clara from him, "You damned lifeless automaton!" and rushed away. Clara was cut to the heart, and wept bitterly. "Oh! he has never loved me, for he does not understand me," she sobbed.

Lothair entered the arbour. Clara was obliged to tell him all that had taken place. He was passionately fond of his sister; and every word of her complaint fell like a spark upon his heart, so that the displeasure which he had long entertained against his dreamy friend Nathanael was kindled into furious anger. He hastened to find Nathanael, and upbraided him in harsh words for his irrational behaviour towards his beloved sister. The fiery Nathanael answered him in the same style. "A fantastic, crack-brained fool," was retaliated with, "A miserable, common, everyday sort of fellow." A meeting was the inevitable consequence. They agreed to meet on the following morning behind the garden-wall, and fight, according to the custom of the students of the place, with sharp rapiers. They went about silent and gloomy; Clara had both heard and seen the violent quarrel, and also observed the fencing master bring the rapiers in the dusk of the evening. She had a presentiment of what was to happen. They both appeared at the appointed place wrapped up in the same gloomy silence, and threw off their coats. Their eyes flaming with the bloodthirsty light of pugnacity, they were about to begin their contest when Clara burst through the garden door. Sobbing, she screamed, "You savage, terrible men! Cut me down before you attack each other; for how can I live when my lover has slain my brother, or my brother slain my lover?" Lothair let his weapon fall and gazed silently upon the ground, whilst Nathanael's heart was rent with sorrow, and all the affection which he had felt for his lovely Clara in the happiest days of her golden youth was awakened within him. His murderous weapon, too, fell from his hand; he threw himself at Clara's feet. "Oh! can you ever forgive me, my only, my dearly loved Clara? Can you, my dear brother Lothair, also forgive me?" Lothair was touched by his friend's great distress; the three young people embraced each other amidst endless tears, and swore never again to break their bond of love and fidelity.

Nathanael felt as if a heavy burden that had been weighing him down to the earth was now rolled from off him, nay, as if by offering resistance to the dark power which had possessed him, he had rescued his own self from the ruin which had threatened him. Three happy days he now spent amidst the loved ones, and then returned to G--, where he had still a year to stay before settling down in his native town for life.

Everything having reference to Coppelius had been concealed from the mother, for they knew she could not think of him without horror, since she as well as Nathanael believed him to be guilty of causing her husband's death.

.....When Nathanael came to the house where he lived he was greatly astonished to find it burnt down to the ground, so that nothing but the bare outer walls were left standing amidst a heap of ruins. Although the fire had broken out in the laboratory of the chemist who lived on the ground-floor, and had therefore spread upwards, some of Nathanael's bold, active friends had succeeded in time in forcing a way into his room in the upper storey and saving his books and manuscripts and instruments. They had carried them all uninjured into another house, where they engaged a room for him; this he now at once took possession of. That he lived opposite Professor Spalanzani did not strike him particularly, nor did it occur to him as anything more singular that he could, as he observed, by looking out of his window, see straight into the room where Olimpia often sat alone. Her figure he could plainly distinguish, although her features were uncertain and confused. It did at length occur to him, however, that she remained for hours together in the same position in which he had first discovered her through the glass door, sitting at a little table without any occupation whatever, and it was evident that she was constantly gazing across in his direction. He could not but confess to himself that he had never seen a finer figure. However, with Clara mistress of his heart, he remained perfectly unaffected by Olimpia's stiffness and apathy; and it was only occasionally that he sent a fugitive glance over his compendium across to her--that was all.

He was writing to Clara; a light tap came at the door. At his summons to "Come in," Coppola's repulsive face appeared peeping in. Nathanael felt his heart beat with trepidation; but, recollecting what Spalanzani had told him about his fellow-countryman Coppola, and what he had himself so faithfully promised his beloved in respect to the Sand-man Coppelius, he was ashamed at himself for this childish fear of spectres. Accordingly, he controlled himself with an effort, and said, as quietly and as calmly as he possibly could, "I don't want to buy any weather-glasses, my good friend; you had better go elsewhere." Then Coppola came right into the room, and said in a hoarse voice, screwing up his wide mouth into a hideous smile, whilst his little eyes flashed keenly from beneath his long grey eyelashes, "What! Nee weather-gless? Nee weather-gless? 've got foine oyes as well--foine oyes!" Affrighted, Nathanael cried, "You stupid man, how can you have eyes?--eyes--eyes?" But Coppola, laying aside his weather-glasses, thrust his hands into his big coat-pockets and brought out several spy-glasses and spectacles, and put them on the table. "Theer! Theer! Spect'cles! Spect'cles to put 'n nose! Them's my oyes--foine oyes." And he continued to produce more and more spectacles from his pockets until the table began to gleam and flash all over. Thousands of eyes were looking and blinking convulsively, and staring up at Nathanael; he could not avert his gaze from the table. Coppola went on heaping up his spectacles, whilst wilder and ever wilder burning flashes crossed through and through each other and darted their blood-red rays into Nathanael's breast. Quite overcome, and frantic with terror, he shouted, "Stop! stop! you terrible man!" and he seized Coppola by the arm, which he had again thrust into his pocket in order to bring out still more spectacles, although the whole table was covered all over with them. With a harsh disagreeable laugh Coppola gently freed himself; and with the words "So! went none! Well, here foine gless!" he swept all his spectacles together, and put them back into his coat- pockets, whilst from a breastpocket he produced a great number of larger and smaller perspectives. As soon as the spectacles were gone Nathanael recovered his equanimity again; and, bending his thoughts upon Clara, he clearly discerned that the gruesome incubus had proceeded only from himself, as also that Coppola was a right honest mechanician and optician, and far from being Coppelius's dreaded double and ghost. And then, besides, none of the glasses which Coppola now placed on the table had anything at all singular about them, at least nothing so weird as the spectacles; so, in order to square accounts with himself, Nathanael now really determined to buy something of the man. He took up a small, very beautifully cut pocket perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the window. Never before in his life had he had a glass in his hands that brought out things so clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he directed the glass upon Spalanzani's room; Olimpia sat at the little table as usual, her arms laid upon it and her hands folded. Now he saw for the first time the regular and exquisite beauty of her features. The eyes, however, seemed to him to have a singular look of fixity and lifelessness. But as he continued to look closer and more carefully through the glass he fancied a light like humid moonbeams came into them. It seemed as if their power of vision was now being enkindled; their glances shone with ever-increasing vivacity. Nathanael remained standing at the window as if glued to the spot by a wizard's spell, his gaze rivetted unchangeably upon the divinely beautiful Olimpia A coughing and shuffling of the feet awakened him out of his enchaining dream, as it were. Coppola stood behind him, "Tre zechini" (three ducats). Nathanael had completely forgotten the optician; he hastily paid the sum demanded. "Ain't 't? Foine gless? foine gless?" asked Coppola in his harsh unpleasant voice, smiling sardonically. "Yes, yes, yes," rejoined Nathanael impatiently; "adieu, my good friend." But Coppola did not leave the room without casting many peculiar side- glances upon Nathanael; and the young student heard him laughing loudly on the stairs. "Ah well!" thought he, "he's laughing at me because I've paid him too much for this little perspective--because I've given him too much money--that's it." As he softly murmured these words he fancied he detected a gasping sigh as of a dying man stealing awfully through the room; his heart stopped beating with fear. But to be sure he had heaved a deep sigh himself; it was quite plain. "Clara is quite right," said he to himself, "in holding me to be an incurable ghost-seer; and yet it's very ridiculous--ay, more than ridiculous, that the stupid thought of having paid Coppola too much for his glass should cause me this strange anxiety; I can't see any reason for it."

Now he sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an irresistible impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective; nor could he tear himself away from the fascinating Olimpia until his friend and brother Siegmund called for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtains before the door of the all- important room were closely drawn, so that he could not see Olimpia Nor could he even see her from his own room during the two following days, notwithstanding that he scarcely ever left his window, and maintained a scarce interrupted watch through Coppola's perspective upon her room. On the third day curtains even were drawn across the window. Plunged into the depths of despair,--goaded by longing and ardent desire, he hurried outside the walls of the town. Olimpia's image hovered about his path in the air and stepped forth out of the bushes, and peeped up at him with large and lustrous eyes from the bright surface of the brook. Clara's image was completely faded from his mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia He uttered his love- plaints aloud and in a lachrymose tone, "Oh! my glorious, noble star of love, have you only risen to vanish again, and leave me in the darkness and hopelessness of night?"

Returning home, he became aware that there was a good deal of noisy bustle going on in Spalanzani's house. All the doors stood wide open; men were taking in all kinds of gear and furniture; the windows of the first floor were all lifted off their hinges; busy maid-servants with immense hair-brooms were driving backwards and forwards dusting and sweeping, whilst within could be heard the knocking and hammering of carpenters and upholsterers. Utterly astonished, Nathanael stood still in the street; then Siegmund joined him, laughing, and said, "Well, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?" Nathanael assured him that he could not say anything, since he knew not what it all meant; to his great astonishment, he could hear, however, that they were turning the quiet gloomy house almost inside out with their dusting and cleaning and making of alterations. Then he learned from Siegmund that Spalanzani intended giving a great concert and ball on the following day, and that half the university was invited. It was generally reported that Spalanzani was going to let his daughter Olimpia, whom he had so long so jealously guarded from every eye, make her first appearance.

Nathanael received an invitation. At the appointed hour, when the carriages were rolling up and the lights were gleaming brightly in the decorated halls, he went across to the Professor's, his heart beating high with expectation. The company was both numerous and brilliant. Olimpia was richly and tastefully dressed. One could not but admire her figure and the regular beauty of her features. The striking inward curve of her back, as well as the wasp-like smallness of her waist, appeared to be the result of too-tight lacing. There was something stiff and measured in her gait and bearing that made an unfavourable impression upon many; it was ascribed to the constraint imposed upon her by the company. The concert began. Olimpia played on the piano with great skill; and sang as skilfully an aria di bravura, in a voice which was, if anything, almost too sharp, but clear as glass bells. Nathanael was transported with delight; he stood in the background farthest from her, and owing to the blinding lights could not quite distinguish her features. So, without being observed, he took Coppola's glass out of his pocket, and directed it upon the beautiful Olimpia. Oh! then he perceived how her yearning eyes sought him, how every note only reached its full purity in the loving glance which penetrated to and inflamed his heart. Her artificial roulades seemed to him to be the exultant cry towards heaven of the soul refined by love; and when at last, after the cadenza, the long trill rang shrilly and loudly through the hall, he felt as if he were suddenly grasped by burning arms and could no longer control himself,--he could not help shouting aloud in his mingled pain and delight, "Olimpia!" All eyes were turned upon him; many people laughed. The face of the cathedral organist wore a still more gloomy look than it had done before, but all he said was, "Very well!"

The concert came to an end, and the ball began. Oh! to dance with her--with her--that was now the aim of all Nathanael's wishes, of all his desires. But how should he have courage to request her, the queen of the ball, to grant him the honour of a dance? And yet he couldn't tell how it came about, just as the dance began, he found himself standing close beside her, nobody having as yet asked her to be his partner; so, with some difficulty stammering out a few words, he grasped her hand. It was cold as ice; he shook with an awful, frosty shiver. But, fixing his eyes upon her face, he saw that her glance was beaming upon him with love and longing, and at the same moment he thought that the pulse began to beat in her cold hand, and the warm life-blood to course through her veins. And passion burned more intensely in his own heart also, he threw his arm round her beautiful waist and whirled her round the hall. He had always thought that he kept good and accurate time in dancing, but from the perfectly rhythmical evenness with which Olimpia danced, and which frequently put him quite out, he perceived how very faulty his own time really was. Notwithstanding, he would not dance with any other lady; and everybody else who approached Olimpia to call upon her for a dance, he would have liked to kill on the spot. This, however, only happened twice; to his astonishment Olimpia remained after this without a partner, and he failed not on each occasion to take her out again. If Nathanael had been able to see anything else except the beautiful Olimpia, there would inevitably have been a good deal of unpleasant quarrelling and strife; for it was evident that Olimpia was the object of the smothered laughter only with difficulty suppressed, which was heard in various corners amongst the young people; and they followed her with very curious looks, but nobody knew for what reason. Nathanael, excited by dancing and the plentiful supply of wine he had consumed, had laid aside the shyness which at other times characterised him. He sat beside Olimpia, her hand in his own, and declared his love enthusiastically and passionately in words which neither of them understood, neither he nor Olimpia. And yet she perhaps did, for she sat with her eyes fixed unchangeably upon his, sighing repeatedly, "Ach! Ach! Ach!" Upon this Nathanael would answer, "Oh, you glorious heavenly lady! You ray from the promised paradise of love! Oh! what a profound soul you have! my whole being is mirrored in it!" and a good deal more in the same strain. But Olimpia only continued to sigh "Ach! Ach!" again and again.

Professor Spalanzani passed by the two happy lovers once or twice, and smiled with a look of peculiar satisfaction. All at once it seemed to Nathanael, albeit he was far away in a different world, as if it were growing perceptibly darker down below at Professor Spalanzani's. He looked about him, and to his very great alarm became aware that there were only two lights left burning in the hall, and they were on the point of going out. The music and dancing had long ago ceased. "We must part--part!" he cried, wildly and despairingly; he kissed Olimpia's hand; he bent down to her mouth, but ice-cold lips met his burning ones. As he touched her cold hand, he felt his heart thrilled with awe; the legend of "The Dead Bride"(9) shot suddenly through his mind. But Olimpia had drawn him closer to her, and the kiss appeared to warm her lips into vitality. Professor Spalanzani strode slowly through the empty apartment, his footsteps giving a hollow echo; and his figure had, as the flickering shadows played about him, a ghostly, awful appearance. "Do you love me? Do you love me, Olimpia? Only one little word--Do you love me?" whispered Nathanael, but she only sighed, "Ach! Ach!" as she rose to her feet. "Yes, you are my lovely, glorious star of love," said Nathanael, "and will shine for ever, purifying and ennobling my heart." "Ach! Ach!" replied Olimpia, as she moved along. Nathanael followed her; they stood before the Professor. "You have had an extraordinarily animated conversation with my daughter," said he, smiling; "well, well, my dear Mr. Nathanael, if you find pleasure in talking to the stupid girl, I am sure I shall be glad for you to come and do so." Nathanael took his leave, his heart singing and leaping in a perfect delirium of happiness.

(9) Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian, relates that a young maiden, Philemium, the daughter of Philostratus and Charitas, became deeply enamoured of a young man, named Machates, a guest in the house of her father. This did not meet with the approbation of her parents, and they turned Machates away. The young maiden took this so much to heart that she pined away and died. Some time afterwards Machates returned to his old lodgings, when he was visited at night by his beloved, who came from the grave to see him again. The story may be read in Heywood's (Thos.) "Hierarchie of Blessed Angels," Book vii, p. 479 (London, 1637). Goethe has made this story the foundation of his beautiful poem Die Braut von Korinth, with which form of it Hoffmann was most likely familiar.

During the next few days Spalanzani's ball was the general topic of conversation. Although the Professor had done everything to make the thing a splendid success, yet certain gay spirits related more than one thing that had occurred which was quite irregular and out of order. They were especially keen in pulling Olimpia to pieces for her taciturnity and rigid stiffness; in spite of her beautiful form they alleged that she was hopelessly stupid, and in this fact they discerned the reason why Spalanzani had so long kept her concealed from publicity. Nathanael heard all this with inward wrath, but nevertheless he held his tongue; for, thought he, would it indeed be worth while to prove to these fellows that it is their own stupidity which prevents them from appreciating Olimpia's profound and brilliant parts? One day Siegmund said to him, "Pray, brother, have the kindness to tell me how you, a sensible fellow, came to lose your head over that Miss Wax-face--that wooden doll across there?" Nathanael was about to fly into a rage, but he recollected himself and replied, "Tell me, Siegmund, how came it that Olimpia's divine charms could escape your eye, so keenly alive as it always is to beauty, and your acute perception as well? But Heaven be thanked for it, otherwise I should have had you for a rival, and then the blood of one of us would have had to be spilled." Siegmund, perceiving how matters stood with his friend, skilfully interposed and said, after remarking that all argument with one in love about the object of his affections was out of place, "Yet it's very strange that several of us have formed pretty much the same opinion about Olimpia We think she is--you won't take it ill, brother?--that she is singularly statuesque and soulless. Her figure is regular, and so are her features, that can't be gainsaid; and if her eyes were not so utterly devoid of life, I may say, of the power of vision, she might pass for a beauty. She is strangely measured in her movements, they all seem as if they were dependent upon some wound-up clock-work. Her playing and singing has the disagreeably perfect, but insensitive time of a singing machine, and her dancing is the same. We felt quite afraid of this Olimpia, and did not like to have anything to do with her; she seemed to us to be only acting like a living creature, and as if there was some secret at the bottom of it all." Nathanael did not give way to the bitter feelings which threatened to master him at these words of Siegmund's; he fought down and got the better of his displeasure, and merely said, very earnestly, "You cold prosaic fellows may very well be afraid of her. It is only to its like that the poetically organised spirit unfolds itself. Upon me alone did her loving glances fall, and through my mind and thoughts alone did they radiate; and only in her love can I find my own self again. Perhaps, however, she doesn't do quite right not to jabber a lot of nonsense and stupid talk like other shallow people. It is true, she speaks but few words; but the few words she does speak are genuine hieroglyphs of the inner world of Love and of the higher cognition of the intellectual life revealed in the intuition of the Eternal beyond the grave. But you have no understanding for all these things, and I am only wasting words." "God be with you, brother," said Siegmund very gently, almost sadly, "but it seems to me that you are in a very bad way. You may rely upon me, if all--No, I can't say any more." It all at once dawned upon Nathanael that his cold prosaic friend Siegmund really and sincerely wished him well, and so he warmly shook his proffered hand.

Nathanael had completely forgotten that there was a Clara in the world, whom he had once loved--and his mother and Lothair. They had all vanished from his mind; he lived for Olimpia alone. He sat beside her every day for hours together, rhapsodising about his love and sympathy enkindled into life, and about psychic elective affinity(10)--all of which Olimpia listened to with great reverence. He fished up from the very bottom of his desk all the things that he had ever written--poems, fancy sketches, visions, romances, tales, and the heap was increased daily with all kinds of aimless sonnets, stanzas, canzonets. All these he read to Olimpia hour after hour without growing tired; but then he had never had such an exemplary listener. She neither embroidered, nor knitted; she did not look out of the window, or feed a bird, or play with a little pet dog or a favourite cat, neither did she twist a piece of paper or anything of that kind round her finger; she did not forcibly convert a yawn into a low affected cough--in short, she sat hour after hour with her eyes bent unchangeably upon her lover's face, without moving or altering her position, and her gaze grew more ardent and more ardent still. And it was only when at last Nathanael rose and kissed her lips or her hand that she said, "Ach! Ach!" and then "Good-night, dear." Arrived in his own room, Nathanael would break out with, "Oh! what a brilliant--what a profound mind! Only you--you alone understand me." And his heart trembled with rapture when he reflected upon the wondrous harmony which daily revealed itself between his own and his Olimpia's character; for he fancied that she had expressed in respect to his works and his poetic genius the identical sentiments which he himself cherished deep down in his own heart in respect to the same, and even as if it was his own heart's voice speaking to him. And it must indeed have been so; for Olimpia never uttered any other words than those already mentioned. And when Nathanael himself in his clear and sober moments, as, for instance, directly after waking in a morning, thought about her utter passivity and taciturnity, he only said, "What are words--but words? The glance of her heavenly eyes says more than any tongue of earth And how can, anyway, a child of heaven accustom herself to the narrow circle which the exigencies of a wretched mundane life demand?"

(10) This phrase (Die Wahlverwandschaft in German) has been made celebrated as the title of one of Goethe's works.

Professor Spalanzani appeared to be greatly pleased at the intimacy that had sprung up between his daughter Olimpia and Nathanael, and showed the young man many unmistakable proofs of his good feeling towards him; and when Nathanael ventured at length to hint very delicately at an alliance with Olimpia, the Professor smiled all over his face at once, and said he should allow his daughter to make a perfectly free choice. Encouraged by these words, and with the fire of desire burning in his heart, Nathanael resolved the very next day to implore Olimpia to tell him frankly, in plain words, what he had long read in her sweet loving glances,--that she would be his for ever. He looked for the ring which his mother had given him at parting; he would present it to Olimpia as a symbol of his devotion, and of the happy life he was to lead with her from that time onwards. Whilst looking for it he came across his letters from Clara and Lothair; he threw them carelessly aside, found the ring, put it in his pocket, and ran across to Olimpia Whilst still on the stairs, in the entrance- passage, he heard an extraordinary hubbub; the noise seemed to proceed from Spalanzani's study. There was a stamping--a rattling--pushing-- knocking against the door, with curses and oaths intermingled. "Leave hold--leave hold--you monster--you rascal--slaked your life and honour upon it.?--Ha! ha! ha! ha!--That was not our wager--I, I made the eyes--I the clock-work.--Go to the devil with your clock-work--you damned dog of a watch-maker--be off--Satan--stop--you paltry turner-- you infernal beast!--stop--begone--let me go." The voices which were thus making all this racket and rumpus were those of Spalanzani and the fearsome Coppelius. Nathanael rushed in, impelled by some nameless dread. The Professor was grasping a female figure by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola held her by the feet; and they were pulling and dragging each other backwards and forwards, fighting furiously to get possession of her. Nathanael recoiled with horror on recognising that the figure was Olimpia Boiling with rage, he was about to tear his beloved from the grasp of the madmen, when Coppola by an extraordinary exertion of strength twisted the figure out of the Professor's hands and gave him such a terrible blow with her, that he reeled backwards and fell over the table all amongst the phials and retorts, the bottles and glass cylinders, which covered it: all these things were smashed into a thousand pieces. But Coppola threw the figure across his shoulder, and, laughing shrilly and horribly, ran hastily down the stairs, the figure's ugly feet hanging down and banging and rattling like wood against the steps. Nathanael was stupefied,--he had seen only too distinctly that in Olimpia's pallid waxed face there were no eyes, merely black holes in their stead; she was an inanimate puppet. Spalanzani was rolling on the floor; the pieces of glass had cut his head and breast and arm; the blood was escaping from him in streams. But he gathered his strength together by an effort.

