The Sand-Man | Page 5

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, &c. 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,