The Sand-Man, E. T. A. Hoffmann [good summer reads TXT] 📗

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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(1) “The Sandman” Forms the First of a Series of Tales Called “The Night-pieces,” and Were Published in 1817.

(2) See Schiller’s Rauber, 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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(10) This phrase (_Die Wahlverwandschaft_ in German) has been made celebrated as the title of one of Goethe’s works.

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