"After him--after him! What do you stand staring there for? Coppelius--Coppelius--he's stolen my best automaton--at which I've worked for twenty years--staked my life upon it--the clock-work-- speech--movement--mine--your eyes--stolen your eyes--damn him--curse him--after him--fetch me back Olimpia--there are the eyes." And now Nathanael saw a pair of bloody eyes lying on the floor staring at him; Spalanzani seized them with his uninjured hand and threw them at him, so that they hit his breast. Then madness dug her burning talons into him and swept down into his heart, rending his mind and thoughts to shreds.

"Aha! aha! aha! Fire-wheel--fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-wheel! merrily, merrily! Aha! wooden doll! spin round, pretty wooden doll!" and he threw himself upon the Professor, clutching him fast by the throat. He would certainly have strangled him had not several people, attracted by the noise, rushed in and torn away the madman; and so they saved the Professor, whose wounds were immediately dressed. Siegmund, with all his strength, was not able to subdue the frantic lunatic, who continued to scream in a dreadful way, "Spin round, wooden doll!" and to strike out right and left with his doubled fists. At length the united strength of several succeeded in overpowering him by throwing him on the floor and binding him. His cries passed into a brutish bellow that was awful to hear; and thus raging with the harrowing violence of madness, he was taken away to the madhouse.

Before continuing my narration of what happened further to the unfortunate Nathanael, I will tell you, indulgent reader, in case you take any interest in that skilful mechanician and fabricator of automata, Spalanzani, that he recovered completely from his wounds. He had, however, to leave the university, for Nathanael's fate had created a great sensation; and the opinion vas pretty generally expressed that it was an imposture altogether unpardonable to have smuggled a wooden puppet instead of a living person into intelligent tea-circles,--for Olimpia had been present at several with success Lawyers called it a cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to punish since it was directed against the public; and it had been so craftily contrived that it had escaped unobserved by all except a few preternaturally acute students, although everybody was very wise how and remembered to have thought of several facts which occurred to them as suspicious. But these latter could not succeed in making out any sort of a consistent tale. For was it, for instance, a thing likely to occur to any one as suspicious that, according to the declaration of an elegant beau of these tea-parties, Olimpia had, contrary to all good manners, sneezed oftener than she had yawned? The former must have been, in the opinion of this elegant gentleman, the winding up of the concealed clock-work; it had always been accompanied by an observable creaking, and so on. The Professor of Poetry and Eloquence took a pinch of snuff, and, slapping the lid to and clearing his throat, said solemnly, "My most honourable ladies and gentlemen, don't you see then where the rub is? The whole thing is an allegory, a continuous metaphor. You understand me? Sapienti sat." But several most honourable gentlemen did not rest satisfied with this explanation; the history of this automaton had sunk deeply into their souls, and an absurd mistrust of human figures began to prevail. Several lovers, in order to be fully convinced that they were not paying court to a wooden puppet, required that their mistress should sing and dance a little out of time, should embroider or knit or play with her little pug, c., when being read to, but above all things else that she should do something more than merely listen--that she should frequently speak in such a way as to really show that her words presupposed as a condition some thinking and feeling. The bonds of love were in many cases drawn closer in consequence, and so of course became more engaging; in other instances they gradually relaxed and fell away. "I cannot really be made responsible for it," was the remark of more than one young gallant. At the tea-gatherings everybody, in order to ward off suspicion, yawned to an incredible extent and never sneezed. Spalanzani was obliged, as has been said, to leave the place in order to escape a criminal charge of having fraudulently imposed an automaton upon human society. Coppola, too, had also disappeared.

When Nathanael awoke he felt as if he had been oppressed by a terrible nightmare; he opened his eyes and experienced an indescribable sensation of mental comfort, whilst a soft and most beautiful sensation of warmth pervaded his body. He lay on his own bed in his own room at home; Clara was bending over him, and at a little distance stood his mother and Lothair. "At last, at last, O my darling Nathanael; now we have you again; now you are cured of your grievous illness, now you are mine again." And Clara's words came from the depths of her heart; and she clasped him in her arms. The bright scalding tears streamed from his eyes, he was so overcome with mingled feelings of sorrow and delight; and he gasped forth, "My Clara, my Clara!" Siegmund, who had staunchly stood by his friend in his hour of need, now came into the room. Nathanael gave him his hand--"My faithful brother, you have not deserted me." Every trace of insanity had left him, and in the tender hands of his mother and his beloved, and his friends, he quickly recovered his strength again. Good fortune had in the meantime visited the house; a niggardly old uncle, from whom they had never expected to get anything, had died, and left Nathanael's mother not only a considerable fortune, but also a small estate, pleasantly situated not far from the town. There they resolved to go and live, Nathanael and his mother, and Clara, to whom he was now to be married, and Lothair. Nathanael was become gentler and more childlike than he had ever been before, and now began really to understand Clara's supremely pure and noble character.

None of them ever reminded him, even in the remotest degree, of the past. But when Siegmund took leave of him, he said, "By heaven, brother! I was in a bad way, but an angel came just at the right moment and led me back upon the path of light. Yes, it was Clara." Siegmund would not let him speak further, fearing lest the painful recollections of the past might arise too vividly and too intensely in his mind.

The time came for the four happy people to move to their little property. At noon they were going through the streets. After making several purchases they found that the lofty tower of the town-house was throwing its giant shadows across the market-place. "Come," said Clara, "let us go up to the top once more and have a look at the distant hills." No sooner said than done. Both of them, Nathanael and Clara, went up the tower; their mother, however, went on with the servant-girl to her new home, and Lothair, not feeling inclined to climb up all the many steps, waited below. There the two lovers stood arm-in-arm on the topmost gallery of the tower, and gazed out into the sweet scented wooded landscape, beyond which the blue hills rose up like a giant's city.

"Oh! do look at that strange little grey bush, it looks as if it were actually walking towards us," said Clara. Mechanically he put his hand into his sidepocket; he found Coppola's perspective and looked for the bush; Clara stood in front of the glass. Then a convulsive thrill shot through his pulse and veins; pale as a corpse, he fixed his staring eyes upon her; but soon they began to roll, and a fiery current flashed and sparkled in them, and he yelled fearfully, like a hunted animal. Leaping up high in the air and laughing horribly at the same time, he began to shout, in a piercing voice, "Spin round, wooden doll! Spin round, wooden doll!" With the strength of a giant he laid hold upon Clara and tried to hurl her over, but in an agony of despair she clutched fast hold of the railing that went round the gallery. Lothair heard the madman raging and Clara's scream of terror: a fearful presentiment flashed across his mind. He ran up the steps; the door of the second flight was locked Clara's scream for help rang out more loudly. Mad with rage and fear, he threw himself against the door, which at length gave way. Clara's cries were growing fainter and fainter,--"Help! save me! save me!" and her voice died away in the air. "She is killed--murdered by that madman," shouted Lothair. The door to the gallery was also locked. Despair gave him the strength of a giant; he burst the door off its hinges. Good God! there was Clara in the grasp of the madman Nathanael, hanging over the gallery in the air; she only held to the iron bar with one hand. Quick as lightning, Lothair seized his sister and pulled her back, at the same time dealing the madman a blow in the face with his doubled fist, which sent him reeling backwards, forcing him to let go his victim.

Lothair ran down with his insensible sister in his arms. She was saved. But Nathanael ran round and round the gallery, leaping up in the air and shouting, "Spin round, fire-wheel! Spin round, fire- wheel!" The people heard the wild shouting, and a crowd began to gather. In the midst of them towered the advocate Coppelius, like a giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone straight to the market-place. Some were going up to overpower and take charge of the madman, but Coppelius laughed and said, "Ha! ha! wait a bit; he'll come down of his own accord;" and he stood gazing upwards along with the rest. All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he bent down over the railing, and perceived Coppelius. With a piercing scream, "Ha! foine oyes! foine oyes!" he leapt over.

When Nathanael lay on the stone pavement with a broken head, Coppelius had disappeared in the crush and confusion.

Several years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a pretty country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting hand in hand with a pleasant gentleman, whilst two bright boys were playing at her feet. From this it may be concluded that she eventually found that quiet domestic happiness which her cheerful, blithesome character required, and which Nathanael, with his tempest-tossed soul, could never have been able to give her.

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The Sandman (short story)

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-"When Nathaniel lay on the stone pavement, with his head shattered, Coppelius had disappeared in the crowd."
+"When Nathaniel lay on the stone pavement, with his head shattered, Coppelius had disappeared in the crowd."--
+"[[The Sandman (short story)|The Sandman]]" (1816) by E. T. A. Hoffmann
+<hr>
+"[[Phlegon]], the freedman of Hadrian, relates that a young maiden, Philemium, the daughter of Philostratus and Charitas, became deeply enamoured of a young man, named Machates, a guest in the house of her father. This did not meet with the approbation of her parents, and they turned Machates away. The young maiden took this so much to heart that she pined away and died. Some time afterwards Machates returned to his old lodgings, when he was visited at night by his beloved, who came from the grave to see him again. The story may be read in Heywood's (Thos.) "[[Hierarchie of Blessed Angels]]," Book vii, p. 479 (London, 1637). Goethe has made this story the foundation of his beautiful poem [[Die Braut von Korinth]], with which form of it Hoffmann was most likely familiar."--"[[The Sandman (short story)|The Sandman]]" (1816) by E. T. A. Hoffmann
 |}
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-'''The Sandman''' (''Der Sandmann'', [[1816]]) is [[German language]] [[short story]] written by [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]]. It was the first in a book of stories titled ''[[Die  Nachtstücke]]'' (''The Night Pieces'').
+'''The Sandman''' (''Der Sandmann'', 1816) is a short story by [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]]. It was the first in a book of stories titled ''[[Die  Nachtstücke]]'' (''The Night Pieces'').
-The story tells of a student who carries from childhood a fear of the terrible [[Sandman (folklore)|Sandman]] who steals eyes. He has come to associate the Sandman in his mind with the unpleasant Coppelius who became implicated in the death of his father, and later in life he again encounters Coppelius who haunts his thoughts. Despite being engaged, he becomes [[enamour]]ed of [[Olympia]], a [[gynoid]] [[automaton]] built by Coppelius and an accomplice, believing her to be real. The discovery of the trick drives him into [[madness]], and he ultimately jumps to his death.
+The story tells of a student who carries from childhood a fear of the terrible [[Sandman (folklore)|Sandman]] who steals [[eye]]s. He has come to associate the Sandman in his mind with the unpleasant Coppelius who became implicated in the death of his father, and later in life he again encounters Coppelius who haunts his thoughts. Despite being engaged, he becomes [[enamour]]ed of [[Olympia]], a [[gynoid]] [[automaton]] built by Coppelius and an accomplice, believing her to be real. The discovery of the trick drives him into [[madness]], and he ultimately jumps to his death.
 Elements of the story were later adapted (very loosely) as the ballet ''[[Coppélia]]''. Subsequently, it was also adapted as Act I of the opera ''[[Les contes d'Hoffmann]]''.
 ==Full text==
+THE SAND-MAN
+NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR
-THE SANDMAN.
+I KNOW you are all very uneasy because I have not written for such a
+long, long time. Mother, to be sure, is angry, and Clara, I dare say,
+believes I am living here in riot and revelry, and quite forgetting my
+sweet angel, whose image is so deeply engraved upon my heart and mind.
+But that is not so; daily and hourly do I think of you all, and my
+lovely Clara's form comes to gladden me in my dreams, and smiles upon
+me with her bright eyes, as graciously as she used to do in the days
+when I went in and out amongst you. Oh! how could I write to you in
+the distracted state of mind in which I have been, and which, until
+now, has quite bewildered me! A terrible thing has happened to me.
+Dark forebodings of some awful fate threatening me are spreading
+themselves out over my head like black clouds, impenetrable to every
+friendly ray of sunlight. I must now tell you what has taken place; I
+must, that I see well enough, but only to think upon it makes the wild
+laughter burst from my lips. Oh! my dear, dear Lothair, what shall I
+say to make you feel, if only in an inadequate way, that that which
+happened to me a few days ago could thus really exercise such a
+hostile and disturbing influence upon my life? Oh that you were here
+to see for yourself! but now you will, I suppose, take me for a
+superstitious ghost-seer. In a word, the terrible thing which I have
+experienced, the fatal effect of which I in vain exert every effort to
+shake off, is simply that some days ago, namely, on the 30th October,
+at twelve o'clock at noon, a dealer in weather-glasses came into my
+room and wanted to sell me one of his wares. I bought nothing, and
+threatened to kick him downstairs, whereupon he went away of his own
+accord.
-BY E. T. W. HOFFMANN.
+You will conclude that it can only be very peculiar relations--
+relations intimately intertwined with my life--that can give
+significance to this event, and that it must be the person of this
+unfortunate hawker which has had such a very inimical effect upon me.
+And so it really is. I will summon up all my faculties in order to
+narrate to you calmly and patiently as much of the early days of my
+youth as will suffice to put matters before you in such a way that
+your keen sharp intellect may grasp everything clearly and distinctly,
+in bright and living pictures. Just as I am beginning, I hear you
+laugh and Clara say, "What's all this childish nonsense about!" Well,
+laugh at me, laugh heartily at me, pray do. But, good God! my hair is
+standing on end, and I seem to be entreating you to laugh at me in the
+same sort of frantic despair in which Franz Moor entreated Daniel to
+laugh him to scorn.(2) But to my story.
-NATHANIEL TO LOTHAIRE.
+(2) See Schiller's Räuber, Act V., Scene I. Franz Moor, seeing that
+the failure of all his villainous schemes is inevitable, and that his
+own ruin is close upon him, is at length overwhelmed with the madness
+of despair, and unburdens the terrors of his conscience to the old
+servant Daniel, bidding him laugh him to scorn.
-CERTAINLY you must all be uneasy that I have not written for
+Except at dinner we, i.e., I and my brothers and sisters, saw but
-so long so very long. My mother, I am sure, is angry, and Clara
+little of our father all day long. His business no doubt took up most
-will believe that I am passing my time in dissipation, entirely for-
+of his time. After our evening meal, which, in accordance with an old
-getful of the fair angel-image that is so deeply imprinted in my
+custom, was served at seven o'clock, we all went, mother with us, into
-heart and mind. Such, however, is not the case. Daily and hourly
+father's room, and took our places around a round table. My father
-I think of you all, and in my sweet dreams the kindly form of my
+smoked his pipe, drinking a large glass of beer to it. Often he told
-lovely Clara passes before me, and smiles upon me with her bright
+us many wonderful stories, and got so excited over them that his pipe
-eyes as she was wont when I appeared among you. Alas, how could
+always went out; I used then to light it for him with a spill, and
-I write to you in the distracted mood which has hitherto disturbed
+this formed my chief amusement. Often, again, he would give us
-my every thought ! Something horrible has crossed my path of life.
+picture-books to look at, whilst he sat silent and motionless in his
-Dark forebodings of a cruel, threatening, fate spread themselves over
+easy-chair, puffing out such dense clouds of smoke that we were all as
-me like dark clouds, which no friendly sunbeam can penetrate.
+it were enveloped in mist. On such evenings mother was very sad; and
-Now will I tell you what has befallen me. I must do so, that I
+directly it struck nine she said, "Come, children! off to bed! Come!
-plainly see but if I only think of it, it will laugh out of me like
+The 'Sand-man' is come I see." And I always did seem to hear something
-mad. Ah, my dear Lothaire, how shall I begin it? How shall I
+trampling upstairs with slow heavy steps; that must be the Sand-man.
-make you in any way sensible that that which occurred to me a few
+Once in particular I was very much frightened at this dull trampling
-days ago could really have such a fatal effect on my life? If you
+and knocking; as mother was leading us out of the room I asked her, "O
-were here you could see for yourself, but now you will certainly take
+mamma! but who is this nasty Sand-man who always sends us away from
-me for a crazy ghost-seer. In a word, the horrible thing which
+papa? What does he look like?" Except at dinner we, i.c., I and my
-happened to me, and the painful impression of which I in vain en-
+brothers and "There is no Sand-man, my dear child," mother answered;
-deavour to escape, is nothing more than this; that some days ago,
+"when I say the Sand-man is come, I only mean that you are sleepy and
-namely on the 30th of October, at twelve o'clock at noon, a baro-
+can't keep your eyes open, as if somebody had put sand in them." This
-meter-dealer came into my room and offered me his wares. I bought
+answer of mother's did not satisfy me; nay, in my childish mind the
-nothing, and threatened to throw him down stairs, upon which he
+thought clearly unfolded itself that mother denied there was a Sand-
-took himself off of his own accord.
+man only to prevent us being afraid,--why, I always heard him come
+upstairs. Full of curiosity to learn something more about this Sand-
+man and what he had to do with us children, I at length asked the old
+woman who acted as my youngest sister's attendant, what sort of a man
+he was--the Sand-man? "Why, 'thanael, darling, don't you know?" she
+replied. "Oh! he's a wicked man, who comes to little children when
+they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes, so
+that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and he puts them into a
+bag and takes them to the half-moon as food for his little ones; and
+they sit there in the nest and have hooked beaks like owls, and they
+pick naughty little boys' and girls' eyes out with them." After this I
+formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel Sand-man. When
+anything came blundering upstairs at night I trembled with fear and
+dismay; and all that my mother could get out of me were the stammered
+words "The Sandman! the Sand-man!" whilst the tears coursed down my
+cheeks. Then I ran into my bedroom, and the whole night through
+tormented myself with the terrible apparition of the Sand-man. I was
+quite old enough to perceive that the old woman's tale about the Sand-
+man and his little ones' nest in the half-moon couldn't be altogether
+true; nevertheless the Sand-man continued to be for me a fearful
+incubus, and I was always seized with terror--my blood always ran
+cold, not only when I heard anybody come up the stairs, but when I
+heard anybody noisily open my father's room door and go in. Often he
+stayed away for a long season altogether; then he would come several
+times in close succession.
-You suspect that only relations of the most peculiar kind, and ex-
+This went on for years, without my being able to accustom myself to
-erting the greatest influence over my life can give any import to this
+this fearful apparition, without the image of the horrible Sand-man
-occurrence, nay, that the person of that unlucky dealer must have a
+growing any fainter in my imagination. His intercourse with my father
-hostile effect upon me. So it is, indeed. I collect myself with all
+began to occupy my fancy ever more and more; I was restrained from
-my might, that patiently and quietly I may tell you so much of my
+asking my father about him by an unconquerable shyness; but as the
-early youth as will bring all plainly and clearlv in bright images be-
+years went on the desire waxed stronger and stronger within me to
-fore your active mind. As I am about to begin I fancy that I hear
+fathom the mystery myself and to see the fabulous Sand-man. He had
-you laughing and Clara saying: " Childish stories indeed!" Laugh
+been the means of disclosing to me the path of the wonderful and the
+adventurous, which so easily find lodgment in the mind of the child. I
+liked nothing better than to hear or read horrible stories of goblins,
+witches, Tom Thumbs, and so on; but always at the head of them all
+stood the Sand-man, whose picture I scribbled in the most
+extraordinary and repulsive forms with both chalk and coal everywhere,
+on the tables, and cupboard doors, and walls. When I was ten years old
+my mother removed me from the nursery into a little chamber off the
+corridor not far from my father's room. We still had to withdraw
+hastily whenever, on the stroke of nine, the mysterious unknown was
+heard in the house. As I lay in my little chamber I could hear him go
+into father's room, and soon afterwards I fancied there was a fine and
+peculiar smelling steam spreading itself through the house. As my
+curiosity waxed stronger, my resolve to make somehow or other the
+Sand-man's acquaintance took deeper root. Often when my mother had
+gone past, I slipped quickly out of my room into the corridor, but I
+could never see anything, for always before I could reach the place
+where I could get sight of him, the Sand-man was well inside the door.
+At last, unable to resist the impulse any longer, I determined to
+conceal myself in father's room and there wait for the Sand-man.
+One evening I perceived from my father's silence and mother's sadness
+that the Sand-man would come; accordingly, pleading that I was
+excessively tired, I left the room before nine o'clock and concealed
+myself in a hiding-place close beside the door. The street door
+creaked, and slow, heavy, echoing steps crossed the passage towards
+the stairs. Mother hurried past me with my brothers and sisters.
+Softly--softly--I opened father's room door. He sat as usual, silent
+and motionless, with his back towards it; he did not hear me; and in a
+moment I was in and behind a curtain drawn before my father's open
+wardrobe, which stood just inside the room. Nearer and nearer and
+nearer came the echoing footsteps. There was a strange coughing and
+shuffling and mumbling outside. My heart beat with expectation and
+fear. A quick step now close, close beside the door, a noisy rattle of
+the handle, and the door flies open with a bang. Recovering my courage
+with an effort, I take a cautious peep out. In the middle of the room
+in front of my father stands the Sand-man, the bright light of the
+lamp falling full upon his face. The Sand-man, the terrible Sand-man,
+is the old advocate Coppelius who often comes to dine with us.
+But the most hideous figure could not have awakened greater
+trepidation in my heart than this Coppelius did. Picture to yourself a
+large broad-shouldered man, with an immensely big head, a face the
+colour of yellow-ochre, grey bushy eyebrows, from beneath which two
+piercing, greenish, cat-like eyes glittered, and a prominent Roman
+nose hanging over his upper lip. His distorted mouth was often screwed
+up into a malicious smile; then two dark-red spots appeared on his
+cheeks, and a strange hissing noise proceeded from between his tightly
+clenched teeth. He always wore an ash-grey coat of an old-fashioned
+cut, a waistcoat of the same, and nether extremities to match, but
+black stockings and buckles set with stones on his shoes. His little
+wig scarcely extended beyond the crown of his head, his hair was
+curled round high up above his big red ears, and plastered to his
+temples with cosmetic, and a broad closed hair-bag stood out
+prominently from his neck, so that you could see the silver buckle
+that fastened his folded neck-cloth. Altogether he was a most
+disagreeable and horribly ugly figure; but what we children detested
+most of all was his big coarse hairy hands; we could never fancy
+anything that he had once touched. This he had noticed; and so,
+whenever our good mother quietly placed a piece of cake or sweet fruit
+on our plates, he delighted to touch it under some pretext or other,
+until the bright tears stood in our eyes, and from disgust and
+loathing we lost the enjoyment of the tit-bit that was intended to
+please us. And he did just the same thing when father gave us a glass
+of sweet wine on holidays. Then he would quickly pass his hand over
+it, or even sometimes raise the glass to his blue lips, and he laughed
+quite sardonically when all we dared do was to express our vexation in
+stifled sobs. He habitually called us the "little brutes;" and when he
+was present we might not utter a sound; and we cursed the ugly
+spiteful man who deliberately and intentionally spoilt all our little
+pleasures. Mother seemed to dislike this hateful Coppelius as much as
+we did for as soon as he appeared her cheerfulness and bright and
+natural manner were transformed into sad, gloomy seriousness. Father
+treated him as if he were a being of some higher race, whose ill-
+manners were to be tolerated, whilst no efforts ought to be spared to
+keep him in good-humour. He had only to give a slight hint, and his
+favourite dishes were cooked for him and rare wine uncorked.
-THE SANDMAN. 141
+As soon as I saw this Coppelius, therefore, the fearful and hideous
+thought arose in my mind that he, and he alone, must be the Sand-man;
+but I no longer conceived of the Sand-man as the bugbear in the old
+nurse's fable, who fetched children's eyes and took them to the half-
+moon as food for his little ones--no I but as an ugly spectre-like
+fiend bringing trouble and misery and ruin, both temporal and
+everlasting, everywhere wherever he appeared.
-at me I beseech you, laugh with all your heart. But, heavens, my
+I was spell-bound on the spot. At the risk of being discovered, and,
-hair stands on end, and it seems as if I am asking you to laugh at
+as I well enough knew, of being severely punished, I remained as I
-me, in mad despair, as Franz Moor asked Daniel.* But to my
+was, with my head thrust through the curtains listening. My father
-story.
+received Coppelius in a ceremonious manner. "Come, to work!" cried the
+latter, in a hoarse snarling voice, throwing off his coat. Gloomily
+and silently my father took off his dressing-gown, and both put on
+long black smock-frocks. Where they took them from I forgot to notice.
+Father opened the folding-doors of a cupboard in the wall; but I saw
+that what I had so long taken to be a cupboard was really a dark
+recess, in which was a little hearth. Coppelius approached it, and a
+blue flame crackled upwards from it. Round about were all kinds of
+strange utensils. Good God! as my old father bent down over the fire
+how different he looked! His gentle and venerable features seemed to
+be drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly, repulsive
+Satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius. Coppelius plied the red-hot
+tongs and drew bright glowing masses out of the thick smoke and began
+assiduously to hammer them. I fancied that there were men's faces
+visible round about, but without eyes, having ghastly deep black holes
+where the eyes should have been. "Eyes here! Eyes here!" cried
+Coppelius, in a hollow sepulchral voice. My blood ran cold with
+horror; I screamed and tumbled out of my hiding-place into the floor.
+Coppelius immediately seized upon me. "You little brute! You little
+brute!" he bleated, grinding his teeth. Then, snatching me up, he
+threw me on the hearth, so that the flames began to singe my hair.
+"Now we've got eyes--eyes--a beautiful pair of children's eyes," he
+whispered, and, thrusting his hands into the flames he took out some
+red-hot grains and was about to strew t-em into my eyes. Then my
+father clasped his hands and entreated him, saying, "Master, master,
+let my Nathanael keep his eyes--oh! do let him keep them." Coppelius
+laughed shrilly and replied, "Well then, the boy may keep his eyes and
+whine and pule his way through the world; but we will now at any rate
+observe the mechanism of the hand and the foot." And therewith he
+roughly laid hold upon me, so that my joints cracked, and twisted my
+hands and my feet, pulling them now this way, and now that, "That's
+not quite right altogether! It's better as it was!--the old fellow
+knew what he was about." Thus lisped and hissed Coppelius; but all
+around me grew black and dark; a sudden convulsive pain shot through
+all my nerves and bones I knew nothing more.
-Excepting at dinner time I and my brothers and sisters saw my
+I felt a soft warm breath fanning my cheek; I awakened as if out of
-father very little during the day. He was, perhaps, busily engaged
+the sleep of death; my mother was bending over me. "Is the Sand-man
-at his ordinary occupation. After supper, which, according to the
+still there?" I stammered. "No, my dear child; he's been gone a long,
-old custom was served up at seven o'clock, we all went with my
+long time; he'll not hurt you." Thus spoke my mother, as she kissed
-mother into my father's work-room, and seated ourselves at the round
+her recovered darling and pressed him to her heart. But why should I
-table. My father smoked tobacco and drank a large glass of beer.
+tire you, my dear Lothair? why do I dwell at such length on these
-Often he told us a number of wonderful stories, and grew so warm
+details, when there's so much remains to be said? Enough--I was
-over them that his pipe continually went out. I had to light it
+detected in my eavesdropping, and roughly handled by Coppelius. Fear
-again, with burning paper, which I thought great sport. Often, too,
+and terror had brought on a violent fever, of which I lay ill several
-he would give us picture-books, and sit in his arm-chair silent and
+weeks. "Is the Sand-man still there?" these were the first words I
-thoughtful, puffing out such thick clouds of smoke that we all
+uttered on coming to myself again, the first sign of my recovery, of
-seemed to be swimming in the clouds. On such evenings as these
+my safety. Thus, you see, I have only to relate to you the most
-my mother was very melancholy, and immediately the clock struck
+terrible moment of my youth for you to thoroughly understand that it
-nine, she would say: " Now children, to bed to bed! . The Sand-
+must not be ascribed to the weakness of my eyesight if all that I see
-man is coming, I can see." And certainly on all these occasions I
+is colourless, but to the fact that a mysterious destiny has hung a
-heard something with a heavy, slow step go bouncing up the stairs.
+dark veil of clouds about my life, which I shall perhaps only break
-That I thought must be the Sandman. Once that dull noise and
+through when I die.
-footstep were particularly fearful, and I asked my mother, while she
-took us away: "Eh, mamma, who is this naughty Sandman, who
-always drives us away from papa? What does he look like?"
-" There is no Sandman, dear child," replied my mother. " When
-I say the Sandman comes, I only mean that you are sleepy and can-
-not keep your eyes open, -just as if sand had been sprinkled into
-them." This answer of my mother's did not satisfy me nay, in
-my childish mind the thought soon matured itself that she only de-
-nied the existence of the Sandman to hinder us from being terrified
-at him. Certainly I always heard him coming up the stairs. Full
-of curiosity to hear more of this Sandman, and his particular con-
-nection with children, I at last asked the old woman who tended
-my youngest sister what sort of man he was. " Eh, Natty," said
-she, " do you not know that yet? He is a wicked man, who comes
-to children when they will not go to bed, and throws a handful of
-sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads.
-These eyes he puts in a bag and carries them to the half-moon to
-feed his own children, who sit in the nest up yonder, and have
-crooked beaks like owls with which they may pick up the eyes of
-the naughty human children."
-A most frightful image of the cruel Sandman was horribly de-
+Coppelius did not show himself again; it was reported he had left the
-picted in my mind, and when in the evening I heard the noise on
+town.
-the stairs, I trembled with agony and alarm. My mother could get
-nothing out of me, but the cry of " The Sandman, the Sandman !"
-which was stuttered forth through my tears. I then ran into the
+It was about a year later when, in pursuance of the old unchanged
+custom, we sat around the round table in the evening. Father was in
+very good spirits, and was telling us amusing tales about his youthful
+travels. As it was striking nine we all at once heard the street door
+creak on its hinges, and slow ponderous steps echoed across the
+passage and up the stairs. "That is Coppelius," said my mother,
+turning pale. "Yes, it is Coppelius," replied my father in a faint
+broken voice. The tears started from my mother's eyes. "But, father,
+father," she cried, "must it be so?" "This is the last time," he
+replied; "this is the last time he will come to me, I promise you. Go
+now, go and take the children. Go, go to bed--good-night."
+As for me, I felt as if I were converted into cold, heavy stone; I
+could not get my breath. As I stood there immovable my mother seized
+me by the arm. "Come, Nathanael! do come along!" I suffered myself to
+be led away; I went into my room. "Be a good boy and keep quiet,"
+mother called after me; "get into bed and go to sleep." But, tortured
+by indescribable fear and uneasiness, I could not close my eyes. That
+hateful, hideous Coppelius stood before me with his glittering eyes,
+smiling maliciously down upon me; in vain did I strive to banish the
+image. Somewhere about midnight there was a terrific crack, as if a
+cannon were being fired off. The whole house shook; something went
+rustling and clattering past my door; the house door was pulled to
+with a bang. "That is Coppelius," I cried, terror-struck, and leapt
+out of bed. Then I heard a wild heartrending scream; I rushed into my
+father's room; the door stood open, and clouds of suffocating smoke
+came rolling towards me. The servant-maid shouted, "Oh! my master! my
+master! On the floor in front of the smoking hearth lay my father,
+dead, his face burned black and fearfully distorted, my sisters
+weeping and moaning around him, and my mother lying near them in a
+swoon. "Coppelius, you atrocious fiend, you've killed my father," I
+shouted. My senses left me. Two days later, when my father was placed
+in his coffin; his features were mild and gentle again as they had
+been when he was alive. I found great consolation in the thought that
+his association with the diabolical Coppelius could not have ended in
+his everlasting ruin.
-Two characters in Schiller's play of " Die Kauber.'
+Our neighbours had been awakened by the explosion; the affair got
+talked about, and came before the magisterial authorities, who wished
+to cite Coppelius to clear himself. But he had disappeared from the
+place, leaving no traces behind him.
+Now when I tell you, my dear friend, that the weather-glass hawker I
+spoke of was the villain Coppelius, you will not blame me for seeing
+impending mischief in his inauspicious reappearance. He was
+differently dressed; but Coppelius's figure and features are too
+deeply impressed upon my mind for me to be capable of making a mistake
+in the matter. Moreover, he has not even changed his name. He
+proclaims himself here, I learn, to be a Piedmontese mechanician, and
+styles himself Giuseppe Coppola.
+I am resolved to enter the lists against him and revenge my father's
+death, let the consequences be what they may.
-THE SANDMAN.
+Don't say a word to mother about the reappearance of this odious
+monster. Give my love to my darling Clara; I will write to her when I
+am in a somewhat calmer frame of mind. Adieu.
-bed-room, where the frightful apparition of the Sandman terrified
+CLARA TO NATHANAEL
-me during the whole night. I had already grown old enough to
-perceive that the nurse's tale about the Sandman and the nest of
-children in the half-moon could not be quite true, but, nevertheless,
-this Sandman remained a fearful spectre, and I was seized with the
-utmost horror 5 when I heard him not only come up the stairs, but
-violently force open my father's room-door and enter. Sometimes
-he staid away for a long period, but oftener his visits were in close
-succession. This lasted for years, and I could not accustom myself
-to the terrible goblin; the image of the dreadful Sandman did not
-become more faint. His intercourse with my father began more and
-more to occupy my fancy. An unconquerable fear prevented me
-from asking my father about it, but if I I myself could penetrate
-the mystery, and behold the wondrous Sandman that was the wish
-which grew upon me with years. The Sandman had brought me
-into the path of the marvellous and wonderful, which so readily finds
-a domicile in the mind of a child. Nothing was to me more de-
-lightful than to read or hear horrible stories of goblins, witches, pig-
-mies, &c. ; but above them all stood the Sandman, whom, in the
-oddest and most frightful shapes, I was always drawing with chalk
-or charcoal on the tables, cupboards, and walls. When I was ten
-years old, my mother removed me from the children's room into a
-little chamber, situated in a corridor near my father's room. Still,
-as before, we were obliged speedily to take our departure as soon as,
-on the stroke of nine, the unknown was heard in the house. I could
-hear in my little chamber how he entered my father's room, and
-then it soon appeared to me that a thin vapor of a singular odor dif-
-fused itself about the house. Stronger and stronger with my cu-
-riosity grew my resolution to form in some manner the Sandman's
-acquaintance. Often I sneaked from my room to the corridor, when
-my mother had passed, but never could I discover any thing, for the
-Sandman had always gone in at the door when I reached the place
-where I might have seen him. At last, urged by an irresistible im-
-pulse, I resolved to hide myself in my father's room and await the
-appearance of the Sandman.
-By the silence of my father, and the melancholy of my mother, I
+You are right, you have not written to me for a very long time, but
-perceived one evening that the Sandman was coming. I, therefore,
+nevertheless I believe that I still retain a place in your mind and
-feigned great weariness, left the room before nine o'clock, and hid
+thoughts. It is a proof that you were thinking a good deal about me
-myself in a corner close to the door. The house-door creaked, and
+when you were sending off your last letter to brother Lothair, for
-the heavy, slow, groaning step went through the passage and towards
+instead of directing it to him you directed it to me. With joy I tore
-the stairs. My mother passed me with the rest of the children.
+open the envelope, and did not perceive the mistake until I read the
-Softly very softly, I opened the door of my father's room. He
+words, "Oh! my dear, dear Lothair." Now I know I ought not to have
-sat as usually, stiff and silent, with his back turned to the door. He
+read any more of the letter, but ought to have given it to my brother.
-did not perceive me, and I swiftly darted into the room and behind
+But as you have so often in innocent raillery made it a sort of
-the curtain, drawn before an open press, which stood close to the
+reproach against me that I possessed such a calm, and, for a woman,
-door, and in which my father's clothes were hanging. The steps
+cool-headed temperament that I should be like the woman we read of--if
-sounded nearer and nearer there was a strange coughing and scrap-
+the house was threatening to tumble down, I should, before hastily
-ing and murmuring without. My heart trembled with anxiety and
+fleeing, stop to smooth down a crumple in the window-curtains--I need
+hardly tell you that the beginning of your letter quite upset me. I
+could scarcely breathe; there was a bright mist before my eyes. Oh! my
+darling Nathanael! what could this terrible thing be that had
+happened? Separation from you--never to see you again, the thought was
+like a sharp knife in my heart. I read on and on. Your description of
+that horrid Coppelius made my flesh creep. I now learnt for the first
+time what a terrible and violent death your good old father died.
+Brother Lothair, to whom I handed over his property, sought to comfort
+me, but with little success. That horrid weather-glass hawker Giuseppe
+Coppola followed me everywhere; and I am almost ashamed to confess it,
+but he was able to disturb my sound and in general calm sleep with all
+sorts of wonderful dream-shapes. But soon--the next day--I saw
+everything in a different light. Oh! do not be angry with me, my best-
+beloved, if, despite your strange presentiment that Coppelius will do
+you some mischief, Lothair tells you I am in quite as good spirits,
+and just the same as ever.
+I will frankly confess, it seems to me that all that was fearsome and
+terrible of which you speak, existed only in your own self, and that
+the real true outer world had but little to do with it. I can quite
+admit that old Coppelius may have been highly obnoxious to you
+children, but your real detestation of him arose from the fact that he
+hated children.
+Naturally enough the gruesome Sand-man of the old nurse's story was
+associated in your childish mind with old Coppelius, who, even though
+you had not believed in the Sand-man, would have been to you a ghostly
+bugbear, especially dangerous to children. His mysterious labours
+along with your father at night-time were, I daresay, nothing more
+than secret experiments in alchemy, with which your mother could not
+be over well pleased, owing to the large sums of money that most
+likely were thrown away upon them; and besides, your father, his mind
+full of the deceptive striving after higher knowledge, may probably
+have become rather indifferent to his family, as so often happens in
+the case of such experimentalists. So also it is equally probable that
+your father brought about his death by his own imprudence, and that
+Coppelius is not to blame for it. I must tell you that yesterday I
+asked our experienced neighbour, the chemist, whether in experiments
+of this kind an explosion could take place which would have a
+momentarily fatal effect. He said, "Oh, certainly!" and described to
+me in his prolix and circumstantial way how it could be occasioned,
+mentioning at the same time so many strange and funny words that I
+could not remember them at all. Now I know you will be angry at your
+Clara, and will say, "Of the Mysterious which often clasps man in its
+invisible arms there's not a ray can find its way into this cold
+heart. She sees only the varied surface of the things of the world,
+and, like the little child, is pleased with the golden glittering
+fruit, at the kernel of which lies the fatal poison."
-THE SANDMAN. 143
+Oh! my beloved Nathanael, do you believe then that the intuitive
+prescience of a dark power working within us to our own ruin cannot
+exist also in minds which are cheerful, natural, free from care? But
+please forgive me that I, a simple girl, presume in my way to indicate
+to you what I really think of such an inward strife. After all, I
+should not find the proper words, and you would only laugh at me, not
+because my thoughts were stupid, but because I was so foolish as to
+attempt to tell them to you.
-expectation. A sharp step close very close to the door, a smart
+If there is a dark and hostile power which traitorously fixes a thread
-stroke on the latch, and the door was open with a rattling noise.
+in our hearts in order that, laying hold of it and drawing us by means
-Screwing up my courage with all my might, I cautiously peeped
+of it along a dangerous road to ruin, which otherwise we should not
-out. The Sandman was standing before my father in the middle of
+have trod--if, I say, there is such a power, it must assume within us
-the room, the light of the candles shone full upon his face. The
+a form like ourselves, nay, it must be ourselves; for only in that way
-Sandman, the fearful Sandman, was the old advocate Coppelius,
+can we believe in it, and only so understood do we yield to it so far
-who had often dined with us.
+that it is able to accomplish its secret purpose. So long as we have
+sufficient firmness, fortified by cheerfulness, to always acknowledge
+foreign hostile influences for what they really are, whilst we quietly
+pursue the path pointed out to us by both inclination and calling,
+then this mysterious power perishes in its futile struggles to attain
+the form which is to be the reflected image of ourselves. It is also
+certain, Lothair adds, that if we have once voluntarily given
+ourselves up to this dark physical power, it often reproduces within
+us the strange forms which the outer world throws in our way, so that
+thus it is we ourselves who engender within ourselves the spirit which
+by some remarkable delusion we imagine to speak in that outer form. It
+is the phantom of our own self whose intimate relationship with, and
+whose powerful influence upon our soul either plunges us into hell or
+elevates us to heaven. Thus you will see, my beloved Nathanael, that I
+and brother Lothair have well talked over the subject of dark powers
+and forces; and now, after I have with some difficulty written down
+the principal results of our discussion, they seem to me to contain
+many really profound thoughts. Lothair's last words, however, I don't
+quite understand altogether; I only dimly guess what he means; and yet
+I cannot help thinking it is all very true. I beg you, dear, strive to
+forget the ugly advocate Coppelius as well as the weather-glass hawker
+Giuseppe Coppola. Try and convince yourself that these foreign
+influences can have no power over you, that it is only the belief in
+their hostile power which can in reality make them dangerous to you.
+If every line of your letter did not betray the violent excitement of
+your mind, and if I did not sympathise with your condition from the
+bottom of my heart, I could in truth jest about the advocate Sand-man
+and weather-glass hawker Coppelius. Pluck up your spirits! Be
+cheerful! I have resolved to appear to you as your guardian-angel if
+that ugly man Coppola should dare take it into his head to bother you
+in your dreams, and drive him away with a good hearty laugh. I'm not
+afraid of him and his nasty hands, not the least little bit; I won't
+let him either as advocate spoil any dainty tit-bit I've taken, or as
+Sand-man rob me of my eyes.
-But the most hideous form could not have inspired me with
+My darling, darling Nathanael.
-deeper horror than this very Coppelius. Imagine a large broad-
-shouldered man, with a head disproportionately big, a face the co-
-lour of yellow ochre, a pair of gray bushy eyebrows, from beneath
-which a pair of green cat's eyes sparkled with the most penetrating
-lustre, and with a large nose curved over his upper lip. His wry
-mouth was often twisted into a malicious laugh, when a couple of
-dark red spots appeared upon his cheeks, and a strange hissing
-sound was heard through his compressed teeth. Coppelius always
-appeared in an ashen-graycoat, cut in old-fashioned style, with
-waistcoat and breeches of tKe~same colour, while his stockings were
-black, and his shoes adorned with buckles set with precious stones.
-The little peruke scarcely reached further than the crown of his
-head, the curls stood high above his large red ears, and a broad
-hair-bag projected stiffly from his neck, so that the silver buckle
-which fastened his folded cravat might be plainly seen. The whole
-figure was hideous and repulsive, but most disgusting to us children
-were his coarse brown hairy fists ; indeed, we did not like to eat
-what he had touched with them. This he had remarked, and it
-was his delight, under some pretext or other, to touch a piece of
-cake, or some nice fruit, that our kind mother might privately have
-put in our plate, in order that we, with tears in our eyes, might,
-from disgust and abhorrence, no longer be able to enjoy the treat
-intended for us. He acted in the same manner on holidays, when
-my father gave us a little glass of sweet wine. Then would he
-swiftly draw his fist over it, or perhaps he would even raise the glass
-to his blue lips, and laugh most devilishly, when we could only ex-
-press our indignation by soft sobs. He always called us the little
-beasts, we dared not utter a sound when he was present, and we
-heartily cursed the ugly, unkind man, who deliberately marred our
-slightest pleasures. My mother seemed to hate the repulsive Cop-
-pelius as much as we did, since as soon as he showed himself her
-liveliness, her free and cheerful rnind was changed into a gloomy
-solemnity. My father conducted himself towards him, as though
-he was a superior being, whose bad manners were to be tolerated,
-and who was to be kept in good humour at any rate. He need
-only give the slightest hint, and the favourite dishes were cooked,
-and the choicest wines served.
-When I now saw this Coppelius, the frightful and terrific thought
+Eternally your, c. c.
-took possession of my soul, that indeed no one but he could be the
-Sandman. But the Sandman was no longer that bugbear of a
+NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR.
+I am very sorry that Clara opened and read my last letter to you; of
+course the mistake is to be attributed to my own absence of mind. She
+has written me a very deep philosophical letter, proving conclusively
+that Coppelius and Coppola only exist in my own mind and are phantoms
+of my own self, which will at once be dissipated, as soon as I look
+upon them in that light. In very truth one can hardly believe that the
+mind which so often sparkles in those bright, beautifully smiling,
+childlike eyes of hers like a sweet lovely dream could draw such
+subtle and scholastic distinctions. She also mentions your name. You
+have been talking about me. I suppose you have been giving her
+lectures, since she sifts and refines everything so acutely. But
+enough of this! I must now tell you it is most certain that the
+weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola is not the advocate Coppelius. I
+am attending the lectures of our recently appointed Professor of
+Physics, who, like the distinguished naturalist,(3) is called
+Spalanzani, and is of Italian origin. He has known Coppola for many
+years; and it is also easy to tell from his accent that he really is a
+Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, though no honest German, I fancy.
+Nevertheless I am not quite satisfied. You and Clara will perhaps take
+me for a gloomy dreamer, but nohow can I get rid of the impression
+which Coppelius's cursed face made upon me. I am glad to learn from
+Spalanzani that he has left the town. This Professor Spalanzani is a
+very queer fish. He is a little fat man, with prominent cheek-bones,
+thin nose, projecting lips, and small piercing eyes. You cannot get a
+better picture of him than by turning over one of the Berlin pocket-
+almanacs(4) and looking at Cagliostro's(5) portrait engraved by
+Chodowiecki;(6) Spalanzani looks just like him.
-THE SANDMAN.
+(3) Lazaro Spallanzani, a celebrated anatomist and naturalist (1729-
+), filled for several years the chair of Natural History at Pavia,
+and travelled extensively for scientific purposes in Italy, Turkey,
+Sicily, Switzerland, c.
-nurse's tale, who provided the owl's nest in the half-moon with
+(4) Or Almanacs of the Muses, as they were also sometimes called, were
-children's eyes, no, he was a hideous spectral monster, who,
+periodical, mostly yearly publications, containing all kinds of
-wherever he appeared, brought with him grief, want, and destruc-
+literary effusions; mostly, however, lyrical. They originated in the
-tion temporal and eternal.
+eighteenth century. Schiller, A. W. and F. Schlegel, Tieck, and
+Chamisso, amongst others, conducted undertakings of this nature.
-I was ri vetted to the spot as if enchanted. At the risk of being
+(5) Joseph Balsamo, a Sicilian by birth, calling himself count
-discovered, and as I plainly foresaw, of being severely punished,
+Cagliostro, one of the greatest impostors of modern times, lived
-I remained with my head peeping through the curtain. My father
+during the latter part of the eighteenth century. See Carlyle's
-received Coppelius with solemnity. " Now to our work !" cried the
+"Miscellanies" for an account of his life and character.
-latter with a harsh, grating voice, as he flung off his coat. My father
-silently and gloomily drew off his night-gown, and both attired them-
-selves in long black frocks. Whence they took these, I did not see.
-My father opened the door of what I had always thought to be a cup-
-board, but I now saw that it was no cupboard, but rather a black hol-
-low, in which there was a little hearth. Coppelius entered, and a blue
-flame began to crackle up on the hearth. All sorts of strange uten-
-sils lay around. Heavens ! As my old father now stooped down
-to the fire, he looked quite another man. A frightful convulsive pain
-seemed to have distorted his mild reverend features into a hideous
-repulsive diabolical countenance. He looked like Coppelius : the lat-
-ter was brandishing red hot tongs, and with them taking shining masses
-busily out of the thick smoke, which he afterwards hammered. It
-seemed to me, as if I saw human faces around without any eyes but
-with deep holes instead. " Eyes here, eyes !" said Coppelius in a
-dull roaring voice. Overcome by the wildest terror, I shrieked out,
-and fell from my hiding place upon the floor. Coppelius seized me,
-and showing his teeth, bleated out, " Ah lime wretch, little
-wretch !" then dragging me up, he flung me on the hearth, where
-the fire began to singe my hair. "Now we have eyes enough a
-pretty pair of child's eyes." Thus whispered Coppelius and taking
-out of the flame some red-hot grains with his fists, he was about to
-sprinkle them in my eyes. My father upon this raised his hands in
-supplication, and cried : " Master, master, leave my Nathaniel his
-eyes !" Coppelius uttered a yelling laugh, and said : " Well let the
-lad have his eyes and cry his share in the world, but we will examine
-the mechanism of his hands and feet. And then he seized me so
-forcibly that my joints cracked, and screwed off my hands and feet,
-and then put them on again, one here and the other there. " Every
-thing is not right here ! As good as it was the old one has under-
-stood it !" So did Coppelius say, in a hissing, lisping tone, but all
-around me became black and dark, a sudden cramp darted through
-my bones and nerves and I lost all feeling. A gentle warm breath
-passed over my face ; I woke as out of a sleep of death. My mother
-had been stooping over me. " Is the Sandman yet there ?>' I stam-
-mered. " No, no, my dear child, he has gone away long ago, he
-will not hurt you !" So said my mother, and she kissed and em-
-braced her recovered darling.
-Why should I weary you, my dear Lothaire ! Why should I
+(6) Daniel Nikolas Chodowiecki, painter and engraver, of Polish
-be so diffuse with details, when I have so much more to tell. Suffice
+descent, was born at Dantzic in 1726. For some years he was so popular
-it to say, that I had been discovered while watching, and ill-used by
+an artist that few books were published in Prussia without plates or
+vignettes by him. The catalogue of his works is said to include 3000
+items.
+Once lately, as I went up the steps to his house, I perceived that
+beside the curtain which generally covered a glass door there was a
+small chink. What it was that excited my curiosity I cannot explain;
+but I looked through. In the room I saw a female, tall, very slender,
+but of perfect proportions, and splendidly dressed, sitting at a
+little table, on which she had placed both her arms, her hands being
+folded together. She sat opposite the door, so that I could easily see
+her angelically beautiful face. She did not appear to notice me, and
+there was moreover a strangely fixed look about her eyes, I might
+almost say they appeared as if they had no power of vision; I thought
+she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt quite uncomfortable, and
+so I slipped away quietly into the Professor's lecture-room, which was
+close at hand. Afterwards I learnt that the figure which I had seen
+was Spalanzani's daughter, Olimpia, whom he keeps locked in a most
+wicked and unaccountable way, and no man is ever allowed to come near
+her. Perhaps, however, there is after all something peculiar about
+her; perhaps she's an idiot or something of that sort. But why am I
+telling you all this? I could have told you it all better and more in
+detail when I see you. For in a fortnight I shall be amongst you. I
+must see my dear sweet angel, my Clara, again. Then the little bit of
+ill-temper, which, I must confess, took possession of me after her
+fearfully sensible letter, will be blown away. And that is the reason
+why I am not writing to her as well to-day. With all best wishes, c.
+Nothing more strange and extraordinary can be imagined, gracious
+reader, than what happened to my poor friend, the young student
+Nathanael, and which I have undertaken to relate to you. Have you ever
+lived to experience anything that completely took possession of your
+heart and mind and thoughts to the utter exclusion of everything else?
+All was seething and boiling within you; your blood, heated to fever
+pitch, leapt through your veins and inflamed your cheeks. Your gaze
+was so peculiar, as if seeking to grasp in empty space forms not seen
+of any other eye, and all your words ended in sighs betokening some
+mystery. Then your friends asked you, "What is the matter with you, my
+dear friend? What do you see?" And, wishing to describe the inner
+pictures in all their vivid colours, with their lights and their
+shades, you in vain struggled to find words with which to express
+yourself. But you felt as if you must gather up all the events that
+had happened, wonderful, splendid, terrible, jocose, and awful, in the
+very first word, so that the whole might be revealed by a single
+electric discharge, so to speak. Yet every word and all that partook
+of the nature of communication by intelligible sounds seemed to be
+colourless, cold, and dead. Then you try and try again, and stutter
+and stammer, whilst your friends' prosy questions strike like icy
+winds upon your heart's hot fire until they extinguish it. But if,
+like a bold painter, you had first sketched in a few audacious strokes
+the outline of the picture you had in your soul, you would then easily
+have been able to deepen and intensify the colours one after the
+other, until the varied throng of living figures carried your friends
+away, and they, like you, saw themselves in the midst of the scene
+that had proceeded out of your own soul.
-THE SANDMAN* 145
+Strictly speaking, indulgent reader, I must indeed confess to you,
+nobody has asked me for the history of young Nathanael; but you are
+very well aware that I belong to that remarkable class of authors who,
+when they are bearing anything about in their minds in the manner I
+have just described, feel as if everybody who comes near them, and
+also the whole world to boot, were asking, "Oh! what is it? Oh! do
+tell us, my good sir?" Hence I was most powerfully impelled to narrate
+to you Nathanael's ominous life. My soul was full of the elements of
+wonder and extraordinary peculiarity in it; but, for this very reason,
+and because it was necessary in the very beginning to dispose you,
+indulgent reader, to bear with what is fantastic--and that is not a
+little thing I racked my brain to find a way of commencing the story
+in a significant and original manner, calculated to arrest your
+attention. To begin with "Once upon a time," the best beginning for a
+story, seemed to me too tame; with "In the small country town S--
+lived," rather better, at any rate allowing plenty of room to work up
+to the climax; or to plunge at once in medias res, "'Go to the devil!'
+cried the student Nathanael, his eyes blazing wildly with rage and
+fear, when the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola"--well, that is
+what I really had written, when I thought I detected something of the
+ridiculous in Nathanael's wild glance; and the history is anything but
+laughable. I could not find any words which seemed fitted to reflect
+in even the feeblest degree the brightness of the colours of my mental
+vision. I determined not to begin at all. So I pray you, gracious
+reader, accept the three letters which my friend Lothair has been so
+kind as to communicate to me as the outline of the picture, into which
+I will endeavour to introduce more and more colour as I proceed with
+my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in
+depicting more than one figure in such wise that you will recognise it
+as a good likeness without being acquainted with the original, and
+feel as if you had very often seen the original with your own bodily
+eyes. Perhaps, too, you will then believe that nothing is more
+wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all that a
+writer can do is to present it as a dark reflection from a dim cut
+mirror.
-Coppelius. Agony and terror had brought on delirium and fever,
+In order to make the very commencement more intelligible, it is
-of which I lay sick for several weeks. " Is the sandman still there?"
+necessary to add to the letters that, soon after the death of
-That was my first sensible word and the sign of my amendment my
+Nathanael's father, Clara and Lothair, the children of a distant
-recovery. I can now only tell you, the most frightful moment in my
+relative, who had likewise died, leaving them orphans, were taken by
-juvenile years. Then you will be convinced that it is no fault of
+Nathanael's mother into her own house. Clara and Nathanael conceived a
-my eyes, that all to me seems colourless, but that a dark fatality has
+warm affection for each other, against which not the slightest
-actually suspended over my life a gloomy veil of clouds, which I
+objection in the world could be urged. When therefore Nathanael left
-shall perhaps only tear away in death.
+home to prosecute his studies in G--, they were betrothed. It is from
+G---that his last letter is written, where he is attending the
+lectures of Spalanzani, the distinguished Professor of Physics.
-Coppelius was no more to be seen ; it was said he had left the
+I might now proceed comfortably with my narration, did not at this
-town.
+moment Clara's image rise up so vividly before my eyes that I cannot
+turn them away from it, just as I never could when she looked upon me
+and smiled so sweetly. Nowhere would she have passed for beautiful
+that was the unanimous opinion of all who professed to have any
+technical knowledge of beauty. But whilst architects praised the pure
+proportions of her figure and form, painters averred that her neck,
+shoulders, and bosom were almost too chastely modelled, and yet, on
+the other hand, one and all were in love with her glorious Magdalene
+hair, and talked a good deal of nonsense about Battoni-like(7)
+colouring. One of them, a veritable romanticist, strangely enough
+likened her eyes to a lake by Ruisdael,(8) in which is reflected the
+pure azure of the cloudless sky, the beauty of woods and flowers, and
+all the bright and varied life of a living landscape. Poets and
+musicians went still further and said, "What's all this talk about
+seas and reflections? How can we look upon the girl without feeling
+that wonderful heavenly songs and melodies beam upon us from her eyes,
+penetrating deep down into our hearts, till all becomes awake and
+throbbing with emotion? And if we cannot sing anything at all passable
+then, why, we are not worth much; and this we can also plainly read in
+the rare smile which flits around her lips when we have the hardihood
+to squeak out something in her presence which we pretend to call
+singing, in spite of the fact that it is nothing more than a few
+single notes confusedly linked together." And it really was so. Clara
+had the powerful fancy of a bright, innocent, unaffected child, a
+woman's deep and sympathetic heart, and an understanding clear, sharp,
+and discriminating. Dreamers and visionaries had but a bad time of it
+with her; for without saying very much--she was not by nature of a
+talkative disposition--she plainly asked, by her calm steady look, and
+rare ironical smile, "How can you imagine, my dear friends, that I can
+take these fleeting shadowy images for true living and breathing
+forms?" For this reason many found fault with her as being cold,
+prosaic, and devoid of feeling; others, however, who had reached a
+clearer and deeper conception of life, were extremely fond of the
+intelligent, childlike, large-hearted girl. But none had such an
+affection for her as Nathanael, who was a zealous and cheerful
+cultivator of the fields of science and art. Clara clung to her lover
+with all her heart; the first clouds she encountered in life were when
+he had to separate from her. With what delight did she fly into his
+arms when, as he had promised in his last letter to Lothair, he really
+came back to his native town and entered his mother's room! And as
+Nathanael had foreseen, the moment he saw Clara again he no longer
+thought about either the advocate Coppelius or her sensible letter;
+his ill-humour had quite disappeared.
-About a year might have elapsed, when, according to the old
+(7) Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, an Italian painter of the eighteenth
-custom, we sat at the round table. My father was very cheerful,
+century, whose works were at one time greatly over-estimated.
-and told much that was entertaining, about his travels in his youth;
-when, as the clock struck nine, we heard the house-door creak on
-the hinges, and slow steps, heavy as iron, groaned through the pas-
-sage and up the stairs. " That is Coppelius," said my mother,
-turning pale. "Yes! that is Coppelius!" repeated my father,
-with a faint broken voice. The tears started from my mother's
-eyes. "But father father!" she cried, "must it be so?" "He
-comes to me for the last time, I promise you," was the answer.
-" Only go now go with the children go go to bed. Good
-night !" .
-I felt as if I were pressed into cold, heavy stone, my breath was
+(8) Jakob Ruysdael (c. 1625-1682), a painter of Haarlem, in Holland.
-stopped. My mother caught me by the arm as I stood immoveable.
+His favourite subjects were remote farms, lonely stagnant water, deep-
-" Come, come, Nathaniel !" I allowed myself to be led, and entered
+haded woods with marshy paths, the sea-coast--subjects of a dark
-my chamber ! " Be quiet be quiet go to bed go to sleep !" cried
+melancholy kind. His sea-pieces are greatly admired.
-my mother after me ; but tormented by restlessness, and an inward
-anguish perfectly indescribable, I could not close my eyes. The
-hateful, abominable Coppelius stood before me with fiery eyes, and
-laughed at me maliciously. It was in vain that I endeavoured to
-get rid of his image. About midnight there was a frightful noise,
-like the firing of a gun. The whole house resounded. There was
-a rattling and a rustling by my door, and the house-door was closed
-with a violent sound. "That is Coppelius!" I cried, and I sprang
-out of bed in terror. There was then a shriek as if of acute incon-
-solable grief. I darted into my father's room; the door was open,
-a suffocating smoke rolled towards me, and the servant girl cried:
-" Ah, my master, my master !" On the floor of the smoking hearth
-lay my father dead, with his face burned and blackened, and
-hideously distorted, my sisters were shrieking and moaning around
-him, and my mother had fainted. " Coppelius ! cursed Satan,
-thou hast slain my father !" I cried, and lost my senses. When,
-two days afterwards, my father was laid in his coffin, his features
-were again as mild and gentle as they had been in his life. My
-soul was comforted by the thought that his compact with the de-
-vilish Coppelius could not have plunged him into eternal perdition.
-The explosion had awakened the neighbours, the occurrence had
+Nevertheless Nathanael was right when he told his friend Lothair that
-become the common talk, and had reached the ears of the magis-
+the repulsive vendor of weather-glasses, Coppola, had exercised a
+fatal and disturbing influence upon his life. It was quite patent to
+all; for even during the first Few days he showed that he was
+completely and entirely changed. He gave himself up to gloomy
+reveries, and moreover acted so strangely; they had never observed
+anything at all like it in him before. Everything, even his own life,
+was to him but dreams and presentiments. His constant theme was that
+every man who delusively imagined himself to be free was merely the
+plaything of the cruel sport of mysterious powers, and it was vain for
+man to resist them; he must humbly submit to whatever destiny had
+decreed for him. He went so far as to maintain that it was foolish to
+believe that a man could do anything in art or science of his own
+accord; for the inspiration in which alone any true artistic work
+could be done did not proceed from the spirit within outwards, but was
+the result of the operation directed inwards of some Higher Principle
+existing without and beyond ourselves.
-L
+This mystic extravagance was in the highest degree repugnant to
+Clara's clear intelligent mind, but it seemed vain to enter upon any
+attempt at refutation. Yet when Nathanael went on to prove that
+Coppelius was the Evil Principle which had entered into him and taken
+possession of him at the time he was listening behind the curtain, and
+that this hateful demon would in some terrible way ruin their
+happiness, then Clara grew grave and said, "Yes, Nathanael. You are
+right; Coppelius is an Evil Principle; he can do dreadful things, as
+bad as could a Satanic power which should assume a living physical
+form, but only--only if you do not banish him from your mind and
+thoughts. So long as you believe in him he exists and is at work; your
+belief in him is his only power." Whereupon Nathanael, quite angry
+because Clara would only grant the existence of the demon in his own
+mind, began to dilate at large upon the whole mystic doctrine of
+devils and awful powers, but Clara abruptly broke off the theme by
+making, to Nathanael's very great disgust, some quite commonplace
+remark. Such deep mysteries are sealed books to cold, unsusceptible
+characters, he thought, without being clearly conscious to himself
+that he counted Clara amongst these inferior natures, and accordingly
+he did not remit his efforts to initiate her into these mysteries. In
+the morning, when she was helping to prepare breakfast, he would take
+his stand beside her, and read all sorts of mystic books to her, until
+she begged him--"But, my dear Nathanael, I shall have to scold you as
+the Evil Principle which exercises a fatal influence upon my coffee.
+For if I do as you wish, and let things go their own way, and look
+into your eyes whilst you read, the coffee will all boil over into the
+fire, and you will none of you get any breakfast." Then Nathanael
+hastily banged the book to and ran away in great displeasure to his
+own room.
+Formerly he had possessed a peculiar talent for writing pleasing,
+sparkling tales, which Clara took the greatest delight in listening
+to; but now his productions were gloomy, unintelligible, and wanting
+in form, so that, although Clara out of forbearance towards him did
+not say so, he nevertheless felt how very little interest she took in
+them. There was nothing that Clara disliked so much as what was
+tedious; at such times her intellectual sleepiness was not to be
+overcome; it was betrayed both in her glances and in her words.
+Nathanael's effusions were, in truth, exceedingly tedious. His ill-
+humour at Clara's cold prosaic temperament continued to increase;
+Clara could not conceal her distaste of his dark, gloomy, wearying
+mysticism; and thus both began to be more and more estranged from each
+other without exactly being aware of it themselves. The image of the
+ugly Coppelius had, as Nathanael was obliged to confess to himself,
+faded considerably in his fancy, and it often cost him great pains to
+present him in vivid colours in his literary efforts, in which he
+played the part of the ghoul of Destiny. At length it entered into his
+head to make his dismal presentiment that Coppelius would ruin his
+happiness the subject of a poem. He made himself and Clara, united by
+true love, the central figures, but represented a black hand as being
+from time to time thrust into their life and plucking out a joy that
+had blossomed for them. At length, as they were standing at the altar,
+the terrible Coppelius appeared and touched Clara's lovely eyes, which
+leapt into Nathanael's own bosom, burning and hissing like bloody
+sparks. Then Coppelius laid hold upon him, and hurled him into a
+blazing circle of fire, which spun round with the speed of a
+whirlwind, and, storming and blustering, dashed away with him. The
+fearful noise it made was like a furious hurricane lashing the foaming
+sea-waves until they rise up like black, white-headed giants in the
+midst of the raging struggle. But through the midst of the savage fury
+of the tempest he heard Clara's voice calling, "Can you not see me,
+dear? Coppelius has deceived you; they were not my eyes which burned
+so in your bosom; they were fiery drops of your own heart's blood.
+Look at me, I have got my own eyes still." Nathanael thought, "Yes,
+that is Clara, and I am hers for ever." Then this thought laid a
+powerful grasp upon the fiery circle so that it stood still, and the
+riotous turmoil died away rumbling down a dark abyss. Nathanael looked
+into Clara's eyes; but it was death whose gaze rested so kindly upon
+him.
+Whilst Nathanael was writing this work he was very quiet and sober-
+minded; he filed and polished every line, and as he had chosen to
+submit himself to the limitations of metre, he did not rest until all
+was pure and musical. When, however, he had at length finished it and
+read it aloud to himself he was seized with horror and awful dread,
+and he screamed, "Whose hideous voice is this?" But he soon came to
+see in it again nothing beyond a very successful poem, and he
+confidently believed it would enkindle Clara's cold temperament,
+though to what end she should be thus aroused was not quite clear to
+his own mind, nor yet what would be the real purpose served by
+tormenting her with these dreadful pictures, which prophesied a
+terrible and ruinous end to her affection.
-THE SAtfDMAtf.
+Nathanael and Clara sat in his mother's little garden. Clara was
+bright and cheerful, since for three entire days her lover, who had
+been busy writing his poem, had not teased her with his dreams or
+forebodings Nathanael, too, spoke in a gay and vivacious way of things
+of merry import, as he formerly used to do, so that Clara said, "Ah!
+now I have you again. We have driven away that ugly Coppelius, you
+see." Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had got the poem in his
+pocket which he wished to read to her. He at once took out the
+manuscript and began to read. Clara, anticipating something tedious as
+usual, prepared to submit to the infliction, and calmly resumed her
+knitting. But as the sombre clouds rose up darker and darker she let
+her knitting fall on her lap and sat with her eyes fixed in a set
+stare upon Nathanael's face.
-tracy, who wished to make Coppelius answerable. He had, how-
+He was quite carried away by his own work, the fire of enthusiasm
-ever, vanished from the spot, without leaving a trace.
+coloured his cheeks a deep red, and tears started from his eyes. At
+length he concluded, groaning and showing great lassitude; grasping
+Clara's hand, he sighed as if he were being utterly melted in
+inconsolable grief, "Oh! Clara! Clara!" She drew him softly to her
+heart and said in a low but very grave and impressive tone,
+"Nathanael, my darling Nathanael, throw that foolish, senseless,
+stupid thing into the fire." Then Nathanael leapt indignantly to his
+feet, crying, as he pushed Clara from him, "You damned lifeless
+automaton!" and rushed away. Clara was cut to the heart, and wept
+bitterly. "Oh! he has never loved me, for he does not understand me,"
+she sobbed.
-If I tell you, my dear friend, that the barometer-dealer was the
+Lothair entered the arbour. Clara was obliged to tell him all that had
-accursed Coppelius himself, you will not blame me for regarding a
+taken place. He was passionately fond of his sister; and every word of
-phenomenon so unpropitious as boding some heavy calamity. He
+her complaint fell like a spark upon his heart, so that the
-was dressed differently, but the figure and features of Coppelius are
+displeasure which he had long entertained against his dreamy friend
-too deeply imprinted in my mind, for an error in this respect to be
+Nathanael was kindled into furious anger. He hastened to find
-possible. Besides, Coppelius has not even altered his name. As I
+Nathanael, and upbraided him in harsh words for his irrational
-hear he gives himself out as a Piedmontese optician, and calls him-
+behaviour towards his beloved sister. The fiery Nathanael answered him
-self Giuseppe Coppola.
+in the same style. "A fantastic, crack-brained fool," was retaliated
+with, "A miserable, common, everyday sort of fellow." A meeting was
+the inevitable consequence. They agreed to meet on the following
+morning behind the garden-wall, and fight, according to the custom of
+the students of the place, with sharp rapiers. They went about silent
+and gloomy; Clara had both heard and seen the violent quarrel, and
+also observed the fencing master bring the rapiers in the dusk of the
+evening. She had a presentiment of what was to happen. They both
+appeared at the appointed place wrapped up in the same gloomy silence,
+and threw off their coats. Their eyes flaming with the bloodthirsty
+light of pugnacity, they were about to begin their contest when Clara
+burst through the garden door. Sobbing, she screamed, "You savage,
+terrible men! Cut me down before you attack each other; for how can I
+live when my lover has slain my brother, or my brother slain my
+lover?" Lothair let his weapon fall and gazed silently upon the
+ground, whilst Nathanael's heart was rent with sorrow, and all the
+affection which he had felt for his lovely Clara in the happiest days
+of her golden youth was awakened within him. His murderous weapon,
+too, fell from his hand; he threw himself at Clara's feet. "Oh! can
+you ever forgive me, my only, my dearly loved Clara? Can you, my dear
+brother Lothair, also forgive me?" Lothair was touched by his friend's
+great distress; the three young people embraced each other amidst
+endless tears, and swore never again to break their bond of love and
+fidelity.
-I am determined to cope with him, and to avenge my father's
+Nathanael felt as if a heavy burden that had been weighing him down to
-death, be the issue what it may.
+the earth was now rolled from off him, nay, as if by offering
+resistance to the dark power which had possessed him, he had rescued
+his own self from the ruin which had threatened him. Three happy days
+he now spent amidst the loved ones, and then returned to G--, where he
+had still a year to stay before settling down in his native town for
+life.
-Tell my mother nothing of the hideous monster's appearance. Re-
+Everything having reference to Coppelius had been concealed from the
-member me to my dear sweet Clara, to whom I will write in a
+mother, for they knew she could not think of him without horror, since
-calmer mood. Farewell.
+she as well as Nathanael believed him to be guilty of causing her
+husband's death.
-CLARA TO NATHANIEL.
+.....When Nathanael came to the house where he lived he was greatly
+astonished to find it burnt down to the ground, so that nothing but
+the bare outer walls were left standing amidst a heap of ruins.
+Although the fire had broken out in the laboratory of the chemist who
+lived on the ground-floor, and had therefore spread upwards, some of
+Nathanael's bold, active friends had succeeded in time in forcing a
+way into his room in the upper storey and saving his books and
+manuscripts and instruments. They had carried them all uninjured into
+another house, where they engaged a room for him; this he now at once
+took possession of. That he lived opposite Professor Spalanzani did
+not strike him particularly, nor did it occur to him as anything more
+singular that he could, as he observed, by looking out of his window,
+see straight into the room where Olimpia often sat alone. Her figure
+he could plainly distinguish, although her features were uncertain and
+confused. It did at length occur to him, however, that she remained
+for hours together in the same position in which he had first
+discovered her through the glass door, sitting at a little table
+without any occupation whatever, and it was evident that she was
+constantly gazing across in his direction. He could not but confess to
+himself that he had never seen a finer figure. However, with Clara
+mistress of his heart, he remained perfectly unaffected by Olimpia's
+stiffness and apathy; and it was only occasionally that he sent a
+fugitive glance over his compendium across to her--that was all.
-It is true that you have not written to me for a long time, but
+He was writing to Clara; a light tap came at the door. At his summons
-nevertheless I believe that I am still in your mind and thoughts.
+to "Come in," Coppola's repulsive face appeared peeping in. Nathanael
-For assuredly you were thinking of me most intently, when design-
+felt his heart beat with trepidation; but, recollecting what
-ing to send your last letter to my brother Lothaire, you directed
+Spalanzani had told him about his fellow-countryman Coppola, and what
-it to me, instead of him. I joyfully opened the letter, and did
+he had himself so faithfully promised his beloved in respect to the
-not perceive my error till I came to the words : " Ah, my dear
+Sand-man Coppelius, he was ashamed at himself for this childish fear
-Lothaire." Now, by rights I should have read no farther, but
+of spectres. Accordingly, he controlled himself with an effort, and
-should have handed over the letter to my brother. Although you
+said, as quietly and as calmly as he possibly could, "I don't want to
-have often in your childish teasing mood, charged me with having
+buy any weather-glasses, my good friend; you had better go elsewhere."
-such a quiet, womanish, steady disposition, that like the lady, even
+Then Coppola came right into the room, and said in a hoarse voice,
-if the house were about to fall in, I should smooth down a wrong
+screwing up his wide mouth into a hideous smile, whilst his little
-fold in the window curtain before I ran away, I can hardly tell
+eyes flashed keenly from beneath his long grey eyelashes, "What! Nee
-you how your letter shocked me. I could scarcely breathe, my
+weather-gless? Nee weather-gless? 've got foine oyes as well--foine
-eyes became dizzy. Ah, my dear Nathaniel, how could such a hor-
+oyes!" Affrighted, Nathanael cried, "You stupid man, how can you have
-rible event have crossed your life? To be parted from you, never to
+eyes?--eyes--eyes?" But Coppola, laying aside his weather-glasses,
-see you again, the thought darted through my breast like a burn-
+thrust his hands into his big coat-pockets and brought out several
-ing dagger. I read and read. Your description of the repulsive
+spy-glasses and spectacles, and put them on the table. "Theer! Theer!
-Coppelius is terrific. For the first time I learned, how your good
+Spect'cles! Spect'cles to put 'n nose! Them's my oyes--foine oyes."
-old father died a shocking violent death. My brother Lothaire,
+And he continued to produce more and more spectacles from his pockets
-to whom I gave up the letter as his property, sought to calm me,
+until the table began to gleam and flash all over. Thousands of eyes
-but in vain. The fatal barometer-maker, Giuseppe Coppola followed
+were looking and blinking convulsively, and staring up at Nathanael;
-me at every step, and I am almost ashamed to confess that he dis-
+he could not avert his gaze from the table. Coppola went on heaping up
-turbed my healthy and generally peaceful sleep with all sorts of hor-
+his spectacles, whilst wilder and ever wilder burning flashes crossed
-rible visions. Yet soon, even the next day, I was quite changed
+through and through each other and darted their blood-red rays into
-again. Do not be offended, dearest one, if Lothaire tells you, that
+Nathanael's breast. Quite overcome, and frantic with terror, he
-in spite of your strange misgiving, that Coppelius will in some man-
+shouted, "Stop! stop! you terrible man!" and he seized Coppola by the
-ner injure you, I am in the same cheerful unembarrassed frame of
+arm, which he had again thrust into his pocket in order to bring out
-mind as ever.
+still more spectacles, although the whole table was covered all over
+with them. With a harsh disagreeable laugh Coppola gently freed
+himself; and with the words "So! went none! Well, here foine gless!"
+he swept all his spectacles together, and put them back into his coat-
+pockets, whilst from a breastpocket he produced a great number of
+larger and smaller perspectives. As soon as the spectacles were gone
+Nathanael recovered his equanimity again; and, bending his thoughts
+upon Clara, he clearly discerned that the gruesome incubus had
+proceeded only from himself, as also that Coppola was a right honest
+mechanician and optician, and far from being Coppelius's dreaded
+double and ghost. And then, besides, none of the glasses which Coppola
+now placed on the table had anything at all singular about them, at
+least nothing so weird as the spectacles; so, in order to square
+accounts with himself, Nathanael now really determined to buy
+something of the man. He took up a small, very beautifully cut pocket
+perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the window. Never
+before in his life had he had a glass in his hands that brought out
+things so clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he
+directed the glass upon Spalanzani's room; Olimpia sat at the little
+table as usual, her arms laid upon it and her hands folded. Now he saw
+for the first time the regular and exquisite beauty of her features.
+The eyes, however, seemed to him to have a singular look of fixity and
+lifelessness. But as he continued to look closer and more carefully
+through the glass he fancied a light like humid moonbeams came into
+them. It seemed as if their power of vision was now being enkindled;
+their glances shone with ever-increasing vivacity. Nathanael remained
+standing at the window as if glued to the spot by a wizard's spell,
+his gaze rivetted unchangeably upon the divinely beautiful Olimpia A
+coughing and shuffling of the feet awakened him out of his enchaining
+dream, as it were. Coppola stood behind him, "Tre zechini" (three
+ducats). Nathanael had completely forgotten the optician; he hastily
+paid the sum demanded. "Ain't 't? Foine gless? foine gless?" asked
+Coppola in his harsh unpleasant voice, smiling sardonically. "Yes,
+yes, yes," rejoined Nathanael impatiently; "adieu, my good friend."
+But Coppola did not leave the room without casting many peculiar side-
+glances upon Nathanael; and the young student heard him laughing
+loudly on the stairs. "Ah well!" thought he, "he's laughing at me
+because I've paid him too much for this little perspective--because
+I've given him too much money--that's it." As he softly murmured these
+words he fancied he detected a gasping sigh as of a dying man stealing
+awfully through the room; his heart stopped beating with fear. But to
+be sure he had heaved a deep sigh himself; it was quite plain. "Clara
+is quite right," said he to himself, "in holding me to be an incurable
+ghost-seer; and yet it's very ridiculous--ay, more than ridiculous,
+that the stupid thought of having paid Coppola too much for his glass
+should cause me this strange anxiety; I can't see any reason for it."
-I will honestly confess to you that, according to my opinion, all
+Now he sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through
-the terrible things of which you speak, merely occurred in your own
+the window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an
+irresistible impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective;
+nor could he tear himself away from the fascinating Olimpia until his
+friend and brother Siegmund called for him to go to Professor
+Spalanzani's lecture. The curtains before the door of the all-
+important room were closely drawn, so that he could not see Olimpia
+Nor could he even see her from his own room during the two following
+days, notwithstanding that he scarcely ever left his window, and
+maintained a scarce interrupted watch through Coppola's perspective
+upon her room. On the third day curtains even were drawn across the
+window. Plunged into the depths of despair,--goaded by longing and
+ardent desire, he hurried outside the walls of the town. Olimpia's
+image hovered about his path in the air and stepped forth out of the
+bushes, and peeped up at him with large and lustrous eyes from the
+bright surface of the brook. Clara's image was completely faded from
+his mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia He uttered his love-
+plaints aloud and in a lachrymose tone, "Oh! my glorious, noble star
+of love, have you only risen to vanish again, and leave me in the
+darkness and hopelessness of night?"
+Returning home, he became aware that there was a good deal of noisy
+bustle going on in Spalanzani's house. All the doors stood wide open;
+men were taking in all kinds of gear and furniture; the windows of the
+first floor were all lifted off their hinges; busy maid-servants with
+immense hair-brooms were driving backwards and forwards dusting and
+sweeping, whilst within could be heard the knocking and hammering of
+carpenters and upholsterers. Utterly astonished, Nathanael stood still
+in the street; then Siegmund joined him, laughing, and said, "Well,
+what do you say to our old Spalanzani?" Nathanael assured him that he
+could not say anything, since he knew not what it all meant; to his
+great astonishment, he could hear, however, that they were turning the
+quiet gloomy house almost inside out with their dusting and cleaning
+and making of alterations. Then he learned from Siegmund that
+Spalanzani intended giving a great concert and ball on the following
+day, and that half the university was invited. It was generally
+reported that Spalanzani was going to let his daughter Olimpia, whom
+he had so long so jealously guarded from every eye, make her first
+appearance.
+Nathanael received an invitation. At the appointed hour, when the
+carriages were rolling up and the lights were gleaming brightly in the
+decorated halls, he went across to the Professor's, his heart beating
+high with expectation. The company was both numerous and brilliant.
+Olimpia was richly and tastefully dressed. One could not but admire
+her figure and the regular beauty of her features. The striking inward
+curve of her back, as well as the wasp-like smallness of her waist,
+appeared to be the result of too-tight lacing. There was something
+stiff and measured in her gait and bearing that made an unfavourable
+impression upon many; it was ascribed to the constraint imposed upon
+her by the company. The concert began. Olimpia played on the piano
+with great skill; and sang as skilfully an aria di bravura, in a voice
+which was, if anything, almost too sharp, but clear as glass bells.
+Nathanael was transported with delight; he stood in the background
+farthest from her, and owing to the blinding lights could not quite
+distinguish her features. So, without being observed, he took
+Coppola's glass out of his pocket, and directed it upon the beautiful
+Olimpia. Oh! then he perceived how her yearning eyes sought him, how
+every note only reached its full purity in the loving glance which
+penetrated to and inflamed his heart. Her artificial roulades seemed
+to him to be the exultant cry towards heaven of the soul refined by
+love; and when at last, after the cadenza, the long trill rang shrilly
+and loudly through the hall, he felt as if he were suddenly grasped by
+burning arms and could no longer control himself,--he could not help
+shouting aloud in his mingled pain and delight, "Olimpia!" All eyes
+were turned upon him; many people laughed. The face of the cathedral
+organist wore a still more gloomy look than it had done before, but
+all he said was, "Very well!"
-SANDMAK. 147
+The concert came to an end, and the ball began. Oh! to dance with
+her--with her--that was now the aim of all Nathanael's wishes, of all
+his desires. But how should he have courage to request her, the queen
+of the ball, to grant him the honour of a dance? And yet he couldn't
+tell how it came about, just as the dance began, he found himself
+standing close beside her, nobody having as yet asked her to be his
+partner; so, with some difficulty stammering out a few words, he
+grasped her hand. It was cold as ice; he shook with an awful, frosty
+shiver. But, fixing his eyes upon her face, he saw that her glance was
+beaming upon him with love and longing, and at the same moment he
+thought that the pulse began to beat in her cold hand, and the warm
+life-blood to course through her veins. And passion burned more
+intensely in his own heart also, he threw his arm round her beautiful
+waist and whirled her round the hall. He had always thought that he
+kept good and accurate time in dancing, but from the perfectly
+rhythmical evenness with which Olimpia danced, and which frequently
+put him quite out, he perceived how very faulty his own time really
+was. Notwithstanding, he would not dance with any other lady; and
+everybody else who approached Olimpia to call upon her for a dance, he
+would have liked to kill on the spot. This, however, only happened
+twice; to his astonishment Olimpia remained after this without a
+partner, and he failed not on each occasion to take her out again. If
+Nathanael had been able to see anything else except the beautiful
+Olimpia, there would inevitably have been a good deal of unpleasant
+quarrelling and strife; for it was evident that Olimpia was the object
+of the smothered laughter only with difficulty suppressed, which was
+heard in various corners amongst the young people; and they followed
+her with very curious looks, but nobody knew for what reason.
+Nathanael, excited by dancing and the plentiful supply of wine he had
+consumed, had laid aside the shyness which at other times
+characterised him. He sat beside Olimpia, her hand in his own, and
+declared his love enthusiastically and passionately in words which
+neither of them understood, neither he nor Olimpia. And yet she
+perhaps did, for she sat with her eyes fixed unchangeably upon his,
+sighing repeatedly, "Ach! Ach! Ach!" Upon this Nathanael would answer,
+"Oh, you glorious heavenly lady! You ray from the promised paradise of
+love! Oh! what a profound soul you have! my whole being is mirrored in
+it!" and a good deal more in the same strain. But Olimpia only
+continued to sigh "Ach! Ach!" again and again.
-mind, and that the actual external world had little to do with them.
+Professor Spalanzani passed by the two happy lovers once or twice, and
-Old Coppelius may have been repulsive enough, but his hatred of
+smiled with a look of peculiar satisfaction. All at once it seemed to
-children was what really caused the abhorrence of your children to-
+Nathanael, albeit he was far away in a different world, as if it were
-wards him.
+growing perceptibly darker down below at Professor Spalanzani's. He
+looked about him, and to his very great alarm became aware that there
+were only two lights left burning in the hall, and they were on the
+point of going out. The music and dancing had long ago ceased. "We
+must part--part!" he cried, wildly and despairingly; he kissed
+Olimpia's hand; he bent down to her mouth, but ice-cold lips met his
+burning ones. As he touched her cold hand, he felt his heart thrilled
+with awe; the legend of "The Dead Bride"(9) shot suddenly through his
+mind. But Olimpia had drawn him closer to her, and the kiss appeared
+to warm her lips into vitality. Professor Spalanzani strode slowly
+through the empty apartment, his footsteps giving a hollow echo; and
+his figure had, as the flickering shadows played about him, a ghostly,
+awful appearance. "Do you love me? Do you love me, Olimpia? Only one
+little word--Do you love me?" whispered Nathanael, but she only
+sighed, "Ach! Ach!" as she rose to her feet. "Yes, you are my lovely,
+glorious star of love," said Nathanael, "and will shine for ever,
+purifying and ennobling my heart." "Ach! Ach!" replied Olimpia, as she
+moved along. Nathanael followed her; they stood before the Professor.
+"You have had an extraordinarily animated conversation with my
+daughter," said he, smiling; "well, well, my dear Mr. Nathanael, if
+you find pleasure in talking to the stupid girl, I am sure I shall be
+glad for you to come and do so." Nathanael took his leave, his heart
+singing and leaping in a perfect delirium of happiness.
-In your childish mind the frightful sandman in the nursed tale was
+(9) [[Phlegon]], the freedman of Hadrian, relates that a young maiden,
-naturally associated with old Coppelius, who, even if you had not be-
+Philemium, the daughter of Philostratus and Charitas, became deeply
-lieved in the sandman, would still have been a spectral monster,
+enamoured of a young man, named Machates, a guest in the house of her
-especially dangerous to children. The awful nightly occupation with
+father. This did not meet with the approbation of her parents, and
-your father, was no more than this, that both secretly made alchemi-
+they turned Machates away. The young maiden took this so much to heart
-cal experiments, and with these your mother w r as constantlydissatis-
+that she pined away and died. Some time afterwards Machates returned
-ficd, since besides a great deal of money being uselessly wasted, your
+to his old lodgings, when he was visited at night by his beloved, who
-father's mind being filled with a fallacious desire after higher wisdom
+came from the grave to see him again. The story may be read in
-was alienated from his family as they say, is always the case with
+Heywood's (Thos.) "Hierarchie of Blessed Angels," Book vii, p. 479
-such experimenalists. Your father no doubt, by some act of care-
+(London, 1637). Goethe has made this story the foundation of his
-lessness, occasioned his own death, of which Coppelius was com-
+beautiful poem Die Braut von Korinth, with which form of it Hoffmann
-pletely guiltless. Would you believe it, that I yesterday asked our
+was most likely familiar.
-neighbour, the clever apothecary, whether such a sudden and fatal ex-
-plosion was possible in such chemical experiments? "Certainly,"
-he replied, and in his way told me at great length and very cir-
-cumstantially how such an event might take place, uttering a num-
-ber of strange-sounding names, which I am unable to recollect.
-Now, I know you will be angry with your Clara ; you will say that
-her cold disposition is impenetrable to every ray of the mysterious,
-which often embraces man with invisible arms, that she only sees the
-varigated surface of the world, and has the delight of a silly child, at
-some gold-glittering fruit, which contains within it a deadly poison.
-Ah ! my dear Nathaniel ! Do you not then believe that even
-in free, cheerful, careless minds, here may dwell the suspicion of
-some dread power, which endeavours to destroy us in our own
-selves? Forgive me, if I, a silly girl, presume in any manner to
-indicate, what I really think of such an internal struggle; I shall not
-find out the right words after all, and you will laugh at me, not be-
-cause my thoughts arc foolish, but because I set about so clumsily to
-express them.
-If there is a dark power, which with such enmity and treachery
+During the next few days Spalanzani's ball was the general topic of
-lays a thread within us, by which it holds us fast, and draws us
+conversation. Although the Professor had done everything to make the
-along a path of peril and destruction, which we should not other-
+thing a splendid success, yet certain gay spirits related more than
-wise have trod; if, I say, there is such a power, it must form itself
+one thing that had occurred which was quite irregular and out of
-within us, or from ourselves; indeed, become identical with our-
+order. They were especially keen in pulling Olimpia to pieces for her
-selves, for it is only in this condition that we can believe in it, and
+taciturnity and rigid stiffness; in spite of her beautiful form they
-grant it the room which it requires, to accomplish its secret work.
+alleged that she was hopelessly stupid, and in this fact they
-Now, if we have a mind, which is sufficiently firm, sufficiently
+discerned the reason why Spalanzani had so long kept her concealed
-strengthened by cheerful life, always to recognise this strange hos-
+from publicity. Nathanael heard all this with inward wrath, but
-tile operation as such, and calmly to follow the path which be-
+nevertheless he held his tongue; for, thought he, would it indeed be
-longs to our inclination and calling, then will the dark power fail in
+worth while to prove to these fellows that it is their own stupidity
-its attempt to gain a power, that shall be a reflection of ourselves.
+which prevents them from appreciating Olimpia's profound and brilliant
-Lothaire adds that it is certain, that the dark physical power, if of our
+parts? One day Siegmund said to him, "Pray, brother, have the kindness
-own accord, we have yielded ourselves up to it, often draws within us
+to tell me how you, a sensible fellow, came to lose your head over
+that Miss Wax-face--that wooden doll across there?" Nathanael was
+about to fly into a rage, but he recollected himself and replied,
+"Tell me, Siegmund, how came it that Olimpia's divine charms could
+escape your eye, so keenly alive as it always is to beauty, and your
+acute perception as well? But Heaven be thanked for it, otherwise I
+should have had you for a rival, and then the blood of one of us would
+have had to be spilled." Siegmund, perceiving how matters stood with
+his friend, skilfully interposed and said, after remarking that all
+argument with one in love about the object of his affections was out
+of place, "Yet it's very strange that several of us have formed pretty
+much the same opinion about Olimpia We think she is--you won't take it
+ill, brother?--that she is singularly statuesque and soulless. Her
+figure is regular, and so are her features, that can't be gainsaid;
+and if her eyes were not so utterly devoid of life, I may say, of the
+power of vision, she might pass for a beauty. She is strangely
+measured in her movements, they all seem as if they were dependent
+upon some wound-up clock-work. Her playing and singing has the
+disagreeably perfect, but insensitive time of a singing machine, and
+her dancing is the same. We felt quite afraid of this Olimpia, and did
+not like to have anything to do with her; she seemed to us to be only
+acting like a living creature, and as if there was some secret at the
+bottom of it all." Nathanael did not give way to the bitter feelings
+which threatened to master him at these words of Siegmund's; he fought
+down and got the better of his displeasure, and merely said, very
+earnestly, "You cold prosaic fellows may very well be afraid of her.
+It is only to its like that the poetically organised spirit unfolds
+itself. Upon me alone did her loving glances fall, and through my mind
+and thoughts alone did they radiate; and only in her love can I find
+my own self again. Perhaps, however, she doesn't do quite right not to
+jabber a lot of nonsense and stupid talk like other shallow people. It
+is true, she speaks but few words; but the few words she does speak
+are genuine hieroglyphs of the inner world of Love and of the higher
+cognition of the intellectual life revealed in the intuition of the
+Eternal beyond the grave. But you have no understanding for all these
+things, and I am only wasting words." "God be with you, brother," said
+Siegmund very gently, almost sadly, "but it seems to me that you are
+in a very bad way. You may rely upon me, if all--No, I can't say any
+more." It all at once dawned upon Nathanael that his cold prosaic
+friend Siegmund really and sincerely wished him well, and so he warmly
+shook his proffered hand.
-L2
+Nathanael had completely forgotten that there was a Clara in the
+world, whom he had once loved--and his mother and Lothair. They had
+all vanished from his mind; he lived for Olimpia alone. He sat beside
+her every day for hours together, rhapsodising about his love and
+sympathy enkindled into life, and about psychic elective
+affinity(10)--all of which Olimpia listened to with great reverence.
+He fished up from the very bottom of his desk all the things that he
+had ever written--poems, fancy sketches, visions, romances, tales, and
+the heap was increased daily with all kinds of aimless sonnets,
+stanzas, canzonets. All these he read to Olimpia hour after hour
+without growing tired; but then he had never had such an exemplary
+listener. She neither embroidered, nor knitted; she did not look out
+of the window, or feed a bird, or play with a little pet dog or a
+favourite cat, neither did she twist a piece of paper or anything of
+that kind round her finger; she did not forcibly convert a yawn into a
+low affected cough--in short, she sat hour after hour with her eyes
+bent unchangeably upon her lover's face, without moving or altering
+her position, and her gaze grew more ardent and more ardent still. And
+it was only when at last Nathanael rose and kissed her lips or her
+hand that she said, "Ach! Ach!" and then "Good-night, dear." Arrived
+in his own room, Nathanael would break out with, "Oh! what a
+brilliant--what a profound mind! Only you--you alone understand me."
+And his heart trembled with rapture when he reflected upon the
+wondrous harmony which daily revealed itself between his own and his
+Olimpia's character; for he fancied that she had expressed in respect
+to his works and his poetic genius the identical sentiments which he
+himself cherished deep down in his own heart in respect to the same,
+and even as if it was his own heart's voice speaking to him. And it
+must indeed have been so; for Olimpia never uttered any other words
+than those already mentioned. And when Nathanael himself in his clear
+and sober moments, as, for instance, directly after waking in a
+morning, thought about her utter passivity and taciturnity, he only
+said, "What are words--but words? The glance of her heavenly eyes says
+more than any tongue of earth And how can, anyway, a child of heaven
+accustom herself to the narrow circle which the exigencies of a
+wretched mundane life demand?"
+(10) This phrase (Die Wahlverwandschaft in German) has been made
+celebrated as the title of one of Goethe's works.
+Professor Spalanzani appeared to be greatly pleased at the intimacy
+that had sprung up between his daughter Olimpia and Nathanael, and
+showed the young man many unmistakable proofs of his good feeling
+towards him; and when Nathanael ventured at length to hint very
+delicately at an alliance with Olimpia, the Professor smiled all over
+his face at once, and said he should allow his daughter to make a
+perfectly free choice. Encouraged by these words, and with the fire of
+desire burning in his heart, Nathanael resolved the very next day to
+implore Olimpia to tell him frankly, in plain words, what he had long
+read in her sweet loving glances,--that she would be his for ever. He
+looked for the ring which his mother had given him at parting; he
+would present it to Olimpia as a symbol of his devotion, and of the
+happy life he was to lead with her from that time onwards. Whilst
+looking for it he came across his letters from Clara and Lothair; he
+threw them carelessly aside, found the ring, put it in his pocket, and
+ran across to Olimpia Whilst still on the stairs, in the entrance-
+passage, he heard an extraordinary hubbub; the noise seemed to proceed
+from Spalanzani's study. There was a stamping--a rattling--pushing--
+knocking against the door, with curses and oaths intermingled. "Leave
+hold--leave hold--you monster--you rascal--slaked your life and honour
+upon it.?--Ha! ha! ha! ha!--That was not our wager--I, I made the
+eyes--I the clock-work.--Go to the devil with your clock-work--you
+damned dog of a watch-maker--be off--Satan--stop--you paltry turner--
+you infernal beast!--stop--begone--let me go." The voices which were
+thus making all this racket and rumpus were those of Spalanzani and
+the fearsome Coppelius. Nathanael rushed in, impelled by some nameless
+dread. The Professor was grasping a female figure by the shoulders,
+the Italian Coppola held her by the feet; and they were pulling and
+dragging each other backwards and forwards, fighting furiously to get
+possession of her. Nathanael recoiled with horror on recognising that
+the figure was Olimpia Boiling with rage, he was about to tear his
+beloved from the grasp of the madmen, when Coppola by an extraordinary
+exertion of strength twisted the figure out of the Professor's hands
+and gave him such a terrible blow with her, that he reeled backwards
+and fell over the table all amongst the phials and retorts, the
+bottles and glass cylinders, which covered it: all these things were
+smashed into a thousand pieces. But Coppola threw the figure across
+his shoulder, and, laughing shrilly and horribly, ran hastily down the
+stairs, the figure's ugly feet hanging down and banging and rattling
+like wood against the steps. Nathanael was stupefied,--he had seen
+only too distinctly that in Olimpia's pallid waxed face there were no
+eyes, merely black holes in their stead; she was an inanimate puppet.
+Spalanzani was rolling on the floor; the pieces of glass had cut his
+head and breast and arm; the blood was escaping from him in streams.
+But he gathered his strength together by an effort.
-THE SANDMAN*
+"After him--after him! What do you stand staring there for?
+Coppelius--Coppelius--he's stolen my best automaton--at which I've
+worked for twenty years--staked my life upon it--the clock-work--
+speech--movement--mine--your eyes--stolen your eyes--damn him--curse
+him--after him--fetch me back Olimpia--there are the eyes." And now
+Nathanael saw a pair of bloody eyes lying on the floor staring at him;
+Spalanzani seized them with his uninjured hand and threw them at him,
+so that they hit his breast. Then madness dug her burning talons into
+him and swept down into his heart, rending his mind and thoughts to
+shreds.
-some strange form, which the external world has thrown in our way,
+"Aha! aha! aha! Fire-wheel--fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-wheel!
-so that we ourselves kindle the spirit, which, as we in our strange de-
+merrily, merrily! Aha! wooden doll! spin round, pretty wooden doll!"
-lusion believe, speaks to us in that form. It is the phantom of our
+and he threw himself upon the Professor, clutching him fast by the
-own selves, the close relationship with which, and its deep operation on
+throat. He would certainly have strangled him had not several people,
-our mind casts us into hell, or transports us into heaven. You see,
+attracted by the noise, rushed in and torn away the madman; and so
-dear Nathaniel, that I and my brother Lothaire have freely given
+they saved the Professor, whose wounds were immediately dressed.
-our opinion on the subject of dark powers, which subject, now I find
+Siegmund, with all his strength, was not able to subdue the frantic
-I have not been able to write down the chief part without trouble,
+lunatic, who continued to scream in a dreadful way, "Spin round,
-appears to me somewhat deep. Lothaire's last words I do not quite
+wooden doll!" and to strike out right and left with his doubled fists.
-comprehend. I can only suspect what he means, and yet I feel as if
+At length the united strength of several succeeded in overpowering him
-it were all very true. I beg of you, get the ugly advocate, Coppelius,
+by throwing him on the floor and binding him. His cries passed into a
-and the barometer-seller, Giuseppe Coppola, quite out of your head.
+brutish bellow that was awful to hear; and thus raging with the
-Be convinced that these strange fears have no power over you, and
+harrowing violence of madness, he was taken away to the madhouse.
-that it is only a belief in their hostile influence that can make them
-hostile in reality. " If the great excitement of your mind did not speak
-from every line of your letter, if your situation did not give me the
-deepest pain, I could joke about the Sandman -Advocate, and the
-barometer-seller, Coppelius. Be cheerful, I have determined to ap-
-pear before you as your guardian-spirit, and if the ugly Coppelius
-takes it in his head to annoy you in your dreams, to scare him away
-with loud peals of laughter. I am not a bit afraid of him nor of his
-disgusting hands; he shall neither spoil my sweetmeats as an ad-
-vocate, nor my eyes as a sandman. Ever yours, my dear Nathaniel.
-NATHANIEL TO LOTHAIRE.
+Before continuing my narration of what happened further to the
+unfortunate Nathanael, I will tell you, indulgent reader, in case you
+take any interest in that skilful mechanician and fabricator of
+automata, Spalanzani, that he recovered completely from his wounds. He
+had, however, to leave the university, for Nathanael's fate had
+created a great sensation; and the opinion vas pretty generally
+expressed that it was an imposture altogether unpardonable to have
+smuggled a wooden puppet instead of a living person into intelligent
+tea-circles,--for Olimpia had been present at several with success
+Lawyers called it a cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to
+punish since it was directed against the public; and it had been so
+craftily contrived that it had escaped unobserved by all except a few
+preternaturally acute students, although everybody was very wise how
+and remembered to have thought of several facts which occurred to them
+as suspicious. But these latter could not succeed in making out any
+sort of a consistent tale. For was it, for instance, a thing likely to
+occur to any one as suspicious that, according to the declaration of
+an elegant beau of these tea-parties, Olimpia had, contrary to all
+good manners, sneezed oftener than she had yawned? The former must
+have been, in the opinion of this elegant gentleman, the winding up of
+the concealed clock-work; it had always been accompanied by an
+observable creaking, and so on. The Professor of Poetry and Eloquence
+took a pinch of snuff, and, slapping the lid to and clearing his
+throat, said solemnly, "My most honourable ladies and gentlemen, don't
+you see then where the rub is? The whole thing is an allegory, a
+continuous metaphor. You understand me? Sapienti sat." But several
+most honourable gentlemen did not rest satisfied with this
+explanation; the history of this automaton had sunk deeply into their
+souls, and an absurd mistrust of human figures began to prevail.
+Several lovers, in order to be fully convinced that they were not
+paying court to a wooden puppet, required that their mistress should
+sing and dance a little out of time, should embroider or knit or play
+with her little pug, c., when being read to, but above all things else
+that she should do something more than merely listen--that she should
+frequently speak in such a way as to really show that her words
+presupposed as a condition some thinking and feeling. The bonds of
+love were in many cases drawn closer in consequence, and so of course
+became more engaging; in other instances they gradually relaxed and
+fell away. "I cannot really be made responsible for it," was the
+remark of more than one young gallant. At the tea-gatherings
+everybody, in order to ward off suspicion, yawned to an incredible
+extent and never sneezed. Spalanzani was obliged, as has been said, to
+leave the place in order to escape a criminal charge of having
+fraudulently imposed an automaton upon human society. Coppola, too,
+had also disappeared.
-I am very sorry that in consequence of the error occasioned by my
+When Nathanael awoke he felt as if he had been oppressed by a terrible
-wandering state of mind, Clara broke open the letter intended for
+nightmare; he opened his eyes and experienced an indescribable
-you, and read it. She has written me a very profound philosophical
+sensation of mental comfort, whilst a soft and most beautiful
-epistle, in which she proves, at great length, that Coppelius and Cop-
+sensation of warmth pervaded his body. He lay on his own bed in his
-pola only exist in my own mind, and are phantoms of myself, which
+own room at home; Clara was bending over him, and at a little distance
-will be dissipated directly I recognise them as such. Indeed, one could
+stood his mother and Lothair. "At last, at last, O my darling
-not believe that the mind which often peers out of those bright,
+Nathanael; now we have you again; now you are cured of your grievous
-smiling, childish eyes, like a sweet charming dream, could define with
+illness, now you are mine again." And Clara's words came from the
-such intelligence, in such a professor-like manner. She appeals to
+depths of her heart; and she clasped him in her arms. The bright
-you you, it seems have been talking about me. I suppose you read
+scalding tears streamed from his eyes, he was so overcome with mingled
-her logical lectures, that she may learn to divide and sift every thing
+feelings of sorrow and delight; and he gasped forth, "My Clara, my
-acutely. Pray leave it off. Besides it is quite certain that the
+Clara!" Siegmund, who had staunchly stood by his friend in his hour of
-barometer-dealer, Guiseppc Coppola, is not the advocate Coppelius.
+need, now came into the room. Nathanael gave him his hand--"My
-I attend the lectures of the professor of physics, who has lately ar-
+faithful brother, you have not deserted me." Every trace of insanity
-rived. His name is the same as that of the famous natural philo-
+had left him, and in the tender hands of his mother and his beloved,
-sopher, Spalanzani, and he is of Italian origin. He has known
+and his friends, he quickly recovered his strength again. Good fortune
-Coppola for years, and moreover it is clear from his accent that he
+had in the meantime visited the house; a niggardly old uncle, from
-is really a Piedmontesc. Coppelius was a German, but I think no
+whom they had never expected to get anything, had died, and left
-honest one. Calmed I am not, and though vou and Clara may
+Nathanael's mother not only a considerable fortune, but also a small
-consider me a gloomy visionary, I cannot get rid of the impression,
+estate, pleasantly situated not far from the town. There they resolved
-which the accursed face of Coppelius makes upon me. I am glad
+to go and live, Nathanael and his mother, and Clara, to whom he was
-that Coppola has left the town, as Spalanzani says. This professor
+now to be married, and Lothair. Nathanael was become gentler and more
-is a strange fellow a little round man, with high cheek bones,
+childlike than he had ever been before, and now began really to
+understand Clara's supremely pure and noble character.
+None of them ever reminded him, even in the remotest degree, of the
+past. But when Siegmund took leave of him, he said, "By heaven,
+brother! I was in a bad way, but an angel came just at the right
+moment and led me back upon the path of light. Yes, it was Clara."
+Siegmund would not let him speak further, fearing lest the painful
+recollections of the past might arise too vividly and too intensely in
+his mind.
+The time came for the four happy people to move to their little
+property. At noon they were going through the streets. After making
+several purchases they found that the lofty tower of the town-house
+was throwing its giant shadows across the market-place. "Come," said
+Clara, "let us go up to the top once more and have a look at the
+distant hills." No sooner said than done. Both of them, Nathanael and
+Clara, went up the tower; their mother, however, went on with the
+servant-girl to her new home, and Lothair, not feeling inclined to
+climb up all the many steps, waited below. There the two lovers stood
+arm-in-arm on the topmost gallery of the tower, and gazed out into the
+sweet scented wooded landscape, beyond which the blue hills rose up
+like a giant's city.
-<sor I
+"Oh! do look at that strange little grey bush, it looks as if it were
+actually walking towards us," said Clara. Mechanically he put his hand
+into his sidepocket; he found Coppola's perspective and looked for the
+bush; Clara stood in front of the glass. Then a convulsive thrill shot
+through his pulse and veins; pale as a corpse, he fixed his staring
+eyes upon her; but soon they began to roll, and a fiery current
+flashed and sparkled in them, and he yelled fearfully, like a hunted
+animal. Leaping up high in the air and laughing horribly at the same
+time, he began to shout, in a piercing voice, "Spin round, wooden
+doll! Spin round, wooden doll!" With the strength of a giant he laid
+hold upon Clara and tried to hurl her over, but in an agony of despair
+she clutched fast hold of the railing that went round the gallery.
+Lothair heard the madman raging and Clara's scream of terror: a
+fearful presentiment flashed across his mind. He ran up the steps; the
+door of the second flight was locked Clara's scream for help rang out
+more loudly. Mad with rage and fear, he threw himself against the
+door, which at length gave way. Clara's cries were growing fainter and
+fainter,--"Help! save me! save me!" and her voice died away in the
+air. "She is killed--murdered by that madman," shouted Lothair. The
+door to the gallery was also locked. Despair gave him the strength of
+a giant; he burst the door off its hinges. Good God! there was Clara
+in the grasp of the madman Nathanael, hanging over the gallery in the
+air; she only held to the iron bar with one hand. Quick as lightning,
+Lothair seized his sister and pulled her back, at the same time
+dealing the madman a blow in the face with his doubled fist, which
+sent him reeling backwards, forcing him to let go his victim.
-"
+Lothair ran down with his insensible sister in his arms. She was
+saved. But Nathanael ran round and round the gallery, leaping up in
+the air and shouting, "Spin round, fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-
+wheel!" The people heard the wild shouting, and a crowd began to
+gather. In the midst of them towered the advocate Coppelius, like a
+giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone straight to
+the market-place. Some were going up to overpower and take charge of
+the madman, but Coppelius laughed and said, "Ha! ha! wait a bit; he'll
+come down of his own accord;" and he stood gazing upwards along with
+the rest. All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he bent
+down over the railing, and perceived Coppelius. With a piercing
+scream, "Ha! foine oyes! foine oyes!" he leapt over.
+When Nathanael lay on the stone pavement with a broken head, Coppelius
+had disappeared in the crush and confusion.
+Several years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a
+pretty country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting
+hand in hand with a pleasant gentleman, whilst two bright boys were
+playing at her feet. From this it may be concluded that she eventually
+found that quiet domestic happiness which her cheerful, blithesome
+character required, and which Nathanael, with his tempest-tossed soul,
+could never have been able to give her.
-THE SANDMAN. 149
-sharp nose, pouting lips, and little piercing eyes. Yet you will get
-a better notion of him than by this description, if you look at the
-portrait of Cagliostro, designed by Chodowiecki, in one of the Berlin
-annuals, Spalanzani looks like that exactly. I lately went up stairs,
-and perceived that the curtain, which was generally drawn com-
-pletely over a glass door, left a little opening on one side. I know
-not what curiosity impelled me to look through, a tall and very
-slender lady most symmetrically formed, and most splendidly attired,
-sat in the room by a little table on which she had laid her arms, her
-hands being folded together. She sat opposite to the door, so that
-I could completely see her angelic countenance. She did not appear
-to see me, and indeed there was something fixed about her eyes as if,
-I might almost say, she had no power of sight. It seemed to me
-that she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt very uncomfortable,
-and therefore I slunk away into the auditorium, which was close at
-hand. Afterwards I learned that the form I had seen was that of
-Spalanzanfs daughter Olympia, whom he kept confined in a very
-strange and improper manner, so that no one could approach her.
-After all, there may be something the matter with her; she is silly
-perhaps, or something of the kind. But why should I write you all
-this? I could have conveyed it better and more circumstantially by
-word of mouth. Know that I shall see you in a fortnight. I must
-again behold my dear; sweet, angelic Clara. The ill-humour will
-then be dispersed, which, I must confess, has endeavoured to get
-the mastery over me, since that fatal, sensible letter. Therefore I
-do not write to her to-day. A thousand greetings, &c.
-Nothing more strange and chimerical can be imagined than that
-which occurred to my poor friend, the young student Nathaniel,
-and which I, gracious reader, have undertaken to tell you. Have
-you, kind reader, ever known a something that has completely filled
-your heart, thoughts, and senses, so as to exclude every thing else?
-There was in you a fermentation and a boiling, and your blood in-
-ilamcd to the hottest glow bounded through your veins, and gave a
-higher colour to your cheeks. Your glance was so strange, as if you
-wished to perceive, in empty space, forms which to no other eyes
-are visible, and your, speech flowed away into dark sighs. Then
-your friends asked you: "What is it, revered one?" " What is
-the matter, dear one." And now you wished to express the inter-
-nal picture with all its glowing tints, with all its light and shade,
-and laboured hard to find words only to begin. You thought that
-in the very first word you ought to crowd together all the wonderful,
-noble, horrible, comical, frightful, that had happened, so that it
-might strike all the hearers at once like an electric shock. But
-every word, every thing that is in the form of speech, appeared to
-you colourless, cold and dead. You hunt and hunt, and stutter
-THE SANDMAN.
-and stammer, and tlic sober questions of your friends dart like icy
-breezes upon your internal fire until it is ready to go out; whereas
-if, like a bold painter, you had first with a few daring strokes
-drawn an outline of the internal picture, you might with small
-trouble have laid on the colours brighter and brighter, and the
-living throng of various forms would have carried your friends along
-with it, and they, like you, would have seen themselves in the pic-
-ture that had proceeded from your mind. Now I must confess to
-you, kind reader, that no one has really asked me for the history
-of the young Nathaniel, but you know well enough that I belong
-to the queer race of authors, who, if they have any thing in their
-mind, such as I have just described, feel as if every one who comes
-near them, and indeed perhaps the whole world besides, is asking
-them: "What is it then tell it, my dear friend?" Thus was I
-forcibly compelled to tell you of the momentous life of Nathaniel.
-The singularity and marvellousness of the story filled my entire soul,
-but for that very reason and because, my reader, I had to make you
-equally inclined to endure oddity, which is no small matter, I
-tormented myself to begin the history of Nathaniel in a manner as
-inspiring, original and striking as possible. " Once upon a time,"
-the beautiful beginning of every tale, was too tame. " In the little
-provincial town of S lived" was somewhat better, as it at least
-prepared for the climax. Or should I dart at once medias in res,
-with " Go to the devil, cried the student Nathaniel with rage and
-horror in his wild looks, when the barometer-seller, Guiseppe Cop-
-pola?" I had indeed already written this down, when I fancied that
-in the wild looks of the student Nathaniel, I could detect something
-ludicrous, whereas the story is not comical at all. No form of lan-
-guage suggested itself to my mind, which even in the slightest
-degree seemed to reflect the colouring of the internal picture. I
-resolved that I would not begin it at all. So take, gentle reader, the
-three letters, which friend Lothaire was good enough to give me, as
-the sketch of the picture which I shall endeavour to colour more and
-more as I proceed in my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-
-painter, I may succeed in catching many a form in such a manner,
-that you will find it is a likeness without having the original, and
-feel as if you had often seen the person with your own corporeal
-eyes. Perchance, dear reader, you will then believe that nothing
-is stranger and madder than actual life, and that this is all that the
-poet can conceive, as it were in the dull reflection of a dimly polished
-mirror.
-In order that that which it is necessary in the first place to know,
-may be made clearer, we must add to these letters the circumstance,
-that shortly after the death of Nathaniel's father, Clara and Lothaire,
-the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died, and left
-them orphans, were taken by Nathaniel's mother to her own home.
-Clara and Nathaniel formed a strong attachment for each other, and
-no one in the world having any objection to make, they were be-
-THE SANDMAN. 151
-trotlied, when Nathaniel left tlie place to pursue his studies in
-G . He is, according to the date of his last letter, hearing the
-lectures of the celebrated professor of physics, Spalanzani.
-Now I could proceed in my story with confidence, but at this
-moment Clara's image stands so plainly before me, that I cannot
-look another way, as indeed was always the case when she gazed at me,
-with one of her lively smiles. Clara could not by any means be
-reckoned beautiful ; that was the opinion of all who are competent
-judges of beauty, by their calling. Nevertheless, the architects
-praised the exact symmetry of her frame, and the painters considered
-her neck, shoulders, and bosom almost too chastely formed, but then
-they all fell in love with her wondrous Magdalen-hair, and above
-every thing prated about battonisch colouring. One of them, a
-most fantastical fellow, singularly compared Clara's eyes to a lake
-by Ruysdael, in which the pure azure of a cloudless sky, the wood
-and flowery field, the whole cheerful life of the rich landscape are
-reflected. Poets and composers went still further. " What is a
-lake what is a mirror!" said they, " can we look upon the girl
-without wondrous, heavenly songs and tunes flashing towards us
-from her glances, and penetrating our inmost soul, so that all there
-is awakened and stirred. If even then we sing nothing that is really
-sensible, there is not much in us, and that we can feelingly read in
-the delicate smile which plays on Clara's lips, when we presume to
-tinkle something before her, which is to pass for a song, although it
-is only a confused jumble of tones." So it was. Clara had the
-vivid fancy of a cheerful, unembarrassed child, a deep, tender, fe-
-minine disposition, an acute, clever understanding. The misty
-dreams had but a bad chance with her, since, though she did not
-talk, as indeed talking would have been altogether repugnant to
-her tacit nature, her bright glance and her firm ironical smile would
-say to them: " Good friends, how canyon imagine that I shall take
-your fleeting shadowy images for real forms with life and motion?"
-On this account Clara was censured by many as cold, unfeeling and
-prosaic; while others, who conceived life in its clear depth, greatly
-loved the feeling, acute, childlike girl, but none so much as Natha-
-niel, whose perception in art and science was clear and strong.
-Clara was attached to her lover with all her soul, and when he
-parted from her, the first cloud passed over her life. With what
-transport did she rush into his arms when, as he had promised
-in his last letter to Lothaire, he had actually returned to his native
-town and entered his mother's room. Nathaniel's expectations were
-completely fulfilled; for directly he saw Clara he thought neither
-of the Advocate Coppelius, nor of her " sensible" letter. All gloomy
-forebodings had gone.
-However, Nathaniel was quite right, when he wrote to his friend
-Lothaire that the form of the repulsive barometer-seller, Coppola, had
-had a most hostile effect on his life. All felt, even in the first days,
-that Nathaniel had undergone a thorough change in his whole tern-
-THE SANDMAN.
-perament. He sank into a gloomy reverie , and conducted himself in a
-strange manner, that had never been known in him before. Every
-thing, his whole life, had become to him a dream and a foreboding,
-and he was always saying that every man, although he might think
-himself free, only served for the cruel sport of dark powers. These
-he said it was vain to resist, and man must patiently resign himself
-to his fate. He went even so far as to say, that it is foolish to
-think that we do any thing in art and science according to our own
-self-acting will, for the inspiration which alone enables us to produce
-any thing, does not proceed from within ourselves, but is the effect
-of a higher principle without.
-To the clear-headed Clara this mysticism was in the highest
-degree repugnant, but contradiction appeared to be useless. Only
-when Nathaniel proved that Coppelius was the evil principle, which
-had seized him at the moment when he was listening behind the
-curtain, and that this repugnant principle would in some horrible
-manner disturb the happiness of their life, Clara grew very serious,
-and said: " Yes, Nathaniel, you are right. Coppelius is an evil, hos-
-tile principle; he can produce terrible effects, like a diabolical power
-that has come invisibly into life; but only then, when you will not
-banish him from your mind and thoughts. So long as you believe
-in him he really exists, and exerts his influence ; only your belief is
-his power."
-Nathaniel, quite indignant that Clara established the demon's
-existence only in his own mind, would then come out with all the
-mystical doctrine of devils and fearful powers. But Clara would
-break off peevishly, by introducing some indifferent matter, to the
-no small annoyance of Nathaniel. He thought that such deep secrets
-were closed to cold, unsusceptible minds, without being clearly
-aware that he reckoned Clara among these subordinate natures, and
-therefore he constantly endeavoured to initiate her into the mys-
-teries. In the morning, when Clara was getting breakfast ready, he
-stood by her, and read out of all sorts of mystical books, till she
-cried: " But, dear Nathaniel, suppose I blame you as the evil prin-
-ciple, that has a hostile effect upon my coffee? For if to please
-you, I leave every thing standing still, and look in your eyes, while
-you read, my coffee will run into the fire, and none of you will get
-any breakfast."
-Nathaniel closed the book at once, and hurried indignantly to
-his chamber. Once he had a remarkable forte for graceful, lively
-tales, which he wrote down, and to which Clara listened with
-the greatest delight; now, his creations were gloomy, incompre-
-hensible, formless, so that although Clara, out of compassion, did
-not say so, he plainly felt how little she was interested. Nothing
-was more insupportable to Clara than tediousncss; in her looks and
-in her words a mental drowsiness, not to be conquered, was ex-
-pressed. Nathaniel's productions were, indeed, very tedious. His
-indignation at Clara's cold, prosaic disposition, constantly increased,
-THE SANDMAN. 153
-and Clara could not overcome her dislike of Nathaniel's dark,
-gloomy, tedious mysticism, so that they became more and more
-estranged from each other in mind, without perceiving it. The
-form of the ugly Coppelius, as Nathaniel himself was forced to con-
-fess, grew more dim in his fancy, and it often cost him trouble to
-colour with sufficient liveliness in his pictures, when he appeared
-as a ghastly bugbear of fate. At last it struck him that he would
-make the gloomy foreboding, that Coppeliu^s would destroy his hap-
-piness in love, the subject of a poem. He represented himself and
-Clara as united by true love ; but occasionally it seemed as though
-a black hand darted into their life, and tore away some newly-
-springing joy. At last, while they were standing at the altar, the
-hideous Coppelius appeared, and touched Clara's lively eyes. They
-flashed into Nathaniel's heart, like bleeding sparks, scorching and
-burning, when Coppelius caught him, and flung him into a flaming,
-fiery circle, which flew round with the swiftness of the stream, and
-carried him along with it, amid its roaring. The roar is like
-that of the hurricane, when it fiercely lashes the foaming waves,
-which, like black giants with white heads, rise up for the furious
-combat. But through the wild tumult he hears Clara's voice:
-" Can you not, then, see me? Coppelius has deceived you. Those,
-indeed, were not my eyes, which so burned in your breast they
-were glowing drops of your own heart's blood. I have my eyes
-still only look at them!" Nathaniel reflects: "That is Clara,
-and I am hers for ever!" Then it seems to him as though
-thought forcibly entered the fiery circle, which stands still, while
-the noise dully ceases in the dark abyss. Nathaniel looks into
-Clara's eyes, but it is only death that, with Clara's eyes, kindly
-looks on him.
-While Nathaniel composed this poem he was very calm and col-
-lected; he polished and improved every line, and having subjected
-himself to the fetters of metre, he did not rest till all was correct and
-melodious. When at last he had finished and read the poem aloud
-to himself, a wild horror seized him, and he cried out: " Whose
-horrible voice is that?" Soon, however, the whole appeared to him
-a very successful work, and he felt that it must inflame Clara's cold
-temperament, although he did not clearly consider for what Clara
-was to be excited, nor what purpose it would answer to torment
-her with the frightful images which threatened a horrible destiny,
-destructive to their love. Both of them that is to say Nathaniel
-and Clara were sitting in their mother's little garden, Clara very
-cheerful, because Nathaniel, during the three days in which he had
-been writing his poem, had not teased her with his dreams and his
-forebodings. Even Nathaniel spoke livelily and joyfully about plea-
-sant matters, as he used to do formerly, so that Clara said: " Now
-for the first time I have you acrain ! Do you not see that we have
-driven away the ugly Coppelius ?" Then it first struck Nathaniel that
-he had in his pocket the poem, which he had intended to read. He
-THE SANDMAN.
-at once drew the sheets out and began, while Clara, expecting
-something tedious as usual, resigned herself and began quietly to
-knit. But as the dark cloud rose ever blacker and blacker, she let
-the stocking fall and looked full into his face. He was carried along
-unceasingly by his poem, an internal fire deeply reddened his cheeks,
-tears flowed from his eyes. At last when he had concluded, he groaned
-in a state of utter exhaustion, and catching Clara's hand, sighed forth,
-as if melted into the most inconsolable grief: " Oh Clara! Clara 1"
-Clara pressed him gently to her bosom, and said softly, but very so-
-lemnly and sincerely : " Nathaniel, dearest Nathaniel, do throw that
-mad, senseless, insane stuff into the fire 1" Upon this Nathaniel
-sprang up enraged, and thrusting Clara from him, cried: " Thou
-inanimate, accursed automaton !" He ran off; Clara, deeply offended,
-shed bitter tears, and sobbed aloud: " Ah, he has never loved me,
-for he does not understand me." Lothaire entered the arbour; Clara
-was obliged to tell him all that had occurred. He loved his sister
-with all his soul, and every word of her complaint fell like a spark of
-fire into his heart, so that the indignation which he had long har-
-boured against the visionary Nathaniel, now broke out into the wildest
-rage. He ran to Nathaniel and reproached him for his senseless con-
-duct towards his beloved sister in hard words, which the infuriated
-Nathaniel retorted in the same style. The appellation of" fantastical,
-mad fool," was answered by that of" miserable common-place fellow."
-A duel was inevitable. They agreed on the following morning,
-according to the academical custom of the place, to fight with sharp
-rapiers behind the garden. Silently and gloomily they slunk about.
-Clara had overheard the violent dispute, and seeing the fencing-
-master bring the rapiers at dawn, guessed what was to occur. Hav-
-ing reached the place of combat, Lothaire and Nathaniel had in
-gloomy silence flung off their coats, and with the fierce desire of fight-
-ing in their flaming eyes, were about to fall upon one another,
-when Clara rushed through the garden door. Sobbing, she cried
-aloud, "Ye wild cruel men! Strike me down before you attack
-each other, for how shall I live longer in the world if my lover mur-
-ders my brother, or my brother murders my lover. 5 ' Lothaire lowered
-his weapon, and looked in silence on the ground ; but in Nathaniel's
-heart, amid the most poignant sorrow, revived all the love for the
-beautiful Clara, which he had felt in the best days of his happy
-youth. The weapon fell from his hand, he threw himself at Clara's
-feet. " Can you ever forgive me, my only my beloved Clara? Can
-you forgive me, my dear brother, Lothaire?"
-Lothaire was touched by the deep contrition of his friend; all
-three embraced in reconciliation amid a thousand tears, and vowed
-eternal love and fidelity.
-Nathaniel felt as though a heavy burden, which pressed him to
-the ground, had been rolled away, as though by resisting the dark
-power, which held him fast, he had saved his whole being, which
-had been threatened with annihilation. Three happy days he passed
-THE SANDMAN. 155
-with his dear friends, and then went to G , where he intended
-to stay a year, and then to return to his native town for ever.
-All that referred to Coppclius was kept a secret from the mother,
-for it was well known that she could not think of him without
-terror, as she, as well as Nathaniel, accused him of causing her hus-
-band's death.
-How surprised was Nathaniel, when proceeding to his lodging, he
-saw that the whole house was burned down, and that only the bare
-walls stood up amid the ashes. However, notwithstanding the fire
-had broken out in the laboratory of the apothecary who lived on the
-ground-floor, and had therefore consumed the house from bottom
-to top, some bold active friends had succeeded in entering Na-
-thaniel's room in the upper story, in time to save the books, manu-
-scripts, and instruments. They carried all safe and sound into an-
-other house, where they took a room, which Nathaniel entered at
-once. He did not think it at all remarkable that he lodged opposite
-to Professor Spalanzani ; neither did it appear singular when he per-
-ceived that his window looked straight into the room where Olym-
-pia often sat alone, so that he could plainly recognise her figure, al-
-though the features of her face were indistinct and confused. At
-last it struck him, that Olympia often remained for hours in this at-
-titude, in which he had once seen her through the glass-door, sitting
-at a little table without any occupation, and that she plainly enough
-looked over at him with an unvarying glance. He was forced to
-confess that he had never seen a more lovely form, but with Clara in
-his heart, the stiff Olympia was perfectly indifferent to him. Oc-
-casionally, to be sure, he gave a transient look over his compendium,
-at the beautiful statue, but that was all. He was just writing to
-Clara, when he heard a light tap at the door ; it paused at his words,
-and the repulsive face of Coppola peeped in. Nathaniel's heart
-trembled within him, but remembering what Spalanzani had told
-him about the countryman, Coppola, and also the sacred promises
-he had made to Clara with respect to the Sandman Coppelius, he
-felt ashamed of his childish fear, and collecting himself with all his
-might, said as softly and civily as possible: " I do not want a
-barometer, my good friend; pray, go." Upon this, Coppola ad-
-vanced a good way into the room, and said in a hoarse voice, while
-his wide mouth distorted itself into a hideous laugh, and his little
-eyes under their long gray lashes sparkled forth piercingly: " Eh,
-ch 110 barometer no barometer? I have besides pretty eyes
-pretty eyes !" " Madman!" cried Nathaniel with horror, " how can
-you have eyes? Eyes?' But Coppola had already put his baro-
-meter aside, and plunged his hand into his wide coat-pocket, whence
-he drew lunettes and spectacles, which he placed upon the table
-" There there spectacles on the nose, those are my eyes pretty
-eyes 1" And so saying he drew out more and more spectacles so,
-THE SANDMAN.
-that tlic whole table began to glisten and sparkle in the most extra-
-ordinary manner. A thousand eyes glanced, and quivered convul-
-sively, and stared at Nathaniel ; yet he could not look away from
-the table, and Coppola kept still laying down more and more spec-
-tacles, while naming glances were intermingled more and more
-wildly, and shot their blood-red rays into Nathaniel's breast. Over-
-come with horror, he shrieked out: " Hold, hold, frightful man!"
-He seized fast by the arm Coppola, who was searching his pockets
-to bring out still more spectacles, although the whole table was
-already covered. Coppola had greatly extricated himself with a
-hoarse repulsive laugh, and with the words: " Ah, nothing for you
-but here are pretty glasses;" he had collected all the spectacles,
-put them up, and from the breast-pocket of his coat had drawn
-forth a number of telescopes large and small. As soon as the spec-
-tacles were removed Nathaniel felt quite easy, and thinking of Clara,
-perceived that the hideous phantom was but the creature of his own
-mind, and that Coppola was an honest optician, and could by no
-means be the accursed double of Coppelius. Moreover, in all the
-glasses which Coppola now placed on the table, there was nothing
-remarkable, or at least nothing so ghost-like as the spectacles, and to
-make matters right Nathaniel resolved to buy something of Coppola.
-He took up a little and very neatly worked pocket-telescope, and
-looked through the window to try it. Never in his life had he met
-a glass which brought the objects so sharply, plainly, and clearly
-before his eyes. Involuntarily he looked into Spalanzani's room;
-Olympia was sitting as usual before the little table, with her arms
-laid upon it, and her hands folded. For the first time could
-he see the wondrous beauty in the form of her face; only the
-eyes seemed to him singularly stiff and dead. Nevertheless, as he
-looked more sharply through the glass, it seemed to him as if moist
-morn-beams were rising in the eyes of Olympia. It was as if the
-power of seeing was kindled for the first time ; the glances flashed
-with constantly increasing liveliness. As if spell-bound, Nathaniel
-reclined against the window, meditating on the charming Olympia.
-A hemming and scraping aroused him as if from a dream. Cop-
-pola was standing behind him: " Tre zeccluni three ducats!"
-Nathaniel, who had quite forgotten the optician, quickly paid him
-what he asked. " Is it not so? A pretty glass a pretty glass ?"
-asked Coppola, in his hoarse, repulsive voice, and with his ma-
-licious smile. "Yes yes," replied Nathaniel, peevishly; "good
-bye, friend." Coppola left the room, not without casting many
-strange glances at Nathaniel. He heard him laugh loudly on the
-stairs. " Ah," thought Nathaniel, "he is laughing at me because
-no doubt, I have paid him too much for this little glass." While he
-softly uttered these words, it seemed as if a deep deadly sigh was
-sounding fearfully through the room, and his breath was stopped by
-inward anguish. He perceived, however, that it was himself that
-had sighed. " Clara," he said to himself, " is right in taking me for
-THE SANDMAN. 157
-a senseless dreamer, but it is pure madness nay, mote than mad-
-ness, that the stupid thought, that I have paid Coppola too much
-for the glass, pains me even so strangely. I cannot see the cause.""
-He now sat down to finish his letter to Clara ; but a glance through
-the window convinced him that Olympia was still sitting there, and
-he instantly sprang out, as if impelled by an irresistible power,
-seized Coppola's glass, and could not tear himself from the seduc-
-tive view of Olympia, till his friend and brother Sigismund,
-called him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtain
-was drawn close before the fatal room, and he could neither per-
-ceive Olympia now nor during the two following days 5 although he
-scarcely ever left the window, and constantly looked through Cop-
-pola's glass. On the third day the windows were completely co-
-vered. Quite in despair, and impelled by a burning wish, he ran.
-out of the town-gate. Olympia's form floated before him in the
-air, stepped forth from the bushes, and peeped at him with large
-beaming eyes from the clear brook. Clara's image had completely
-vanished from his mind; he thought of nothing but Olympia, and
-complained aloud and in a murmuring tone: " Ah, thou noble,
-sublime star of my love, hast thou only risen upon me, to vanish
-immediately, and leave me in dark hopeless night?"
-When he was retiring to his lodging, he perceived that there was
-a great bustle in Spalanzani's house. The doors were wide open, all
-sorts of utensils were being carried in, the windows of the first floor
-were being taken out, maid servants were going about sweeping and
-dusting with great hair-brooms, and carpenters and upholsterers were
-knocking and hammering within. Nathaniel remained standing in the
-street in a state of perfect wonder, when Sigismund came up to him,,
-laughing, and said: '''Now, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?"'
-Nathaniel assured him that he could say nothing because he knew
-nothing about the professor, but on the contrary perceived with as-
-tonishment the mad proceedings in a house otherwise so quiet and
-gloomy. Pie then learnt from Sigismund that Spalanzani intended
-to give a grand festival on the following day, a concert and ball
-and that half the university was invited. It was generally reported
-that Spalanzani, who had so long kept his daughter most painfully
-from every human eye, would now let her appear for the first time.
-Nathaniel found a card of invitation, and with heart beating highly
-went at the appointed hour to the professor's, where the coaches were;
-already rolling, and the lights were shining in the decorated saloons .
-The company was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared dressed
-with great richness and taste. Her beautifully turned face, her figure
-called for admiration. The somewhat strange bend of her back
-inwards, the wasp-like thinness of her waist, seemed to be produced
-by too tight lacing. In her step and deportment there was some-
-thing measured and stiff, which struck many as unpleasant, but it
-was ascribed to the constraint produced by the company. The
-concert began, Olympia played the piano with great dexterity, and
-THE SANDMAN.
-executed a bravura, with a voice, like the sound of a glass bell, clear,
-and almost cutting. Nathaniel was quite enraptured ; he stood in the
-hindermost row, and could not perfectly recognise Olympia's features
-in the dazzling light. He, therefore, quite unperceived, took out Cop-
-pola's glass, and looked towards the fair Olyrnpia. Ah ! then he saw,
-with what a longing glance she looked towards him, how every tone
-first resolved itself plainly in the glance of love, which penetrated,
-in its glowing career, his inmost soul. The artistical roulades seemed
-to Nathaniel the exultation of a mind illuminated with love, and
-when, at last, after the cadence, the long trill sounded shrilly through
-the saloon, he felt as if grasped by glowing arms; he could no
-longer restrain himself, but with mingled pain and rapture shouted
-out, " Olympia !" All looked at him, and many laughed. The
-organist of the cathedral made a more gloomy face than usual, and
-simply said: " Well, well." The concert had finished, the ball
-began. " To dance with her with her!" That was the aim of
-all Nathaniel's wishes, of all his efforts ; but how to gain courage to
-ask her, the queen of the festival? Nevertheless he himself did
-not know how it happened no sooner had the dancing begun, than
-he was standing close to Olympia, who had not yet been asked to
-dance, and, scarcely able to stammer out a few words, had seized
-her hand. The hand of Olympia was as cold as ice ; he felt a hor-
-rible deadly frost thrilling through him. He looked into her eye
-that was beaming full of love and desire, and at the same time it
-seemed as though the pulse began to beat, and the stream of life to
-glow in the cold hand. And in the soul of Nathaniel the joy of
-love rose still higher; he clasped the beautiful Olympia, and with
-her flew through the dance. He thought that his dancing was
-usually correct as to time, but the peculiar rhythmical steadiness with
-which Olympia moved, and which often put him completely out,
-soon showed him, that his time was very defective. However, he
-would dance with no other lady, and would have liked to murder
-any one who approached Olympia for the purpose of asking her.
-But this only happened twice, and to his astonishment Olympia re-
-mained seated after every dance, when he lost no time in making
-her rise again. Had he been able to see any other object besides
-the fair Olympia, all sorts of unfortunate quarrels would have been
-inevitable, for the half-soft, scarcely-suppressed laughter, which arose
-among the young people in every corner, was manifestly directed
-to Olympia, whom they pursued with very curious glances one
-could not tell why. Heated by the dance, and by the wine, of
-which he had freely partaken, Nathaniel had laid aside all his ordi-
-nary reserve. He sat by Olympia, with her hand in his, and,
-highly inflamed and inspired, told his passion, in words which no one
-understood neither himself nor Olympia. Yet, perhaps, she did;
-for she looked immovcably in his face, and sighed several times,
-" Ah, ah !" Upon this, Nathaniel said, " Oh, thou splendid, hea-
-venly lady ! Thou ray from the promised land of love thou deep
-THE SANDMAtf. 159
-soul, in winch all my being is reflected !" witli much more stuff of
-the like kind; but Olympia merely went on sighing, " Ah ah!"
-Professor Spalanzani occasionally passed the happy pair, and smiled
-on them, with a look of singular satisfaction. To Nathaniel, although
-he felt in quite another region, it seemed all at once as though
-Professor Spalanzani was gowing considerably darker; he looked
-around, and, to his no small horror, perceived that the two last
-candles in the empty saloon had burned down to their sockets, and
-were just going out. Music and dancing had ceased long ago.
-" Separation separation !" he cried, wildly, and in despair; he kissed
-Olympia's hand, he bent towards her mouth, when his glowing lips
-were met by lips cold as ice ! Just as when he touched Olympia's
-cold hand, he felt himself overcome by horror; the legend of the
-dead bride darted suddenly through his mind, but Olympia pressed
-him fast, and her lips seemed to recover to life at his kiss. Professor
-Spalanzani strode through the empty hall, his steps caused a hollow
-echo, and his figure, round which a flickering shadow played, had a
-fearful, spectral appearance. " Dost thou love me, dost thou love
-me, Olympia? Only this word ! Dost thou love me?" So whis-
-pered Nathaniel; but Olympia, as she rose, only sighed, " Ah ah !"
-" Yes, my gracious, my beautiful star of love," said Nathaniel,
-" thou hast risen upon me, and thou wilt shine, ever illuminating
-my inmost soul." " Ah ah !" replied Olympia, going. Nathaniel
-followed her ; they both stood before the professor.
-" You have had a very animated conversation with my daughter,"
-said he, smiling; " so, dear Herr Nathaniel, if you have any taste
-for talking with a silly girl, your visits shall be welcome."
-Nathaniel departed, with a whole heaven beaming in his bosom.
-The next day Spalanzani's festival was the subject of conversation.
-Notwithstanding the professor had done every thing to appeal-
-splendid, the wags had all sorts of incongruities and oddities to
-talk about, and were particularly hard upon the dumb, stiff Olym-
-pia, to whom, in spite of her beautiful exterior, they ascribed
-absolute stupidity, and were pleased to find therein the cause why
-Spalanzani kept her so long concealed. Nathaniel did not hear this
-without increased rage; but, nevertheless, he held his peace, for,
-thought he, "Is it worth while to convince these fellows that it is
-their own stupidity that prevents them from recognising Olympia's
-deep, noble mind?"
-One day Sigismund said to him: " Be kind enough, brother, to
-tell me how it was possible for a sensible fellow like you to fall in
-love with that wax face, that wooden doll up there?"
-Nathaniel was about to fly out in a passion, but he quickly recol-
-lected himself, and retorted: " Tell me, Sigismund, how it is that
-Olympia's heavenly charms could escape your glance, which generally
-perceives every thing so clearly your active senses? But, for that
-very reason, Heaven be thanked, I have not you for my rival;
-otherwise, one of us must have fallen a bleeding corpse !"
-THE SANDMAN.
-Sigisrmmd plainly perceived his friend's condition, so lie skilfully
-gave the conversation a turn, and added, after observing that in love-
-affairs there was no disputing about the object : " Nevertheless it is
-strange, that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To
-us pray do not take it ill, brother, she appears singularly stiff and
-soulless. Her shape is symmetrical so is her face that is true !
-She might pass for beautiful, if her glance were not so utterly with-
-out a ray of life without the power of seeing. Her pace is strangely
-measured, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up
-clockwork. Her playing her singing has the unpleasantly correct
-and spiritless measure of a singing machine, and the same may be
-said of her dancing. To us, this Olympia has been quite unplea-
-sant ; we wished to have nothing to do with her ; it seems as if she
-acts like a living being, and yet has some strange peculiarity of her
-own." Nathaniel did not com
-completely yield to the bitter feeling,
-which was coming over him at these words of Sigismund ; he mas-
-tered his indignation, and merely said, with great earnestness,
-" Well may Olympia appear awful to you, cold prosaic man. Only
-to the poetical mind does the similarly organised develop itself.
-To me alone was her glance of love revealed, beaming through
-mind and thought; only in the love of Olympia do I find myself
-again. It may not suit you, that she does not indulge in idle chit-
-chat like other shallow minds. She utters few words, it is true,
-but these few words appear as genuine hieroglyphics of the inner
-world, full of love and deep knowledge of the spiritual life in con-
-templation of the eternal yonder. But you have no sense for all this,
-and my words are wasted on you." " God preserve you, brother,"
-said Sigismund very mildly, almost sorrowfully; " but it seems to me,
-that you are in an evil way. Yoii may depend upon me, if all
-no, no, I will not say any thing further." All of a sudden it seemed
-(to Nathaniel as if the cold prosaic Sigismund meant very well to-
-wards him, and, therefore, he shook the proffered hand very heartily.
-Nathaniel had totally forgotten, that there was in the world a
-Ckra, whom he had once loved; his mother Lothaire all had
-vanished from his memory; he lived only for Olympia, with whom
-he sat for hours every day, uttering strange fantastical stuff about
-his love, about the sympathy that glowed to life, about the affinity of
-souls, to all of which Olympia listened with great devotion. From
-the very bottom of his desk, he drew out all that he had ever writ-
-ten. Poems, fantasies, visions, romances, tales this stock was
-daily increased with all sorts of extravagant sonnets, stanzas, und
-canzone, and he read all to Olympia for hours in succession without
-fatigue. Never had he known such an admirable listener. She
-neither embroidered nor knitted, she never looked out of window, she
-fed no favourite bird, she played neither with lap-dog nor pet cat, she
-did not twist a slip of paper nor any thing else in her hand, she was
-not obliged to suppress a yawn by a gentle forced cough. In short,
-she sat for hours, looking straight into her lover's eyes, without
-THE SANDMAN. 161
-stirring, and her glance became more and more lively and animated.
-Only when Nathaniel rose at last, and kissed her hand and also her
-lips, she said " Ah, ah !" adding " good night, dearest !" " Oh deep,
-noble mind !" cried Nathaniel in his own room, " by thee, by thee,
-dear one, am I fully comprehended." He trembled with inward
-transport, when he considered the wonderful accordance that was
-revealed more and more every day in his own mind, and that of
-Olympia, for it seemed to him as if Olympia had spoken con-
-cerning him and his poetical talent out of the depths of his own
-mind; as if the voice had actually sounded from within himself. That
-must indeed have been the case, for Olympia never uttered any words
-whatever beyond those which have been already mentioned. Even
-when Nathaniel, in clear and sober moments, as for instance, when
-he had just woke in the morning, remembered Olympia's utter pas-
-sivity, and her paucity and scarcity of words, he said: "Words,
-words ! The glance of her heavenly eye speaks more than any lan-
-guage here below. Can a child of heaven adapt herself to the
-narrow circle which a miserable earthly necessity has drawn?"
-Professor Spalanzani appeared highly delighted at the intimacy of
-his daughter with Nathaniel. To the latter he gave the most une-
-quivocal signs of approbation, and when Nathaniel ventured at last
-to hint at an union with Olympia, he smiled with his white face,
-and thought " he would leave his daughter a free choice in the
-matter." Encouraged by these words, and with burning passion in
-his heart, Nathaniel resolved to implore Olympia on the very next
-day, that she would say directly , in plain words, that which her
-kind glance had told him long ago ; namely, that she loved him.
-He sought the ring which his mother had given him at parting, that
-he might give it to Olympia as a symbol of his devotion, of his
-life which budded forth and bloomed with her alone. Clara's
-letters and Lothaire's came into his hands during the search; but
-he flung them aside indifferently, found the ring, put it up and
-hastened over to Olympia. Already on the steps, in the hall he
-heard a strange noise, which seemed to proceed from Spalanzani's
-room. There was a stamping, a clattering, a pushing, a hurling
-against the door, intermingled with curses and imprecations. " Let
-go, let go, rascal ! scoundrel ! Body and soul ventured in it ?
-Ha, ha, ha ! that I never will consent to I, I made the eyes, I the
-clockwork stupid blockhead with your clockwork accursed dog
-of a bungling watch-maker off with you Satan stop, pipe-maker
-infernal beast hold begone let go !" These words were ut-
-tered by the voices of Spalanzani, and the hideous Coppelius, who
-was thus raging and clamoring. Nathaniel rushed in, overcome by
-the most inexpressible anguish. The professor held a female figure
-fast by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola grasped it by the feet,
-and thus they were tugging and pulling, this way and that, con-
-tending for the possession of it, with the unmost fury. Natha-
-niel started back with horror, when in the figure he recognised
-M
-THE SANDMAN.
-Olympia. Boiling with the wildest indignation, lie was about to
-rescue his beloved from these infuriated men, but at that moment,
-Coppola, turning himself with the force of a giant, wrenched
-the figure from the professor's hand, and then with the figure
-itself gave him a tremendous blow, which made him reel and fall
-backwards over the table, where vials, retorts, bottles, and glass
-cylinders were standing. All these were dashed to a thousand
-shivers. Now Coppola flung the figure across his shoulders, and,
-with frightful, yelling laughter, dashed down the stairs, so that the
-feet of the figure, which dangled in the ugliest manner, rattled with
-a wooden sound on every step. Nathaniel stood paralysed ; he had
-seen but too plainly that Olympia's waxen, deadly pale counte-
-nance had no eyes, but black holes instead she was, indeed, a life-
-less doll. Spalanzani was writhing on the floor; the pieces of glass
-had cut his head, heart, and arms, and the blood was spirting up, as
-from so many fountains. But he soon collected all his strength.
-" After him after him why do you pause? Coppelius, Coppe-
-lius, has robbed me of my best automaton a work of twenty years
-body and soul set upon it the clock-work the speech the
-walk, mine; the eyes stolen from you. The infernal rascal after
-him ; fetch Olympia there you have the eyes !"
-And now Nathaniel saw how a pair of eyes, which lay upon the
-ground, were staring at him ; these Spalanzani caught up, with the
-un wounded hand, and flung against his heart. At this, madness
-seized him with its burning claws, and clutched into his soul, tear-
-ing to pieces all his thoughts and senses. " Ho ho ho a circle
-of fire 1 of fire ! turn thyself round, circle ! merrily, merrily, ho,
-thou wooden doll turn thyself, pretty doll !" With these words
-he flew at the professor and pressed in his throat. He would have
-strangled him, had not the noise attracted many people, who rushed
-in, forced open Nathaniel's grasp, and thus saved the professor,
-whose wounds were bound immediately. Sigismund, strong as he
-was, was not able to master the mad Nathaniel, who with frightful
-voice kept crying out: "Turn thyself, wooden doll!" and struck
-around him with clenched fists. At last the combined force of many
-succeeded in overcoming him, in flinging him to the ground, and
-binding him. His words were merged into a hideous roar, like that
-of a brute, and raging in this insane condition he was taken to the
-mad-house.
-Before, gentle reader, I proceed to tell thec what more bcfel the
-unfortunate Nathaniel, I can tell tlicc, in case thou takcst an interest
-in the skilful optician and automaton-maker, Spalanzani, that he was
-completely healed of his wounds. He was, however, obliged to leave
-the university, because Nathaniel's story had created a sensation, and
-it was universally deemed an unpardonable imposition to smuggle
-wooden dolls instead of living persons into respectable tea-parties
-for such Olympia had visited with success. The lawyers called it
-a most subtle deception, and the more culpable, inasmuch as he had
-THE SANDMAN. 163
-planned it so artfully against the public, that not a single soul a
-few cunning students excepted had detected it, although all now
-wished to play the acute, and referred to various facts, which ap-
-peared to them suspicious. Nothing very clever was revealed in
-this way. For instance, could it strike any one as so very suspicious,
-that Olympia, according to the expression of an elegant tea-ite, had,
-contrary to all usage, sneezed oftener than she had yawned? " The
-former" remarked this elegant person, " was the self-winding-up of
-the concealed clockwork, which had, moreover, creaked audibly"
-and so on. The professor of poetry and eloquence took a pinch of
-snuff, clapped first the lid of his box, cleared his throat, and said,
-solemnly, " Ladies and gentlemen, do you not perceive how the
-whole affair lies? It is all an allegory a continued metaphor you
-understand me Sapienti sat" But many were not satisfied with
-this; the story of the automaton had struck deep root into their
-souls, and, in fact, an abominable mistrust against human figures in
-general, began to creep in. Many lovers, to be quite convinced
-that they were not enamoured of wooden dolls, would request their
-mistress to sing and dance a little out of time, to embroider and
-knit, and play with their lap-dogs, while listening to reading, &c. ;
-and, above all, not to listen merely, but also sometimes to talk,
-in such a manner as presupposed actual thought and feeling. With
-many did the bond of love become firmer, and more chaining, while
-others, on the contrary, slipped gently out of the noose. " One
-cannot really answer for this," said some. At tea-parties, yawn-
-ing prevailed to an incredible extent, and there was no sneezing
-at all, that all suspicion might be avoided. Spalanzani, as already
-stated, was obliged to decamp, to escape the criminal prosecution for
-fraudulently introducing an automaton into human society. Coppola
-had vanished also.
-Nathaniel awakened as from a heavy, frightful dream ; he opened
-his eyes, and felt an indescribable sensation of pleasure streaming
-through him, with soft heavenly warmth. He was in bed in his
-own room, in his father's house, Clara was stooping over him, and
-Lothaire and his mother were standing near. '* At last, at last, oh
-beloved Nathaniel, hast thou recovered from thy serious illness now
-thou art again mine !" So spoke Clara, from the very depth of her
-soul, and clasped Nathaniel in her arms. But with mingled sorrow
-and delight did the brightly glowing tears fall from his eyes, and he
-deeply groaned forth: "My own my own Clara!" Sigismund,
-who had faithfully remained with his friend in the hour of trouble,
-now entered. Nathaniel stretched out his hand to him. " And
-thou, faithful brother, hast not deserted me?" Every trace of Na-
-thaniel's madness had vanished, and he soon gained strength amid
-the care of his mother, his beloved, and his friends. Good fortune
-also had visited the house, for an old penurious uncle, of whom no-
-thing had been expected, had died, and had left the mother, besides
-considerable property, an estate in a pleasant spot near the town.
-M2
-THE SANDMAK.
-Thither Nathaniel, with his Clara, whom he now thought of marry-
-ing, his mother, and Lothaire, desired to go. Nathaniel had now
-grown milder and more docile than he had ever been, and he now
-understood, for the first time, the heavenly purity and the greatness
-of Clara's mind. No one, by the slightest hint, reminded him of
-the past. Only, when Sigismund took leave of him, Nathaniel said :
-" Heavens, brother, I was in an evil way, but a good angel led me
-betimes to the path of light ! Ah, that was Clara !" Sigismund did
-not let him carry the discourse further for fear that deeply wounding
-recollections might burst forth bright and flaming. It was about
-this time that the four happy persons thought of going to the estate.
-They were crossing, at noon, the streets of the city, where they had
-made several purchases, and the high steeple of the town-house
-already cast its gigantic shadow over the market-place. " Oh," said
-Clara, " let us ascend it once more, and look at the distant moun-
-tains !" No sooner said than done. Nathaniel and Clara both as-
-cended the steps, the mother returned home with the servant, and
-Lothaire, not inclined to clamber up so many steps, chose to remain
-below. The two lovers stood arm in arm in the highest gallery of
-the tower, and looked down upon the misty forests, behind which
-the blue mountains were rising like a gigantic city.
-" Look there at that curious little gray bush, which actually seems
-as if it were striding towards us," said Clara. Nathaniel mechani-
-cally put his hand into his breast pocket he found Coppola's tele-
-scope, and he looked on one side. Clara was before the glass. There
-was a convulsive movement in his pulse and veins, pale as death, he
-stared at Clara, but soon streams of fire flashed and glared from his
-rolling eyes, and he roared frightfully, like a hunted beast. Then
-he sprang high into the air, and, in the intervals of a horrible
-laughter, shrieked out, in a piercing tone, " Wooden doll turn thy-
-self !" Seizing Clara with immense force he wished to hurl her
-down, but with the energy of a desperate death-struggle she clutched
-the railings. Lothaire heard the raging of the madman he heard
-Clara's shriek of agony fearful forebodings darted through his mind,
-he ran up, the door of the second flight was fastened, and the shrieks
-of Clara became louder and louder. Frantic with rage and anxiety,
-he dashed against the door, which, at last, burst open. Clara's voice
-became fainter and fainter. " Help help save me!" with these
-words the voice seemed to die in the air. " She is gone murdered
-by the madman !" cried Lothaire. The door of the gallery was also
-closed, but despair gave him a giant's strength, and he burst it from
-the hinges. Heavens Clara, grasped by the mad Nathaniel, was
-hanging in the air over the gallery, only with one hand she still
-held one of the iron railings. Quick as lightning Lothaire caught
-his sister, drew her in, and, at the same moment, struck the madman
-in the face with his clenched fist, so that he reeled and let go his
-prey.
-Lothaire ran down with his fainting sister in his arms. She
---
-MICHAEL KOHLHAAS. 165
-saved. Nathaniel went raging about the gallery and bounded high
-in the air, crying, u Fire circle turn thyself turn thyself!" The
-people collected at the sound of the wild shriek, and among them,
-prominent by his gigantic stature, was the advocate Coppelius, who
-had just come to the town, and was proceeding straight to the
-market-place. Some wished to ascend and secure the madman, but
-Coppelius laughed, saying, "Ha, ha, only wait he will soon come
-down of his own accord," and looked up like the rest. Nathaniel
-suddenly stood still as if petrified; he stooped down, perceived Cop-
-pelius, and yelling out, " Ah, pretty eyes pretty eyes !" he sprang
-over the railing.
-When Nathaniel lay on the stone pavement, with his head shattered, Coppelius had disappeared in the crowd.
-Many years afterwards it is said that Clara was seen in a remote
-spot, sitting hand in hand with a kind-looking man before the door
-of a country house, while two lively boys played before her. From,
-this it may be inferred that she at last found that quiet domestic hap-
-piness which suited her serene and cheerful mind, and which the
-morbid Nathaniel would never have given her.
-J.O.
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